Chapter VII Theatrical Allusions
All’s Well That Ends Well
Parts.
Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts.
Epilogue, line 5.
This word bears quite a respectable age of antiquity in its theatrical sense, being so used in the year 1495 in a note to the Coventry Mysteries. “Payd for copying of the 11 Knights partes and demons.” The meaning refers to the character assigned or sustained by an actor in a dramatic performance; also the words assigned to or spoken by an actor in such a character. It also refers to a printed copy of these words:
PLAY.
The King’s a beggar, now the play is done.
Epilogue, line 1.
TRAGEDIANS.
What say you to his expertness in war?
Faith, sir, had led the drum before the
English tragedians.
IV, 3, 299.
Although the sentence is self explanatory, its meaning puzzled me. The contemporary drama has no reference to this somewhat primitive method of advertising. I wrote the following paragraph to Notes and Queries, and received the two replies which are here printed.
FROM Notes and Queries.
Shakespereana. All’s Well that Ends Well.
In the “Arden Shakespeare,” which is the only separate edition of this play that has a full commentary, the important passage, “Has led the drum before the English tragedians,” is left unnoticed. I am prepared to wager that not one in a hundred readers of Shakespeare would be able to interpret it. I am not quite certain of its interpretation, and therefore I ask your readers to interpret it. I believe it has reference to the actors who marched through the City accompanied by a drum to call attention to the play they were about to act.
(Sgnd.) MAURICE JONAS.
REPLIES.
Shakespereana. All’s Well that Ends Well. 10 S. XI. 30.
In reply to the query as to the meaning of the passage, “Has led the drum before the English tragedians,” I offer the following quotation from the European Magazine for June, 1788. It refers to the early history of the drama in Birmingham. In about 1740 a theatre was erected in Moor Street, which rather gave a spring to the amusement. In the daytime the comedian beat up for volunteers for the night, delivered his bills of fare and roared out an encomium on the excellence of the entertainment. “In 1751 a company arrived which announced themselves ‘His Majesty’s Servants from the Theatres Royal in London,’ and hoped the public would excuse the ceremony of the drum as beneath the dignity of a London company.” The novelty had a surprising effect, the performers had merit, and the house was continually crowded. It is evident, therefore, that the custom was prevalent long after Shakespeare’s death. I may add that there is a well-known portrait of Tarlton, the actor, which represents him with a big or small drum.
(Sgnd.) HOWARD S. PEARSON.
ANOTHER REPLY.
Parolle’s ridicule of Capt. Dumain’s soldiership by saying that “He led the drum before the English tragedians,” IV, III, 298, may be compared to Iago’s “That never set a squadron in the field” (Oth. I 1). And in both of those plays, in the scenes just referred to, the “bookish theoric” of war is satirized. Parolle’s comparison of Dumain, with the drummer that preceded a company of strolling players, was probably due to his knowledge of the importance of the soldier that carried the drum with his smatter of languages, and what appeared a ridiculous imitation of the military costume.
The military disliked the players marching to the beats of a drum, and sometimes, when the players entered a town where soldiers were quartered, a fight ensued, often ending in a riot. This explanation may support the point to Parolle’s remark. In III, 41, Parolle’s vexation at the loss of his drum is not clear from the text, so it is necessary to add that the colours were attached to the instrument in those times.
(Sgnd.) TOM JONES.
Does Tom Jones, in his reply, convey the idea that an English soldier marched in front of the actors? This is quite a conjectural assumption, not a scrap of evidence existing that such was the custom. Since writing my note I came across an allusion bearing on the subject. This appears in a letter written by Lord Hunsdon to the Lord Mayor in 1594, stating that “where my now company of players have been accustomed for the better exercise of their quality and for the service of her Majesty if need so require, to play this winter time within the City at the Cross Keys, in Gracious Street, those are to require and pray your Lordship to permit and suffer them so to do, the which I pray you the rather to do for that they have undertaken for me that where heretofore they began not their plays till towards four o’clock, they will now begin at two and have done between four and five, and will not use any drums or trumpets at all for the calling of the people together, and shall be contributors to the poor of the parish where they play according their habilities. Halliwell’s Illustrations, p. 31, of Remembrancia, p. 353, as quoted in Greg’s edition of Henslowe’s Diary.”
In this interesting and important extract nothing is said respecting the actors marching through the City with a drummer at their head. It is a well-known fact that three blasts of a trumpet announced that the play was about to commence. I feel sure something more is known about this practice, although it does not appear in the usual channels of information in reference to this period. At a much later date this custom seems to have prevailed when the actors visited the provinces, but whether it was customary or only occasional cannot be stated with any degree of certainty. Unfortunately, so many questions of Shakesperean interest must be unanswered in a similarly unsatisfactory manner.
Another question of interest arises from this extract. How comes it that the company formerly commenced their plays between four and five even in winter time? The players either acted at a regular theatre or in an inn-yard, and at both places acting took place in the open air. The only solution possible is that the actors rented a large room of one of the inns or taverns and there acted by candlelight, otherwise beginning at such a late hour cannot be accounted for.
As You Like It
STAGE, PLAYERS, EXITS, ENTRANCES, PLAYS, PARTS, ACTS, SCENE.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history.
II, 7, 139.
Entrances.
Entrances is not used as a stage direction. It is employed here in a special sense of an actor making his appearance on the stage. Exit denotes the departure of an actor from the stage, and is freely used in all the printed editions of Shakespeare’s works and in all other dramatic literature. The plural exeunt is also used in the same sense. Although exit is written and spoken in its Latin form, the word is thoroughly naturalised, whilst exeunt is marked in the dictionary as a foreigner. Man and Manet are also stage directions often to be met with in the old quarto editions; they signify that the actor or actors whose name or names follow this direction remain on the stage after the others have left; later dramatists did not use these terms, and now they have become obsolete. As the old quartos were not divided into scenes or acts, these directions generally indicated that the scene or act was concluded. At the end of a few plays the words “exeunt omnes” are to be found.
ACTOR.
“Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
I’ll prove a busy actor in their play.”
III, V, 62.
PLAY.
And so he plays his part.
II, 7, 157.
I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you.
Epilogue.
I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women, that between you and the women the play may please.
Epilogue.
PROLOGUE.
Shall we clap into ’t roundly, without hawking or spitting or saying we are hoarse, which are the only prologues to a bad voice.
PLAY.
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.
II, 7, 157.
CLOWN.
The roughish clown, at whom so oft your grace was wont to laugh at.
II, 1, 8.
Hollow you clown! Peace, fool;
It’s meat and drink for me to see a clown.
V, 1, 12.
EPILOGUE. PLAY.
It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush! ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue, yet to good wine they do use bushes; and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot insinuate you on the behalf of a good play!
PAGEANT.
Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy,
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.
II, 7, 138.
If you will see a pageant truly play’d.
III, 5, 55.
