The Shakespeare Book

THE KING’S MAN 249 The plotter Iago plays on Othello’s jealousy Iago to further his own Cassio has been preferred to him as lieutenant, plan. He wreaks his and Iago suspects that it is Cassio’s friendship revenge not only on with Desdemona that swung Othello’s decision. Othello, but also on Desdemona and Iago now has the motive to ruin all three. Cassio. He exploits Desdemona’s Key victims youthful naivety, and the character flaws in Othello and Cassio. Othello Desdemona Cassio He is ready to believe the She is loyal to her husband, Young and handsome, with an words of his trusted comrade but Iago exploits her youth eye for women, he has all the Iago. He is already suspicious qualities Iago needs to make and insecure by nature. to drive Othello mad with jealousy. Othello jealous of him. Control Jealousy Naivety Lechery He requests that she pray so that Villainy, villainy, villainy! The handkerchief he can preserve her immortal I think upon’t, I think. I smell’t. Othello’s handkerchief, which is soul despite killing her body. embroidered with strawberries, This suggests that the murder O villainy! is a key instrument of his marital is, in Othello’s mind at least, Emilia downfall. By attaching emotional an honor killing rather than a significance to this small object, vengeful killing. Act 5, Scene 2 Othello makes himself vulnerable to Iago’s scheming, and readily Honor is a word that creeps into “hellish villain” (5.2.378). Iago accepts the theory that Desdemona the world of the characters. How might have survived this tragedy, handed over this treasured gift can Othello be honorable but his torment will begin now, first to her “lover.” The fact that if he is also a murderer? When through earthly torture and then Desdemona lies about misplacing the truth is eventually known in everlasting hellfire. Survival may it affirms her husband’s suspicions to Othello, he calls for his own be his punishment. about her infidelity. damnation, claiming that Desdemona is a “heavenly sight” This tiny prop comes to while he is a “cursèd, cursèd represent the tension and mistrust slave” (5.2.283). The question on in Othello and Desdemona’s everyone’s lips at the close of the marriage. So weighted is this play relates to Iago. What will object that, in 1693, the historian happen to him now? Othello Thomas Rymer argued that the accuses him of being a “demi-devil” play ought to be called “The (5.2.307) and Lodovico calls him a Tragedy of the Handkerchief.” ■

A MAN MORE SINNED AGAINST THAN SINNING KING LEAR (1605–1606)



252 KING LEAR DRAMATIS Lear shares power Edmond stages a fight Lear discovers PERSONAE between Goneril and between himself and Kent’s shameful Regan. He disowns Edgar. He tells treatment and rages King Lear King of Britain. Cordelia and banishes Gloucester that Edgar at both his Goneril Lear’s eldest the Earl of Kent. was plotting Gloucester’s daughters. daughter, married to Albany, murder and has now fled. but becomes adulterously involved with Edmond. 1.1 2.1 2.2 Act 1 Act 2 Duke of Albany Goneril’s 1.4 2.2 husband. Lear and Goneril Kent attacks Regan Lear’s middle quarrel, and Lear Oswald and is put in daughter, married to Cornwall, later pursues Edmond as her departs for the stocks. Edgar second husband. Regan’s house. determines to disguise Duke of Cornwall Regan’s himself as the mad husband. beggar, Poor Tom. Cordelia Lear’s youngest K ing Lear renounces his Edgar. In a plot contrived by the daughter, later becomes the throne and divides the illegitimate Edmond to steal his Queen of France. kingdom among his three brother Edgar’s inheritance, daughters. He asks each to profess Gloucester is tricked into thinking Duke of Burgundy Cordelia’s her love for him, so that he may that Edgar seeks to kill him and first suitor. decide who will gain the larger seize his land. Edgar is pursued share. Goneril and Regan play by the law, but disguises himself King of France Cordelia’s along, but Cordelia refuses to as the beggar Poor Tom. second suitor. flatter. She is banished, along with the Earl of Kent. The King of France Lear takes up residence at The Fool Lear’s court jester, offers marriage to Cordelia, and the court of his eldest daughter, very close to Cordelia, whose they depart for France. Kent adopts Goneril, and her husband, Albany, absence he mourns. the disguise of the servant Caius. but she accuses her father of rowdy behavior. Lear curses her with Earl of Kent One of Lear’s Shortly after Cordelia’s barrenness and leaves for Regan’s most loyal followers. Later banishment, the Earl of Gloucester house, only to find that she and her disguises himself as a is estranged from his elder son, husband, Cornwall, are away from servant named Caius. Earl of Gloucester Another loyal follower of Lear, father to Edgar and Edmond. Edmond The illegitimate son of Gloucester. Edgar The eldest son and legitimate heir of Gloucester, later disinherited. Adopts a succession of disguises, including that of the mad beggar, Tom o’ Bedlam. Oswald Goneril’s servant.

THE KING’S MAN 253 Cornwall takes Gloucester Edgar kills Oswald The battle is Lear enters with the dead prisoner and plucks and discovers a letter fought. Edgar tells Cordelia in his arms, and out his eyes. Gloucester that Lear dies of grief. Kent promises in which Goneril and Cordelia have to follow after Lear, leaving asks Edmond to been defeated, and the crown to Edgar. kill Albany. they go to join them. 3.7 4.5 5.2 5.3 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.2 4.1 5.1 5.3 A demented Lear Edgar encounters Edgar, disguised as a Lear and Cordelia rages on the heath. his blinded father peasant, gives Albany are taken to prison. Kent forces him and the wandering on the a letter, and arranges a Fool to take shelter. heath. He agrees to single combat if the British Edgar and Edmond take him to Dover army is victorious over fight a duel and Cliff so that he may jump and end his life. the invading French. Edmond is fatally wounded. Regan is found to have been poisoned by Goneril, who kills herself. home, and that they have put Kent servant). Edgar leads the blinded erupts into murder and suicide— in the stocks. After a furious Gloucester to what he pretends to Goneril poisons her sister, and confrontation with both daughters, be the edge of Dover Cliff so that he then stabs herself. Edmond urges Lear rushes into a thunderstorm. may end his life. When Gloucester Albany to rescue Lear and Cordelia, Deranged with fury and grief, he falls forward onto level ground, but it is too late. Lear enters, and his Fool befriend Poor Tom. Edgar convinces him that he has carrying the dead Cordelia in his miraculously survived the jump. arms. Broken with grief, the King Goneril and Regan plot to have slips back into madness, failing to their father killed, but Gloucester Cordelia takes Lear into her recognize Kent when he finally has the king secretly conveyed to protection. A battle ensues. Lear reveals his true identity. Just at the safety at Dover, in the knowledge and Cordelia are defeated and moment when Lear thinks that that Cordelia is returning with a imprisoned. Disguised as a knight, Cordelia might still be alive, he French army to avenge her father. Edgar challenges Edmond to single dies. Albany offers to divide the When Gloucester’s actions are combat. When Edmond is fatally kingdom between Kent and Edgar, discovered, he has both his eyes wounded, Edgar reveals his but Kent says that he will follow his plucked out by Cornwall (who is identity. The jealousy between master, leaving the crown to Edgar. ❯❯ fatally wounded by his own Goneril and Regan over Edmond

254 KING LEAR W hile King Lear is often as a dangerously volatile figure, considered the height tyrannizing his daughters in the IN CONTEXT of Shakespeare’s initial love test, and later stabbing achievement in tragedy, it the Fool to death in a frenzied THEMES also undermines many of the attack. But neither in this Love, betrayal, assumptions upon which his production nor in the play as bereavement, and death other tragedies were built. It lays written is there any sense of waste to our ideals, producing a how Lear’s physical strength or SETTING vision of nihilistic despair not rhetorical power might ever have Ancient Britain, unlike the plays of 20th-century served his subjects’ interests, or approximately 800 BCE Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. indeed how he might once have In this way, King Lear is both inspired admiration and love. SOURCES ancient (it is set in 800 BCE) and Goneril and Regan suggest that 12th century Geoffrey remarkably modern. his lack of judgment in banishing of Monmouth’s Historia Cordelia is not a single tragic error, Regum Britanniae (History From the start, Shakespeare associated with “the infirmity of of British Kings). conceived of Lear in a mold that his age,” but a personality trait: is significantly different from his “he hath ever but slenderly known 1587 Raphael Holinshed’s other tragic heroes. Where the himself” (1.1.292–293). Without any Chronicles of England, sources give the King’s age as sense of Lear’s former greatness, Scotland, and Ireland. in his sixties, Shakespeare his descent into madness loses emphasizes Lear’s decrepitude, something of the grandeur and LEGACY insisting that he is more than 80 1681 Nahum Tate’s The years of age and ready to “crawl Lear divides his kingdom between History of King Lear … toward death” (1.1.41). Modern his three daughters. In this production Reviv’d with Alterations productions often cast a at the Bad Hersfeld Festival, Germany adapts the play so that significantly younger actor (2012), Volker Lechtenbrink plays Lear Cordelia survives and is in the role. In 2014, a 53-year-old and Kristin Hoelck is Cordelia. betrothed to Edgar. Simon Russell Beale played Lear 1851 In his novel Moby Dick, Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab rages in the storm, a scene inspired by King Lear. 1957 The ballet The Prince of the Pagodas by choreographer John Cranko, with music by Benjamin Britten, borrows plot elements from King Lear. 1985 The film Ran, by director Akira Kurosawa, turns Lear into a samurai warlord. 1987 Lear’s Daughters, a play by Elaine Feinstein, is a prequel to King Lear. 1991 Jane Smiley’s novel A Thousand Acres moves the play’s action to a farm in Iowa. The story is told from the perspective of Ginny (Goneril).

plot pauses whenever it encounters THE KING’S MAN 255 the protagonist. Nothing that Lear does after the opening scene has Paul Scofield any real impact on the action. In a 2004 poll of RSC actors, Meantime we shall express Sins of the father Paul Scofield’s Lear was voted our darker purpose. So what “sins” might Lear be the greatest Shakespearean blamed for in that opening scene? performance of all time. Then Give me the map there. For Shakespeare’s audience, his aged 40, Scofield appeared in Know that we have divided act of “unburdening” himself by Peter Brook’s 1962 staging giving up his throne would have of King Lear. Critic Kenneth In three our kingdom been deeply suspect. In a society Tynan described Brook’s King Lear with no expectation of retirement, production as revolutionary the voluntary renunciation of power in its depiction of Lear not as Act 1, Scene 1 would have seemed to undermine “the booming, righteously the respect for age and male indignant Titan of old, but sense of waste that it might authority that was so deeply an edgy, capricious old man, have possessed in another embedded in the culture. Kingship intensely difficult to live Shakespearean tragedy. was also believed to be divinely with.” Scofield’s Lear was a appointed—hence it was an act very human depiction of the Lear as tragic hero of sacrilege to attempt to sever king, for whom our pity is not Lear’s description of himself king from crown. Also potentially automatically to be granted. as “a man / More sinned against damaging is Lear’s decision to than sinning” (3.2.59–60) hints divide the kingdom. Myths In 1971, Scofield played at his passivity in the play. abounded about the catastrophic Lear in Brook’s film adaptation In comparison to Edmond, who consequences of such division, of the play, and in 2002, plots his father’s death and orders leading to bloody civil war and having himself reached the the deaths of Lear and Cordelia, fratricide, and Shakespeare was age of 80, he starred in an Goneril, who will use her lover to writing during the reign of James I, acclaimed radio version. kill her husband and who poisons a king seeking to strengthen ties her sister, and Cornwall, who between his two hostile kingdoms, Lear was one of many plucks out Gloucester’s eyes, England and Scotland. Shakespearean roles that Lear’s acts of banishment (although Scofield took on in a career they constitute a kind of social Ultimately, however, it is Lear’s that spanned 65 years. death) will come to seem relatively disavowal of Cordelia that brings He appeared infrequently mild. Throughout acts three and the King to his knees. Lear on screen, despite many four, when Hamlet or Macbeth estranges himself from the one ❯❯ approaches from Hollywood, are acting furiously to bring about preferring the relative their own destruction, Lear exists O madam, my old heart is anonymity of the stage and on the margins of the plot, in the cracked, it’s cracked. radio, but won an Academy liminal space of the heath. In his Gloucester Award for his portrayal of mental confusion, he identifies Sir Thomas More in the 1966 the behavior of a mad beggar as Act 2, Scene 1 film A Man for All Seasons. the pattern for his own paternal betrayal, and muses on the dangers of female sexuality and the hypocrisy of the powerful. In this respect, King Lear is a remarkably philosophical tragedy, in which the

