50 TITUS ANDRONICUS DRAMATIS Titus names The wedding Marcus discovers PERSONAE Saturninus emperor of parties go to the Lavinia with her Rome, but they quarrel. tongue and hands Titus Andronicus forest to hunt. Celebrated military hero Saturninus marries cut off. of Rome, conqueror of the Tamora, who promises to Goths, father of 25 sons take revenge on Titus for and one daughter. killing her son. Tamora Queen of the Goths, later married to Saturninus; 1.1 2.2 2.4 mother of Alarbus, Chiron, Act 1 Act 2 and Demetrius. 2.1 2.3 Saturninus Emperor of Rome and husband of Tamora. Aaron advises Chiron and Demetrius Chiron and stab Bassianus to death, Aaron A Moor in Tamora’s and then rape Lavinia. service; also Tamora’s lover Demetrius to satisfy Aaron frames two of Titus’s and a self-professed villain. their lust for Lavinia sons for the crime. Demetrius and Chiron in the forest. Malevolent sons of Tamora. S aturninus and Bassianus The weddings of Saturninus and Lavinia Titus’s only daughter, quarrel over who should Tamora and Lavinia and Bassianus betrothed to Bassianus. become Emperor of Rome. are celebrated with a hunt. Aaron Marcus tells them that the hero, finds Chiron and Demetrius Bassianus Saturninus’s Titus Andronicus, is also a arguing over their love for Lavinia, younger brother and the candidate, but Titus uses his and tells them to use the occasion husband of Lavinia. influence with the people to name of the hunt to rape Lavinia and Saturninus emperor. Saturninus murder Bassianus. He plots to pin Marcus Andronicus offers to marry Titus’s daughter the crime on Titus’s sons, Martius Titus’s brother. Lavinia as a reward, but Bassianus and Quintus. Chiron and Demetrius insists that he is betrothed to her. kill Bassianus and throw his body Lucius One of Titus’s sons, Saturninus is angry and decides to into a pit. They rape Lavinia. Aaron later banished from Rome. marry Tamora instead. She makes leads Martius and Quintus to the peace between the new emperor pit, into which they fall. Saturninus Martius and Quintus and Titus, but secretly vows to take discovers his brother’s body and Titus’s sons, later framed revenge upon the whole family. has Quintus and Martius arrested. for Bassianus’s murder. Mutius One of Titus’s sons, accidentally killed by Titus. Young Lucius Lucius’s son. Publius Son of Marcus Andronicus. Sempronius, Caius, and Valentine Relatives of the Andronicus family. Aemilius A Roman noble, who acts as a herald and a messenger.
THE FREELANCE WRITER 51 Lavinia uses Ovid’s Titus, now Lucius threatens to At the banquet, Titus poem Metamorphoses apparently driven hang Aaron and his feeds Tamora a pie mad, seeks divine child but Aaron promises to tell her family to divulge his secrets. baked from her that she was raped. justice. sons’ flesh. Tamora, Titus, and Saturninus are all killed, and Lucius becomes emperor of Rome. Act 3 4.1 4.3 5.1 5.3 3.1 Act 4 4.4 Act 5 4.2 5.2 Titus cuts off his hand Tamora orders that Lucius is returning to Tamora, disguised in an attempt to save his her newborn child Rome with the Goth troops. as Revenge, invites with Aaron should be Tamora promises to persuade sons, but Aaron has killed because it is Titus to stop the attack. Titus to hold a tricked him and sends black. Aaron kills the banquet at his back his sons’ heads. nurse who brings it house. Titus slits the throats of to him and saves Chiron and the child. Demetrius. Titus’s son Lucius reveals that he child is black, Tamora wishes it Titus, dressed as a cook, presides has been banished, and sees the killed. Aaron plots to swap it for over the banquet at his house. He mutilated Lavinia. Aaron tells Titus a white infant, and to have the kills Lavinia in front of his guests, that if he, Martius, or Lucius will latter’s parents bring up his child. saying that she had been raped cut off his hand and send it to the by Chiron and Demetrius, both of emperor, his sons’ lives will be When news arrives that Lucius whom have been baked in the pie spared. Titus sends his own hand, is returning with Goth troops, the guests have been eating. He which is returned to him, with the Tamora promises to persuade Titus stabs Tamora, and Saturninus kills heads of Martius and Quintus. to call off the attack. In disguise Titus. Lucius then kills Saturninus. as Revenge, with Demetrius and Marcus and Lucius tell the Roman Lavinia writes the names of Chiron as Murder and Rape, she people what has happened and her attackers in the sand. Marcus, visits Titus whom she thinks does Lucius is named emperor. Aaron Titus, Young Lucius, and Lavinia not recognize them. She asks him is sentenced to death. Saturninus, swear an oath of vengeance. to invite Lucius to a banquet, Titus, and Lavinia are interred in where she will bring Saturninus their family tombs, but Tamora is The Nurse brings to Aaron an and the Empress. Tamora leaves denied any funeral rites. ❯❯ infant—his child with Tamora— her sons with Titus, who kills them. and tells him that because the
52 TITUS ANDRONICUS T itus Andronicus is Escalating violence perhaps best known for Perhaps most horrifying is the IN CONTEXT its extreme violence. It moment when Tamora realizes that features at least five stabbings, she has consumed the flesh of her THEMES two throat slittings, and one hand own children, but cannibalism is Revenge, fatherhood, amputation—and this is only the an idea that resonates throughout motherhood, lust, madness violence that happens onstage. It the play. One of the challenges of does not include the rape and revenge tragedy is how to exceed SETTING mutilation of Lavinia. the initial crime. Titus’s main Late Imperial Rome act of revenge against Tamora The play was probably written for destroying his family will SOURCES in collaboration with George Peele, be murder. Why should he also No direct sources are known, who is thought to be responsible require that she devour her sons? but Shakespeare may have mainly for the first act. It was drawn on the following: undoubtedly influenced by One explanation is his need 8 CE Ovid’s Metamorphoses. theatrical fashion, and may have to punish her sexual appetite by A copy of the poem is used recalled Peele’s The Battle of turning it into a kind of monstrous on stage in the play. Alcazar (c.1591), in which severed feeding, “bid[ding] that strumpet, heads appear in a banquet, or the your unhallowed dam, / Like to the 1st century CE Thyestes, a hand-chopping scene in Selimus earth swallow her own increase” gory revenge story by Roman (c.1592), by Robert Greene and (5.2.190–191). But the play is also playwright Seneca. Thomas Lodge. The play’s violence pervaded by a kind of maternal has been called gratuitous—to the dread, where the mother is an 13th century Gesta extent that critics used to deny that all-consuming figure, against Romanorum, an anonymous Shakespeare could have written it. whom the male child must collection of fictionalized However, the violence has deeper struggle to define himself. This Roman legends and myths. political and cultural meanings. fear emerges in some unlikely places. For example, the pit into LEGACY Demetrius and Chiron are soon which Martius and Quintus fall 1594 The first recorded to be baked into pie in this 2006 (with dead Bassianus at the performance is in January, production of Titus Andronicus at bottom) is hailed: “What subtle hole at the Rose Theatre, London. the Globe Theatre, London, with is this, / Whose mouth is covered The play appears in print in Douglas Hodge in the lead role. with rude-growing briers / Upon February of that year. 1850s American actor Ira Aldridge plays Aaron in a heavily adapted version. It is the only 19th-century revival. 1923 The unexpurgated version of the play is staged at the Old Vic, London, for the first time in 250 years. 1987 Deborah Warner’s uncut production for the Royal Shakespeare Company brings out the full horror of the play. 1999 American director Julie Taymor casts Anthony Hopkins as Titus in a film adaptation of the play.
THE FREELANCE WRITER 53 A nobler man, a braver warrior, Titus himself shapes what Tamora Aaron Lives not this day within becomes by making her first-born the city walls. son, Alarbus, a sacrifice. Tamora’s Aaron is an early villain in Marcus Andronicus accusation, “O cruel, irreligious Shakespeare, the forefather of piety!” (1.1.130), is hard to argue Don John in Much Ado About Act 1, Scene 1 with. Titus and Tamora are both Nothing (pp.154–61), and Iago driven to violence through their in Othello (pp.240–49). whose leaves are drops of new-shed sense of shame: Titus kills his son, blood / …A very fatal place it Mutius, in a rage at being defied in The monstrous glee he seems to me” (2.3.198–200, 202). In front of the Emperor; Tamora vows shows at his own villainy this way, the play anticipates the revenge against Andronicus for links him to the comic Vice literal feeding that the female making a queen kneel to him. Both of the medieval morality play, mouth will perform at the end. characters represent a challenge but he has become a much to the core Roman values Titus more troubling figure in Roman values is supposed to embody, implying modern times because of the A mother figure is absent among that there are dangerous tensions connection that he makes the Andronici clan. The mother of between them, not least between between his evil and his Titus’s 26 children is dead, and personal honor and family loyalty. ethnicity. In particular, his there is no mention of a wife for wish to “have his soul black Lucius. Nevertheless, disturbing Rome itself fulfils its reputation like his face” (3.1.204) might parallels emerge between father for ingratitude when it banishes seem to justify long-held and mother, Roman and Goth, one of Titus’s sons and condemns associations of blackness which complicate the roles of both two others to death, ignoring his with devil-worship, treachery, Titus and Tamora. Titus has buried pleas for mercy. By making Tamora and lust. The ease with which 20 sons before the play begins, all devour her sons, Titus could be Aaron assimilates himself into killed in wars, and his first action seen as forcing her to act like Rome suggests that he can in the play is to place a coffin in the the ungrateful city. But although convincingly assume Roman family tomb. In the original staging, Tamora’s body may be cast beyond values—he can read Latin the trapdoor would probably have the walls at the end, the anxieties texts better than Chiron and been used to signify the tomb, and tensions she represents will Demetrius, and he is more and also the pit in Act 2—thereby remain at the very heart of Rome. ■ paternal than Titus. But he creating a sinister likeness remains a difficult figure for between these spaces. At the start Hark, villains, I will grind modern productions. Julie of the play we discover that Titus is your bones to dust, Taymor’s 1999 film Titus was “surnamèd Pius” (1.1.23). This was accused by critics of simply a title associated with Aeneas, one And with your blood and updating its racial stereotypes of the founders of Rome. It signified it I’ll make a paste, by identifying Aaron with the the best Roman values of honor, contemporary “supercool piety, and familial loyalty. And of the paste a coffin hipster,” “sexual athlete,” I will rear, and “nihilistic gangster.” By contrast, Tamora is described as all that is un-Roman: promiscuous, And make two pasties of treacherous, and bestial. And yet, your shameful heads, Titus Andronicus Act 5, Scene 2
MADE GLORIOUS SUMMER BY THIS SON OF YORK RICHARD III (1592)
56 RICHARD III DRAMATIS Richard describes the At court, Richard Although Clarence PERSONAE transition from war-torn past angers Queen believes that his brother to Edward’s present sunny Richard loves him, he is Richard, Duke of Elizabeth and her murdered in prison Gloucester Later Richard III. reign, and confides to us family by accusing by Richard’s assassins. his destructive plans. them of ambitious King Edward IV and George, Duke of Clarence plotting. Richard’s brothers. 1.1 1.3 1.4 Duchess of York Act 1 Their mother. 1.2 1.3 Queen Elizabeth Wife of Edward IV and mother Richard woos Lady Old Queen Margaret of Edward, Prince of Wales, Anne across the coffin of curses the whole Richard, Duke of York, and her father-in-law, Henry VI. Princess Elizabeth. court, predicting that Richard will bring Edward, Prince of Wales each of them down. and Richard, Duke of York Young sons of Edward IV and T he long and bloody civil her father-in-law, Henry VI. Queen Elizabeth. war between the houses Then Richard plots against family of York and Lancaster has and friends. He engineers the Duke of Buckingham ended with the murder, in prison, imprisonment and death of his Trusted confidant who assists of the Lancastrian King Henry VI. brother Clarence, news of which Richard to the throne. Edward IV of York now reigns, and sends his eldest brother, King England can rejoice in peace. This Edward IV, to an early grave. Lord Hastings Lord is what Edward’s brother Richard Chamberlain to Edward IV. tells us at the opening of the play. Helped by the Duke of He then invites us to watch as, Buckingham, Richard sends Lord Stanley Earl of Derby with devious skill, he takes the Edward’s sons—the young and stepfather to Richmond. throne for himself. Edward V and Richard, Duke of York—to the Tower of London. Rivers, Grey, and Dorset Initially, we are intrigued When their mother’s family objects, Queen Elizabeth’s brother, and by Richard’s daring. He woos he has her male relatives executed. her sons by her first marriage. and wins Lady Anne as she All of this is predicted by Henry escorts the funeral procession of VI’s widow, old Queen Margaret Queen Margaret Widow of Henry VI, the last of the Lancastrians, who prophesies against the House of York. Lady Anne Widow of Henry VI’s son, Edward. Henry, Earl of Richmond Stepson to Stanley, and later Henry VII. Tyrrel An assassin employed by Richard.