The general meaning of this word is simply a kind of dumb-show procession similar to our Lord Mayor’s Show. One of the earliest meanings of pageant referred to the stage, platform or scaffold on which such scenes were acted. It is a point of contention whether the pageant took its name from the structure or vice versa. In course of time, speaking parts were introduced, and then the word became to be applied indiscriminately to all kinds of plays, such as Mystery, Miracle, and Morality Plays, which had by the end of the sixteenth century become obsolete and antiquated.
In the York Miracle Cycle the Ordo Paginorum, the order of the pageants, is prefixed to the version of the plays. The Order consisted of different guilds, which took part in the plays represented on Corpus Christi day in the year 1415.
A subjoined quotation from Sir A. W. Ward’s English Dramatists would support the view that the pageant was provided with speaking parts of short duration. “Those pageants, in the generally accepted later and narrower use of the term, which consisted of moving shows devoid of either action or dialogue.” In a pageant given at Westminster Hall, before Henry VIII, an account is extant in which a dialogue is represented as taking place between the ladies and the ambassadors, also the sweet and harmonious saying of the Children. It will be observed that in these passages a germ of dialogue existed which in later years may have assumed such larger proportions as might justify these as being alluded to as plays.
EPILOGUE.
An address or short poem recital before the audience after the conclusion of a play. Rosalind, the heroine of this comedy, delivered the epilogue. Few dramatists in those days furnished either prologues or epilogues when writing their plays, but after the Restoration, when women played the female parts, the custom became universal and was generally spoken by one of the actresses. Nell Gwynne, when she acted, usually recited these lines. In many instances the epilogues are spoken by a person not connected with the play. There exists some doubt whether Shakespeare wrote the prologues and epilogues prefixed to the printed edition of his plays, the general custom permitting another hand adding these verses. Of course the magnificent prologues in “Henry V” are Shakespeare to the core.
Antony and Cleopatra
COMEDIANS. EXTEMPORALLY. REVELS. BOY MY GREATNESS.
The quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels! Antony
shall be brought drunken forth and I shall see
some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness.
In the posture of a wanton.
In this celebrated passage many terms are used in connexion with the theatre. The quick comedians were the lively, quick witted actors who, by their inventive methods, will produce a play according to the rules of the Commedia del’ arte, which is meant by “extemporally will stage us.” The meaning of the phrase, some “squeaking Cleopatra will boy my greatness” will be apparent to every one conversant with the theatrical history of Shakespeare’s time. At that period of dramatic history no woman was allowed to appear on the public stage, all female characters being represented by boys or men, which custom lasted until the Restoration. It is generally acknowledged that a Mrs. Hughes was the first woman to act on the public stage, appearing in the character of Desdemona. This innovation was of the utmost importance, and an interesting reference was made to this new custom in a specially written prologue by Thomas Jordan.
“I come unknown to any of the rest
To tell the news I saw the lady drest:
The woman plays the part to-day; mistake me not,
No man in gown or page in petticoat.”
In comparison with former times, the stage must have reaped an enormous benefit by this change.
“Our women are defective and so sized
You’d think they were some of the guard disguised,
For to speak truth, men act that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen
With bone so large and nerve so incompliant,
When you call Desdemona enter giant.”
PAGEANT.
Thou has seen these signs; They are black vesper’s pageants.
IV, 14, 8.
PLAY. SCENE.
Play one scene of excellent dissembley
And let it look like perfect honour.
I, 3, 78.
PUPPET.
Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shall be shown in Rome, as well as I.
V, 2, 208.
STAGED. SHOW.
And be staged to the show against a sworder!
III, 13, 30.
SHOW-PLACE.
In the common show-place, where they exercise.
III, 6, 12.
Cymbeline
Act.
What, makest thou me a dullard in this act?
V, 5, 265.
PLAY. PART.
Shall’s have a play of this?
Thou scornful page.
There lie thy part. Striking her, she falls.
V, 5, 228.
“Shall’s” in Elizabethan drama is equivalent to our modern “shall we.” “There lie thy part,” refers to the part the page shall play by lying down.
PART. ACT.
That part thou, Pisanio, must act for me.
III, 4, 26.
Comedy of Errors
JUGGLERS.
They say this town is full of cozenage;
As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye.
I, 2, 98.
In mediæval times Jugglers were frequently to be met with at the Court, being well received by an admiring audience. Their entertainment consisted of catching knives, tossing balls and feats of balancing. Such diversions even at the present day evoke unstinted applause, especially if practised by a Cinquevalli. The word is derived from the Latin joculare, to jest; the early meaning, which is now obsolete, denoted one who entertains or amuses people by shows, songs, buffoonery and tricks. It also bore the meaning of magician, wizard, or sorcerer.
MOUNTEBANK.
A mere anatomy, a mountebank, A threadbare juggler.
V, 1, 239.
A well known character in Shakespeare’s time. This entertainer performed at street corners, who, from an elevated position, addressed and amused his audience by means of stories, tricks, juggling and all forms of quackery, in which he was generally assisted by a professional clown or fool. Derived from the Italian Montebanchi, to mount a bench.
Coriolanus
MUMMERS.
If you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers.
II, 1, 83.
In the fourteenth century, mummings were the customary entertainments held at the Court on festive occasions. They consisted of men in masquerade, performing in dumb show, with the addition of dancing. The word is derived from mum, an articulate sound made with closed lips. Anyone taking part in these mummings was called a mummer. The meaning of the word in its slang and contemptuous reference to an actor is of quite modern date. These mummings or disguisings—both these terms were used indifferently—continued to be presented until the first quarter of the sixteenth century, at which date they assumed the name of masks, and were of a more elaborate nature than the older form of entertainment, speaking parts being added, which were generally written in verse. This is the only instance in which Shakespeare uses the word.
ACTING. PART.
It is a part that I shall blush in acting.
II, 2, 149.
ACTOR.
Like a dull actor now, I have forgot my part, and I am out.
V, 3, 40.
SCENE. ACT.
When he might act the woman in the scene, He proved the best man.
II, 2, 100.
The gods look down, and this unnatural scene they laugh at.
V, 3, 184.
PROMPT.
So then the Volsces stand but as at first;
Ready, when time shall prompt them to make road upon’s again.
III, 1, 6.
Come, come, we’ll prompt you.
III, 2, 95.
Hamlet
Act.
When thou see’st that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle.
III, 2, 83.
You that look pale and tremble at this chance
That are but mutes or audience to this act.
V, 2, 346.
Acted.
I heard thee speak a speech once, but it was never acted.
II, 2, 455.
Actor.
When Roscius was an actor in Rome, The actors are come hither.
II, 2, 410.
Then came each actor on his ass. The best actors in the world.
II, 2, 416.
HAMLET:
My Lord, you played once i’ the university, you say?
POLONIUS:
That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.
III, 2, 106.
ABRIDGEMENT.
For look, where my abridgement comes.
