Back in high school literature class we were introduced to Shakespeare (April 1564 – April 1616). While reading his work the word argosy appeared several times, in works such as The Merchant of Venice, Henry VI Part III and The Taming of the Shrew, in reference to a merchant ship, or a fleet of merchant ships operating together under the same ownership.

It turns out the word is derived from the Latin name for Dubrovnik, Ragusa, a major shipping power during Shakespeare’s life and entered the Renaissance English language through the Italian ragusea, meaning a Ragusan ship.

More about Dubrovnik’s maritime history can be found in Robin Harris’ Dubrovnik – A History.

I had also heard whispers that there were other connections between Dalmatia and Shakespeare, so I asked Simon Ryle, our resident expert. Simon is a professor of English in the University of Split’s Philosophy Department and is currently completing his PhD in Literature from Cambridge University – the working title of which is Shakespeare’s Desires / Cinematic Interventions. It is a study of the various film adaptations of Shakespeare.

Simon recommended Open Source Shakespeare as a good site for anything regarding the Bard’s texts and he explained that the links between Dalmatia and Shakespeare fall into 2 broad themes.

Firstly, Dalmatia is used as a site of the ‘Exotic Other’.

In The Twelfth Night, Viola and Sebastian are wrecked on the Illyrian coast. Illyrians were the people from a loose collection of tribes that inhabited the region from Istria to Albania. Shakespeare had mentioned it previously, in Henry VI, Part II, noting its reputation for pirates, and it was used to conjured up Romantic notions in his English audiences.

The local tendency towards piracy was also used in The Merchant of Venice, when as Antonio’s ships approach Venice it is implied they are attacked and lost. Pirates were common on the Adriatic Sea at that time, the most famous being the Uskoks.

The Uskoks were Christians who had fled before the advancing Ottomans, and in 1537 had settled around the town of Senj, on the northern Dalmatian coast. The Austrians, who controlled this part of Croatia, welcomed them as a permanent militia force, and promised to pay them an annual salary.

The Uskok quickly made good use of their new base – a stronghold that was unassailable by cavalry or artillery. The Austrians rarely paid the money promised, so the Uskoks took to the water in small, shallow-drafted boats to raid the passing commercial traffic – the trading fleets of the Ottomans and Venetians.

(The Uskoks had no qualms attacking Venetians as they believed the Venetians had betrayed their Christian brothers by continuing to deal with and side with the Ottomans.)

Venice’s frequent complaints to the Austrians resulted in little action and the Uskoks continued their conduct until 1615 when their capture and beheading of the Venetian Admiral Christoforo Veniero led to the Uskok War between Venice and Austria. At the end of the war the Uskoks they were abandoned by Austria in the Treaty of Madrid.

The image above is of the Uskok castle in Senj.

Secondly, Shakespeare adapted stories from many sources – primarily French and Italian.

There is a possibilty that the 12th Century Croatian text, the Chronicle of Father Dukljanin, was the inspiration for The Tempest. The Chronicle was written by Catholic Archbishop Gregory Grisobulj from Bar (in modern Montenegro) around 1172-1196, and is one of the earliest books from the region.

Dalmatia also has its own Romeo and Juliet tale . In Kaštel Lukšić in the late-17th Century (Shakespeare published his version 1597) the Vitturi family had a daughter, Dobrila, and the Rušinić family a son, Miljenko, who fell deeply in love. However a quarrel existed between their fathers over feudal rights regarding peasants, which forced the lovers to meet secretly.

Eventually, their parents learned of their affair and Miljenko was sent to Venice. Dobrila’s father, Conte Radoslav, then arranged her marriage to an elderly nobleman from Trogir. Miljenko in Venice was informed and after rushing to Kaštel Lukšić arrived just in time to stop the wedding.

Dobrila’s angry father decided this time to confine his daughter to the convent of Saint Nikola in Trogir. But again Miljenko tried to rescue Dobrila, meeting her boat at the port, wielding his sword. The local magistrate exiled Miljenko to the Franciscan monastery on Visovac Island on the Krka River, not far from Šibenik.

The determined Dobrila escaped from the convent and made her way to the Visovac monastery.

Hearing they were finally together, her father made peace with Miljenko’s father, Conte Adalbert, who then had the lovers return to Kaštel Lukšić for a wedding.

But after the wedding and feasting, Radoslav sought revenge and shot his son-in-law dead on bridge in front of his castle, Vitturi, in Kaštel Lukšić. Dobrila, crushed by grief, lost her mind and died soon after. Her last wish was to be buried in the same grave as Miljenko in the church of Saint Ivan in Rušinac. Today their gravestone stands with the inscription “Pokoj ljubovnikom” (Peace to Lovers).

Another Dalmatian claim to fame in the literary world is the local belief that Mljet Island is Ogygia Island where Odysseus was held captive by the nymph Calypso, daughter of Atlas, as her lover for 7 years.

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