256 KING LEAR infectious, Gloucester fails to see through the deception and fatally places his trust in the wrong son. But in a larger sense, the tragedy sees suffering as something that exists outside any simple process of cause and effect, and as a fundamental part of the human condition. To be “a man / More sinned against than sinning” is not some kind of cosmic injustice, but the norm. Lear is accompanied by his Fool It can certainly be argued that The basest beggar during the storm, illustrated here by Lear’s actions in the first scene Where Hamlet only pretends to Scottish artist William Dyce (1806–64). set a destructive precedent. By consider “What a piece of work is a The Fool is the only character allowed failing to value the genuine love of man,” King Lear offers a profound to speak the truth to the king. Cordelia over the insincere flattery meditation on this subject, and its of her sisters, Lear encourages a conclusions are as melancholy as daughter whose love and reverence character like Edmond to pursue Hamlet might have wished them. will be unaffected by his loss of his inheritance by faking filial love, Blinded Gloucester describes the status, unlike Goneril and Regan and by slandering his brother. mad Lear as a “ruined piece of whose respect for their father As though Lear’s blindness were nature,” and when he tries to kiss exists only while he has power. Lear’s hand, the King advises: If the kingdom had been divided Blow, winds, and crack your “Here, wipe it first; it smells of in three, Cordelia might have cheeks! Rage, blow, mortality” (4.5.128–130). The play served as a buffer between her relentlessly confronts man’s two elder and ambitious sisters. You cataracts and hurricanoes, physical needs. Lear’s madness Furthermore, banishment results King Lear coincides with the assault upon in her becoming Queen of his body of extreme cold, wind, France, which leads her to seek Act 3, Scene 2 and rain. It is no coincidence that to depose the rightful rulers his wits are only restored once of Britain with French troops. he has been brought into shelter, Although Shakespeare makes clear given fresh clothes, and allowed that her motive is “love, dear love, to sleep. Earlier on in the play, and our aged father’s right” (4.3.28) Lear had appeared to glimpse the rather than ambition, the fact troubling physical similarities that remains that Lear has made define all men, if they are deprived his kingdom vulnerable. of the external trappings of class and wealth. When his daughters try to take away his knightly retinue, he counters: “O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars / Are in the poorest thing superfluous. / Allow not nature more than nature needs, / Man’s life is cheap as beast’s” (2.2.438–441). But King Lear at this point has no idea what the life of the basest beggar might be, and it is with a kind of redemptive sadism that

THE KING’S MAN 257 Unaccommodated man is no sense of fellowship in the discovery I have no way, and therefore more but such a poor, bare, that in his nakedness he is no more want no eyes. forked animal as thou art. than “such a poor, bare, forked animal, as thou art” (3.4.101–102). I stumbled when I saw King Lear In this respect, King Lear has Earl of Gloucester often been seen as a socialist Act 3, Scene 4 play, in that it forces the king to Act 4, Scene 1 acknowledge his similarity to the Shakespeare casts him out into lowest social class (even though upon which humanity is founded. the wilderness to encounter one. Edgar is actually an earl’s son) and, This “something” is the capacity to Poor Tom represents a misery more importantly, to acknowledge feel pity. The play’s most virtuous that Lear has never imagined—a his own responsibility for Poor characters, Edgar and Cordelia, vagrant, tormented by demonic Tom’s condition: “O, I have ta’en / repeatedly tell us of their emotional voices, clothed only in a blanket, Too little care of this” (3.4.32–33). In reaction to other people’s suffering. and drinking from puddles mixed a radical challenge to contemporary Edgar wonders at both Gloucester with horse urine. Lear’s response, politics, the play features both a and Lear: “O thou side-piercing which is to take off his own clothes, king and an earl calling for a sight” (4.5.85); “my heart breaks at signifies his final descent into redistribution of wealth, “So it” (138); while Cordelia repeatedly madness. He now conspires in distribution should undo excess, / voices her pity for the father who the destruction of his familial and And each man have enough” wronged her. Both characters social identity. But there is also a (4.1.64–65). also attest to the efficacy of pity, with Edgar being driven to rescue More’s the pity his father from despair, and If the play is initially driven by Cordelia using her tears to gain the need to strip man down to an army, before using the same his bare essentials, as anticipated restorative drops to bring Lear by Cordelia’s destructive use of back to his senses. the term “Nothing,” it then begins to move toward the “something” By contrast, evil is defined in the play as the absence of pity, which leads in turn to an absence of pitiful action. Goneril and Regan allow Lear to wander on the heath in a thunderstorm, drawing forth language that defines pity as that which separates man from beast. Thus, Cordelia observes, “Mine ❯❯ The blind Gloucester (right, Geoffrey Freshwater) meets with the now-mad Lear (left, Greg Hicks). Without his sight, Gloucester finally realizes his previous blindness toward Edmond.

258 KING LEAR enemy’s dog, though he had bit acted, good triumphs over evil in Howl, howl, howl, howl! me, should have stood / That night the final battle and Lear is restored O, you are men of stones. against my fire” (4.6.30–31). to his throne. He dies of old age and is succeeded by Cordelia. Audience King Lear That the play has limits to reactions must certainly have its own capacity for pity, however, echoed Kent’s sentiments “Is this Act 5, Scene 3 is something critics have recently the promised end?” (5.3.238), when pointed out with regard to the not only do Lear and Cordelia lose The double plot is a feature of treatment of Goneril and Regan. the battle, but Cordelia is murdered, comedy, usually allowing a broader But perhaps the most violent causing her father to die of grief. perspective and the exploration of reaction against the play has alternative themes—although the focused on the way in which its A problematic end? similarity of Gloucester’s plight to supposedly redemptive experience Subsequent critics, including that of Lear only serves to render of suffering, and the value it places Samuel Johnson, put on record the play more claustrophobic. The on pity, comes to nothing. their dismay with the play’s ending. combat between the older and The 17th-century Poet Laureate the younger generation, with the When Shakespeare’s audience Nahum Tate felt compelled to draft latter attempting to free itself from went to see King Lear, they were a new ending in which Cordelia parental oppression particularly expecting, at worst, to endure the survives. In Tate’s version, a love in matters of the heart, is also the grief of his daughters’ ingratitude story develops between Cordelia stuff of comedy. The movement and the physical deprivations of and Edgar, to whom she is of exiled characters into a green his homelessness. Gloucester’s betrothed at the end. It was this blinding was an added turn of version of the tragedy that would the screw, derived from Sir Philip be performed for nearly 150 years, Sidney’s prose romance, The to the detriment of Shakespeare’s Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia original version. (1593). However, in all the other versions of the Lear story, including Tate was partly responding an earlier play The True Chronicle to the fact that much of the Historie of King Leir (c.1594), in structure of King Lear is comic. which Shakespeare may even have Married to Lear’s tangled web Cornwall Poisons sister Cordelia Plots against Regan Plots against Goneril Daughter sister Daughter sister Daughter Earl of Kent Banishes King Lear Married to Friend Taunts Both sisters Albany Fool lust after Loyal to Edgar/Poor Tom Earl of Edmond Legitimate son Gloucester Bastard son Kills brother

THE KING’S MAN 259 In Jean-François Sivadier’s 2007 production, the play was translated into tough, contemporary French. A physical production, its action was as uncompromising as its language. world where they discover a truer relationship to nature and to their own humanity, before returning to civilization, is also a staple of the pastoral genre. Even the Fool naturally belongs in a play like As You Like It rather than a tragedy. Agony of grief him artistic control so that he may cannot rescue Lear from his agony of But these romantic, comic leave a final impression of greatness, grief. No other play by Shakespeare expectations endure only to be but Lear dies in the middle of a offers such a bleak perspective on smashed to pieces. When Lear thought—and not about himself but the tragic fact of human mortality. enters, carrying dead Cordelia, about Cordelia, whose death is so some fantasy about how the world painful as to be incomprehensible: Shakespeare’s society was works is finally destroyed. It is not “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat deeply Christian, with a system of just the futility of it—after all their have life, / And thou no breath at all? religious practices a part of everyday suffering, Lear and Gloucester Thou’lt come no more. / Never, never, life. Yet no one can comfort Lear, cannot make use of anything they never, never, never” (5.3.282–284). other than to will that he be spared have learned, and are denied the Pity is revealed to be something further pain by not feeling. It is in chance to make amends to their that no one feels enough (“O, you this respect that King Lear remains children—it is rather that the play are men of stones” (232)), and that perhaps Shakespeare’s most confronts the unavoidable destiny devastating play. ■ of bereavement and death, with no offer of consolation. At the end of a Shakespearean tragedy, the hero’s demise is usually carefully stage-managed, offering A feminist reading In 1817, the English literary critic psychological depth to her William Hazlitt argued that character, and to make her “that which aggravates the an object of pity. Similarly, the sense of sympathy in the reader, incestuous intensity that defines and of uncontrollable anguish in Lear’s possessiveness over the swol’n heart of Lear, is the Cordelia at the start of the play petrifying indifference, the cold, was a theme explored by the US calculating, obdurate selfishness writer Jane Smiley in her novel of his daughters.” Since the late A Thousand Acres (1991). This 20th century, however, feminist retells the story from the critics have taken issue with this perspective of Goneril. Ginny reading, arguing that the childless (Goneril) suffers flashbacks that Goneril at least has plenty of reveal how her relationship with motivation to act as she does her father has been shaped by against her father. Lear’s curse the sexual abuse she and her of sterility upon her in 1.4 has sister Rose (Regan) experienced allowed actors to give greater from him in childhood.