II, 2, 439.
ARGUMENT.
There was for a while no money bid for argument.
II, 2, 273.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
III, 2, 149.
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in it?
III, 2, 242.
The argument of a play signified the plot or the subject matter under discussion. The word in this sense is now obsolete, although much in use in Elizabethan times, and frequently employed by several dramatists of the period.
AUDIENCE.
They are but mutes or audience to this act.
V, 2, 398.
CHORUS.
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
III, 2, 255.
CUE.
What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have?
III, 2, 587.
TRAGEDY. COMEDY. HISTORY. PASTORAL.
POLONIUS:
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral; tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited; Seneca cannot be too heavy, not Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.
II, 2, 415.
By the above speech Polonius must have been fairly well acquainted with the actors, and the repertoire of the tragedians of the city. The list describing the different styles of composition are somewhat exaggerated, but not to such an extent as appears at first sight. Evidence of the lengthy repertory of the Globe can be gleaned from an extract concerning a licence granted in 1603 to the Globe company. Permission is given “freely to use the, and exercise the, Arte and facultie of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Enterludes, Moralls, Pastoralls and stage plaies, and such other like.” The phrase “scene individable” refers to the dramas, scrupulously adhering to the Unity of Place, a rule so carefully observed by classical writers. “Poem unlimited” may have expressed the antithesis to scene individable. The mention of Seneca and Plautus takes us back to the dramatic writers of antiquity. Seneca’s tragedies were translated into English and published in 1581. There are many allusions in English literature to these blood-curdling dramas. Nash, the Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer, thus describes the works of the Latin author: “Yet English Seneca read by candle-light yields many good sentences as ‘Blood is a beggar,’ and so forth, and if you entreat him fair on a frosty morning he will afford you whole Hamlets, I should say handfuls, of tragical speeches. But o grief Tempus edax rerum, what’s that will last always? The sea exhaled by drops will in continuance be dry, and Seneca let blood line by line and page by page at length must needs die to our stage.”
I possess an original edition of Seneca’s work in Latin, printed at Venice in the year 1498. The volume contains the ten tragedies, which were rendered into English by Thomas Newton and other writers. The “Hamlet” here referred to is an older play than Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” and presumably written by Thomas Kyd, to which Shakespeare was immeasurably indebted. Traces of this play may survive in the 1603 quarto of “Hamlet.” The relation of the 1603 quarto of “Hamlet” to the received text is one of the most puzzling subjects in all Shakesperean literature. The exact relationship still awaits solution. Plautus was a Latin dramatist, one of whose plays had been translated into English. The “Menaechmi” was rendered into the vernacular by William Warner and published in 1595. The translation acquaints us with the fact that before publication the play had been circulated in MS. Shakespeare’s play of the “Comedy of Errors” is founded on Plautus’s comedy. Whether Shakespeare went direct to the original or copied from Warner or any other translation cannot be decided. Somewhat puzzling is the question in discovering the grammatical subject of “these are the only men.” Does Polonius refer to the law of writ and the liberty or the “best actors of the world.” “Writ and liberty” bear the same meaning as “scene individable or poem unlimited.” The phrases may be intended as a compliment to the poets who were distinguished in both classes of composition, or perhaps the actors were the only men, who by their expert knowledge were capable of acting in all kinds of plays, whether a written composition or extempore plays.
CELLARAGE.
Come on; you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Consent to sweat.
I, V, 151.
This quotation possibly refers to some kind of contrivance in use underneath the stage. Trap-doors in the Elizabethan theatre were an indispensable feature of the stage setting. From the stage of to-day they have entirely disappeared, with the exception of pantomime, where they are still much in evidence. The Ghost in “Hamlet” apparently made his entrance and his exit by one of these trap-doors. Several dramatists made use of these doors in introducing their characters upon the stage. The exact spot in which they were situated cannot be indicated; only in one instance can it be clearly defined. Ben Jonson, in his Induction to the Poetaster marks the trap-door in the centre of the stage. One may also have existed in the upper stage, but this suggestion is quite problematical. Spectators at the Blackfriars Theatres allowed stools on the stage. Considering that trap-doors were situated all over the stage, the stool-holders must have had their allotted space marked off, otherwise they would have interfered with the stage setting.
DUMB SHOW.
Capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.
III, 2, 14.
HAUTBOYS PLAY. THE DUMB-SHOW ENTERS
III, 2, 145.
Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him and he her. She kneels and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up and reclines his head upon her neck; lays him down upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King’s ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead and makes passionate action. The poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts, his love.
Exeunt.
I have quoted the dumb-show scene in full, as only in rare instances in English dramatic literature is the action of the play foretold by such means. Why Shakespeare employed this confused method cannot be conjectured. Surely Hamlet exhibiting, through the dumb-show, how his father was murdered would naturally put the King upon his guard; the very thing he sought to avoid. The dumb-show undoubtedly detracts from the climax of the play-scene, and must be considered a serious blunder on the part of the dramatist in having introduced this artless and old-fashioned piece of machinery. The commentators give no valid excuse for its introduction. Halliwell-Phillipps makes the silly suggestion that the King and Queen should be whispering together during the scene, and so escape seeing it. A more ridiculous note by a great Shakesperean scholar has never been printed.
ENACT.
What did you enact? I did enact
Julius Cæsar, I was killed in the Capitol.
Brutus killed me.
III, 2, 107.
Besides writing a play called “Julius Cæsar,” Shakespeare introduces his name on several occasions; apparently he was one of the poet’s favourite characters. I am afraid Shakespeare did not verify his quotations; many simple errors occur through Shakespeare copying them from other authors, whilst the critics, from sheer ignorance, always lay them on Shakespeare’s shoulders, thus making him the scapegoat for other’s mistakes. Of course, from the point of view of modern scholarship, it is a grave error in placing Cæsar’s assassination in the Capitol; Plutarch expressly states that Cæsar met his death at Pompey’s portico, where a statue of his famous rival stood in the centre. The dramatist was on the right track when Marc Antony, in his oration, describes the place where Cæsar fell:
“Then burst his mighty heart,
And in his mantle, muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statue,
Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.”
Julius Cæsar was murdered in the “Curia,” Pompey near the theatre of Pompey, in the Campus Martius. Chaucer commits the same blunder in believing that Cæsar was stabbed in the Capitol. In Shakespeare’s play of “Julius Cæsar” the same error was repeated. An ancient statue, which was discovered in 1553 and now stands in the Sala dell’ Udianza of the Spada Palace at Rome, may be the identical statue of Pompey, at the base of which great Cæsar fell. Plutarch relates how at the very base where Pompey’s statue stood, which ran all gore blood, till he was slain. Plutarch’s celebrated lives of the Grecians and Romans was translated into English by Thomas North in 1579, from the French version of Jacques Amyot, first printed in 1559. Four editions were issued before North made his translation without studying the text very minutely, a difficulty arises in determining which edition North used. This book was Shakespeare’s constant companion, and many of North’s vigorous prose passages are turned into verse with very little alteration. This volume was in the library of Molière’s mother, and was frequently consulted by the great French comic poet. The author was in great vogue during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and it may well be considered the most popular book of those times among educated people. During the last hundred years the work has lost much of its popularity, few people of the present day having read it. I doubt if many who profess themselves readers of good literature know the author, even by name. So much for our educational system. I possess a copy of the first Greek edition, dated 1517, formerly in the possession of the Duke of Sussex; besides the rare first French edition, 1559, which I recently purchased from the catalogue of a lady provincial bookseller.
