Arthur broke biography

​BROKE or BROOKE, ARTHUR (d. 1563), translator, was the author of 'The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iulieit written first in Italian by Bandell, and nowe in English by Ar.

Br. In ædibus Richard Tottelli.' The colophon runs: 'Imprinted at London in Flete Strete within Temble barre at the signe of the hand and starre of Richard Tottill, the XIX. day of Nouember An. do. 1562.' The book was entered in the Stationers' Register late in 1562 as 'The Tragicall History of the Romeus and Juliett with sonettes.' The volume is mainly of interest as the source whence Shakespeare drew the plot of his tragedy of 'Romeo and Juliet.' It is written throughout in rhymed verse of alternate lines of twelve and fourteen syllables.

Broke did not (as the title-page states) translate directly from the Italian of Bandello, but from the 'Histoires Tragiques extraictes des Œuvres de Bandel' (Paris, 1559), by Pierre Boaistuau surnamed