The Shepherd's Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy

Sylvia came to live among the shepherds of Arcadia. She and the shepherd Thyrsis are in love. But then she is abducted. Why? What is her true identity? And what is the parentage of Thyrsis, who was found as a child by a shepherd? What will become of Sylvia and Thyrsis when the shepherds are called to entertain the royal court of Arcadia? And what will come of the romantic entanglements of some of the other shepherds and shepherdesses? Joseph Rutter was a member of Ben Jonson’s circle of poets, known for his translation of Corneille’s The Cid. The Shepherd’s Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy enjoyed some popularity in its day. The play was performed about 1634 at the Palace of Whitehall before King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, and received public performances at the Cockpit Stage, Drury Lane, London. Professor Felix Emanuel Schelling considered the play “an estimable piece of work not wanting in dramatic power or poetic embellishment.”