THE MIDDLE OF HUMANITY THOU NEVER KNEW’ST BUT THE EXTREMITY OF BOTH ENDS TIMON OF ATHENS (1606)



262 TIMON OF ATHENS DRAMATIS Merchants and artists Apemantus berates Servants are sent to PERSONAE gather at Timon’s house Timon for being vain Timon’s “friends” Timon A prodigal Athenian to benefit from the and blind to the to ask for money. They lord who showers gifts upon Athenian lord’s sycophancy of all leave empty his visitors. He falls into debt his “frends.” handed. and discovers that no one is generosity. prepared to help him. He leaves the city to live alone 1.1 1.2 2.2 in the woods. Act 1 Act 2 Apemantus A misanthropic 1.2 2.2 philosopher with a talent for sarcasm. He warns Timon Timon pays a Creditors call upon about the fickle flatterers friend’s prison bail, Timon to receive feasting on his generosity. and provides money for payment. Timon his servant to marry. is enraged but is Flavius Timon’s faithful certain that his steward, who is troubled by friends will help his master’s prodigality, and tries to warn him about his him with changing fortune. his debt. Alcibiades An Athenian A rtists and merchants Flavius, a servant, reveals privately soldier who is banished gather at Timon’s home that Timon’s wealth has been from Athens. He plans his to present him with gifts spent, and that he is running revenge and encounters and seek his patronage. Timon is further into debt. Timon remains Timon in the woods. well-known for his extravagant unperturbed, believing that his generosity. A poet at the gathering friends will come to his financial Phyrnia and Timandra has written a fable in which a aid. However, when three of his Two prostitutes who patron like Timon falls from fortune “friends” are asked to lend money, accompany Alcibiades when to find himself destitute. Timon they all refuse, making elaborate he visits Timon in the woods. receives the poet’s work gladly, excuses to justify their lack of Timon offers them gold to and pays bail to release one of his kindness. Hearing this news, spread sexual diseases. friends from prison, but will not Timon flies into a rage and decides accept any favors in return. to treat them to a feast. Believing Poet and Painter Two Timon to be wealthy again, his artists who visit Timon The satirist Apemantus tries to friends are shocked when he hoping to receive payment. warn Timon that his “friends” are serves them stones and warm They visit Timon in the simply feeding off his generosity. woods when they hear that he has discovered gold. An old Athenian He takes Timon’s money after complaining that Timon’s servant has been trying to seduce his daughter. A fool He exchanges witticisms with servants.

THE KING’S MAN 263 Timon hosts a Timon leaves the Timon is visited Timon writes his epitaph banquet at which city and determines by his old and dies alone by the sea he serves his guests to live alone in the shore. Alcibiades returns stones and warm woods, turning his “friends,” who have back on humanity. discovered he is to Athens, but brings water. peace rather than war. wealthy once more. 3.7 3.7 4.1 4.3 5.3 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.6 4.3 5.2 The soldier Timon chastises While digging for roots Timon’s faithful Alcibiades is his dinner guests, Timon unearths steward Flavius banished from then chases them gold in the woods. makes the Athens. from his home. Athenian lord reconsider his hatred for the whole of humankind. water and forces them from for the ingratitude he has been That what he speaks his home, berating them for shown, Timon rails at his former is all in debt, their falsity. friends, who now come to seek him he owes (and his gold) in the woods. Timon Timon leaves Athens for the provides the soldier Alcibiades For every word. woods and prays for the city’s with money to finance his attack on Flavius destruction. A vengeful soldier Athens, and gives money to whores called Alcibiades enters the woods to spread disease among citizens. Act 1, Scene 2 at the same time, intent upon Both Apemantus and Flavius visit destroying the city. He has been Timon, and the Athenian lord banished for attempting to save reluctantly acknowledges Flavius’s the life of a soldier who has been goodness, despite his hatred of sentenced to death. When Timon humankind. He writes his epitaph reaches the woods, he digs for and dies by the sea, as Alcibiades roots, but discovers gold, and news enters Athens, spares the city, and soon spreads to Athens that he is promises peace. ❯❯ rich once again. Hating humankind

264 TIMON OF ATHENS Timon is perhaps Th’unkindest beast more Shakespeare’s most extreme kinder than mankind. IN CONTEXT characterization. He swings Timon from being a lover of humankind to THEMES hating all of humanity. Timon’s Act 4, Scene 1 Love, pride, wealth, vanity, companion, the satirist Apemantus, hate, revenge, misanthropy finds it remarkably straightforward be weary” (1.2.220–221). But once to sum up the Athenian lord’s Timon’s debts are revealed, none of SETTING experience of life: “The middle his friends is prepared to show him Athens and woods outside of humanity thou never knewest, the same generosity of spirit. the city but the extremity of both ends” (4.3.302–303). Apemantus witnesses Blindness and vanity SOURCES Timon’s transformation from Timon’s story is not simply a tale of c.100 CE Plutarch’s Lives of the philanthropist to misanthropist, and riches to rags. It is true to say that Noble Grecians and Romans. provides a satirical commentary on the play’s structure is schematic, the transition. At first, Apemantus dividing into two contrasting parts, 1566 William Painter’s Palace watches as Timon showers the but Shakespeare’s presentation of of Pleasure. visitors to his home with lavish gifts Timon himself is far from simplistic. and banquets, but then sees him The faithful steward Flavius reveals 1602 An anonymous play hurling stones and gold at the early in the play that Timon’s coffers called Timon. people he had once held so dear. are already empty, and that he “owes” (1.2.198) for every word he LEGACY In choosing to dramatize a life speaks. Timon’s extreme generosity 1678 English poet Thomas story that had previously been Shadwell creates an adaptation alluded to in the works of Plato, of Shakespeare’s play titled Aristophanes, Lucian, and Plutarch, The History of Timon of Shakespeare created a play that Athens, the Manhater. focused upon man’s relationship with “Yellow, glittering, precious 1844 Karl Marx quotes the gold” (4.3.26). As a generous gift- play in Political Economy and giver, Timon is never short of Philosophy. He is drawn to “friends” – “Methinks I could deal Shakespeare’s description of kingdoms to my friends, / And ne’er gold as a “yellow slave.” Philanthropy Misanthropy 1963 Duke Ellington composes a jazz score for Michael Timon’s transformation from philanthropist Langham’s production at into misanthropist marks the turning point in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. the play. Feast becomes famine as food and wine are turned into into stones and water. 1973 Peter Brook stages the play in French at the Bouffes du Nord Theatre in Paris. 1991 In a modern-dress production at the Young Vic, London, David Suchet’s Timon hands out car keys to his guests as gifts. 2004 Oxford University Press publishes an edition of the play recognizing Shakespeare’s collaboration with Thomas Middleton on this work.

is puzzling. On the one hand, he gorge at, this embalms and THE KING’S MAN 265 makes caring pronouncements, spices / To th’ April day again” arguing that, “’Tis not enough to (4.3.34–42). Timon the banker help the feeble up / But to support him after” (1.1.109–110). However, Entrenched firmly at the other A 2012 production at the he also declares that “there’s none / extreme of humanity, Timon’s National Theatre in London, Can truly say he gives if he pronouncements are as savage and set Timon of Athens in the receives” (1.2.9–10). How can bilious as they had once been naive financial district during Timon’s guests ever repay his but well meaning. His hymns to the credit crunch. The action generosity if he will not let them hatred possess a strange music that is imagined as a meltdown do so? Flavius suggests that is both hypnotic and somewhat among the financial elite, Timon’s “worst sin is he does overwhelming. Having looked to the played out to a backdrop of too much good” (4.2.39), but gods and the mercenary soldier anti-capitalist protest. Timon’s Apemantus is keenly aware of the Alcibiades to wreak vengeance on debts are a “liquidity crisis.” glass-faced flatterers who circle Athens, Timon looks forward only to around Timon like vultures, and is his own death: “My long sickness / Timon, played by British frustrated by his blindness (and Of health and living now begins actor Simon Russell Beale, is vanity): “It grieves me to see so to mend, / And nothing brings a vain philanthropist, who is many dip their meat in one man’s me all things” (5.2.71–73). Rather fawned upon while his stock blood; and all the madness is, he than remaining in a “dream of is high. He is a power player in cheers them up, too” (1.2.39–41). friendship,” Timon prefers to rail a world where friendship is a through his “sickness.” He dies at commodity with a cash value. Retreat from humanity peace with himself, although still This production exemplified Having learned that his “fortunes at war with humankind. Karl Marx’s characterization ’mong his friends can sink” of the play as about the power (2.2.227), Timon turns his back on Few Shakespearean characters of money. Timon’s scorn is society and heads for the woods, embody a nihilistic vision with the directed toward today’s elite: where he concludes he will find same commitment as Timon. This “Your solemn masters are “Th’unkindest beast more kinder is one of Shakespeare’s longest large-handed robbers and than mankind” (4.1.36). Like roles, and it provides actors with a filch by law.” King Lear, Timon discards his challenge: to avoid presenting “the clothes, in an attempt to be free middle of humanity” and concentrate When Shakespeare wrote from the “disease” of false on capturing the “extremity of both the play, England was going friendship and sugar-tongued ends” while retaining psychological through a political crisis, and sycophancy. Once outside the realism for audiences. ■ Guy Fawkes had recently Athenian walls, Timon announces been executed for his part that he will bear nothing but Here lie I, Timon, who alive in the Gunpowder Plot. In nakedness from this detestable All living men did hate. Hytner’s production, protesters town. As a cursing misanthrope, Pass by and curse thy fill, wear the Guy Fawkes masks Timon grows in lyrical prowess, but pass popularized by the Internet- spitting forth condemnatory verse, based Anonymous activist shaped to shock: “This yellow And stay not here thy gait. movement, and the play feels slave / Will knit and break religions, Timon’s epitaph as relevant as ever. bless th’accursed, / Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves, / Act 5, Scene 5 And give them title, knee, and approbation / With senators on the bench. This is it / That makes the wappered widow wed again. / She whom the spittle-house and ulcerous sores / Would cast the

BLOOD WILL HAVE BLOOD MACBETH (1606)



268 MACBETH DRAMATIS King Duncan learns that King Duncan Duncan’s sons, PERSONAE Macbeth’s heroism arrives at Malcolm and Donalbain, has won the battle. Duncan King of Scotland. Three witches give Macbeth’s castle. flee to England. He is invited to Macbeth’s Macbeth a prophecy. castle and is murdered in his sleep. 1.2–3 1.6 2.3 Act 1 Act 2 Malcolm Duncan’s son. He 1.5 flees to England for fear of his 2.2 life when his father is slain, but returns to defeat Macbeth, and Lady Macbeth Macbeth murders to be crowned. resolves to murder the king in his sleep. Duncan after being Macbeth A noble warrior and told of the prophecy Thane of Glamis. He murders the king and begins a reign of in a letter from terror. He is killed by Macduff Macbeth. as the witches prophesied. T hree witches assemble on News arrives that Duncan will visit Lady Macbeth Macbeth’s a heath for an encounter the Macbeths’ castle, and Lady wife. She encourages her with Macbeth. Returning Macbeth persuades her husband to husband to kill the king, but from victory on the battlefield kill him that night. She lays plans is later tormented by the part Macbeth and Banquo meet these to drug the king’s guards, so that she played in his murder. “weird sisters,” who prophesy that Macbeth may slip into the king’s Macbeth will become king and that chamber. As he makes his way Banquo A close ally of Banquo’s heirs will reign thereafter. there Macbeth sees a vision of a Macbeth. He is murdered Soon after, Macbeth receives word floating dagger signaling the way. at Macbeth’s command, that he has been made Thane (clan Having murdered the king, Macbeth but returns to haunt him. chief) of Cawdor, which leads him returns to his wife with the bloody to give credence to the witches’ daggers still in his hands. Terrified Fleance Banquo’s son, he foresight. He shares his news with that the murder has woken other flees from the hired murderers. his wife, and she begins to plot sleepers, Macbeth begins to panic to murder King Duncan so that until his wife calms him. As the Macduff The Thane of Fife, Macbeth can become king. couple leaves to wash themselves and faithful supporter of King Duncan. He discovers the king’s dead body, and incites rebellion against Macbeth. Lady Macduff Macduff’s wife. She is murdered, with her children, at Macbeth’s order. Witches Bearded hags who predict that Macbeth will become king. They also tell him the circumstances under which he will lose the crown and his life. A Porter Keeper of the castle gate. A drunken, witty, cynic.