GROUNDLINGS.
To split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.
III, II, 12.
That part of the theatre, corresponding to our pit, was called the yard, and the spectators who stood in the enclosure were dubbed groundlings, the word being associated with the general sense of ground. “Your groundlings and gallery-commoner buys his sport by the penny.” The price of admission to this part of a public theatre, such as the Globe, was one penny. At the Blackfriars, a private theatre, there was no open yard. In Jonson’s play of “The Case is Altered” one of the characters explains: “Tut, give me the penny, give me the penny. I care not for the gentleman, I, let me have good ground.” The same dramatist, in another play, designates these spectators as the understanding gentlemen of the ground. Judging by contemporary accounts, the yard was the most uncomfortable place for enjoying the performance, the enclosure was bare of any sitting accommodation, neither was there any flooring, being generally overcrowded; there was no room for stools. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, the people flocked to this part of the theatre, which, at most of the public theatres, held about a thousand spectators. In proof of this statement I will quote some verses from Marlowe’s Epigrams and Elegies, translated from Ovid’s Amores:
“For as we see
The playhouse doors
When ended is the play, the dance and song,
A thousand townsmen, gentlemen and wantons,
Porters and serving men, together throng.”
These lines were published circa 1596, and have never been quoted before in reference to the stage, and I regard them, on my part, in the light of a discovery. When every nook and cranny of Elizabethan literature has been diligently ransacked in quest of materials for illuminating theatrical matters, it is all the more surprising that this passage should have been overlooked. The reason may be that in this poem some of the verses were too highly coloured for respectable literary folk, but in spite of this obstacle I considered it my duty as a student to read the book diligently from page to page in hopes of finding some reference to the early stage, and in this instance I was amply rewarded. This volume of amorous verses was one of the books condemned to be burnt at Canterbury by Archbishop Whitgift in 1599. By a strange coincidence, the original of this volume was banned from the public libraries by order of the Emperor Augustus.
HOBBY HORSE.
For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot.
III, 2, 144.
Although only distantly connected with the stage, the mention of this well-known feature in the May games proves that Shakespeare was well versed in all matters connected with the festivities of the village homes. The hobby-horse was one of the principal actors, taking part in the Morris Dance, this dance being considered the chief attraction of the May games. Hobby was originally the name of a small horse chiefly of Irish breed; when figuring in the festivities under this name it was represented by a paste board painted figure of a horse, attached to a frame of wicker wood or other light material, and was fastened round the waist of a man, his own legs, going through the body of the horse, were concealed by a long foot-cloth, thus enabling him to walk unseen, while false legs appeared where those of the man should have been, at the sides of the horse. Thus equipped, he executed various antics in imitation of a skittish high-spirited animal. The name of the performer was also called the hobby-horse. The phrase is now obsolete, but the word hobby is now associated with the occupation of collecting various works of art or trivial things, which is compared to the riding of a toy horse. The present quotation may be a line now lost from an old ballad, in which the omission of the hobby-horse from the May games was the principal theme. The figure of a man riding a hobby-horse is depicted on a glass window at Betley Church, Staffordshire. This identical sentence is often mentioned in Elizabethan literature, which would indicate that at this period it had ceased to form a part of the rustic games. As an instance showing the disfavour into which the hobby-horse had fallen, Hope-on-high Bomby, a character in “A Woman Pleased,” by Beaumont and Fletcher, throws off his hobby-horse and will no more engage in the Morris Dance. Last summer I witnessed some very interesting Morris Dances performed on the Green in the Hampstead Garden Suburb, but was disappointed in not seeing the hobby-horse. “For O, For O, the hobby-horse is forgot,” I exclaimed in a loud voice, but no one heeded me, and the dances continued.
JIG.
Prithee, say on, he’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or else he sleeps.
II, 2, 522.
This is the only instance in which Shakespeare uses the word in its connexion with the dramatic history of the stage. In this sense the word is now obsolete. Until quite lately, no specimen of this form of dramatic literature was extant, yet the early commentators were fully aware of its existence. Very little trustworthy evidence for this class of literary diversion is procurable, but several early references clearly indicate that such fare was usually provided at the public theatres. The jig was a dramatic sketch or ballad drama, of a light or farcical character, written to dance music and accompanied in most instances to dance action. The piece that has survived is without this lasting accessory. The actors in these sketches were chosen from those that played the clowns and comic characters in the regular drama. An idea of the nature of these one-act plays may be imagined by comparing them to the rollicking farces which generally concluded the programme in our theatres in Victorian times. The only extant jig, which has recently been discovered, has been printed in the collection of Shirburn ballads, and edited with much profound learning by Mr. Andrew Clark. The playlet is entitled:
“Mr. Attwell’s Jigge
betweene
Francis. A Gentleman.
Richard. A Farmer
and their wives.”
The sketch is divided into four acts, each one accompanied to a different tune. The first to the tune of “Walsingham,” the second “The Jewish Bride,” the third to “Buggle-boe,” and the fourth to “Goe from my Window.” This last tune was familiar in Scotland early in Elizabeth’s reign. The first act introduces to us the plot of the piece: the gentleman, who makes love to the farmer’s wife. When her husband returns, she tells him of the gentleman’s intentions; thereupon they concoct a plot to entrap the would-be lover, and inform the gentleman’s wife of his intrigue. In the end the gentleman makes love to his own wife in the belief that she is the farmer’s wife. When he discovers his mistake he is forgiven and all ends happily. We may readily assume that many such pieces still exist in manuscript which have not yet come to light. We owe a debt to Mr. Clark for having published this highly interesting example, illustrating a popular theatrical amusement of the Tudor period. The Spanish dramas of this date also had their jigs, which were called “bayles,” always accompanied by words, either sung or recited, and, of course, by dancing.
LINES.
But if you mouth it, as many of your players do,
I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines.
III, 2, 4.
These lines refer to the delivery of the speech, inserted by Hamlet in the play scene. Apparently Shakespeare did not appreciate this boisterous school of acting, which was of a pompous oratorical style, uttering the words with great distinctness of articulation, amounting almost to affectation; in brief, a species of ranting. In poetry, verses are termed lines. Milton, in his ode to Shakespeare, prefixed to the Second Folio, 1632, writes:
“... and that each part
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued Book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took.”
