ABSTRACT
Date and publication. The date o f the first performance is unknown, but it was probably late in 1663 or early in 1664, as the play appears to have been written in response to the success o f Sir Samuel Tuke’s The Adventures of Five Hours. For this dating, inferred from the normal interval between premiere and publication, see Milhous and Hume 380. The Rival Ladies: A Tragi comedy was published by Herringman in 1664 (SR 27 June; advertised in The Newes 3 November); reprinted 1669, 1675, 1693. The play was dedicated to Roger Boyle, Earl o f Orrery. The printed play has no epilogue, but the copy o f the Prologue in BodL MS Ashmole 36, 37 adds the following Epilogue (ff. 267v-268r):
Epilogue by the Doctor ’Tis true, what as a iest our Poet meant, His little witt was in ye Prologue spent: None left t’ excuse my part, unles you would Forbeare to damme it till t’ were understood. T ’would go ill w th us, should you give or play Halfe yose hard words yat I gave you to day.