THE KING’S MAN 269 Macbeth has Banquo Macbeth hears Macduff persuades Macduff kills murdered. more predictions Malcolm to lead an Macbeth—the from the witches, army against Macbeth. prophesy is including that complete. Malcolm Banquo’s becomes king. descendants shall reign after him. 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.3 5.10–11 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.1 4.2 5.5 Macbeth is made king. Banquo’s ghost Macbeth orders the Lady Macbeth dies. appears at Macbeth’s murder of Macduff’s Macbeth hears that banquet. wife and children. Birnam Wood appears to be moving toward his castle. of the king’s blood, a knocking is holds that evening. Lady Macbeth terrible news reaches Macduff heard at the gate. The porter ushers tries to distract their dinner guests in England and strengthens his in Macduff, who finds the king’s from her husband’s strange resolve to be revenged. body and raises the alarm. Macbeth behavior, especially when he murders the guards in case they addresses an empty chair. Lady Macbeth’s guilt for wake. On hearing of their father’s Duncan’s death leaks out when she murder, the king’s sons, Malcolm Macbeth returns to find the is heard speaking of the murder in and Donalbain, leave for England. witches and is told that his throne her sleep. While Macbeth believes is secure until Birnam Wood that he can see a forest walking Macbeth becomes king, although marches toward Dunsinane. He toward his castle, he hears that Banquo harbors secret fears that he feels further reassured when told his wife has died. The moving murdered King Duncan. Fearing that he cannot be killed by anyone wood is in fact an army carrying Banquo’s suspicions, Macbeth born of woman. On hearing that the branches of trees. In the battle arranges his murder, but Banquo’s Macduff has traveled to England that ensues, Macduff reveals that son Fleance escapes the killers. to persuade Malcolm to lead a rebel he was ripped from his mother’s Macbeth is terrified when Banquo’s army, Macbeth orders the murder of womb; the prophecy is complete, ghost appears at a banquet he Macduff’s wife and children. This and Macbeth is killed. ❯❯

270 MACBETH T he Macbeths risk If it were done when ’tis done, everything to become king then ’twere well IN CONTEXT and queen of Scotland. In murdering King Duncan they are It were done quickly. THEMES committing the greatest of sins: Macbeth Ambition, kingship, fate, regicide. The couple is fully aware the supernatural, betrayal that their desire for the crown is Act 1, Scene 7 criminal and diabolical, and yet SETTING they resolve upon this course of The audience’s relationship with Scotland and England action that will bring calamity to Macbeth also darkens scene by them both. Like Richard III, the scene as he falls from being a SOURCES Macbeths discover to their despair trusted warrior to becoming 1587 Raphael Holinshed’s that gaining the throne will not a Machiavellian murderer. Chronicles describes the reigns bring them contentment. Macbeth of King Duncan and Macbeth is convinced that he will only rest Traces of humanity are and features a woodcut easy once he knows that he is gradually stamped out as the illustration of the weird sisters. safely in power: “To be thus drama progresses. Lady Macbeth is nothing / But to be safely thus” calls upon “spirits / That tend on LEGACY (3.1.49–50). To be “safely thus” mortal thoughts” (1.5.39–40) to 1664 William Davenant’s would mean that there are no “unsex” her, filling her with “direst adaptation of Macbeth contenders for the throne left alive. cruelty” (1.5.42). In order to fulfill includes flying witches. The Macbeths find themselves her murderous ambition, she must trapped in a cycle of violence, in effect transform herself into a 1812 Famed Welsh actress haunted by their deed and the merciless monster. Shakespeare Sarah Siddons performs Lady “horrible imaginings” (1.3.137) that draws attention to her womanliness Macbeth for the last time. ensue: “Blood will have blood” in order to emphasize her fierce (3.4.121). The killing must continue. rejection of her own femininity. 1847 Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Fearing that her husband is “too Macbeth is first performed. Macbeth is literally and full o’th’ milk of human kindness” symbolically a dark play. About (1.5.16), she encourages him to 1913 Arthur Bourchier directs two-thirds of it takes place at harden his heart and place and stars in a German silent night, lending the drama an eerie ambition above consideration film version of the play. intensity. Ghosts walk at night; for others: “I have given suck, deadly deeds are committed and know / How tender ’tis to love 1957 Akira Kurosawa’s film under the cover of darkness; and the babe that milks me. / I would, Throne of Blood, transposes nighttime brings nightmares for while it was smiling in my face, / Macbeth to feudal Japan. those with a guilty conscience. Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums / And dashed the 1967 The sci-fi TV series Star So foul and fair a day brains out, had I so sworn / As you Trek uses Macbeth as material I have not seen. have done to this” (1.7.54–59). for two episodes. Macbeth As the couple settle upon their 1976 Ian McKellen and Judi Act 1, Scene 3 homicidal plan, their dependency Dench play the Macbeths at upon one another strengthens, but Stratford-upon-Avon. so, too, does their sense of 2003 Vishal Bhardwaj directs Maqbool an Indian film adaptation of Macbeth set in the Mumbai underworld. 2004 The film Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban film features a chorus of the weird sisters’ incantation.

THE KING’S MAN 271 Laurence Olivier’s Macbeth was acclaimed for its “dazzling darkness” in 1955. The glamorous production had Olivier’s wife, the film actress Vivien Leigh, as a goading Lady Macbeth. entrapment and claustrophobia. The couple share a murderous secret that simply cannot be disclosed. The secret ultimately devours them both and serves to put distance between them. Taunted to murder Macbeth does not enter blindly into the murder of Duncan, although he does show some unwillingness to commit. Shakespeare complicates our relationship with Macbeth by voicing the character’s reluctance to go through with the crime. Having listened to his wife’s reaction to the witches’ prophecy that he “shalt be king hereafter” (1.3.48), he states firmly that “We will proceed no further in this business” (1.7.31). For a moment it looks as though Macbeth will resist temptation and conquer his “Vaulting ambition” (1.7.27). His wife’s stinging taunts, however, make him think again. Lady ❯❯ King James I Macbeth was written during the believed that he was a direct reign of James I. When James took descendant of Banquo, and to the throne in 1603, he became Shakespeare’s presentation of the patron of Shakespeare’s this figure is duly honorable. acting company, honoring them He may also have been with the title of the King’s Men. pandering to one of the king’s Shakespeare wrote plays for particular concerns: witchcraft. audiences in London’s playhouses, The king had published a but he was also writing to treatise on the subject in 1597 entertain his king. In the tale called Daemonologie, a fact that of Macbeth, Shakespeare is would not have gone unnoticed playing toward some of the king’s by the playwright. Although interests. James I of England Macbeth’s dramatic ingredients had previously sat on the Scottish would have entertained the throne as James VI of Scotland, so king, they would of course have the play’s Scottish setting would appealed to a much broader have had royal appeal. James also public as well.

272 MACBETH Macbeth launches into a targeted and valour / As thou art in desire? Macbeth’s male pride overpowers emotional assault that offends, Wouldst thou have that / Which his questioning mind, resulting in humiliates, and shocks her thou esteem’st the ornament of life, the defensive riposte “I dare do all husband in equal measure: / And live a coward in thine own that may become a man” (1.7.46). “Was the hope drunk / Wherein esteem, / Letting ‘I dare not’ wait How much did Macbeth actually you dressed yourself? Hath it slept upon ‘I would,’ / Like the poor cat want the crown for himself, and to since? / And wakes it now to look i’th’ adage?” (1.7.35–44). what extent does he carry out his so green and pale / At what it did part in the murder to confirm and so freely? From this time / Such I In the space of just 10 lines, maintain his understanding of account thy love. Art thou afeard / Lady Macbeth questions her his own manhood? Typically, To be the same in thine own act husband’s masculinity, honor, Shakespeare does not settle ambition, courage, and love for her. upon a straightforward answer. The audience’s responses to Macbeth’s actions are further complicated by the role played by the witches throughout the drama. Did Macbeth have a choice? Was his fate always to murder Duncan and become king himself? Macbeth’s “heat-oppressèd brain” (2.1.39) comes to haunt him as much as the witches’ prophecies. Paranoia practically paralyzes Macbeth, and his imagination proves a constant torment. As he prepares to murder Duncan, he sees a floating dagger sign-posting his way to the king’s bedchamber. Has this dagger been conjured by the weird sisters? Or is it merely, as Macbeth suspects, a “dagger of the mind” engendered through fear and his reluctance to act upon his ambitions? His imagination will not be suppressed. Having murdered the king, Macbeth imagines that he will never sleep again: “Methought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more, / Macbeth does murder sleep’—the innocent sleep, / Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care, / The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, / Balm English actress Ellen Terry played Lady Macbeth in London, in 1888. Society portraitist John Singer Sargent was in the audience and painted her in a dress made of iridescent beetle wings.

THE KING’S MAN 273 DEATH TOLL Macbeth King Duncan Banquo is The Macduff Lady Macbeth is beheaded. and his guards stabbed. family is mysteriously dies, stabbed. wracked with guilt. are stabbed. of hurt minds, great nature’s Is this a dagger which At moments of extreme crisis or second course, / Chief nourisher I see before me, violence, Shakespeare has Macbeth in life’s feast” (2.2.33–38). voice some of the playwright’s most The handle toward my hand? poetic reflections upon the nature Infected minds Come, let me clutch thee. of existence itself. The murder of The desire to unburden one’s self Macbeth Duncan prompts thoughts on the of problems by telling others is all soothing qualities of sleep, while too human. Shakespeare skillfully Act 2, Scene 1 Lady Macbeth’s death encourages depicts the breakdown of a a meditation upon the transitory marriage under stress, which disclosure puts her own life and nature of life: “Out, out, brief leaves Lady Macbeth vulnerable her husband’s at risk. Shakespeare candle. / Life’s but a walking psychologically. Lacking her draws a stark contrast between his shadow, a poor player / That struts husband’s attention, she ruinously initial portrait of Lady Macbeth and and frets his hour upon the stage, / divests herself of her troubles her final depiction. While she was And then is heard no more. It is a while speaking in her sleep: once strong and controlling, she tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound “Out, damned spot; out, I say. becomes a pitiful shadow of her and fury, / Signifying nothing” One, two,—why, then ’tis time to former self. Her deadly secret has (5.5.22–27). do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, drained the life from her, and she fie, a soldier and afeard? What need is left to obsess about death. Her Banquo’s ghost we fear who knows it when none own will follow soon enough. Having killed the king, Macbeth can call our power to account? Yet faces a future of “restless ecstasy” who would have thought the old (3.2.24). His mind is “full of man to have had so much blood scorpions” (3.2.37) and his every in him?” (5.1.33–38). thought is about the fact that he has “scorched the snake, not killed As the Doctor diagnoses, it” (3.2.15). While Banquo lives, “infected minds / To their deaf Macbeth fears exposure. He is also pillows will discharge their secrets” angered by the witches’ prophecy ❯❯ (5.1.69–70). Lady Macbeth’s

274 MACBETH that Banquo’s sons will reign momentary. Upon a thought / He The witches become a chorus after him. Banquo certainly will again be well. If much you in Guiseppe Verdi’s opera Macbeth. suspects Macbeth of villainy: note him / You shall offend him, Here, the San Francisco Opera “Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, and extend his passion. / Feed, company performs a production Glamis, all / As the weird women and regard him not” (3.4.52–57). in modern dress in 2007. promised; and I fear / Thou played’st most foully for’t” (3.1.1–3). In performance this moment Macbeth’s mind is, obsessed with Macbeth’s decision to have his can be played to emphasize the thoughts of blood: “Blood hath been friend murdered is taken alone; black humor. If the king’s “fit” is shed ere now, i’th’ olden time, / Ere he is keen that his wife “Be particularly dramatic then it can human statute purged the gentle innocent of the knowledge” (3.2.46). prove impossible for the diners to weal; / Ay, and since, too, murders Banquo’s murder creates a rift “regard him not.” As the king’s have been performed / Too terrible between husband and wife, and reactions to the ghost grow more for the ear. The time has been / as a result produces one of the extreme, Lady Macbeth’s need to That, when the brains were out, play’s most thrilling moments: take control of the situation becomes the man would die, / And there an the appearance of Banquo’s ghost. pressing. She takes her husband end. But now they rise again / With aside and tries to reason with him, twenty mortal murders on their Bloody apparition crowns, / And push us from our As Macbeth attempts to join his It will have blood, they say. stools. This is more strange / Than guests at the banquet table, he Blood will have blood. such a murder is” (3.4.74–82). cannot see a chair reserved for Macbeth himself. Although his guests Shakespeare is retracing here motion toward an empty seat, the Act 3, Scene 4 the dynamic between the Macbeths king recoils in horror and begins to that he created just after the murder address Banquo’s ghostly figure, of Duncan. Having killed the king, visible only to himself: “Never Macbeth froze with bloody daggers shake / Thy gory locks at me” in hand as a wave of nervous (3.4.49–50). The king’s behavior is thoughts swamped his mind. sufficiently alarming that it prompts Fortunately for the Macbeths they his wife to placate the bewildered were in private, and Lady Macbeth and discomfited diners: “The fit is had been able to shake her husband from his terrifying thoughts.