“Unvalued” in the above quotation is here used for our modern word “invaluable.” Shakespeare uses the word in both its ancient and modern definitions, namely, “Inestimable stones, unvalued Jewels,” in “Richard III,” and once in “Hamlet,” “He may not as unvalued persons do Carve for himself.”
An actor of to-day still refers to the words of his part as his lines. A further instance of ranting occurs in Churchill’s “Roliad,” where he speaks disparagingly of an actor in the following couplet:
He mouths a sentence
As a cur mouths a bone.
Shakespeare himself refers to his “untutored lines” in the dedication of “Lucrece” to the Earl of Southampton.
PART.
The humourous-man shall end his part in peace.
II, 2, 336.
In this passage the “humourous man” has no connection with the funny or comical character in our present day melodramas. The meaning in this latter sense is first used at the end of the seventeenth century. The Shakesperean sense was moody, peevish, or capricious, ever ready in entering into a quarrel, and represented by such characters as Mercutio, Jacques, and Faulconbridge.
PLAY.
He that plays the King shall be welcome.
II, 2, 332.
The play I remember pleased not the million.
II, 2, 456.
An excellent play well digested in the scenes.
II, 2, 46.
We’ll hear a play to-morrow. Dost thou hear me?
Old friend, can you play the murder of Gonzago?
II, 2, 56.
I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have, by the very cunning of the scene,
Been struck so to the soul, that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
II, 2, 618.
I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father.
II, 2, 624.
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
II, 2, 663.
They have already order
This night to play before him.
III, 1, 21.
After the play
Let the queen mother alone entreat him.
III, 1, 189.
O, there be players that I have seen play.
III, 2, 33.
Let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them.
III, 2, 43.
Though, in the meantime, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered.
III, 2, 47.
There is a play to-night before the king.
III, 2, 80.
If I steal ought whilst the play is playing
And ’scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
III, 2, 93.
They are coming to the play I must be idle.
III, 2, 98.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
III, 2, 150.
You are naught, you are naught, I’ll mark the play.
III, 2, 158.
Madam, how like you the play?
III, 2, 239.
What do you call the play? The Mouse trap.
III, 2, 246.
The play is the image of a murder done in Vienna.
III, 2, 265.
Give o’er the play. Give me some light, Away.
III, 2, 279.
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains
They had begun the play.
V, 2, 31.
PLAYED.
My lord, you played once i’ the university, you say.
III, 2, 104.
PLAYER.
What lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you.
II, 2, 329.
What players are they? Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.
II, 2, 365.
Unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.
II, 2, 373.
There are the players.
You are welcome to Elsinore.
II, 2, 386.
Lest my extent to the players should more appear like entertainment than yours.
II, 2, 391.
I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players.
II, 2, 406.
Will you see the players well bestowed.
II, 2, 547.
Is it not monstrous that this player here
But in a fiction in a dream of passion
Could force his soul so to his own conceit.
II, 2, 577.
I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father.
II, 2, 623.
It so fell out that certain players
We o’er-raught in the way.
III, 1, 16.
If you mouth it as many of your players do.
I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines.
III, 2, 3.
O, there be players that I have seen play.
III, 3, 32.
Bid the players make haste.
III, 2, 54.
Be the players ready.
III, 2, 111.
The players cannot keep counsel, they tell all.
III, 2, 162.
Will not this—get me a fellowship in a cry of players.
III, 2, 289.
PLAYING.
Anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing.
III, 2, 23.
If he steal aught whilst the play is playing.
III, 2, 93.
PROLOGUE.
And prologue to the omen coming on.
I, 1, 123.
Is this a prologue or the posy of a ring.
III, 2, 123.
Ere I could make a prologue to my brains
They had begun the play.
V, 2, 30.
QUALITY.
Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing?
II, 2, 268.
We’ll have a speech straight, come give us a taste of your quality, come a passionate speech.
III, 2, 451.
In Shakespeare’s time the word was used technically, as applying to the profession of acting; in this sense the word is now obsolete. “Players, I love ye and your quality,” is a quotation from Davies’ “Microcosm,” 1603.
SCENE.
Scene individable or poem unlimited.
II, 2, 418.
An excellent play well digested in the scenes.
II, 2, 418.
Have by the very cunning of the scene.
II, 2, 619.
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father’s death.
III, 2, 81.
SHOW.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
III, 2, 149.
Will he tell us what this show meant.
III, 2, 153.
The word show in both these passages refers to the dumb-show which caused Ophelia to make these remarks. Although in modern slang the word show is used in connexion with a dramatic entertainment, this meaning did not exist in Shakespeare’s time: its only meaning in a theatrical sense, in the sixteenth century was of a spectacular nature, such as pageants, masques or processions on a large scale.
STAGE.
These are now the fashion and so berattle the common stages.
II, 2, 358.
He would drown the stage with tears.
II, 2, 588.
TRAGEDIAN.
Those who were wont to take such delight in the tragedians of the city.
II, 2, 324.
TRAGEDY.
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history.
II, 2, 416.
For us and for our tragedy.
III, 2, 159.
TRAGICAL.
Tragical, historical, tragical comical, historical pastoral.
II, 2, 417.
VICE.
A vice of kings.
A king of shreds and patches.
III, IV, 98.
The vice in the old morality was usually of a humourous and malicious character, deriving his name from the vicious qualities attributed to him in the old morality plays. His nature was wholly mischievous, and this trait permeated his entire being. The vice was generally dressed in a fool’s habit, hence the further reference to a king of shreds and patches. One of the meanings of patch is a piece of cloth sewed together, with others of varying shape and size and colour to form patchwork or adorn a garment. Shakespeare having previously alluded to the vice or fool, by association of ideas refers in a few lines later to his many-coloured garment.
HAMLET.
Why did you laugh then, when I said “man delights not me?”
ROSENCRANTZ.
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man what lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and hither are they coming, to offer you service.
HAM.
He that plays the king shall be welcome; his Majesty shall have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humourous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle o’ the sere, and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for’t. What players are they?
ROS.
Even those you were wont to take such delight in, the tragedians of the city.
HAM.
How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.
ROS.
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.
HAM.
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?
ROS.
No, indeed they are not.
HAM.
How comes it? Do they grow rusty?
ROS.
Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonter place; but there is, sir, an eyrie of children, little eyeases, that cry out on the top of question and are most tyranically clapped for ’t. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.
HAM.
What, are they children? Who maintains ’em? How are they escorted? Will they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players—as it is most like, if their means are no better, their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession.
ROS.
Faith, there has been much to do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tarre them to controversy; there was for a while no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.
HAM.
Is’t possible?
GUILDENSTERN.
O, there has been much throwing about of brains.
HAM.
Do the boys carry it away?
ROS.
Ay, that they do, my lord. Hercules and his load, too.
