Horestes

Horestes
Illustration from a 1473 edition of Boccaccio's On Famous Women of the revenge of Horestes.
Written by	John Pickering
Date premiered	1567
Genre	Morality play

Horestes is a late Tudor morality play by the English dramatist John Pickering. It was first published in 1567 and was most likely performed by Lord Rich's men as part of the Christmas revels at court that year. The play's full title is A new interlude of Vice containing the history of Horestes with the cruel revengement of his father's death upon his one natural mother.

The play dramatises the story of the ancient Greek myth of Orestes. Rather than Aeschylus' trilogy of Athenian tragedies Oresteia (458 BCE), however, Pickering's source for his version of the story is William Caxton's translation of the French romance Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye (translated in 1475). Consequently, the play's theme and dramatic structure are more medieval than classical.

Only one copy of the play is extant, which the British Museum holds. It was published by William Griffith of Fleet Street, London for sale at his shop in St. Dunstan's churchyard.

Along with Thomas Preston's Cambises (c.1561), the play has been identified as a "hybrid morality", due to its articulation of classical themes, stories and characters with the medieval allegorical tradition. Within this genre, the central allegorical figure of the Vice vies with a non-allegorical, classical protagonist (Horestes); though their roles are about the same size, Horestes controls the important action.