Macbeth’s strange behavior at the “I have lived long enough” THE KING’S MAN 275 banquet is played out in front of (5.3.24). The witches’ improbable the puzzled guests. When the ghost prophecies all come to fruition, and The witches appears before him for a second Macbeth leaves the stage fighting time, he cannot contain his horror: despite the odds being against him: In Shakespeare’s time, “It will have blood, they say. Blood “Though Birnam Wood be come to witchcraft was a serious will have blood. / Stones have been Dunsinane, / And thou opposed matter. King James himself known to move, and trees to speak, being of no woman born, / Yet I was a judge in the North / Augurs and understood relations will try the last” (5.10.30–32). Berwick witch trials of have / By maggot-pies and choughs 1590–92, at which 70 people and rooks brought forth / The It is only through the deaths of were tried and many burned secret’st man of blood” (3.4.121–125). this “dread butcher and his fiend- at the stake; witch trials like queen” (5.11.35) that the blood- would be held in England and End of the bloodbath letting can be brought to a close. Scotland until the 18th century. By the play’s close Macbeth’s world “The time is free” (5.11.21), says has come crashing down, and he Macduff, and he hails the new king Shakespeare’s audience finds little left in life to delight him: Malcolm, who can build a future for would have known of such Scotland, free from tyranny. ■ events. The presence of the witches in Macbeth is Dagger – Macbeth’s Heart – the intense intended to be unsettling, and murderous intent. relationship between their appearance, as described Macbeth and his wife. by Banquo, emphasizes their otherworldliness: “What are Crown – Macbeth’s Sword – Macbeth’s these, / So withered, and so determined ambition. prowess as a warrior. wild in their attire, / That look not like th’inhabitants Shakespeare dramatically combines a warrior’s courage as he o’th’earth / And yet are on’t?” wields the sword, “vaulting ambition” in seeking the crown, the (1.3.37–40). bond of hearts with Lady Macbeth, an evil intent in the form of a dagger, and the power of prophecy to bring Macbeth to commit Shakespeare’s description murder, several times over. encourages spectators to use their imaginations to see more than is before their eyes—to see supernatural and hideous figures. He also creates an image that troubles both the audience’s and Macbeth’s minds. Modern-day audiences tend to see Macbeth’s psychological state as more important than the witches’ curses as a driver of the action.

AGE CANNOT WITHER HER NOR CUSTOM STALE HER INFINITE VARIETY ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA (1606)



278 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA DRAMATIS News arrives in Egypt Antony agrees to Cleopatra strikes PERSONAE that Antony’s wife marry Caesar’s and draws a knife on sister Octavia. the messenger who Antony A Roman general who Fulvia is dead. informs her of Antony’s enjoys a passionate love affair with the queen of Egypt, marriage. Cleopatra. He is torn between his duty to Rome and his 1.2 2.2 2.5 desire for Cleopatra. Act 1 Act 2 1.3 2.3 Cleopatra Queen of Egypt, and former lover of Julius Cleopatra quizzes A soothsayer Caesar. Her passion for Antony Antony about his prophesizes that Caesar provokes displays of jealousy, love for her before he anger, and compassion. returns to Rome. will ultimately triumph over Antony. Enobarbus Antony’s most loyal and trusted soldier. R oman soldiers are Antony returns to Rome while He enjoys life in Egypt and disgusted with their Cleopatra seeks comfort from her understands Antony’s love general, Mark Antony, companions. Antony meets with for Cleopatra. who has fallen for the charms of Caesar’s displeasure on his return. the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra. He is criticized for ignoring his Octavius Caesar Julius They fear that this love affair has responsibilities as a leader, and Caesar’s great-nephew, who transformed one of the world’s most is encouraged to marry Caesar’s governs Rome with Antony powerful men into a dishonorable sister Octavia, as a sign of his and Lepidus. He is disgusted fool. When Antony hears that his commitment to Rome. Antony by Antony’s life in Egypt. wife Fulvia has died, he recognizes agrees to the political marriage. that he must return to Rome to When Cleopatra hears of Antony’s Octavia Caesar’s sister, who help Caesar defeat Sextus Pompey. marriage she is enraged. marries Antony. Cleopatra taunts Antony about his love for her; she is jealous of Caesar and Antony meet with Sextus Pompey A soldier other women, and of Antony’s the rebellious Sextus Pompey on who plans a rebellion against duty to Rome. his boat to prevent civil war. Peace the rulers of Rome, but is is agreed, although one of Pompey’s persuaded to make peace. Charmian and Iras Cleopatra’s attendants. Iras takes poison to avoid witnessing Cleopatra’s own death through suicide. Lepidus Governs Rome with Antony and Caesar. He proposes the political marriage between Antony and Octavia. Dolabella Caesar’s attendant. He warns Cleopatra that she will be paraded through Rome. Soothsayer He predicts that Caesar will defeat Antony.

THE KING’S MAN 279 Cleopatra is pleased Antony takes Cleopatra’s Defeated in battle, Cleopatra commits with news that advice, against his better Antony scorns suicide with the aid of Cleopatra, who Antony’s new bride is judgment, and fights sends word that an asp’s poisonous shorter than her, but Caesar at sea. He loses. she has taken her bite. Caesar arrives to angered by reports find the queen and her that she is younger. own life. maids all dead. 3.3 3.10 4.15 5.2 2.6 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.6 3.13 4.16 A peace treaty between Octavia returns to A messenger from Antony dies in Cleopatra’s Rome and Sextus Pompey Rome unaccompanied, Caesar tries to arms, having stabbed himself is celebrated with a provoking Caesar to persuade Cleopatra believing that she is dead. banquet aboard declare war upon to leave Antony. Pompey’s boat. Antony. Antony has the messenger whipped. soldiers tries to persuade his master followed closely by Antony, News arrives that Cleopatra had to murder his guests. Pompey bringing dishonor to his soldiers feigned her death and is sheltering ignores this advice, and spends the and his own reputation. in a monument. Antony asks to evening drinking with his former be taken to her and warns her enemies. Enobarbus says that Antony’s soldiers begin to lose against Caesar before he dies. Antony’s allegiance to Cleopatra faith in their general, and his loyal will remain strong, despite his companion Enobarbus defects to Cleopatra discovers Caesar’s political reunion with Caesar. Caesar’s side. Antony is defeated plan to parade her through Rome. for a second time and blames She determines to take her own life, Antony returns to Egypt without Cleopatra for the loss. Fearing for and calls for a poisonous snake to his new bride. Caesar is angered her safety, she sends Antony news be brought to her. She dresses in by Antony’s neglect of Octavia that she has died, not anticipating her majestic robes before placing and declares war. Antony’s soldiers that Antony will respond by the snake to her breast, and dies argue that they should fight seeking to commit suicide himself. in the company of one of her maids. Caesar on land, but Cleopatra He fails to kill himself, and his Caesar arrives to find Cleopatra persuades him to fight at sea. soldier Eros takes his own life dead, and orders that she and She flees the battle, and is rather than aid his master’s death. Antony be buried together. ❯❯

280 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA IN CONTEXT A ntony and Cleopatra are Antony and Cleopatra’s passion for not young “star-crossed one another can be overwhelming. THEMES lovers” like Romeo and Shakespeare expresses their Love, power, duty, honor, Juliet. These are mature adults, hunger, desire, and dependency jealousy, betrayal, death, both past their “salad days” (1.5.72). upon each other in some of the desire Antony is married to Fulvia, and most beautiful and heightened yet he is drawn to spending time verse to be found anywhere in the SETTING with his “Egyptian dish” (2.6.126) Shakespearean canon. “Age cannot Rome, Alexandria, Athens away from his wife in Rome: “I’th wither” either of them, for in one East my pleasure lies” (2.3.38). another’s eyes, they are like gods. SOURCES Though she is unmarried, Cleopatra Even in death, Antony will remain 1579 Sir Thomas North’s has also loved before: “She made like Mars to Cleopatra; following translation of Plutarch’s Lives great Caesar lay his sword to bed. / his suicide she declares that of the Noble Greeks and He ploughed her, and she cropped.” “there is nothing left remarkable / Romans. The play compresses (2.2.234–235). The intensity of Beneath the visiting Moon” events that took place over the (4.16.69–70). However, their space of a decade. Enobarbus The Egyptian court is portrayed relationship is far from idyllic. speaks words taken directly in the play as luxurious and exotic, and As a pair, they are heroic, majestic, from the source in his Antony is drawn inexorably toward and superhuman, but they are also description of Cleopatra it. The court is imagined here by mean, monstrous, cowardly, and sat on her barge. Italian artist Francesco Trevisani. drunken. Shakespeare presents LEGACY 1765 The critic Samuel Johnson writes that the play’s events were “produced without any art of connection or care to disposition.” 1890 Actress Lillie Langtry plays Cleopatra at the Princess’s Theatre, London. 1922 Poet T. S. Eliot adapts Shakespeare’s description of Cleopatra for The Waste Land. 1934 Soviet playwright Alexander Tairov’s Egyptian Nights draws heavily on Shakespeare’s play. 1966 US composer Samuel Barber’s operatic version of the play opens in New York. 1972 American star Charlton Heston plays Antony in a heavily adapted film of the play. 1999 Mark Rylance plays Cleopatra at the Globe, London.