THE FREELANCE WRITER 57 The young princes arrive Buckingham Richard tries to persuade At the Battle of in London to learn that presents a pious, Queen Elizabeth to let him Bosworth Richard is Richard has imprisoned modest Richard to marry her daughter; she killed by Richmond, their uncles and they are who takes the crown to lodge in the Tower. the citizens of pretends to agree. and promises peace. London. Richard feigns reluctance to accept the throne. Act 2 3.1 3.7 4.4 5.6 2.1 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.4 4.1 5.5 King Edward Richard accuses Anne learns that Richard and Richmond attempts to reconcile Hastings of treason Richard has declared are visited by the and has him executed ghosts of Richard’s Queen Elizabeth’s himself King when family and his own, but without trial. she, Elizabeth, and the victims as they sleep. Richard destroys this Duchess are prevented Richard tries in vain to with news of Clarence’s from visiting the princes execution. King Edward persuade himself dies soon afterwards. in the Tower. he’s not a villain. who, filled with grief, haunts the Clouds gather for Richard as his Queen won’t change sides. On the palace and in vain warns everyone surviving friends and enemies join eve of the Battle of Bosworth, both against Richard. forces. Buckingham deserts him to Richard and Richmond dream of assist an invasion force from France the ghosts of Richard’s victims, Richard now seeks the support led by the Earl of Richmond. As who promise Richmond fortune and of London’s citizens in making Richard moves from London to curse Richard as a traitor, murderer, himself king. Their silence shows challenge Richmond, his progress and villain. Richard wakes public unease at Richard’s ambition is interrupted by his mother, the sweating and tries to dismiss but Buckingham stage-manages Duchess of York, and Queen their words. But the voice of his this into approval and Richard Elizabeth who condemn him. He conscience declares him guilty. takes the crown. Denied access tries to turn this to his advantage When they meet in battle Richmond to her sons, Queen Elizabeth fears by persuading the Queen to let him kills the unhorsed Richard. Finally, the worst. Once he’s on the throne, marry Princess Elizabeth, now that Richmond promises that he and Richard tells Buckingham he Anne, too, is dead. Their encounter Elizabeth will bring England the wants his nephews dead. When is a powerful one and Richard peace and prosperity that Richard Buckingham hesitates, Richard believes he has won. But the described at the start. ❯❯ orders Tyrrel to kill them.
58 RICHARD III R ichard’s opening speech Are you drawn forth among sets the stage by moving a world of men IN CONTEXT us from the wintry horrors of the battlefield to the summer To slay the innocent? THEMES holiday that peace has brought, Clarence Murderous villainy, “Now is the winter of our ambition, loss, retribution discontent / Made glorious summer Act 1, Scene 4 by this son of York” (1.1.1–2). Only SETTING Richard’s discontent remains. 15th-century London and Mocking the idle courtly life in a Leicestershire tone that is increasingly ironic, he resolves to let his dissatisfaction SOURCES darken Edward IV’s sun-filled reign. 1st century The tragedies of Roman playwright Seneca. Politics and the past climbers—“silken, sly, insinuating Richard is a more subtle operator jacks” (1.3.53). He then blames them 14th–15th centuries The in this fourth play of Shakespeare’s for his plots—the imprisonment of figure of Vice in morality plays; Henry VI tetralogy than he was in his brother Clarence and Lord the cyclical pattern and biblical part 3. Where once he would have Hastings—and accuses them of parallels of the mystery plays. used violence, now he manipulates having ambitious designs on the court in-fighting and the self-interest new young king. This allows him to c.1520 Thomas More’s of ambitious men. Shakespeare play the kindly uncle and lodge the History of King Richard III. gives him the cunning of a two boys in the Tower of London. Machiavel, and reinforces this by Shortly afterward he has Rivers, LEGACY moving most of the bloodletting Dorset, and Grey executed. 1590s Date of the first off-stage—although not every performance is unknown, but modern director keeps it there. Such a swift rise to power five reprints of the text by 1623 relies on the collusion of others. suggest the play was popular. Queen Elizabeth was a widow Buckingham, Catesby, Hastings, who married Edward IV after the Bishop of Ely, even Richmond’s 1700 Colley Cibber’s refusing to be his mistress, much to stepfather, Stanley, may not be adaptation dominates the his family’s disgust. Richard plays duped by Richard, but they all stage until the late 1800s. on class consciousness, setting up stay silent about what they know. her brother and two young sons 1955 Laurence Olivier’s Old by her former marriage as social Vic production is, for some, the definitive Richard III. I am determinèd to Settling history’s account prove a villain To a degree, Richard’s plotting 1963–64 Peter Hall and brings down those figures who John Barton’s RSC adaptation And hate the idle pleasures were disloyal to the House of York makes Richard, portrayed of these days. during the civil war. Most of this by a boyish Ian Holm, the Richard is predicted by old Queen Margaret, dysfunctional product of a the widow of Henry VI, who appears bloody feud. Act 1, Scene 1 anachronistically at court to call down vengeance on those who for 1985 Antony Sher’s spiderlike so long set brother against brother. Richard uses his crutches to She conveniently forgets her own dominate this RSC production. role in the fighting, as Richard observes, but she sets out a pattern 1991 Richard Eyre’s National of retributive vengeance that echoes Theatre production set the history’s script; one that we watch play in 1930s England where Richard go on to fulfill. a fascist Richard, played by Ian McKellen, is a vengeful, mutilated war veteran.
THE FREELANCE WRITER 59 Apart from Margaret, no one at doubts and fears, and Anne reveals English actor Laurence Olivier court speaks out against Richard’s that he’s long had “timorous played Richard as an alluring, Satanic acts. But in the London streets the dreams” (4.1.84). With his first jester in the 1955 film adaptation. He citizens do. The first half of the careful words as king he tries to was often shot in close-up, malevolently play is confined to a London share responsibility for the coup confiding to camera. that Richard clearly regards as with Buckingham: “Thus high by his domain. But the commoners thy advice / And thy assistance is and this puts their double-act represent a wider audience King Richard seated” (4.2.4–5). under strain. Just when Richard whose judgment Richard’s clever But Buckingham grows suspicious needs help from his self-interested performance can’t control. Another friends, confined as he now is at the part of this audience comprises the Would you enforce me to center of the action, he finds himself women—Anne, Queen Margaret, a world of cares? increasingly isolated and dependent the Duchess of York, and Queen on strangers such as Tyrrel to Elizabeth. They watch and Call them again. I am complete his plots. remember. As Richard’s mother not made of stone… points out, women are often the Buckingham’s departure from sole surviving keepers of accounts. Richard the court heralds the waning of Richard’s sole command of the The landscape widens Act 3, Scene 7 action. It also prompts Richmond’s Dreams, nightmares, curses, arrival on the scene. We learn of prophecies, and premonitions his planned invasion from France, present a metaphysical dynamic in secretly supported by Lord Stanley the play beyond Richard’s control. and Queen Elizabeth. Now the As soon as he murders the innocent action of the play opens up and princes in the Tower, his fortunes moves from London’s square mile begin to fail. He becomes prey to to rural Leicestershire, the heart of England, and to Bosworth Field. ❯❯
60 RICHARD III As the seasons turn from Richard’s and also known the crookback figure to be self-sufficient—“I am myself busy sunshine to his autumnal fall, as he is portrayed in Tudor history— alone”—and, like an actor, turn his Margaret returns. In a counterpart a monstrous creature of bloody civil shape to advantage by playing to Richard’s prologue she ushers in war and a future demon king. his way to the throne. This is the the inevitable conclusion: “So now performance he introduces us to at prosperity begins to mellow / And Shakespeare capitalizes on the opening of the play. There he drop into the rotten mouth of death” Richard’s physical nonconformity lets us in on his plots and simplifies (4.4.1–2). by making it his motivating force. history into fiction with its heroes, In the preceding play, he severs all lovers, and villains. The shape of villainy links to family and faction and sets Richard’s physical shape is a gift himself against the principle of The disruptive force of Richard’s to any dramatist and Shakespeare blood bond that took York and villainous nonconformity is clear makes much of it. Many in the Lancaster to war. Given his in his first five appearances in audience would have enjoyed the deformity he feels that family bonds the play. Upsetting the smooth hugely successful Henry VI plays and natural inheritance have let running of Edward IV’s new state, him down. He decides, therefore, he interrupts a series of courtly ceremonies and meetings The villainy of Queen Elizabeth and redirects them all. Some Richard III productions show him appearing through a different entrance from Married to that used by the other characters as if, like the morality play figure Derby Edward IV Vice, he comes to create chaos Survivor King and brother from quite another place. Stepfather to Father to Wit and wordplay Richard shows us he’s the master of Richmond Edward and improvised duplicity, especially with Becomes Richard language, and is equally at home in Henry VII Nephews street speech and witty repartee. His versatility takes him from mock Threatens Kills anger to mock modesty. The wit and smooth rhetoric that let him catch Richard Kills Lady Anne his opponents off-guard often take Duke of Gloucester Curses A widow us in the same way. Helps Lord Hastings If something thou wouldst Friend swear to be believed, Buckingham Cousin Clarence Swear then by something that Brother thou hast not wronged. Queen Elizabeth Act 4, Scene 4 Duchess of York Mother to A widow Comes back as a ghost
THE FREELANCE WRITER 61 American actor Kevin Spacey played Richard as a self-hating, power-crazed despot, who revolted the play’s women, in Sam Mendes’s acclaimed 2011 production at the Old Vic, London. His verbal skills are to the fore hath a thousand several tongues… / performance, it’s the strength of when he persuades Lady Anne And every tale condemns me for a Richard’s prowess in the battle that to be his wife (1.2), and Queen villain” (5.5.147, 149). often determines our feelings about Elizabeth to let him marry her him at the end. Perhaps his cry daughter (4.4). Strategically placed From sun to shade “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for at each end of the play, these Now we watch as Richard is a horse!” (5.7.7) reminds us that parallel scenes chart the rise disturbed by prophesies and curses. he was always happiest in a fight. and fall of Richard’s fortunes. He He can’t sleep before his final battle Richmond ends the play, but the approaches Queen Elizabeth with and the sun fails to shine the day he final focus rests also on Richard. the same bravado but she turns his dies. Ultimately he’s defeated both Behind Richmond’s perfect picture tactics back on him. This time the by history in the form of Richmond, of “smiling plenty, and fair woman leads the debate. Her put- and by himself—“Myself, myself prosperous days” (5.7.34) there downs are delivered with such confound” (4.4.330). He admits that lingers a shadow of Richard’s feeling that they stifle Richard’s he has no pity even for himself. In sun-filled opening words. ■ efforts to defend his evil actions. At the end, Richard stops the performance and no longer draws us into his confidence. When he tries not to despair on the night before Bosworth, his soliloquy addresses a fresh audience: his conscience. The debate is a judicial examination, devoid of witty self-deceptions, with Richard both the prosecution and defense. Finally his conscience tells him that he is the villain he promised to be: “My conscience Tudor propaganda? John Rous, a historian writing seeking to legitimize Tudor rule during the reign of Richard III, with anti-Yorkist propaganda. described his king as a “good But it is from their accounts that lord” with a “great heart” who Shakespeare drew his material. enacted just laws. But by the reign More described Richard as of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, being devious and flattering Rous had reversed his opinion. while he plotted, but also clever Richard, he wrote, was a freak: and courageous. Shakespeare stunted and physically weak, he retained all these features, and was responsible for killing Henry gave the king added depth VI and for poisoning his own wife. by encumbering him with a Other historians, among them formidable conscience. The Sir Thomas More, joined in the character is so enduring that vilification of Richard, citing the historical Richard has been his “crook-backed” deformity as obliterated. Indeed, there is no evidence of inward corruption. It surviving account by anyone may be that More and others were who knew him in person.