This passage is particularly interesting to Shakesperean students, introducing as it does one of those veiled allusions to the contemporary stage, under the cloak of carrying on the ordinary dialogues of the play. The most unobservant reader will notice that this conversation in no way furthers the action of the play, and was simply brought in on a set purpose to interest the spectators in certain theatrical events of the day. Shakespeare, frequently in his dramas, refers to topical events which were quite clear to his audience, but in the course of ages the allusions were forgotten, and now only have a shadowy existence. A few commentators still squabble over these so-called references, in most instances failing to see any contemporary event embedded in the text, while others would discover contemporary allusions throughout a great majority of the plays. These topical references must be treated sensibly and logically; the safest plan is to completely ignore them without ample evidence is forthcoming of their real existence, otherwise it will surely lead the commentator into various pitfalls. Weaving imaginary theories out of these passages, which many editors of the past most delight in, is simplicity itself, but the modern reader very justly demands conclusive evidence before giving credence to these wild assumptions. In the above passage there can hardly exist a doubt that some stage event of the day is here discussed; the difficulty is to pluck out the heart of the mystery in the words “inhibition” and “innovation.” Although the scene is laid in Denmark, every reader will surely understand that Shakespeare is referring to the stage in London. By the tragedians of the city his own audience would be quick in detecting a reference to the celebrated actors of the Globe Theatre, which included the famous Richard Burbage, the creator of Hamlet and many other leading Shakesperean characters. In the query “how chances it they travel,” there is a reference to the custom of the London companies making their provincial tours. These tours were organized when the London theatres were closed, occurring chiefly through the raging of the plague, or want of funds necessary in carrying out a London season, or by some drastic measure imposed by certain authorities. One fact is certain, every company, whether successful or unsuccessful, made these regular provincial tours, evidence of which is abundant, and can be found in the archives of the principal towns in England.
By Hamlet’s question it would appear that only unsuccessful companies quitted the Metropolis, but on that point I can offer no satisfactory answer, except that Shakespeare in this passage was not alluding to the custom of the theatrical profession of his own times which, I think most readers will agree with me, is most unlikely.
The next quotation presents even greater difficulties. “I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.” To anyone unacquainted with the theatrical practices of the Elizabethan times, this passage is altogether meaningless, even those possessing the requisite knowledge, the exact interpretation can only be dimly surmised. That there was some definite allusion to some theatrical event of the day, which the audience clearly understood is certain, otherwise the passage would have been explained in a further conversation. Now our duty is to pierce this Cimmerian darkness by discovering the true history of this inhibition, likewise the origin of the innovation. The word inhibition refers to the act of inhibiting or forbidding, a prohibition formally issued by a person or body possessed of civil authority. Innovation means the action of innovating or the introduction of novelties. A change made in the nature or fashion of anything. Something newly introduced, a novel practice or method. Armed with these dictionary explanations we can now proceed in applying them to the present passage.
If we might take a liberty with the text and follow Dr. Johnson’s emendation, we immediately get rid of one of the difficulties. Dr. Johnson proposed to transpose the order of the words to read: “I think their innovation comes by the means of the late inhibition.” By this simple expedient innovation would refer to their new practice of strolling and the inhibition to the cause of it.
In my opinion this new reading is a most ingenious correction, and if adopted would remove the difficulty of making Hamlet grasp immediately the cause of the innovation which was certainly unknown to him. By explaining innovation as referring to their travelling or strolling, and inhibition as a command to quit the Metropolis, for some offence, the answer appears satisfactory and needs no further elucidation. But this tampering with the text is high treason in the Shakesperean sense, and other solutions more in conformity with the rules of the game must be suggested. It is just possible that the word inhibition is a corruption due to the compositor mishearing the word exhibition, meaning that the players were exhibiting themselves in the country for some offence or other.
Theobald, the greatest of all Shakesperean commentators, suggested the word itineration, clearly indicating that he thought the word was a corruption.
The city and local authorities frequently prohibited the actors from playing in their theatres; sometimes refusing permission on account of the plague, on other occasions for disturbances caused by the gathering of a large concourse of people, more often by their prejudice and utter dislike of all theatrical performances. Any light pretext was sufficient to order an inhibition. In this particular instance it is difficult to account for any inhibition by the authorities. The innovation certainly referred to the competition of the child performers, although in Shakespeare’s time it was no innovation, the children having acted for many years previously. The Blackfriars Theatre was given up to the Children of the Queen’s Revels and the Children of the Royal Chapel and other boy companies, which the Queen encouraged not only by her presence at the Blackfriars Theatre but by allowing them several privileges. The Children of St. Paul’s were also a rival company, and acted with great applause, several dramatists of eminence writing plays for them as well as for the Blackfriars brigade. Hamlet bitterly laments these innovations, for which he has my hearty approval, the child performer on the stage or in the drawing room being my bête noire. Shakespeare’s sympathies being entirely on behalf of the men players. Other causes for the closing of the theatres were the custom of introducing matters of state and religion upon the stage, for which cause the Admiral and the Strange companies were severely censured and, no doubt, obliged to retire for a season. Personal abuse was also rampant, and led to the war of the theatres, a controversy carried on with much bitterness on all sides. Satirizing living persons and impersonating their peculiarities was another feature of the stage, which caused the imprisonment of Nash, the well-known dramatist. Lord Strange’s company got into a great scrape for playing the deposition scene in “Richard the Second,” much to the annoyance and anger of the Queen, at the time of the Essex rebellion. The Queen is reported to have said, “Know ye not that I am Richard the Second?” For this offence they were debarred from acting at Court, and also in London. During their prohibition they acted in the provinces, but it is hardly likely that Shakespeare would refer to his own company as being in disgrace. I only cite these instances as showing the theatrical customs of the day, and incidentally throwing light on the topical allusion in this passage. Attentive readers of Shakespeare’s works will in course of their perusal come across several of these tantalizing references, which are all the more interesting on account of the difficulty in solving them. Many a passage which runs so smoothly in the modern text owes its simplicity to the untiring efforts and scholarship of previous editors. One such editor, the famous Theobald, was a genius in restoring the true reading out of a mass of corruption in which he found the text, also in interpreting for later generations out of the way classical allusions and ancient customs. Some of his restorations and interpretations can only be considered as inspired, and all Shakesperean students should revere his memory. Without the aid of Theobald hundreds of passages would still have remained unintelligible, and Shakespeare himself owes him a debt of gratitude.
COMMON PLAYERS.
John Stephens, in his Essays and Characters, 1615, thus describes a common player: “Therefore did I prefix an epithet of ’common’ to distinguish the base and artlesse appendants of our city companies, which oftentimes start away into rusticall wanderers and then, like Proteus, start back again into the citty number.”
HAMLET’S ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS.
III, 2.
HAM.
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much, with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the wound to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod; pray you, avoid it.
FIRST PLAYER.
I warrant your honour.
HAM.
