He was lyricist, hymnist and poet born in Dublin, Ireland to a family where his father was the Irish cleric Faithfull Teate who was rector of Castleterra, Ballyhaise until the family were attacked and his home burned down due to him passing plans on the 1641 Irish Rebellion to the government. He went to the temporarily reside at Trinity College, Dublin in the provost’s lodgings before relocating to England, but returning to Dublin in 1660.
Nahum went to study at Trinity College, Dublin after following his father there in 1668. He earned his BM there in 1672 and within four years had decided to move to London and pursue a writing career.
Around 1677 he decided to change his surname from Teate to Tate and that same year he had started writing for the stage. His works, which were often adaptations, included the 1678 Brutus of Alba or the Enchanted Lovers, later adapted for the opera Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell, the 1680 The Loyal General, a series of Elizabethan drama adaptations which included the 1681 The Sicilian Usurper adapted from William Shakespeare’s Richard II and the 1681 King Lear (The History of King Lear), which was performed by the Riverside Shakespeare Company in New York City in 1985 and the NY Classical Theatre in 2021, and the 1682 The Ingratitude of a Commonwealth adapted from Coriolanus. Also in 1682 he worked with the poet John Dryden on the second half of Dryden’s poem Absalom and Achitophel.
In 1685 he wrote the farce A Duke and No Duke imitating Trappolin suppos’d a Prince by Sir Aston Cockayne and in 1687 his adaptation of Injur’d Love, or the Cruel Husband by John Fletcher became The Island Princess or the Generous Portugals.
His work with Henry Purcell saw him writing the libretto for Dido and Aeneas, which was performed in 1689. Three years later he was named Poet Laureate of the Kingdom of England in 1692, succeeding the poet Thomas Shadwell.
He wrote the Come Ye Sons of Art birthday ode for Purcell in 1694 and was the translator of Girolamo Fracastoro’s pastoral poem Syphillis sive Morbus Gallicus. In 1696 he collaborated with the poet Nicholas Brady on his 1696 publication New Version of the Psalms of David and his hymn “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks” was included in the later supplement around 1700 and the only hymn to be approved by the Church of England. Also in 1700 he wrote the poem Panacea, a poem on Tea.
He took refuge from his creditors at the Mint in Southwark, London and died there in July 1715.
King’s College Choir, Cambridge recordings
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks (Nahum Tate/Christopher Tye/George Kirbye)
London 444 848 (CD: Noel – Christmas at Kings)
Conductor – Sir David Willcocks
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahum_Tate
- https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4317
- https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_8QYJAAAAQAAJ
- https://librivox.org/author/3305?primary_key=3305&search_category=author&search_page=1&search_form=get_results
- https://hymnary.org/text/while_shepherds_watched_their_flocks_by#Author
- https://hymnary.org/person/Tate_N
- https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/while_shepherds_watched.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/While_shepherds_watched_their_flocks