TO DIE IS ALL AS COMMON AS TO LIVE EDWARD III (1592–1593)
64 EDWARD III DRAMATIS Edward III rebuffs French As the English King Edward and King PERSONAE demands for allegiance and navy approaches, John face off before the announces his intention the French King Edward III King of England. to claim France as his own. John boasts of Battle of Crécy. Queen Philippa Wife of his strength. Edward III. 1 4 6 Edward, the Black Prince Scenes 1–4 Scenes 5–6 Son of Edward III and Queen Philippa. 2 5 Earl of Salisbury After relieving the In a terrible sea battle at Scottish siege of Roxburgh Sluys, the French navy Countess of Salisbury Salisbury’s wife. Castle, King Edward is routed. tries in vain to seduce Earl of Warwick The Countess’s father. the Countess of Salisbury, who is also Sir William de Montague Salisbury’s nephew. desired by the King of Scotland. Earl of Derby A t the English court, King As the king grows infatuated with Sir James Audley Edward III is discussing the Countess, he asks his secretary his claim to the French Lodowick to write love letters to Henry, Lord Percy crown with the Comte d’Artois, her. The king pressures her to yield who has joined the English side. to his desires, even though they are John Copland Esquire, When the Duc de Lorraine arrives both married. She refuses, so he later Sir John Copland. from France to insist Edward swear compels her father Warwick to allegiance to the French King John, intervene. Unable to deny the king, Lodowick King Edward’s Edward declares war. Meanwhile, Warwick urges his daughter to secretary. the King of Scotland besieges the comply. There is a distraction as Countess of Salisbury in Roxburgh young Prince Edward announces Robert, Comte d’Artois Castle. King Edward sends his his readiness to lead the army for son Prince Edward to France, and France, but the king soon resumes Jean, Comte de Montfort, heads to Roxburgh himself. Enticed his amatory pursuit. The Countess later Duc de Bretagne by the Countess’s beauty, King reminds him that they are both Edward decides to stay. married so the king promises to Gobin de Grâce A French prisoner. John II de Valois King of France (a conflation of the historic Philip VI with John II). Prince Charles King John’s eldest son, the Dauphin. Duc de Lorraine Prince Philippe King John’s youngest son. Villiers Norman lord sent as an envoy by Salisbury to the Dauphin.
THE FREELANCE WRITER 65 Salisbury honorably A French prophecy Seemingly trapped again, News comes that negotiates with his foretells that Prince Edward is victorious Prince Edward is prisoner Villiers for safe King John will and conquers the French forces. dead, but he soon advance into arrives triumphant conduct to Calais. England. with King John as his prisoner. 9 11 17 18 Scenes 7–9 Scenes 10–14 Scenes 15–18 10 14 8 18 King Edward refuses The forces of King John of France King Edward demands to send aid to the Queen Philippa, King dispatches that Calais send him its beleaguered Prince Edward’s wife, capture Edward, but the the King of Scotland. Salisbury with six wealthiest a warning to burgesses in their Prince is victorious Edward, who is underwear. Queen in battle. besieging Calais. Philippa persuades him to be merciful. kill both their spouses. The besieges Calais while the Prince sky and the French panic. Countess is horrified; the king pursues King John. In Brittany, the The captured Salisbury is spared finally sees sense and apologizes. Countess of Salisbury’s husband on the intervention of Villiers. offers the French prisoner Villiers Prince Edward is victorious and Off Sluys on the Belgian coast, freedom in exchange for a safe captures King John. the English rout the French navy, passage to Calais. A captain of Prince Edward triumphs on land, Calais offers to surrender the town The six wealthy men of Calais and the French king, encamped at to the king, but the king insists he are brought to the king. The queen Crécy, tries to buy him off. When will only accept the surrender if six urges mercy and he spares their Prince Edward demands the crown wealthy citizens are sent to him. lives. Salisbury arrives with the instead, battle ensues. News news that Prince Edward has been reaches the king that his son is A prophecy that says John killed at Crécy. The king comforts in danger. He refuses to send help, will appear in England seems the distraught queen, but suddenly, insisting that this is his son’s favorable to the French. Faced Prince Edward arrives, with King chance to prove himself. Prince with a large French army, Prince John as his prisoner. The excited Edward returns triumphant and Edward turns down a French offer Prince Edward promises more is knighted by the king. The king of mercy. Bad omens appear in the foreign adventures. ❯❯
66 EDWARD III Edward III is the story of Tell him the crown that one of England’s most he usurps is mine, IN CONTEXT formidable warrior kings, who ruled the country for half a And where he sets his foot THEMES century until his death in 1377. he ought to kneel. Honor, kingship, valor, King Edward patriotism, brutality of war The play was written in the early 1590s, around the same time Scene 1 SETTING as the Henry VI plays, but only in The royal court, London; the last few decades has it been the Black Prince, proved himself Roxburgh Castle, Scottish accepted among Shakespeare’s a hero. However, the portrait of borders; Flanders; Crécy, works. Most editors now agree that Edward III presented in this Poitiers, and Calais, France Shakespeare did at least have a play is very different from that of hand in some of the play but they Shakespeare’s other great warrior SOURCES generally believe that he was king, Henry V. While Henry V 1377 Jean Froissart’s responsible for at most a few emerges as a dynamic young Chronicles, a French source scenes, including Scenes 2 and 3, leader, inspiring his troops to for the early battles of the between Edward and the Countess victory with stirring speeches, Hundred Years War. of Salisbury, and Scene 12, in Edward is anything but inspiring. which Edward the Black Prince No sooner has he, like Henry, sent 1575 The Palace of Pleasure, ruminates on death. Performances the French ambassador packing by William Painter, features a have been so few that, when with a declaration of war than we story entitled “The Countesse the RSC staged it in 2002, they see him in Scotland in a far from of Salesberrie,” on which the described it, rather inaccurately, heroic light. wooing scene is based. as a “new” play by Shakespeare. Rough wooing 1587 Raphael Holinshed’s The story covers Edward III’s Arriving to lift the Scottish siege Chronicles is a source for the defense of the kingdom against the of Roxburgh Castle, Edward is battles (although for dramatic Scottish King David II, and his wars entranced by the beautiful reasons they have been in France, including the historical Countess of Salisbury, whose compressed in time). rout of the French navy at Sluys husband is fighting in France. He (1340), his victory over superior then embarks on a siege of his own LEGACY French forces at Crécy (1346), and to conquer her, and his tactics are Early 1590s Date and place of finally the battle of Poitiers (1356) not honorable. After his love letters, first performance is not known. at which his young son, Edward, penned by his secretary Lodowick are rejected, he resorts to power 1596 The play is published In the play, the Black Prince is a games, commanding her father to anonymously in London. gung-ho adventurer, a portrayal that is order her to submit to his desire. probably close to the historical truth. The strong-willed countess refuses, 1623 The play is omitted His tomb in Canterbury Cathedral and desperately tells Edward that from the First Folio, possibly shows him resplendent in armor. their spouses stand between them. because of political objections Astoundingly, Edward offers to kill to its portrayal of the Scots. both of them, saying, as if he is 1911 The Elizabethan Stage Society performs one scene at the Little Theatre, London. 2001 The Pacific Repertory Theater performs the play at the Carmel Shakespeare Festival in California, US. 2002 The RSC performs the full play, to mixed reviews.