Be not too tame neither, but let your discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature, for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it makes the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature’s journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
FIRST PLAY.
I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.
HAM.
Oh, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then to be considered; that’s villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.
In this passage the whole art of the actor is set down for all time. Only a practised and enthusiastic actor, who in reality was in love with his profession, and who saw the educating force and dignity of his calling, could have drawn up such an ennobling picture of the responsibility entrusted to the impersonators of the characters, who embodied the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. Voice, gesture, deportment, the actor’s indispensable gifts, are all in due proportion given prominence, nothing is forgotten, so that the mimic representative shall be as perfect as the exigencies of the stage will allow.
A copy of these rules should be hung up in every theatre of the land, so that the actor should be impressed with the dignity and elevating powers of his profession. There be players that I have seen who would have well profited by reading this passage before setting foot on the stage. It was not only in Shakespeare’s days that reformation was needed: how often in our days is a well-written part mangled out of recognition by the slovenliness and stupidity of the impersonator. Study this speech, and, if you are in danger of forgetting it, study it again; it is the very alpha and omega of your great art. Shakespeare’s motive in assigning this speech to Hamlet may be for the better instruction of the actor in delivering the dozen or sixteen lines, which Hamlet inserted in the play of Gonzago’s murder. “But if you mouth, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines.” Considering that Hamlet was collaborating in the play, which was to be played before the King and Queen he was naturally interested in its production. On the other hand, it seems rather presumptuous for an amateur to dictate to a professional how a play should be acted, especially in this instance, when Hamlet had already tested the quality of the actor by hearing his recital of a scene out of Æneas’ tale of Dido, which he afterwards criticised, eulogising the admirable manner in which the player had acquitted himself. When witnessed on the stage these trifling discrepancies pass unnoticed, but in the study, when the plays are submitted to a microscopical examination, the inexactitudes make us reflect, and in the cold light of reason accuse Shakespeare of being a careless writer.
THE MURDER OF GONZAGO.
III, 2.
HAM.
Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the “Murder of Gonzago?”
FIRST PLAY.
Ay, my lord.
HAM.
We’ll ha’t to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in ’t. Could you not?
FIRST PLAY.
Ay, my lord.
I have read most of the tales of the Italian novelists, but can find nothing answering to the description of the “Murder of Gonzago.” Hamlet refers in a later part of the play to the murder having been committed in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke’s name, his wife’s Baptista. In the dumb-show Gonzago is the King and Baptista the Queen, but in the dialogue they are named Duke and Duchess, a trivial oversight, due either to haste or carelessness; many such slight inaccuracies are found throughout Shakespeare’s works. The historians of Urbino mention a Duke of that state married to a Gonzago. Professor Dowden relates that this Duke was murdered in the same manner as the king in the dumb-show. He gives no reference for this statement. The Duke referred to was renowned for the splendour of his Court, also for his patronage of learning and the fine arts. He married Elizabeth Gonzago, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Gonzago, Lord of Mantua. This Duke of Urbino was created a Knight of the Garter by Edward the Fourth; he died quite peacefully in 1508. I feel almost positive a story existed in which the details correspond to the action in the dumb-show. When Hamlet asks the first actor if he remembers the speech of Æneas’ tale to Dido all the critics thought that Shakespeare had invented the speech, but afterwards an unfinished play by Marlowe, completed by Nash, was discovered; it was entitled “Dido, Queen of Carthage.” A paraphrase of Marlowe’s lines is contained in Shakespeare’s version. Possibly some day we may discover the original story of the Murder of Gonzago.
You could for a need study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines.
II, 2, 560.
Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck; lays him down upon a bank of flowers; she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King’s ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts; she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love.
OPH.
What means this, my lord?
HAM.
Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
OPH.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play?
(Enter Prologue.)
HAM.
We shall know by this fellow; the players cannot keep counsel; they’ll tell all.
OPH.
Will he tell us what this show meant?
HAM.
Ay, or any show that you’ll show him; be not you ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means.
OPH.
You are naught, you are naught; I’ll mark the play.
PRO.
For, us and for our tragedy
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
HAM.
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPH.
’Tis brief, my lord.
HAM.
As woman’s love.
(Enter two Players, King and Queen.)
P. KING.
Full thirty times hath Phœbus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow’d sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
P. QUEEN.
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o’er ere love be done!
But, woe is me! you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;
For women’s fear and love holds quantity
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know,
And as my love is sized, my fear is so;
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear,
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
P. KING.
Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do;
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour’d, beloved; and haply one as king
For husband shalt thou ——.
P. QUEEN.
Oh, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast;
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill’d the first.
HAM (Aside).
Wormwood, wormwood!
P. QUEEN.
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love;
A second time I kill my husband dead,
Then second husband kisses me in bed.
P. KING.
I do believe you think what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth but poor validity;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt;
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy;
Where joy most revels grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change
For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies;
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend;
And who in want a hollow friend doth try
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown,
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own;
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
P. QUEEN.
Nor earth to me give food nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite, that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
HAM.
If she should break it now!
P. KING.
’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
P. QUEEN.
Sleep rock thy brain;
And never come mischance between us twain!
(Exit).
HAM.
Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
HAM.
O, but she’ll keep her word.
KING.
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in ’t?
HAM.
No, no; they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence the world.
KING.
What do you call the play?
HAM.
The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna; Gonzago is the duke’s name; his wife’s, Baptista: You shall see anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work; but what o’ that? your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not; let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.
(Enter Player, as Lucianus.)
(This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.)
OPH.
You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAM.
Begin, murderer: pox, leave thy damnable faces and begin. Come: the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
LUC.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately.
(Pours the poison into the Sleeper’s ears.)
HAM.
He poisons him i’ the garden for ’s estate. His name’s Gonzago; the story is extant, and written in very choice Italian; you shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.
OPH.
The king rises!
HAM.
What, frighted with false fire!
QUEEN.
How fares my lord?
POL.
Give o’er the play.
KING.
Give me some light.—Away!
ALL.
Lights, lights, lights!
The question arises: were the lines which Hamlet proposed to write inserted in the play, and if so, can they be identified. Professor Seeley and others would fix on the lines commencing the player King’s speech: “I do believe you think what now you speak” (III, 2, 196), until “Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own” (III, 2, 223). The sentiments contained in these verses are, for the most part, trite aphorisms in no way affecting the murder scene, and can on that account be entirely rejected. The speech of Lucianus, commencing “Thoughts black” (III, 2, 266), are certainly more apt for the occasion, and had the desired effect of alarming the King. Had these lines numbered sixteen instead of six there would have been greater plausibility in assigning them to Hamlet. The intention was that these lines should have a direct bearing upon the play, and form an integral part of the whole, therefore these verses must also be dismissed. We can only surmise that Shakespeare intended the audience to believe that he in some measure revised a scene in the “Murder of Gonzago” to suit the present circumstances, which would avoid the improbability that a play existed which in every respect resembled Claudius’ crime. An attempt in picking out the actual lines is mere sophistication, and a profitless and useless discussion. In introducing a play within a play, Shakespeare endeavours to beguile the audience to believe in the reality of the play and in the artificiality of the play scene; for this purpose he employs rhyme couplets instead of the ordinary dialogue and blank verse. The style of the interlude is further mocked by the forced conceits and bombastic nature of the language. Note further the liberal use of classical names in the first few lines. One must admire Shakespeare’s resourcefulness in these small matters, and even greater contrast is shown in the recitation scene, which approves his act and judgement.