THE KING’S MAN 281 Give me some music— Husband and wife Laurence Olivier “The barge she sat in, like a music, moody food and Vivien Leigh took on the title roles burnished throne / Burned on the in a 1951 production. Olivier’s Antony water. The poop was beaten gold; / Of us that trade in love. was reckless, while Leigh played the Purple the sails, and so perfuméd Cleopatra queen as sensuous yet regally aloof. that / The winds were love-sick with them. The oars were silver, / Act 2, Scene 5 such as Enobarbus find themselves Which to the tune of flutes kept reaching for the finest poetic stroke, and made / The water these characters, individually and descriptions to communicate her which they beat to follow faster, / as a pair, in a rich and memorable appeal to those who have not been As amorous of their strokes. For manner—audiences are shown the in her presence: “Age cannot wither her own person, / It beggared all good, the bad, and the ugly. her, nor custom stale / Her infinite description. She did lie / In her variety. Other women cloy / The pavilion—cloth of gold, of tissue— Cleopatra the seductress appetites they feed, but she makes O’er-picturing that Venus where Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare’s hungry / Where most she satisfies. we see / The fancy outwork nature. greatest dramatic creations. She For vilest things / Become On each side her / Stood pretty can also prove for some people themselves in her, that the holy dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, one of his most exhausting and priests / Bless her when she is / With divers-coloured fans whose irritating characterizations. riggish” (2.2.241–246). wind did seem / To glow the Shakespeare went to great lengths delicate cheeks which they did to impress upon his audience Enobarbus’s words serve cool, / And what they undid did” Cleopatra’s charm and vitality. We in some respects to justify (2.2.198–212). hear throughout the play of how Antony’s obsession with this men have fallen for her charms, and “lass unparalleled” (5.2.310). Enobarbus’s speech serves like even the priggish Roman, Octavius How could anyone fail to be a hymn to Cleopatra. The imagery Caesar, notes that in death she intrigued by a woman who must have wooed Shakespeare looks “As she would catch another encompasses such infinite variety himself, for this speech owes much Antony” (5.2.341). Men see her as a of mood and behavior? It would to Shakespeare’s source, Thomas ❯❯ powerful seductress, a witch even, seem that everyone, from priests who holds them under her spell. to world leaders, finds something She is first described in derogatory extraordinary about Cleopatra. terms; she is, according to two She does not need to be in a scene, of Antony’s soldiers, a lusty or even on the stage to create a “strumpet” and “gypsy.” Angered lasting impression. From memory, by their general’s newfound Enobarbus conjures her stately domesticity, the soldiers speak of a appearance in one of the play’s woman who can transform a former most richly poetic passages: “pillar of the world” (1.1.12) into a “strumpet’s fool” (1.1.13). For them, I have offended reputation; her allure is intoxicating and A most unnoble swerving. dangerous, destroying Antony’s sense of duty and commitment Antony to Rome. Other hardened soldiers Act 3, Scene 11

282 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA North’s 1579 translation of “O, whither hast thou led pain of punishment the world to Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble me, Egypt? weet—/ We stand up peerless.” Grecians and Romans. Thomas Antony (1.1.35–42). North describes among other things, “the sails of purple,” the Act 3, Scene 11 Antony’s words suggest the “pavilion of cloth of gold of tissue,” extent to which he has fashioned and the “pretty fair boys apparelled and the next she wishes to himself as a convert to the as painters do set forth god Cupid, draw blood from a messenger. Egyptians’ way of being. The with little fans in their hands, with Cleopatra is predictable only Roman Antony is a builder of the which they fanned wind upon in her changeability. empires, one for whom expansion her.” By adapting his source and growth are key goals and material, Shakespeare added to the Love or duty motivations. But in this early variety of images of Cleopatra, both In their first interaction, Cleopatra speech, which serves to establish in print and paint, that have been badgers Antony to quantify his Antony’s state of mind, his focus created since her death in 30 BCE. love for her. His response plays is upon contraction and reduction to her taste for hyperbole: rather than extension. His In Antony’s eyes, Cleopatra is “Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the conquering ambitions have been a woman whom “everything wide arch / Of the ranged empire narrowed to the point at which he becomes” (1.1.51); her magnificence fall. Here is my space. / Kingdoms can say “Here is my space” shines through tantrums, laughter, are clay. Our dungy earth alike / (1.1.36)—here being in Egypt, by and tears. For Antony she is the Feeds beast as man. The nobleness the side of, or in the arms of personification of the country that of life / Is to do thus; when such a Cleopatra. Egypt and its queen she commands; she is an “Egyptian mutual pair / And such a twain have transformed Antony’s Roman dish” (2.6.126), and a “serpent of old can do’t—in which I bind / On understanding of honor and Nile” (1.5.25). She is however also nobility, and have changed him labeled as being a “wrangling from a conquering warrior into a queen” (1.1.50), a “triple-turned man whose ambition is to be part whore” (4.13.13), and “this false soul of a “mutual pair” (1.1.39). Nothing of Egypt” (4.13.25). Her temperament could be more romantic, or more is as fluid as the Nile itself: “If you self-centered, depending upon one’s find him sad, / Say I am dancing; if point of view. in mirth, report / That I am sudden sick” (1.3.3–5). One moment she In order to appreciate Antony’s wishes to hop around the streets, commitment to a life of pleasure, Shakespeare presents its Parallel Lives Shakespeare’s main source of Plutarch says of Demetrius and knowledge about the ancient Antony that both “abandoned world was a translation of themselves to luxury and Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble enjoyment.” However, he judges Greeks and Romans (also known Antony more severely. When as Parallel Lives). Written in the preparing for war, Demetrius’s 1st century CE, the work is a “spear was not tipped with ivy, collection of biographies of Greek nor did his helmet smell of and Roman figures, arranged in myrrh.” By contrast, Antony pairs. In each pair, a Roman from was “disarmed by Cleopatra, the recent past is compared to a subdued by her spells, and Greek figure from the remote past. persuaded to drop from his Plutarch paired Antony with hands great undertakings and Demetrius, a military leader who necessary campaigns, only to ruled Macedon from 294–288 BCE. roam about and play with her Demetrius died exactly 200 years on the sea-shores by Canopus before the birth of Antony. and Taphosiris.”

THE KING’S MAN 283 This foul Egyptian hath betrayèd me. My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder They cast their caps up and carouse together Like friends long lost. Triple-turned whore! Antony Act 4, Scene 13 antithesis in his depiction of Erotic Egypt Octavius, depicted here in a statue in Octavius Caesar, and life in Egypt is characterized as a place Rome, stands for Roman martial values Rome. In so doing, Shakespeare of excessive appetites, where eight in the play. The historical Octavius structured his play around wild roasted boars can be shared would go on to be proclaimed emperor contrasting worlds, filling his between 12 people for breakfast. of Rome following his defeat of Antony. drama with a variety of voices Caesar’s stomach churns at such and viewpoints. Caesar’s rhetoric extravagance: he would “rather fast duty? As ever, Shakespeare is cold and clinical; he speaks from all, four days, / Than drink presents a variety of questions, with the politician’s tongue. so much in one” (2.7.98–99). The but provides few answers. They Lacking the Egyptian’s taste Egyptians’ appetite for sexual are questions for actors to interpret for poetic indulgence, Caesar’s pleasure is also insatiable, but in and audiences to decide. Life speeches tend to be purely Rome covetousness and eroticism in Egypt has encouraged Antony functional, short, and succinct are substituted for marriage. to celebrate and feed his appetites, in expression. Caesar’s sense of Caesar’s sister Octavia functions but ultimately his decision to rigorous discipline leads him to like a pawn in a political game act against his natural “Roman” view Antony’s behavior in Egypt when Antony takes her as his wife. instinct comes at great personal as dishonorable; in Caesar’s The marriage symbolizes a reunion loss. As his devotion to Cleopatra judgment, Antony simply “fishes, between Antony and Rome, although leads to his defeat in battle, drinks, and wastes / The lamps of many presume that “He will to his Antony complains: “Authority night in revel; is not more manlike / Egyptian dish again” (2.6.126). melts from me of late. When Than Cleopatra” (1.4.4–6). Caesar I cried ‘Ho!,’ / Like boys unto a is too rash in his judgement of his Did Shakespeare intend his muss kings would start forth, / fellow triumvir: “’tis better playing audiences to side with Antony? And cry ‘Your will?’” (3.13.90–92). ❯❯ with a lion’s whelp / Than with an Is love more important than old one dying” (3.13.94–95). Like Cleopatra, Antony resists easy labeling; Shakespeare varies his presentation throughout the play, so that audiences see glimpses of the “plated Mars” (1.1.4) as well as the “strumpet’s fool” (1.1.13).

284 ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Duty Passion Honor Burden Sensuality Indulgence Soldier Lover Antony is torn between his duty toward Rome and his love for Cleopatra. In the end, he cannot resist the allure of Egypt and its queen. Burden of duty conscience, and blames Cleopatra something of a surprise to hear her Like King Lear, Antony wishes for his own weakness when he rhapsodize upon someone other to be free of his duties, but still deserts a battle in pursuit of her: than herself. Her emotional tribute desires to hold on to the authority “Egypt, thou knew’st too well / My to Antony, following his failed and accolades that such power heart was to thy rudder tied by th’ suicide, serves to augment her brings. He battles with his strings, / And thou shouldst tow lover’s reputation, encouraging me after. O’er my spirit / Thy full a personal rather than political Give me my robe. Put on supremacy thou knew’st, and that / assessment of the man’s life. my crown. I have Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods / Command me” Through Cleopatra, Shakespeare Immortal longings in me. (3.11.56–61). ensures that our final memory Now no more of Antony is not of a strumpet’s Although Cleopatra does fool, but of a Herculean god: The juice of Egypt’s grape much to endanger Antony, he “His legs bestrid the ocean; his shall moist this lip. remains devoted to her right up reared arm / Crested the world. Cleopatra to the end. Having experienced His voice was propertied / As all her infinite variety of moods to the tunéd spheres, and that to Act 5, Scene 2 the full, he wards off impending friends; / But when he meant to death to lay the “poor last” of quail and shake the orb, / He “many thousand kisses” (4.16.21) was as rattling thunder. For his upon her lips. bounty, / There was no winter in’t; an autumn ’twas, / That grew the Tribute to Antony more by reaping. His delights / Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare’s Were dolphin-like; they showed most self-absorbed and self-seeking his back above / The element characters, and thus it can come as they lived in. In his livery / Walked

Take up her bed, are often made public. Having THE KING’S MAN 285 And bear her women from listened to Antony declare his undying love for her, Cleopatra Death of Cleopatra the monument. turns to those around her to ask, She shall be buried by “Why did he marry Fulvia and not Shakespeare saves Cleopatra’s love her?” (1.1.43). Shakespeare greatest performance until her Antony. perhaps alludes to Antony’s the end of the play. She No grave upon the earth distaste for Cleopatra’s attention- orchestrates her death scene, seeking showiness when he which is full of theatricality, shall clip in it ventures that “Tonight we’ll ritual, and ceremony. The A pair so famous. wander through the streets and final Act, in which Cleopatra note / The qualities of people” prepares for death, can often Caesar (1.1.55–56). prove one of the play’s most powerful passages in Act 5, Scene 2 There is the slightest of performance. Shakespeare suggestions here that Antony shrinks the scope of his play. crowns and crownets. Realms and desires Cleopatra’s private Audiences are no longer islands were / As plates dropped company, away from the crowds invited to imagine movement from his pocket” (5.2.81–91). before whom she is constantly between continents, but are performing. Shakespeare also uses asked to feel Cleopatra’s grief The wonder of Cleopatra’s this line to make the extraordinary and loneliness. elaborate and rather fanciful tribute seem familiar. Though Antony and should have the effect of wiping all Cleopatra are powerful leaders Cleopatra calls for previous remembrances of Antony surrounded by wealth and luxury, Charmian and Iras to fetch her from one’s mind: “The crown o’th, they also value love’s simple best attire, so that she may earth doth melt” (4.16.65). pleasures enjoyed by lovers rich dress for death. Shakespeare and poor. ■ ensures that our final image of Cleopatra is of the queen in all Putting on a show of her greatness. Her language The Egyptian Queen is a is sexually charged, and in her consummate performer, who flows final moments she makes an from one mood to another with the ecstasy of death itself. She ease of an accomplished actress. talks of “immortal longings,” She wears many faces during the and figures that “the stroke of course of the play, expressing a death” is as a “lover’s pinch, / wide range of emotions: love, hate, Which hurts and is desired” fear, jealousy, suspicion, and pride. (5.2.290–291). While Antony’s Many of her conversations with botched suicide attempt is Antony are in fact played out in awkward and inelegant, front of an audience of attendants. Cleopatra remains in control The most private of conversations of herself, her image, and her reputation in death as in life. In Shakespeare’s time, Cleopatra would have been played by a boy actor. In a 1999 production at the Globe, London, that aimed for authenticity, Mark Rylance took on the role.