THE FREELANCE WRITER 67 judge on their lives: “Thy beauty dynasty still keen to bolster its The Battle of Sluys is depicted in makes them guilty of their death” legitimacy in Shakespeare’s day. a French manuscript of 1400. The play (3.157). The Countess is mortified, Besides the unsavory incident omits the French king Philippe VI, exclaiming: “O, perjured beauty! with the countess, Edward is seen who was defeated at Sluys. Instead, More corrupted judge!” (3.160). as a tough, uncaring father. When Philippe’s son John loses the battle. She tells him that there is a Prince Edward, known to history higher court, above the king— as the Black Prince, is beleaguered Villiers, and Prince Edward—it does “the great star chamber o’er our in battle, Edward refuses help, not shy away from showing war as heads” (3.161)—that will judge saying, “Then will he win a world a very brutish business. A French such a crime. of honour too / If he by valour can mariner reports the sea battle of redeem him thence. / If not, what Sluys in gruesome terms: “Purple After this disturbing but remedy? We have more sons / Than the sea whose channel filled as memorable interlude, the countess one to comfort our declining age” fast / With streaming gore that is all but forgotten, and the play (8.21–24). from the maimèd fell” (4.161–162). settles into a far more conventional to-and-fro of battles. However, Late in the play, news comes Edward in Edward III is a the countess’s absent husband, through that the young prince has far from attractive character, Salisbury, becomes a key focus apparently perished and his mother and yet the play ends, happily for the sense of justice that runs weeps in distress, but Edward’s for him, with the young prince through the play, along with brand of comfort is to promise excited and eager for fresh his French counterpart, Villiers. pitiless revenge. Moreover, when challenges and Edward in calm Against the run of events, they the citizens of Calais send him six control after a series of stunning both insist on behaving honorably. leaders of the town as a gesture military victories. With the of submission, only the queen’s French and Scottish kings his Unsentimental leader intervention dissuades him from captives, and also the dauphin, he It is surprising just how negative a slaughtering them. There is a muses contentedly on their strange portrait this is of one of England’s foretaste here of Shakespeare’s new unity: “God willing, then for most dynamic monarchs, a king other warrior-king Henry V, who England we’ll be shipped, / Where whose military victories turned threatens Calais with even more in a happy hour I trust we shall / England into a major power. The savage brutality. Although there are Arrive: three kings, two princes, reason may have been due to heroes in this play—Salisbury, and a queen” (18.242–244). ■ contemporary Tudor politics. Edward III was a Plantagenet king, whose line ultimately came to an end with the first of the Tudors, a Here flew a head dissevered from the trunk; There mangled arms and legs were tossed aloft. French mariner Scene 4
WHAT ERROR DRIVES OUR EYES AND EARS AMISS? THE COMEDY OF ERRORS (1594)
70 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS DRAMATIS As a Syracusan caught At home, Adriana Antipholus E is locked PERSONAE illegally visiting Ephesus, complains that out. He decides to give a Egeon must pay a fine her husband is courtesan a gold chain he Egeon A merchant from or die. The Duke gives him neglectful. Luciana had intended for his wife. Syracuse and father of the argues that men are Antipholus twins. He is under until 5 o’clock to pay. freer than women. sentence of death as the play begins. 1.1 2.1 3.1 Act 1 Act 2 Solinus Duke of Ephesus. 1.2 2.2 Antipholus of Ephesus Twin son of Egeon. He is Egeon’s sons Antipholus Adriana rebukes a successful merchant, and Dromio are warned Antipholus S, thinking married to Adriana. he’s her tardy husband. to conceal their Antipholus of Syracuse Syracusan nationality. He sees her sister, Twin son of Egeon, who raised Luciana, and falls in love. him. He has come to Ephesus Antipholus S is met by to find his twin. Dromio E who begs him to Dromio of Ephesus Servant come home to dinner. of Antipholus of Ephesus and twin to Dromio of Syracuse. T he city of Ephesus is at war never returned. Now Egeon has More put-upon and beaten with Syracuse. Syracusans risked death by coming to Ephesus than his Syracusan twin, his visiting Ephesus illegally in search of both sons and their character is, understandably, must pay a fine or be executed. servants. Moved by the tale, Duke less happy. One such is Egeon, a merchant just Solinus gives Egeon a reprieve until arrived. He tells Duke Solinus that five in the afternoon to raise the fine. Dromio of Syracuse Servant he, his wife Emilia, their young of Antipholus of Syracuse and twin sons, and their twin servants, Unknown to Egeon, those twin to Dromio of Ephesus. were separated by a storm at he seeks have also just arrived. He has a lively wit and acts sea years before. Egeon and his Sending Dromio to the inn with on his own initiative. remaining son and servant returned their money for safekeeping, to Syracuse, where he named the Antipholus of Syracuse sets off to Adriana Wife of Antipholus of boys after their respective siblings. explore. Little does he know that Ephesus. She is impatient with Once grown, Antipholus and the subjects of his own search are a marriage that restricts her Dromio as they were called, set nearby. Antipholus of Ephesus, a liberty, and with an inequality off to seek their brother twins, but thriving merchant, lives with his between husband and wife wife, Adriana, and her sister, that she resents. Nell Adriana’s kitchen-maid. Luciana Sister of Adriana who, having seen a troubled marriage close up, is wary of marriage. Emilia An abbess in Ephesus and, we later learn, the long-lost wife of Egeon.
THE FREELANCE WRITER 71 Angelo the goldsmith, The courtesan Antipholus S and Adriana and who gave a gold chain sees Antipholus S Dromio S draw swords Antipholus E appeal to to Antipholus S, has wearing a gold chain on their pursuers and flee the Duke. Both sets of that Antipholus E twins finally meet. Antipholus E arrested had promised her. into the abbey. The abbess is revealed for non-payment. as Egeon’s lost wife. She Antipholus S thinks she’s a invites all to a feast. witch and flees. 4.1 4.3 5.1 5.1 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.2 4.2 4.4 5.1 Antipholus S Dromio S asks Fearful and confused, The abbess rebukes declares his love Adriana for the bail Antipholus E Adriana for being an to Luciana. She is unsympathetic wife. charmed, but asks money to free her becomes violent. imprisoned husband. Adriana employs an him if he’s mad. exorcist to cure his apparent madness. Luciana, both of whom resent the A series of mistaken encounters Meanwhile, the Syracusan twins time he spends away from home ensues. Antipholus of Ephesus attempt to flee the town. But, visiting the tavern and a courtesan. sends Dromio of Ephesus for a rope pursued by almost everybody in to punish Adriana. But before the Ephesus, they take refuge in the Furious that he’s late again for servant returns, a goldsmith arrests abbey. As the fateful hour of dinner, Adriana spots Antipholus in Antipholus of Ephesus for non- 5 o’clock arrives, Adriana and the street and becomes angry with payment for a chain, which was Antipholus of Ephesus petition the him. He responds surprisingly delivered in error to his Syracusan Duke to mediate. While he hears politely and seems unusually happy brother. Dromio of Syracuse arrives their conflicting accounts, the to eat with her. In fact, she has and is sent to Adriana for the bail abbess enters with the Syracusan met her husband’s twin, Antipholus money. Dromio of Ephesus then twins and all becomes clear. When of Syracuse, and he promptly falls returns with the rope. the twins recognize Egeon, the in love with her sister. When her Abbess, in a final twist, reveals husband returns with friends, he Confused and frightened, she is Emilia, Egeon’s long-lost finds the door to his home barred Antipholus of Ephesus turns wife. So the family is reunited by someone claiming to be Dromio. violent. Seeming mad, he’s tied and the tale complete. ❯❯ He leaves, threatening revenge. up with the rope, but escapes.
72 THE COMEDY OF ERRORS IN CONTEXT The confusion at the heart servant relationship that comes of The Comedy of Errors under comic strain; clearly there THEMES is caused by a natural are bonds of lifelong friendship Twinship, identity, marital phenomenon, twinship, a subject and trust that are also tested. and filial relationships, loss that interested Shakespeare because he was the father of Exploration of identity SETTING twins. Individuals like to think Shakespeare’s changes to his source Port of Ephesus of themselves as unique, so material let him explore how far identical twins are intriguing identity is influenced by others. We SOURCES because they appear to duplicate see the fear and isolation felt by 1390 John Gower’s English identity. They suggest the each twin when even his servant- version of the Greek romance possibility of one person being in partner disputes his version of Apollonius of Tyre forms the two places at one time. And that events. Each man appears to see basis of Egeon’s and Emilia’s can be both funny and frightening. and hear a slightly different world. frame narrative. Confusion over mistaken identity Shakespeare exploits both the makes Antipholus of Syracuse 1595 Roman playwright comedy and the fear. He doubles want to leave town because the Plautus’s Menaechmi (“The the identical twins that he found inconsistency he finds seems to Brothers Menaechmus”) in Plautus’s Menaechmi by adding confirm the place’s reputation for translated into English. A servant Dromios to the original witchcraft. It makes his twin brother second play, Amphitruo, may twins. This nicely doubles the so frustrated that he turns to have inspired Act 3, Scene 1. opportunity for farce as the play’s violence, especially when his sanity mistimings gather pace. We’re told is doubted. But this only convinces LEGACY that the servant twins have shared everyone that he is indeed mad. 1594 Performed at Gray’s the lives of their masters since When identities and the bonds Inn, London. birth, which means that when the of trust between individuals are errors begin it’s not just the master- 1786 Gli Equivoci, an opera of the play, is staged in Vienna. The twins’ relationships 1938 Richard Rodgers and Sisters Lorenz Hart stage The Boys from Syracuse, a musical of the Adriana Luciana play, on Broadway, New York. Married Rebukes him, In love 1938 Theodore Komisarjevski’s to believing him to with production at Stratford-upon- be her husband. Avon makes a fluid use of space that has a key influence Antipholus of Twin Antipholus of on staging Shakespeare. Ephesus brothers Syracuse 1963–97 Indian film-makers Has him arrested Gives him gold make five films based on the for non-payment chain, mistaking play’s plot, most recently Ulta for gold chain. him for his brother. Palta starring Ramesh Aravind. Servant to Angelo Servant to 1976 Trevor Nunn’s production Goldsmith for the RSC combines elements of farce, circus, and music hall. Dromio of Twin Dromio of Ephesus brothers Syracuse 2001 The Kyogen of Errors, a Japanese production of the play, tours the UK and USA.
