The Traitor is a Caroline era stage play, a tragedy written by James Shirley. Along with The Cardinal, The Traitor is widely considered to represent the finest of Shirley's efforts in the genre, and to be among the best tragedies of its period. "It is impossible to find a more successful drama of its type than Shirley's Traitor."[1]
The Traitor was licensed for performance by Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, on 4 May 1631, and was acted by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre. The play was entered in the Stationers' Register on 30 November 1634, and published in 1635 by the printer William Cooke, with a dedication by Shirley to William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle.[2]
In creating the character of Sciarrha, Shirley may have been influenced by Foreste in Sir William Davenant's The Cruel Brother (1627). Shirley's source for the play's subplot was the account of the murder of Buondelmonte in Le istoire fiorentine by Niccolò Machiavelli.[3]
The play was revived during the Restoration era, in November 1660. King Charles II saw a public performance on 10 October 1661, a performance witnessed by Samuel Pepys.[4] An adaptation of The Traitor was published in 1692, under its original title, but with the authorship credited to a "Mr. Rivers."[5] The play was revived twice in the early 18th century, once in 1703–1704 and again in 1718. The latter version, printed anonymously in 1718 as The Traitor, is attributed to Christopher Bullock, and contains a number of alterations from the original.[6] In 1819, Richard Lalor Sheil produced an adaptation of The Traitor called Evadne, which was popular in both England and the United States.[7]