THE WEB OF OUR LIFE IS OF A MINGLED YARN GOOD AND ILL TOGETHER ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (1606–1607)



288 ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL DRAMATIS Bertram leaves his As the lords leave for The Duke of Florence PERSONAE widowed mother to join the wars, Bertram is welcomes the French angry at being forced Helen Orphan under the care the King of France. to stay behind. Helen lords who have of the Countess of Roussillon. appears in disguise volunteered to fight. She is in love with Bertram, before the King and son of the countess. offers to cure him. Bertram, Count of Roussillon An ambitious 1.1 2.1 3.1 young man, ward of the King. Act 1 Act 2 1.3 2.3 The Countess of Roussillon Bertram’s widowed mother, The Countess The King is cured. Helen chooses also guardian to Helen. discovers Helen’s Bertram as her husband, much to love for Bertram. Bertram’s disgust. He decides to The King of France Helen reveals her He begins the play suffering plan to cure the run off to the Florentine wars. from an incurable illness. King using one of her father’s drugs. Lafeu An elderly lord, who struggles to understand the F ollowing the death of his Lafeu introduces a disguised Helen younger generation. father, Bertram must leave to the court. She promises that if for the court. The Countess she fails to cure the King, she will Paroles Bertram’s friend, a and Lafeu discuss the King’s willingly be put to death, but if she renowned soldier, but secretly illness, and wish that the physician succeeds, the King must give her a coward and a liar, who is Gérard de Narbonne, was still alive a husband of her choice. The King revealed to be ready to betray to cure him. Narbonne’s daughter, is restored to health, and presents everyone to avoid torture. Helen, weeps—but for Bertram’s Helen with four lords as potential departure not for the death of her husbands. She chooses Bertram, Lavatch A gloomy, bad- father. The Countess learns of who is disgusted at the idea of being tempered clown, servant to Helen’s passion for her son. married to a physician’s daughter. the Countess of Roussillon. Bertram capitulates, but he refuses War has broken out between the to consummate the marriage. He The Duke of Florence dukedoms of Florence and Siena. The runs off to the Florentine wars with At war with his brother, the King of France refuses to send troops, Paroles. In letters to his mother and Duke of Siena. but gives permission for his young Helen, he insists that he will only noblemen to fight on either side. Diana A Florentine virgin, pursued by Bertram. The Widow Diana’s mother, who is eager to help Helen. Reynaldo The Countess’s steward, who prepares a letter from the Countess to her son in Paris. The Dumaine brothers French lords who ambush and interrogate Paroles, making him believe that he has been captured by the enemy.

THE KING’S MAN 289 Helen arrives in Paroles is captured The wars are now Bertram agrees to marry Florence disguised as by the fake enemy soldiers over, and Bertram is Lafeu’s daughter, but a pilgrim and lodges planning to return to and blindfolded. He France, having been when he is found to be in with a Widow. She immediately offers to told that Helen is dead. possession of Helen’s learns that Bertram betray the Florentine side. has been trying to ring, the King accuses seduce the Widow’s him of murder. Helen comes back to say that daughter, Diana. she has met Bertram’s conditions. He asks forgiveness. 3.5 4.1 4.3 5.3 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.2 3.7 4.2 4.5 The Countess reads Helen reveals Bertram declares his The Countess grieves Bertram’s letter telling herself as Bertram’s love for Diana. She for the death of wife. She persuades her that he has run the women to arrange persuades him to give up Helen, but she supports away. Helen reads a a sexual encounter a ring that has been in his Lafeu’s plan to marry letter setting down with Bertram, where family for generations and impossible conditions she will secretly take arranges a secret liaison. Bertram to his daughter. for their being man and wife. Helen decides to Diana’s place. leave France. acknowledge Helen when she has Helen reveals her true identity to the ring Diana gave him, the King a ring he never removes, and when the Widow. She offers money for recognizes it as belonging to Helen. she has conceived their child. Helen help in satisfying the conditions of Bertram is arrested on the charge of travels to Florence, where she Bertram’s letter. Diana will arrange murdering his wife. Diana arrives, takes lodgings with a Widow. She a sexual liaison with Bertram, but and accuses Bertram of breaking his discovers that Bertram has won favor Helen will take her place. Bertram promise to marry her. She produces for his bravery, and has been trying tries again to seduce Diana. He gives the ring Bertram gave her, which the to seduce the Widow’s beautiful her his ancestral ring, and after their Countess recognizes as the family daughter, Diana. assignation, she gives him another heirloom. Diana refuses to explain ring in return. Bertram is informed how she got the ring, and is arrested. The other lords in the Florentine that Helen is dead, and leaves for She sends for someone to stand bail, army pretend to be enemy soldiers, France to be reconciled to the King. and Helen enters. She declares that take Paroles captive, and blindfold the conditions Bertram set have him. Paroles reveals everything he The King forgives Bertram and been met. Bertram asks for her knows about his fellow soldiers. supports his proposed marriage to forgiveness, and promises to love When the blindfold is removed, Lafeu’s daughter. However, when her in the future. ❯❯ Paroles’s reputation is ruined. Bertram offers as a betrothal gift

290 ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL IN CONTEXT T he title of Shakespeare’s T’were all one comedy All’s Well That That I should love a bright THEMES Ends Well could arguably Love, betrayal, end with a question mark. As particular star bereavement, and death American author John Jay Chapman And think to wed it, he wrote in 1915: “Melancholy SETTING moulders in the very title of it; for is so above me. Roussillon and Paris, we feel that all is not well, nor ever Helen France, and Florence, Italy has been nor can be well again.” Act 1, Scene 1 SOURCES The play’s “mingled yarn” is one 1353 Italian poet Giovanni reason for the uncertain reactions Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” Boccaccio’s Decameron is the it has provoked. Although it makes along with Measure for Measure, main source of the play. use of a number of fairytale and Troilus and Cressida, and even folkloric conventions, including sometimes Hamlet. This is not 1566–67 Shakespeare the hero who is set a series of a term that Shakespeare would probably read Boccaccio’s impossible tasks and the bedtrick have recognized, as it was story in English translator (where one woman substitutes for invented in the 19th century to William Painter’s Palace another to secure a husband), the describe Norwegian playwright of Pleasure. psychological insight with which Henrik Ibsen’s plays, but it is still the characters are written, and the a useful way of thinking about LEGACY realistic setting in which they All’s Well. The features of a problem 1741 The first recorded are placed make these elements play include the interweaving performance of the play opens highly problematic. Indeed, All’s of fantastic plots with realistic at Drury Lane, London, with Well has often been labeled one of Peg Woffington as Helen. On learning of Helen’s passion 1981 US playwright Don Nigro for her son, the countess (Janie Dee, writes Loves Labours Wonne, right, at the Globe, 2011) supports a play about Shakespeare’s Helen’s (Ellie Piercy) plan to prove life. In the play, Anne her worthiness by curing the King. Hathaway resembles Helen, in that she wins Shakespeare in marriage by curing his father, John. 2000 In US children’s author Gary Blackwood’s novel Shakespeare’s Scribe, an apprentice, Widge, helps Shakespeare to write All’s Well. 2012 All’s Well That Ends Well, translated into Gujarati, is performed by the Mumbai- based company Arpana at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. The action is relocated to northwest India in 1900.

THE KING’S MAN 291 Helen (Joanna Horton, in this 2013 RSC production) cures the king (Greg Hicks) using her father’s drugs. As a reward, Helen is offered a choice of husbands. She chooses Bertram. characters, the struggle to resolve an ethical dilemma, and the experience of emotional suffering including grief. All’s Well fits all of these criteria. Its mingling of comedy and tragedy is beautifully exemplified by Helen when, having been declared dead, she reappears on stage “quick,” which means both alive and pregnant. Yet even this joyful conclusion has often been felt to be overshadowed by the darker undercurrents of the play. Ambivalent virtue Adonis, Bertram is still young, and revenge himself upon Bertram, The first problem is Bertram. If we in the process of becoming a man. which would place Bertram in are to delight in Helen’s achieving The desire of a woman like Helen the role of Juliet. her ambition to marry him, we have threatens to confine him in the to believe that he is worthy—and feminine domestic space he has This all matters less if we this is where audiences have only just succeeded in escaping. can believe that the marriage of struggled. In general, the play Bertram also falls foul of the Bertram and Helen will prove a sees human beings as deeply institution of wardship. This good thing for him as well as ambivalent: “Our virtues would was a system, much criticized in for her. But the play struggles be proud / if our faults whipped Shakespeare’s time, that gave an to reconcile the forceful and them not, and our crimes would / elder guardian control over the manipulative Helen with despair if they were not cherished young man’s marriage, usually to contemporary ideals of female by our virtues” (4.3.75–77). He his/her own advantage. In All’s modesty and submissiveness. ❯❯ demonstrates courage and loyalty Well, we might argue that it is as a soldier, but at the same time, unfair on Bertram that he should I think not on my father, he is trying to seduce a young be married to pay the King’s debt, And these great tears grace virgin with false promises. In the and especially to a woman whom final scene, he expresses remorse he declares he cannot love. Equally his remembrance more for Helen’s loss and even claims to troubling is the emasculation that Than those I shed for him. love her, but then shows himself is built into this process. The to be incapable of telling the truth, King’s wards are paraded in front What was he like? slandering Diana, whom he had of Helen so that she may “send I have forgot him. also professed to love. forth [her] eye” (2.3.53) and choose one. By this means, Helen adopts Helen We might defend Bertram on the traditionally masculine role the grounds that he is suffering of wooer, while Bertram is Act 1, Scene 1 from the crisis of masculinity that placed in the role of passive occurs elsewhere in Shakespeare. female. There is even an echo of Like Adonis, who prefers hunting Capulet in Romeo and Juliet in the boar over Venus’s seductions in the King’s threats to exile and Shakespeare’s poem Venus and

292 ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL Helen registers what an impossible situation she is in when she has to choose Bertram: “I dare not say I take you, but I give / Me and my service ever whilst I live / Into your guiding power” (2.3.103–105). If Bertram was not enamored with Helen before, he certainly will not be now. It is no coincidence that the woman he does actively desire, Diana, is named after the goddess of chastity. She inspires his lust precisely because she seems impervious to love herself. Furthermore, the play implies an unflattering parallel between Helen and Paroles. Both are ambitious, lower-class characters whose designs on Bertram promise to be socially advantageous to them. More specifically, Helen’s use of the bedtrick is morally suspect, in that she forces Bertram to have sex with someone against his will, and uses Diana as a public scapegoat for her own desires. Social mobility degraded, by uniting with the Held up high by his comrades, A further ethical debate centers lower-class Helen. The King Bertram (Alex Waldmann in a 2013 around the meaning and argues that all titles were once RSC production) wins praise for his importance of class distinctions. bestowed for worthy service, bravery in war. By contrast, the war Bertram insists that he will be and so he can make Helen reveals Paroles to be a coward. shamed, and his noble lineage Bertram’s social equal on the basis of her virtue. What the play tries to do toward the Wars is no strife end is to argue that, rather To the dark house and Although this sounds very than jeopardizing Bertram’s class progressive, it is at odds with status, Helen actually preserves the detested wife. assumptions elsewhere in the it. He carelessly gives away his Bertram play, and beyond it. One of the few ancestral ring, but Helen takes guidelines for wardship was that it into her own safe-keeping. Act 2, Scene 3 the ward was not supposed to be Equally, Bertram thinks he is married to anyone socially beneath wasting his noble seed in an him. Furthermore, the King may illicit sexual encounter, but argue that everyone’s blood is Helen takes possession of this, ultimately the same, but he would too, and nurtures it into an heir hardly be in his own position of to honor him. royal privilege were that the case.