THE FREELANCE WRITER 73 I to the world am like there’s an obvious bond between The Kyogen of Errors a drop of water them. The dialogue is so fast-paced and funny that there’s little time to In 2001, the Mansaku That in the ocean seeks stop and think. For if anyone were Company of Japan performed another drop, to do that, the reason for the errors The Kyogen of Errors, might come clear. a Japanese-language Who, falling there to find production of the play, to his fellow forth, The love story between Luciana English-speaking audiences. and Antipholus of Syracuse offers Kyogen, meaning “mad Unseen, inquisitive, a brief respite from the chaos and a words,” is a form of traditional confounds himself. variation on the identity theme. In Japanese theater known Antipholus of Syracuse contrast to the anger all around, for its earthy, comic style, the gentle Antipholus woos the for which Shakespearean Act 1, Scene 2 surprised Luciana with a lyricism slapstick is particularly that she clearly hasn’t heard before. suited, with language threatened in this way, it becomes proving no barrier to farce. apparent how swiftly family and Marriage bonds social relationships can fall apart. Marriage, too, can be regarded as At key moments, the a type of twinship. Shakespeare audience was encouraged Dramatic structure draws attention to its responsibilities to join the comedy by Egeon’s tragic story frames the and strains by building up the role chanting “Ya-ya-koshi-ya!” comic action, and the day’s grace of Adriana, the Ephesian wife. His (“How complicated!”). given to the old man to redeem audience would know Saint Paul’s In keeping with the traditions himself fixes the length of the play. “Letter to the Ephesians,” which of Japanese Noh theater, The completion of the tale with the discusses the respective duties of with which Kyogen is revelation that the Abbess is his husbands and wives, masters and closely associated, each long-lost wife, Emilia, brings a servants; details that Luciana, set of Antipholuses and sense of wonder, because no hint Adriana’s sister, is obviously versed Dromios wore identical of this is given. Emilia’s return in. Adriana, however, longs to lose masks—props that aided the also completes a change of mood herself in a fairer relationship, and play’s visual complexities. from threatened death to festive says so at length, but to the wrong re-birth. The family is whole again. twin. Possibly her real husband The success of the And so is their story. wouldn’t have listened to her so production showed how patiently. As the Abbess observes, the themes in the play— Within this framing narrative, if she criticizes too much she runs marital relationships, time goes adrift. As events move the risk of ruining everything about loss, and identity—are out of sequence, only the audience Antipholus that she loves. so powerful and universal holds the narrative threads together. that they transcend The farce builds up through scenes The key props in the play—a even the most challenging that almost mirror one another. And gold chain and a rope—neatly of linguistic and cultural within these, Shakespeare’s use of symbolize its emphasis on bonds: differences. rapid one-line repartee maintains of love and trust, and of punishment the momentum, creating a comic and control. The gold chain double act between master and represents a husband’s love, but servant. Even when they’re arguing, is promised to the courtesan in an act of spite. When it’s given to the wrong twin, his brother is arrested for debt. Finally, it finds the right Antipholus and, we hope, Adriana. The last bond in the play is that of the Dromios who, reunited as brothers, leave as equals, hand-in- hand—to the audience’s applause. ■
74 IN CONTEXT HUNTING HE THEMES LOVED BUT LOVE Erotic desire, youth, HE LAUGHED longing, temptation TO SCORN SETTING VENUS AND ADONIS (1592–1593) Ancient Greece SOURCES 8 CE Book X of Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in its original Latin, was probably used by Shakespeare. 1565–67 An English translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses by Arthur Golding was also drawn on for the poem. LEGACY 1636 Reprinted at least 10 times in Shakespeare’s lifetime, and another six times by 1636—the most often reprinted work during his lifetime. 1817 Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes glowingly of the poem in his Biographia Literaria. T he poem Venus and Adonis retells the mythical tale of Venus, goddess of love, who woos and attempts to seduce the beautiful mortal youth, Adonis. Shakespeare announces the theme in the opening lines: “Even as the sun with purple- coloured face / Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn, / Rose- cheeked Adonis hied him to the chase. / Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to scorn.” Venus approaches Adonis, begs a kiss, drags him from his horse and tethers it to a tree, thrusts the boy to the ground, and smothers him with kisses. His bashfulness inflames her lust and, pinning him
THE FREELANCE WRITER 75 Some scholars have speculated that and dashes into a wood with his me” (l. 525). His unwise offer of a Shakespeare may have seen a copy of mate. Venus renews her advances kiss inflames her again. He tells her Titian’s painting Venus and Adonis and takes Adonis by the hand, that he plans to go boar hunting, (1554), in which the young hero seems “A lily prisoned in a jail of snow” which causes her such pain that: to spurn the overeager Venus. (l.362), saying that Adonis should “She sinketh down, still hanging take a lesson from his horse: by his neck. / He on her belly falls, to the ground, she tells him at “O, learn to love! The lesson is but she on her back” (ll.593–594). length how lucky he should feel to plain, / And, once made perfect, be desired by one who was wooed never lost again” (ll.407–408). Horrified that he may be killed, by so great a figure as the god she advises him to hunt harmless Mars. But Adonis, complaining that Hunter hunted animals such as hares. Adonis he’s getting burned by the midday She pretends to collapse before rebukes her for succumbing to lust: sun, with much difficulty shakes him. Guiltily he tries to bring her “Love comforteth, like sunshine her off: “Away he springs, and around and gives her a farewell after rain, / But lust’s effect is hasteth to his horse” (l.258). kiss, which inflames her again, but tempest after sun” (ll.799–800). Tempted by a passing mare, he says he is unripe for love: “Before however, the horse breaks away I know myself, seek not to know At last he escapes, leaving her to bemoan her fate. The next morning, hearing sounds of hunting, she ❯❯
76 VENUS AND ADONIS dashes to see what is happening. who was also from Stratford-upon- Ovid wrote his narrative poem She spies “the hunted boar” (l.900), Avon, went on to publish The Rape Metamorphoses in the first decade CE. sees Adonis’s exhausted and of Lucrece. Venus and Adonis was Running to 15 books and covering wounded hounds, and bemoans the first book to bear Shakespeare’s 250 myths, it would have given the his suspected fate. name as author. schoolboy Shakespeare a thorough grounding in classical mythology. Deluded into supposing that The first edition bore a Latin he is still alive she reproaches motto from the poems Amores some graver labour. But if the first herself for being too fearful but, (“The Loves”) by the Roman poet heir of my invention prove deformed, coming upon his body, speaks an Ovid: “Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi I shall be sorry it had so noble a elegy for him and prophesies that flavus Apollo pocula Castalia plena godfather, and never after ear [till] henceforward sorrow will always ministret aqua”—“let low-minded so barren a land for fear it yield me attend upon love. Adonis’s body people admire vile things, but for still so bad a harvest. I leave it to melts away and she vows to cherish me let Apollo supply goblets full your honourable survey, and your the purple flower that springs up of the water of the Muses.” honour to your heart’s content; in its place. Finally, she returns to which I wish may always answer Cyprus in her dove-drawn chariot, your own wish and the world’s planning to seclude herself away hopeful expectation. Your honour’s in perpetual mourning. in all duty, William Shakespeare.” Shakespeare also dedicated his Publication and date other narrative poem, The Rape Venus and Adonis first appeared of Lucrece, published in the in print in 1593. London’s theaters following year, to Southampton. were closed that year and for much of the following year because of an Source outbreak of plague, and it seems Shakespeare based Venus and likely that Shakespeare, who was Adonis on an episode from one of already an established playwright, his favorite books, the long poem had time on his hands. The poem Metamorphoses by Ovid, which he was published by Richard Field, a would have studied at school and well-known London printer. Field, With this she seizeth Dedication O, what a sight it was on his sweating palm, The poem bears a dedication wistly to view The precedent of pith to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, a precocious and How she came stealing and livelihood, talented nobleman who was only to the wayward boy, And, trembling in her 17 at the time. The formal dedication passion, calls it balm – reads, “Right Honourable, I know not To note the fighting conflict Earth’s sovereign salve how I shall offend in dedicating my of her hue, to do a goddess good. unpolished lines to your lordship, Venus and Adonis nor how the world will censure me How white and red each for choosing so strong a prop to other did destroy! ll.25–28 support so weak a burden. Only, if your honour seem but pleased, I Venus and Adonis account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle ll.343–346 hours till I have honoured you with
THE FREELANCE WRITER 77 which he refers to and quotes from in them to please the wiser sort.” Juliet and Venus and Adonis, and many times in his plays. He even Venus and Adonis acquired a declares that he will “worship brings a copy of the poems on reputation as soft porn due to lines sweet master Shakespeare.” stage in his early tragedy Titus such as these in which Venus tries Andronicus and in his late romance to tempt Adonis with the delights of The poem’s artificial style and Cymbeline. Shakespeare seems to her body: “I’ll be a park, and thou digressive story line caused it to fall have referred both to the original shalt be my deer. / Feed where out of fashion until romantic poet and to an English translation by thou wilt, on mountain or in dale; / and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Arthur Golding. But while Ovid Graze on my lips, and if those hills Biographia Literaria (1817) helped tells the tale in only 75 lines, be dry, / Stray lower, where the to restore its critical reputation. ■ Shakespeare expands it to 1,194 pleasant fountains lie” (ll.231–234). lines of verse. He modifies both the In a play performed by Cambridge In 2007, the Royal Shakespeare characterization and the events of students early in the 17th century, Company, in association with the the original tale. In Ovid’s version, a character boasts of how he woos Little Angel Theatre of Islington, the youthful Adonis returns Venus’s his mistress with speeches larded London, gave a performance in which love, but Shakespeare turns him with quotations from Romeo and the poem was recited aloud while the into a bashful adolescent who shies story was acted out with puppets. away from the goddess’s lustful advances. He also expands the story; the most substantial addition is the episode (ll.259–324) in which Adonis’s horse lusts after a mare and gallops after her into the forest, frustrating Adonis’s attempts to escape from Venus’s clutches. Style and reception The poem is written in six-line stanzas. Each line is an iambic pentameter, meaning that it has ten syllables and every other syllable is stressed: for example “She looks upon his lips, and they are pale” (l.1123). The lines are rhymed in this order: a b a b c c, resembling the last six lines of a Shakespearean sonnet. The style is witty, narrating events with knowing detachment while also achieving lyrical beauty in the descriptive passages. The poem was to be more frequently reprinted than any other of Shakespeare’s works during his lifetime: nine times by 1610. It was especially popular with adolescents. In about 1600, Cambridge scholar Gabriel Harvey wrote that, “the younger sort take much pleasure in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, but his Lucrece, and his tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, have it
78 IN CONTEXT WHO BUYS THEMES A MINUTE’S Lust, betrayal, honor MIRTH TO WAIL A WEEK SETTING Rome, 509 BCE THE RAPE OF LUCRECE (1593–1594) SOURCES 27–25 BCE History of Rome by the Roman historian Livy. 8 CE The Book of Days by the Roman poet Ovid. LEGACY 1616 Six editions published by the time of Shakespeare’s death attest to the poem’s popularity. 1818 English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge praises the dramatic qualities of the work. 1931 French playwright André Obey adapts the poem for the stage in Le Viol de Lucrèce. 1946 English composer Benjamin Britten writes an opera based on the poem. The Rape of Lucrece is a poem that tells the classical story of the Roman general Tarquin, who desires and rapes Lucrece, the wife of his fellow warrior Collatinus (called Collatine in the poem). Shakespeare jumps straight into the action in the opening lines: “Lust-breathèd Tarquin leaves the Roman host / And to Collatium bears the lightless fire / Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire / And girdle with embracing flames the waist / Of Collatine’s fair love, Lucrece the chaste.” The narrator explains that Tarquin has left the Roman camp for Collatium because, on the previous night, the warriors had
THE FREELANCE WRITER 79 been boasting of the beauty and When Lucrece awakes, Tarquin A one-woman musical and dramatic chastity of their wives. This has says he will kill her and her performance based on the poem was filled him with desire for Lucrece. attendant slave unless she yields given by Camille O’Sullivan in 2011. to him. She pleads with him in It toured Britain and Ireland under When he reaches Collatium, vain, and he rapes her: “with the auspices of the RSC. Lucrece welcomes him. He finds the nightly linen that she wears / her even more beautiful than he had He pens her piteous clamours in Having done the deed, Tarquin expected, praises her husband’s her head, / Cooling his hot face in creeps away in shame. From valor, and goes to bed aching with the chastest tears / That ever this point onward, the poem desire for her. In a long soliloquy, modest eyes with sorrow shed” concentrates on Lucrece. She Tarquin meditates about his (ll.680–683). addresses night, time, and intention to seduce Lucrece, aware opportunity in a series of laments, of the horror and danger of what he She bears the load of lust and curses Tarquin before deciding intends to do, but unable to resist his he left behind, to kill herself for shame and to tell evil impulses: “Here pale with fear her husband what has happened. he doth premeditate / The dangers of And he the burden She calls her maid but does not his loathsome enterprise, / And in of a guilty mind. confide in her. Lucrece writes to his inward mind he doth debate / Collatine summoning him home What following sorrow may on this The Rape of Lucrece and then meditates on a painting arise” (ll.183–186). of the siege and fall of Troy, which ll.734–735 is described at length. When A passage of vivid narrative Collatine arrives with her father describes how he makes his fearful and other lords, she tells them way to the chamber where Lucrece what has happened without at first lies sleeping: “Her breasts like ivory naming Tarquin until all the men globes circled with blue, / A pair of have vowed to avenge her. Then maiden worlds unconquerèd, / Save she suddenly stabs herself. “Even of their lord no bearing yoke they here she sheathèd in her harmless ❯❯ knew, / And him by oath they truly honourèd” (ll.407–410).
80 THE RAPE OF LUCRECE breast / A harmful knife, that some graver labour.” The Rape of untutored lines, makes it assured thence her soul unsheathed. / Lucrece, also dedicated to the earl, of acceptance. What I have done That blow did bail it from the deep followed a year later, in 1594. Like is yours; what I have to do is yours, unrest / Of that polluted prison the earlier poem, it was printed by being part in all I have, devoted where it breathed” (ll.1723–1726). Shakespeare’s fellow Stratfordian yours. Were my worth greater Richard Field. (The title page calls my duty would show greater; Her father and Collatine grieve it simply Lucrece, but the pages are meantime, as it is, it is bound over her body and Tarquin and all headed with the longer title.) to your lordship, to whom I his family are banished from Rome. wish long life still lengthened Dedication with all happiness. Your lordship’s Publication The dedication to this poem is in all duty, William Shakespeare.” Shakespeare seems to have written in much warmer terms Dedications could be mere thought of The Rape of Lucrece as than that to Venus and Adonis: formalities, intended to indicate a tragic companion piece to the “The love I dedicate to your ironically comic Venus and Adonis. lordship is without end, whereof Italian artist Palma Giovane depicted In dedicating the earlier poem to this pamphlet without beginning the rape of Lucrece in this painting in the Earl of Southampton, he had is but a superfluous moiety. The about 1570. Many artists would have promised that, if the Earl liked it, warrant I have of your honourable portrayed this famous tale in paintings he would “take advantage of all idle disposition, not the worth of my that Shakespeare would have seen. hours till I have honoured you with
THE FREELANCE WRITER 81 to potential purchasers that the appeared in Shakespeare’s lifetime, Classical tale author of a book had an eminent with another three by 1655. There patron, and perhaps in the hope are several admiring contemporary Like Venus and Adonis, The of a reward—two guineas references to it. In 1818, the English Rape of Lucrece is an example was a standard sum—from poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote of a literary genre that the dedicatee. But the warmth of The Rape of Lucrece that the flourished in the 1590s: long, of affection—indeed, the “love… poem “gave ample proof of his classically based narrative without end”—expressed here has possession of a most profound, poems telling stories of understandably given rise to the energetic, and philosophical mind, romantic love, often inspired suggestion that Shakespeare had a without which he might have in both tone and subject genuinely close friendship with the pleased, but could not have been matter by the Roman poet young, precociously talented, and a great dramatic poet.” Ovid, whose writings were remarkably good-looking aristocrat. much studied in grammar The poem’s rhetorical style fell schools such as that of After the dedication comes out of fashion in later times, but Stratford-upon-Avon. “The Argument,” a prose summary more recently it has come to be of the poem’s action. The story it admired for its profoundly dramatic Unlike Venus and Adonis, tells differs somewhat from that of quality and for its anticipations of this time the subject matter the poem itself, and it may not have Shakespeare’s later work, especially is historical, not mythical. been written by Shakespeare. in his plays based on Roman The events took place in history and in Macbeth. 509 BCE and were already Style and reception legendary by the time of the The poem is written in the seven-line Britten’s opera first surviving account, by stanza form known as rhyme royal, In 1946, British composer Benjamin the Roman historian Livy in which Shakespeare also uses in “A Britten wrote an opera based on his history of Rome published Lover’s Complaint.” Each line is an Shakespeare’s story. He was inspired between 27 and 25 BCE. iambic pentameter—ten syllables in on seeing a play adapted from the Shakespeare seems mainly to which, normally (although with poem by French playwright André have used the account given variations), every other syllable is Obey. Britten’s work is a “chamber by Ovid in his poem Fasti, stressed, as, for example in line 6: opera”—an intimate work with known in English as The Book “And girdle with embracing flames 13 musicians and eight singers. ■ of Days, or Chronicles, first the waist.” The lines rhyme a b a b b published in 8 CE. He seems c c. The tone, unlike that of Venus Even here she sheathèd in her also to have drawn on the and Adonis, is deadly serious harmless breast Roman historian Livy and throughout, and there are many other sources. Shakespeare digressions from the basic narrative. A harmful knife, that thence concentrates on the private her soul unsheathed. rather than the political The opening sequence, with aspects of the story, and its intense account of Tarquin’s That blow did bail it from the makes a little narrative tormented state of mind as he deep unrest material go a long way. approaches Lucrece’s chamber, is the most vividly powerful. Of that polluted prison where Shakespeare recalls the events and it breathed. style of this poem in later writings, most memorably when Macbeth, The Rape of Lucrece on his way to murder King Duncan, speaks of “withered murder” which, ll.1723–1726 “With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design / Moves like a ghost” (Macbeth 2.1.52–56). Like Venus and Adonis, the poem was popular right from its first publication. Six editions
THE LORD CHAMBER MAN 1594–1603
LAIN S
84 INTRODUCTION London theaters Privateer Sir Francis Spanish troops capture The Merry Wives of reopen in May after a Drake departs on his Calais. Queen Windsor and Henry IV, plague epidemic. final voyage, a campaign Love’s Labour’s Lost against the Spanish Elizabeth expels all Part 2 are written. and The Comedy of Empire in the Caribbean. Africans from England. Shakespeare buys New Place as his Errors are written. Stratford family home. 1594 1595 1596 1597 1595 1596 1596 1597 Richard II, Romeo and Juliet, The Life and Death of The Lord Mayor of London theaters are and A Midsummer Night’s King John, The London bans actors closed for months from the city and tears Dream are written. Merchant of Venice, down inn-theaters; the when The Isle of Dogs, and Henry IV Part 1 by Ben Jonson and ban is lifted the Thomas Nashe is are written. following year. labeled seditious. B y the time the theaters That stake ensured Shakespeare had stirring history of Henry V and the reopened after the plague an income of between £200 and £700 tragedy of Hamlet. Many thousands epidemic of 1592–94, the ($325 and $1000) a year—by no means packed the theater to watch them. literary success Shakespeare had a fortune, but far above any other achieved with the publication of playwright’s earnings. Shakespeare Evidence for the dating of the Venus and Adonis in 1594 helped chose to live frugally, renting various early plays is limited, but reference him engineer a uniquely secure places to live in London, and by 1597, to several of Shakespeare’s plays position in the theater world. he had saved enough to buy his family is made by the little-known writer a large house in Stratford—New Francis Meres in a book called With the theaters back in Place. He went on to buy land nearby, Palladis Tamia: Wit’s Treasury business, Lord Hunsdon, the Lord and even a coat of arms. published in 1598. Meres asserts Chamberlain, reconstituted his that “Shakespeare among the theater company as the Lord Creative drive English is the most excellent for Chamberlain’s Men. It brought Shakespeare’s position in the the stage; for comedy, witness his together leading actors of the day, company gave him a platform for Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, such as the tragedian Richard his plays—and he made the most of his Love Labour’s Lost, his Love Burbage, who would launch some it. In the two-year break caused by Labour’s Won, his Midsummer’s of Shakespeare’s greatest roles; the plague, he had honed his poetic Night Dream, and his Merchant of the clown William Kemp, who and dramatic skills, and over the Venice; for tragedy, his Richard II, triumphed as the comic creation next nine years, he wrote 17 plays, Richard III, Henry IV, King John, Falstaff; and Shakespeare himself. ranging from the romantic Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo Crucially, the leading actors all comedies A Midsummer Night’s and Juliet.” Thus scholars have been owned shares in the company; Dream and Twelfth Night to the given a date by which all of these Shakespeare had a 10 percent stake. plays must have been written.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN 85 Much Ado About The Globe Theatre Sir Thomas More The rebellion Nothing is written. is built in Southwark. is written, but is against Elizabeth I Shakespeare’s name The actors, including probably never becomes a selling staged due to by her one-time point and appears on the Shakespeare, are censorship and the favorite Essex is title pages of the quarto shareholders. huge cast required. crushed and he editions of his plays. is beheaded. 1598 1599 1600 1601 1598 1599 1601 1602 Shakespeare acts in The poet Edmund Twelfth Night is written. Troilus and Cressida Ben Jonson’s play Every Spenser dies. A special performance is written. Man in His Humour at of Richard II is staged The Bishop’s Ban the Curtain Theatre. prohibits satire in a at The Globe, perhaps to incite the deposition large selection of literary works. of the Queen. Theater on the edge Hamlet. The company’s worries, them. If this is true, he was Although the Lord Chamberlain’s however, went beyond capricious playing a risky game. It is true that Men often performed before the landlords. Theater at this time the Lord Chamberlain’s Men were queen, theater life was precarious. could be political dynamite, and not afraid of political controversy. The company was always playing actors faced a constant battle to On February 7, 1601, Sir Gelly cat-and-mouse with authorities get scripts past the Master of the Meyrick, acting on behalf of the keen to control what they saw Revels, who vetted every play. Earl of Essex, commissioned a as salacious entertainment, and special performance of Richard II at theaters stayed on marginal land Dangerous times The Globe, including the scenes in beyond the city walls. In 1598, the Just how far this censorship went which the monarch is deposed and landlord of a Shoreditch playhouse is clear from the cuts made to the murdered—scenes too incendiary known as The Theatre demanded script of Sir Thomas More. This to publish at the time. The a huge rise in rent, then decided to play, which Shakespeare had a performance went ahead, and the tear down the building altogether. hand in but which has several very next day the Earl of Essex led Shakespeare’s company secretly authors, portrays the Chancellor a small army toward Whitehall dismantled it beam by beam and of King Henry VIII, who refused Palace to bring down the queen carried the timbers over the river to to grant the king a divorce, in a and replace her with James VI of Southwark to erect a new theater, favorable light. Some have argued Scotland. Essex’s revolution ended The Globe, which was owned by that Shakespeare was a Catholic in farce and the Earl was executed. the company. The Globe was an rebel, who stuffed his plays with It could all have turned out badly for instant triumph. In its opening year, coded symbols designed to evade Shakespeare and the Chamberlain’s 1599, it saw performances of Julius the censor but convey a powerful Men, but somehow they managed Caesar, As You Like It, Henry V, and message to anyone who understood to escape punishment. ■
WHO CAN SEVER LOVE FROM CHARITY? LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST (1594–1595)