’Tis only title thou disdain’st the couple, or as a long-awaited THE KING’S MAN 293 in her, the which expression of Helen’s rage against her husband. The braggart soldier I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods, Ultimately, the understanding For Shakespeare’s audience, that life is like a “mingled yarn, Paroles would have been an Of colour, weight, and heat, good and ill together” is reserved instantly recognizable comic poured all together, for the older generation. When type. The braggart soldier, she discovers Helen’s love, the whose much vaunted courage Would quite confound Countess reflects on her own past on the battlefield turns out distinction, yet stands off lovesickness, and concludes that it to be a sham, had been a In differences so mighty. is an essential part of being young: popular figure in classical “this thorn / Doth to our rose of comedy, and appears King of France youth rightly belong” (1.3.125–126). elsewhere in Shakespeare’s She also questions the value of plays in the guise of Pistol in Act 2, Scene 3 young love: “Such were our faults— Henry IV Part 2 and Falstaff or then we thought them none” (131). in Henry IV and Henry V. Problematic reconciliation? The character’s popularity The final reconciliation scene However, it remains to be seen in the 17th century was can be read and performed in a whether Helen’s idolatrous passion such that King Charles I number of different ways. Bertram for Bertram or his “sick desires” wrote “Monsieur Paroles” may be transfigured by the return for Diana will be assuaged by next to the title in his private of dead Helen, sometimes dressed marriage, and indeed whether they copy of All’s Well That Ends in white like an avenging angel will be able to put these events Well, and the play was or the Virgin Mary. He may be behind them. Can we imagine subsequently adapted to filled with gratitude as she Bertram and Helen a few years on, expand his part. releases him from his arrest for teasing one another about the fact murder and exonerates him from that Bertram was once accused of For all his shocking any crime against Diana. hating his wife so much he might betrayal of his friend Bertram have killed her? Or is that part of and his fellow soldiers, Freed from the influence of the weave always likely to bring Paroles gains a certain amount Paroles and his hyper-masculine Helen sorrow because Bertram of sympathy from his obvious ethos, Bertram may give way to never fulfils his promise to “love relief at abandoning the an attraction to Helen that he her dearly, ever, ever dearly” pretense: “Simply the thing has always secretly felt. Equally, (5.3.318)? The difficulties that have I am / Shall make me live” Helen’s reaction to Bertram takes to be overcome may be too great (4.3.334–335). In the 2013 on many different hues. A review for the ending to feel anything RSC production, as played of the 1992 RSC production, other than bittersweet. ■ by Jonathan Slinger, Paroles directed by Sir Peter Hall, drops the Sandhurst accent describes how, “With a pained, A young man married is a that he had used to ingratiate dignified ‘et cetera’ (uttered after man that’s marred. himself, and finally accepts a beautifully pointed pause), she Paroles his homosexuality. spares both of them a full recital, and then determinedly rends the Act 2, Scene 3 paper in two.” We might interpret this action as a fresh start for

THIS WORLD TO ME IS BUT A CEASELESS STORM WHIRRING ME FROM MY FRIENDS PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE (1607)



296 PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE DRAMATIS Gower narrates the Still fleeing from Thaliart, Thaisa seemingly PERSONAE story of Pericles, Pericles is shipwrecked, dies giving birth en beginning with the washing up on the shores John Gower The narrator, incestuous King route to Tyre. The who also delivers the epilogue. Antiochus. Pericles of Pentapolis. superstitious sailors insist that her body be Pericles, Prince of Tyre works out Antiochus’s thrown overboard. Husband of Thaisa, father riddle but the king to Marina. secretly orders his murder. Thaisa Daughter of King Simonides, wife to Pericles, 1 5 11 and mother to Marina. Scenes 1–5 Scenes 7–11 Antiochus King of Antioch, 3 7&9 intent on having Pericles killed when Pericles discovers The hired villain Thaliart Disguised for fear of his Antiochus’s incestuous arrives in Tyre to poison life, Pericles takes part relationship with his daughter. Pericles, who manages to escape to Tarsus. in a tournament for Thaliart Villain hired by the suitors of King Antiochus to murder Pericles. Simonides’ daughter. After winning the Helicanus Loyal advisor tournament, Pericles to Pericles. marries Thaisa. Simonides King of Pentapolis T he medieval poet Gower Arriving in Tarsus, Pericles and father to Thaisa. Allows acts as the narrator relating relieves the famine-struck city Pericles to marry his daughter. the story of Pericles, Prince with corn, earning the gratitude of Tyre. His story begins with King of the governor Cleon and his wife Marina Daughter of Pericles Antiochus whose daughter’s suitors Dioniza. After setting sail again in and Thaisa, born at sea. must answer a riddle in order to a storm, Pericles is shipwrecked on Dogged by misfortune, her win her hand. Pericles solves the the shores of Pentapolis, losing all virtue and chastity ensure riddle, which exposes Antiochus’s his possessions except his armor. her safety. incestuous lust and forces Pericles He is rescued by fishermen and is to flee back to Tyre for safety. King taken incognito to the court of Cleon Governor of Tarsus. Antiochus sends the villainous King Simonides, who is celebrating Indebted to Pericles, he Thaliart to murder Pericles. Pericles his daughter Thaisa’s birthday pledges to protect and hears of Thaliart’s murderous plans with a tournament. Pericles wins raise Marina. and escapes on a ship to Tarsus, the jousting competition and the leaving his trusted counselor king grants him the hand of Dioniza Wife of Cleon, she Helicanus to govern Tyre. Princess Thaisa. is jealous of Marina and plots to murder her. Cerimon A physician in Ephesus who helps restore Thaisa to life when she washes up on the shore. Lysimachus Governor of Mytilene. Diana Goddess of chastity.

THE KING’S MAN 297 The governor of Mytilene, Lysimachus, Thaisa’s body is frees Marina from the washed up onto the brothel. When Marina shores of Ephesus where a physician sings for the prince he revives her from a deathlike sleep and eventually realizes Gower explains how the takes her to the Temple villainous are punished of Diana where she Dioniza’s plans to murder that she is his serves as a priestess. and the virtuous Marina are thwarted when daughter. Pericles rewarded, pointing to the honorable Pericles and his the girl is kidnapped by agrees to Marina’s family as good examples. pirates and sold to a betrothal to brothel at Mytilene. Lysimachus. 12 15 & 16 19 & 21 22 Scenes 12–16 Scenes 19–22 11 15 18 21 Pericles decides to take the Gower narrates the Pericles is told that Marina Pericles has a vision newborn child, Marina, to events of Marina’s has died. Grief-stricken, he of the goddess Diana youth. She is now a Tarsus to be raised by the young woman and, vows to never speak again and who tells him to governor Cleon and his wife. Cleon’s jealous wife to spend the rest of his life in travel to Ephesus Dioniza arranges where he is reunited for her murder. mourning on the seas. with Thaisa. Meanwhile, King Antiochus has Gower recounts how 14 years have while she is there she is able to died so Pericles is safe to reveal his passed during which time Marina convince the governor Lysimachus, identity as Prince of Tyre and return has grown into a virtuous young who has visited the brothel in home with his now pregnant wife. woman, attracting the envy of disguise, to help her. When On the way to Tyre, they encounter Dioniza, who conspires to have Pericles’ ship arrives by chance at a tempest, during which Thaisa her murdered. Marina flees, but is Mytilene, Lysimachus tries to cheer appears to die giving birth to a abducted by pirates who sell her the sorrow-drowned Pericles by daughter and, at the insistence of to a brothel in Mytilene. Pericles sending Marina to sing to him. the sailors, is buried at sea. Pericles has returned to Tarsus to find sails to Tarsus where he entrusts Marina but is falsely told that she Hearing Marina’s life’s story, his daughter, now named Marina, is dead, causing him to pledge Pericles joyfully realizes she is to the indebted Cleon and Dioniza. himself to a lifetime of silent his daughter. The goddess Diana mourning sailing the seas. appears to Pericles in a dream Thaisa’s coffin is washed ashore telling him to visit her temple at at Ephesus where a physician Marina has steadfastly clung Ephesus. Pericles journeys there revives her and sends her to be a to her chastity, to the annoyance with Marina and is miraculously priestess at the Temple of Diana. of her bawd (brothel madam), but reunited with his wife, Thaisa. ❯❯

298 PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE IN CONTEXT S hakespeare shaped his plays Why, as men do a-land—the to satisfy his audience’s great ones eat up the little ones. THEMES expectations. People Life’s journey, love, fate, attending a tragedy would expect Master fisherman family, endurance, reunion to see a tableau of death by the play’s close; those attending a Scene 5 SETTING romance or comedy anticipated Antioch, Tyre, Tarsus, marriages and reunions. Pericles, is emotionally exhausted. Grief Pentapolis, Ephesus, Prince of Tyre is no exception. In has transformed the voyager; as Mytilene (Mediterranean) this romance, Shakespeare Helicanus suggests, when he draws separates his protagonist from his back a curtain to reveal Pericles SOURCES wife and daughter in order to build with an overgrown beard, “This 1390s Shakespeare used John toward their reunion at the close. was a goodly person / Till the Gower’s Apollonius (Pericles) Pericles is tossed upon the seas disaster of one mortal night / Drove of Tyre included in Confessio of the Mediterranean from shore him to this” (21.29–30). Separated Amantis. Gower expanded to shore and must endure life’s from his wife and daughter, Pericles on the popular Greek story. “ceaseless storm” (15.71) in order, at all but withdraws from society. the end of the story, to appreciate 1576 Shakespeare also took fully the pleasures of reconciliation. Emotional reunion some details from Laurence Shakespeare’s presentation of Twine’s novella The Pattern Believing his wife and daughter Pericles’s reunion with his daughter of Painful Adventures. to be dead, Pericles slips into a near Marina is a moving moment. The comatose state. Twenty scenes into couple’s gradual realization that LEGACY the drama Shakespeare asks his they are father and daughter is 1623 Pericles is not included audience to imagine that Pericles developed across the space of some in the First Folio, leading to “for this three months hath not hundred lines. Marina begins persistent doubts surrounding spoken” (21.18). The protagonist by telling Pericles that she has its authorship. “endured a grief” (21.76) that may equal his own. By this point in the 1659 The play is one of the play, audiences will be acutely first staged after the reopening aware of the misfortunes that have of the theaters by Charles II. befallen both characters. They will also be aware that Pericles believes 1738 George Lillo puts on an his daughter to be dead. Having adaptation of the play called listened to Marina’s opening words, Marina at Covent Garden. Pericles shares his private thoughts with the audience in an aside that 1983 The BBC film the play with Mike Gwilym as Pericles, John Gower, illustrated in this and Juliet Stevenson as Thaisa. 14th-century manuscript, was a popular poet and storyteller. Shakespeare drew 2003 Yukio Ninagawa’s on his retelling of the Greek tale and Japanese production creates a made Gower the narrator in the play. fairy-tale world using human puppet shows. It played at the National Theatre, London. 2012 The National Theatre of Greece produces the play as part of the Shakespeare World Festival running alongside the Olympic Games.