88 LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST DRAMATIS In Navarre, King Armado has The King of Navarre PERSONAE Ferdinand asks that Costard imprisoned and the princess discuss his lords study, fast, and confesses that he Aquitaine while Biron Ferdinand King of Navarre. sleep little, and avoid women for three years. is in love with verbally spars with Biron Lord attending to the Jaquenetta. Rosaline. king. He is surprised to fall in love with Rosaline. 1.1 1.2 2.1 Act 1 Act 2 Longueville Lord attending to the king. He woos Maria. 1.1 2.1 Dumaine Lord attending to The Spaniard Armado The Princess of the king. He woos Katharine. sends a letter saying that France arrives with Princess of France A he saw Costard her ladies and is diplomat, a skilled huntress, “consorting” with encamped in a field. and a beauty. Later she becomes Queen of France. Jaquenetta. Rosaline Lady attending to A t the court of Navarre, ladies each praise one of the lords the princess. Biron falls for her. King Ferdinand tells his so warmly that the princess swears lords that, to be successful, they must be in love. The princess Maria Lady attending to the they must study and renounce plays at being offended by her cool princess. She falls in love with women for three years. Dumaine reception from the king. Biron and Longueville. and Longueville agree but Biron is Rosaline spar verbally and Dumaine reluctant. The king agrees that he and Longueville ask Katharine and Katharine Lady attending to must make an exception for the Maria’s names. Boyet insists that the princess. She falls in love Princess of France who is soon to the king is in love with the princess, with Dumaine. arrive. Biron, seeing that rules can and the ladies tease him for being be bent, agrees to the oath. The a “love-monger.” Lord Boyet French lord pompous Armado has Costard attending to the princess imprisoned, saying that he saw him Armado asks the boy Mote to who acts as a go-between. with Jaquenetta, and then reveals sing to Jaquenetta for him, but that he is in love with Jaquenetta. Mote and Costard make fun of him. Marcadé Messenger. The Princess of France arrives. Her Armado sets Costard free on the condition that he takes a letter to Don Adriano de Armado A pretentious Spaniard. He falls in love with Jaquenetta. Mote Armado’s clever page boy. Costard Simple country fellow. Jaquenetta A dairymaid. Sir Nathaniel A curate. Holofernes A schoolmaster who fills his speech with Latin (or an approximation of Latin). Dull A simple constable. He understands very little.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN 89 Armado sets Costard Realizing Costard’s Forced to admit his love News arrives that free on the condition he error, Jaquenetta for Rosaline, Biron persuades the King of France take a letter to Jaquenetta, takes his letter to has died, and the and Biron asks Costard to the lords and the king that take a letter to Rosaline. the king. love is their best education. princess and her ladies ask their suitors to wait a year. 3.1 4.2 4.3 5.2 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 2.1 4.1 4.3 5.2 The lords each ask Costard mistakenly gives The lords overhear The ladies see through the lords’ Boyet if a particular Armado’s letter for each other secretly attempts to woo them in disguise, and lady is single: Biron Holofernes and company stage a likes Rosaline; Dumaine Jaquenetta to Rosaline, declaring their is sweet on Katharine, and Boyet reads it out love for a lady pageant of the Nine Worthies. in a sonnet. and Longueville has loud to the ladies. interest in Maria. Jaquenetta. Biron also gives Costard who doesn’t quite get it all. three. Costard arrives with Biron’s Costard a letter for Rosaline. Biron Holofernes discusses the hunt with letter to Rosaline. The quartet curses his foolishness in falling in Dull and Nathaniel. Jaquenetta agrees to forget their pact and love—and with a girl so deficient. arrives with Costard and asks them woo the ladies in earnest. to read the letter from Armado. It is, The princess and the ladies are of course, Biron’s letter to Rosaline Armado, Holofernes, Nathaniel, hunting when Costard says he has and after Holofernes analyzes the Dull, and Mote are to entertain the a letter for Rosaline from Biron. The poem’s merit they take it to the king. party. They disguise themselves, princess asks to see it and in his but the ladies, forewarned, play confusion, Costard gives Boyet Biron overhears the king along. When the men return Armado’s letter. Boyet realizes it composing a love sonnet. Biron and dressed as themselves, the ladies is meant for Jaquenetta, but the the king hear Longueville doing the pretend not to recognize them. The princess asks him to read it out loud. same. Longueville hears Dumaine lords decide to woo from now on Boyet teases Rosaline bawdily about composing a sonnet. Longueville only with honesty, but then news Biron and she responds in kind. accuses Dumaine of breaking their arrives that the princess’s father has Boyet indulges in an innuendo-laden agreement. The king accuses died. Her marriage is postponed, exchange with Maria, joined by Longueville. Biron criticizes all and the ladies prepare to depart. ❯❯
90 LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST IN CONTEXT L ove’s Labour’s Lost is the These are barren tasks, most conspicuously poetic too hard to keep – THEMES of all Shakespeare’s plays, Romance, flirting, chastity, with nearly two-thirds of the play Not to see ladies, study, fast, word-play, cycle of life in rhyming verse. Its clever word- not sleep. play must have delighted the Biron SETTING intellectual elite at the Elizabethan Navarre,a kingdom court, who counted this among Act 1, Scene 1 between France and Spain their favorite Shakespeare plays. goes beyond mere verbal tricks, SOURCES However, the play’s contemporary as the surprisingly nuanced and 16th century The Italian in-jokes have often been lost on affecting ending bears out. tradition of commedia dell’ audiences since then, and in arte, with stock characters, the 18th and 19th centuries, it The set-up is very simple. With especially a pedant, a was the least performed of all the country at peace, the King of braggart, and a fool, appears Shakespeare’s plays. Audiences Navarre calls upon his lords to do to have been a source. watching the play can all too easily nothing but study for three years— feel like the constable Dull, who, to eat little, to sleep little, and to 1586 L’Académie Française when the schoolteacher Holofernes renounce the company of women. by Pierre de la Primaudaye, comments, “Thou hast spoken The joke is, of course, that they which appeared in English no word all this while,” replies, don’t have a chance at succeeding, in about 1586, outlined “Nor understood none neither, sir” least of all the king. As Biron, the philosophical thinking in the (5.1.142–144). least convinced of his lords, points French court in the late 16th out: “‘Item: If any man be seen to century, and may have been The poetic knot-garden talk with a woman within the term an influence on Shakespeare. In recent years, directors have of three years, he shall endure such found ways to release the play’s public shame as the rest of the LEGACY witty comedy and sweet romance court can possibly devise.’ / This 1597 A performance before the and make the most of its ingenious article, my liege, yourself must Queen (Elizabeth I) “this last structure, likened by some to the break; For well you know here Christmas” is referred to on the elaborate Elizabethan knot garden comes in embassy / The French title page of the first edition. that the pretentious Spaniard king’s daughter with yourself to Armado alludes to in his letter to speak” (1.1.128–133). So already 1817 Literary critic William the king. It is a play that may be the king must make exception Hazlitt notes, “If we were to clever, but it also has a heart that for the French king’s daughter part with any of the author’s and her ladies—and as soon as comedies, it should be this.” British director Kenneth Branagh this first exception is made, the made his movie version of Love’s whole plan quickly breaks down. 1837 First performance since Labour’s Lost (2000) a romantic 1930s Shakespeare’s time. Hollywood musical. Here, the young Much of the humor hinges lords anticipate the arrival of the ladies. on how the lords and the king 1946 A bold production by pretend to each other that they Peter Brook at the RSC based are not falling under the romantic the play on the fêtes galantes spell of the ladies, while the (bucolic landscape) paintings ladies amuse themselves watching of French artist Watteau. 2012 Deafinitely Theatre’s production of Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Globe is the first full-length Shakespeare play entirely in sign language.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN 91 the men squirm. The plot could hardly be simpler. Yet Shakespeare uses this straightforward story to create a gloriously intricate game of words. There is ample scope for a clever and merciless spoof of the pretentious wordplay of the day, which in many places is also downright obscene. Finding love and self the path taken by the King of This orderly Elizabethan knot The thrust of the play is clear Navarre, Biron, Dumaine, and garden at Nyewood House in East enough: that it is absurd for men Longueville, and so they are easily Sussex, echoes the careful grouping to cut themselves off from women fooled by the ladies into paying of actors and the mannered patterns of and from love in order to find out court to the wrong girl when the speech of Love’s Labour’s Lost. about the world—women and love ladies swap accessories. are the only true education. As performances, the men mock so Biron finally acknowledges: “From The men are misguided enough, mercilessly that even the pedant women’s eyes this doctrine I too, to think that they can disguise Holofernes is moved to a heartfelt derive. / They sparkle still the right themselves to go wooing. The girls criticism, “This is not generous, Promethean fire. / They are the are not fooled—and only pretend not gentle, not humble” (5.2.622). books, the arts, the academes / not to know the lords when they That show, contain, and nourish come back as themselves. Finally, In the middle of the pageant, all the world” (4.3.326–329). Biron realizes he must learn to be news arrives that the princess’s himself rather than act an image father, the King of France, has Shakespeare is keenly aware of love. In his succinct summary of suddenly died. The normal round that love poetry is no substitute the play, he says: “Let us once lose of weddings that might tie up a for real-life love, and, as later plays our oaths to find ourselves, / Or comedy does not happen. Instead, such as Romeo and Juliet and else we lose ourselves to keep the ladies each ask their suitors to As You Like It show, young men our oaths” (4.3.337–338). wait a year, and to use that year to who indulge in love poetry are learn more about people and the often mistaking the idea of love for The final lesson world. Rosaline instructs Biron the real thing. This indulgence is Unexpectedly, Shakespeare avoids to tend to the sick, and when he giving us a neat happy ending. protests that there are no jokes Sir, he hath never fed of the After Biron and the other men have in a hospital full of death, dainties that are bred been through this moment of self- Rosaline reminds him that: “A jest’s discovery, they sit down to watch prosperity lies in the ear / Of him in a book; he hath not eat the pageant of the Nine Worthies that hears it” (5.2.847–848). The play paper, as it were; he presented by Holofernes, Nathaniel, ends poignantly with haunting Moth, Costard, and Armado. The songs of the seasons, first the cuckoo hath not drunk ink: his women watch quietly, but in their for spring then the owl for winter. ■ intellect is not replenished Nathaniel Act 4, Scene 2
DOWN DOWN I COME LIKE GLIST RING PHAETHON RICHARD II (1595)
94 RICHARD II DRAMATIS Bolingbroke accuses When John of Gaunt York is heavily PERSONAE Mowbray of treason dies, Richard seizes outnumbered and before the King and they allows Bolingbroke and King Richard II The rightful challenge one another to Bolingbroke’s his troops to enter king of England. inheritance and then Berkeley Castle. single combat. leaves for Ireland. The John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, Bolingbroke’s father, disgusted nobles and Richard II’s uncle. prepare to meet Bolingbroke who is Harry Bolingbroke returning to England. Duke of Hereford, later King Henry IV by usurpation, 1.1 2.1 2.3 cousin to Richard. Act 1 Act 2 1.3 2.2 Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk and Richard’s ally, Richard interrupts the The Duke of York later banished for his quarrel trial by combat between tries to raise an with Bolingbroke. Mowbray and Bolingbroke, army in the King’s absence. Bushy, Duke of Aumerle Duke of and banishes them. Bagot, and Green try York’s son, ally of Richard. to save themselves. Duke of York Richard’s uncle, T he play opens with an and wealth that by rights should and regent in his absence. accusation of treason pass to Gaunt’s son, Bolingbroke. made by Bolingbroke The nobles Ross, Willoughby, and Queen Isabel Richard’s wife. against Mowbray. The latter stands Northumberland agree to meet accused of murdering the Duke Bolingbroke, who is to arrive back Duchess of York The Duke of Gloucester, but John of Gaunt on English shores with an army. of York’s wife. suspects that King Richard himself is implicated in the murder. Richard While Richard is quelling a Earl of Northumberland banishes Bolingbroke for 10 years, rebellion in Ireland, the Queen is An ally of Bolingbroke. later commuted to six, but Mowbray comforted by Bushy, Bagot, and is permanently exiled. Green. Then news is heard of Bushy, Green, and Bagot Bolingbroke’s return and the nobles’ Richard’s followers, who are Bolingbroke wins popular desertion. York, whom Richard left blamed for his bad policies. sympathy as he leaves, while in charge, prepares for their attack. Richard alienates the people by Ross, Fitzwalter, and levying high taxes. When Gaunt At Berkeley Castle, York accuses Willoughby Lords who join dies, Richard seizes all the land Bolingbroke of treason. Bolingbroke Bolingbroke’s side. insists that he was banished as Earl of Salisbury, Bishop of Carlisle Supporters of Richard. Harry Percy Northumberland’s son, also known as Hotspur. Abbot of Westminster He joins a plot against Henry IV, but dies before he is arrested. Sir Piers Exton Richard’s murderer.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN 95 Richard arrives on Richard publicly York reveals his Richard’s coffin is brought the Welsh coast. He takes off the crown son’s treason to forth. Bolingbroke banishes learns that the Welsh the King, but his forces have dispersed, and scepter and Exton and prepares to that Bushy, Green, and invests Bolingbroke as wife secures a journey to the Holy Land Wiltshire have been the new king, Henry IV. pardon for Aumerle. to be absolved of his guilt. executed, and that York has joined with Bolingbroke. 3.2 4.1 5.3 5.6 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.1 3.3 5.2 5.5 At Bristol Castle, Facing an York discovers Exton and four servants murder Bolingbroke has Bushy armed threat from that his son, Richard at Pomfret Castle, Bolingbroke, Richard Aumerle, is and Green executed. agrees to restore his involved in a supposedly acting in accordance inheritance and puts conspiracy with Henry IV’s wish. against Henry IV. himself into Bolingbroke’s power. Hereford, not as the Duke of York’s son Aumerle is accused by Tower. On the way, Richard meets Lancaster, and that he has a right Bagot of plotting Gloucester’s death his Queen and they say goodbye. to defend his inheritance. York and being disloyal to Bolingbroke. York discovers that his son, Aumerle, allows them to enter the castle. Multiple challenges to fight ensue. is involved in a plot against York announces that Richard has Bolingbroke, now King Henry IV. Richard lands on the Welsh named Bolingbroke his heir and is He betrays him to the King, but the coast and greets the land joyfully. ready to resign his throne to him. Duchess’s eloquence manages to However, he despairs at the news secure a pardon. Carlisle and the brought by messengers. At Flint Richard is forced publicly to other conspirators will be executed. Castle, Bolingbroke demands that renounce the throne. He takes off Richard repeal his banishment and his crown and scepter but refuses Sir Piers Exton murders Richard restore his inheritance. Richard to read the charges against him. at Pomfret Castle, and takes the appears on the battlements and Looking at his face in a mirror, he body to Bolingbroke, expecting a grants his request. Bolingbroke comments that “A brittle glory reward, but the new King is deeply kneels to Richard but the power shineth in this face. As brittle as ashamed of the action. He has has shifted. Richard submits to the glory is the face” (4.1.277–278). Exton banished, and sets off on travel to London with him. Bolingbroke has him taken to the a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. ❯❯
96 RICHARD II W hen Richard observes of Ah, Richard! With the himself “Down, down I eyes of heavy mind IN CONTEXT come like glist’ring I see thy glory, like Phaethon” (3.3.177), he offers a a shooting star, THEMES complex image of his own tragic Fall to the base earth Kingship, betrayal, fate. Phaethon was the son of from the firmament. character flaws Phoebus/Apollo, the sun-god of Earl of Salisbury Greek mythology. According to SETTING legend, the youth stole his father’s Act 2, Scene 4 Locations in England and fiery chariot and drove it through Wales during the reign of the sky, but he could not keep language of sacramental kingship Richard II (1367–1400) control of the horses and caused is partly driven by an awareness terrible destruction to Earth. Jove that the king is but one among a SOURCES hurled a thunderbolt at the chariot, number of competing nobles who 1587 Raphael Holinshed’s and Phaethon plunged to his death. all have a claim to the throne. Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Often interpreted as signifying Contemporary parallels the dangers of ambition, the myth When Shakespeare wrote the c.1592 Christopher Marlowe’s initially seems more appropriate to play, the story of Richard II was play Edward II. the usurping Bolingbroke than to a controversial one because of Richard, the divinely-appointed king perceived analogies between his 1595 Samuel Daniel’s epic of England, whose inherent majesty reign and that of Elizabeth I. The poem The First Four Books of is often described in terms of the latter famously said to William the Civil Wars. sun. Yet the myth was also used to Lambarde in 1601, “I am Richard II. condemn a failure of government, Know ye not that?” LEGACY which is how Richard uses it, 1601 Performed to rouse describing himself as, like Phaethon, Like Richard, Elizabeth was support for Essex’s ill-fated “Wanting the manage of unruly perceived to be unduly influenced rebellion against Elizabeth I. jades” (3.3.178). The gardener will by court favorites, most notably the later confirm that it was Richard’s earls of Leicester and Essex. Like 1815 After two centuries inability to control his nobles that Richard, she had to contend with of neglect, Edmund Kean brought about his downfall: “We at rebellion in Ireland, although she revives the play in London, time of year / Do wound the bark, sent Essex to deal with it, rather playing Richard as a the skin of our fruit trees, / Lest, than making the mistake of leaving courageous figure. being over-proud in sap and blood, / the kingdom. She was also in the With too much riches it confound difficult position of lacking an heir. 1937 English actor John itself. / Had he done so to great and One of the accusations against Gielgud stages a production at growing men, / They might have Bushy, Bagot, and Green in Queen’s Theatre, London, that lived to bear, and he to taste, / Their Shakespeare’s play is that they emphasizes the play’s poetry. fruits of duty” (3.4.58–64). have prevented Richard from ensuring the succession. This is 1971 English director Richard Power struggle attributed not only to dissension Cottrell’s TV adaptation stars Richard’s difficulties reflect the Ian McKellen as an effeminate, reality of 14th-century England, doomed Richard. which saw a struggle between the nobles and the monarchy. At the 1995 Irish actress Fiona Shaw start of the play, Richard cannot is cast as an androgynous quell the argument between Richard by director Deborah Bolingbroke and Mowbray because Warner at the National their obedience to the king matters Theatre, London. less to them than personal honor. Indeed, the play’s extraordinary 2009 Australian actress Cate Blanchett plays Richard at the Sydney Theatre, Australia.
THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN 97 between Richard and his Queen, ambitions among her powerful Gaunt’s speech but to his being “corrupted” in a nobles, which would have been homosexual sense, in a possible dissipated if the succession had This royal throne of kings, echo of Marlowe’s Edward II where been clearly determined. ❯❯ this sceptred isle, the king’s sexual preferences are more explicitly divisive. Elizabeth Richard compares himself to This earth of majesty, did not have this particular charge Phaethon, the youth of Greek myth who this seat of Mars, to answer, but her failure to was struck from the skies. The fall is produce an heir—a consequence of depicted here by Michelangelo, in an This other Eden, her refusal to marry—encouraged engraving Shakespeare may have seen. demi-paradise, This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England (2.1.40–50) John of Gaunt’s speech is one of the most quoted in the Shakespearean canon, and was anthologized as early as 1600. Its imagery of England as walled in by the sea, protected by Nature, has been central to constructions of the nation, as has its imagery of England breeding warriors and kings. It provided titles for at least two British World War II films: David Lean’s This Happy Breed (1944) and David MacDonald’s This England (1941). That said, the speech’s jingoism has also undergone some major reassessment, not least because “this England” subsumes within it the separate nations of Wales and Scotland. We should also remember that Gaunt’s speech is uttered by a man on his death bed, who testifies to the ways in which “this England” has been ruined. It is an ideal that already does not exist.
98 RICHARD II Harry Bolingbroke v Richard II Harry Percy Duchess of York Married to Father to Earl of John of Gaunt Duke of York Northumberland Son of Nephew to Father to Lord Ross Harry Rivals Richard II Duke of Lord Fitzwalter Bolingbroke Aumerle Married to Lord Willoughby Cousin Cousin Isabel Believes he Duke of does bidding of Norfolk Sir Piers Exton Bolingbroke’s allies Earl of Murders Richard’s allies Salisbury Richard II Bishop of Carlisle Shakespeare’s play was implicated image of himself as “glist‘ring The story reflects something in the problems of his Queen when Phaethon” brings to mind the myth similarly self-aggrandizing in it was performed on the eve of a of the young god’s fall, which has a Richard, whose fall inspires wonder rebellion by the Earl of Essex, who tragic beauty to it, as Phaethon falls and whose self-perception is had fallen out of favor following from the sky like a star to earth. echoed by other characters. Gaunt failures in Ireland. Supporters of warns that “His rash, fierce blaze Essex commissioned the Lord I live with bread, like you; of riot cannot last” (2.1.33), while Chamberlain’s Men to perform the feel want, Salisbury laments: “Ah, Richard! play at the Globe on February 7, With the eyes of heavy mind / I 1601. Presumably the deposition Taste grief, need friends. see thy glory, like a shooting star, / scene of Act 4 Scene 1 was included. Subjected thus, Fall to the base earth from the It had been thought too seditious to firmament” (2.4.18–20). Richard be printed, and was absent from the How can you say to me seems to be in love with this image published text until 1608. The next I am a king? of his own tragic fall and consciously day, the Globe audience tried to stir tries to bring it about. Indeed, this up rebellion. However, Essex was King Richard II is one of Shakespeare’s few history denounced as a traitor and support plays with no battle scene, dwindled. Shakespeare’s company Act 3, Scene 2 reflecting the ease with which was investigated but not punished. Bolingbroke wins the crown. When he offers to “tell sad stories of the Self-fulfilling prophecy death of kings,” Richard implicitly While Richard II is a history play, refers to the popular medieval it is entitled The Tragedy of King definition of tragedy, the so-called Richard the Second. Richard’s de casibus tragedy, derived from
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