ACT II. SCENE II. Line 447–569.
(Enter four or five players.)
You are welcome, masters! welcome all. I am glad to see thee well: welcome, good friends.—O, my old friends! Why, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last; comest thou to beard me in Denmark?—What, my young lady and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.—Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to ’t like French falconers, fly at anything we see: We’ll have a speech straight; come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.
FIRST PLAY.
What speech, my good lord?
HAM.
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; ’twas caviare to the general; but it was—as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried on the top of mine—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affection; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved; ’twas Æneas’ tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line; let me see, let me see:
THE
Tragedie of Dido
Queene of Carthage:
Played by the Children of her
Maiesties Chappell.
Written by Christopher Marlowe, and
Thomas Nash. Gent.
Actors
Iupiter.
Ascanius.
Ganimed.
Dido.
Venus.
Anna.
Cupid.
Achates.
Iuno.
Ilioneus.
Mercurie,er.
Iarbas.
Hermes.
Cloanthes.
Æneas.
Sergestus.
AT LONDON,
Printed, by the Widdowe Orwin, for Thomas Woodcocke, and are to be solde at his shop, in Paules Church-yeard, at the signe of the blacke Beare. 1594.
Æn. My mother Venus iealous of my health,
Conuaid me from their crooked acts and bands:
So I escapt the furious Pirrhus wrath:
Who then ran to the pallace of the King,
And at Ioues Altar finding Priamus,
About
The Tragedie of Dido.
About whose withered necke hung Hecuba,
Foulding his hand in hers, and ioyntly both
Beating their breasts and falling on the ground,
He with his faulchions poynt raisde vp at once,
And with Megeras eyes flared in their face,
Threatning a thousand deaths at euery glaunce.
To whom the aged King thus trembling spoke:
Achilles sonne, remember what I was,
Father of fiftie sonnes, but they are slaine,
Lord of my fortune, but my fortunes turnd,
King of this Citie, but my Troy is fired,
And now am neither father, Lord, nor King:
Yet who so wretched but desires to liue?
O let me liue, great Neoptolemus,
Not mou’d at all, but smiling at his teares,
This butcher whil’st his hands were yet held vp,
Treading vpon his breast, strooke off his hands.
Dido. O end Æneas, I can heare no more.
Æn. At which the franticke Queene leapt on his face,
And in his eyelids hanging by the nayles,
A little while prolong’d her husbands life:
At last the souldiers puld her by the heeles,
And swong her howling in the emptie ayre,
Which sent an eccho to the wounded King:
Whereat he lifted vp his bedred lims,
And would haue grappeld with Achilles sonne,
Forgetting both his want of strength and hands,
Which he disdaining whiskt his sword about,
And with the wound thereof the King fell downe:
Then from the nauell to the throat at once,
He ript old Priam: at whose latter gaspe
Ioues marble statue gan to bend the brow,
As lothing Pirrhus for this wicked act:
Yet he vndaunted tooke his fathers flagge,
And dipt it in the old Kings chill cold bloud,
And then in triumph ran into the streetes,
Through which he could not passe for slaughtred men:
So leaning on his sword he stood stone still,
Viewing the fire wherewith rich Ilion burnt.
By this I got my father on my backe,
This yong boy in mine armes, and by the hand
Led faire Creusa my beloued wife,
When thou Achates with thy sword mad’st way,
And we were round inuiron’d with the Greekes:
O there I lost my wife: and had not we
Fought manfully, I had not told this tale:
Yet manhood would not serue, of force we fled,
And as we went vnto our ships, thou knowest
We sawe Cassandra sprauling in the streetes,
Whom Aiax rauisht in Dianas Fawne,
Her cheekes swolne with sighes, her haire all rent,
Whom I tooke vp to beare vnto our ships;
But suddenly the Grecians followed vs,
And I alas, was forst to let her lye.
Then got we to our ships, and being abourd,
Polixena cryed out, Æneas stay,
The Greekes pursue me, stay and take me in.
Moued with her voyce, I lept into the sea,
Thinking to beare her on my backe abourd:
For all our ships were launcht into the deepe,
And as I swomme, she standing on the shoare,
Was by the cruell Mirmidons surprizd,
And after by that Pirrhus sacrifizde.
Dido. I dye with melting ruth, Æneas leaue.
Anna. O what became of aged Hecuba?
Iar. How got Æneas to the fleete againe?
Dido. But how scapt Helen, she that causde this warre?
Æn. Achates speake, sorrow hath tired me quite.
Acha. What happened to the Queene we cannot shewe,
We heare they led her captiue into Greece,
As for Æneas he swomme quickly backe,
And Helena betraied Düphobus
Her Louer, after Alexander dyed,
And so was reconcil’d to Menelaus.
Dido.
DIDO
The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast,—
’tis not so, it begins with Pyrrhus:
The rugged Pyrrhus,—he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,—
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
Now is he total gules; horridly trick’d
With Blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and damned light
To their lords’ murder, roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o’er sized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.
So, proceed you.
Pol.
’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.
FIRST PLAY.
Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command; unequal match’d
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
but with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear; for, lo! his sword
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ the air to stick;
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
And like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.
But, as we often see, against some storm
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold wind speechless and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,
Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall
On Mars’ armour, forged for proof eterne,
With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,
In general synod take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven
As low as to the fiends!
Pol.
This is too long.
Ham.
It shall to the barber’s, with your beard—Prithee, say on; he’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps: say on; come to Hecuba.
FIRST PLAY.
But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen——.
HAM.
“The mobled queen?”
POL.
That’s good; “mobled queen” is good.
FIRST PLAY.
Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood; and for a robe,
About her lank and all o’er-teemed loins,
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,
’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounced:
But if the gods themselves did see her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made,—
Unless things mortal move them not at all,—
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven
And passion in the gods.
POL.
Look, whether he has not turned his colour and his tears in’s eyes. Prithee, no more.
HAM.
’Tis well; I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.—Good, my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
POL.
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAM.
God’s bodykins, man, much better! Use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity; the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.
POL.
Come, sirs.
II, 2, 468.
ÆNEAS’ TALE TO DIDO.
Shakespeare, through the person of Hamlet, shows his entire sympathy and love for all things dramatic. Directly the players enter he heartily welcomes them, throws off for a time all thoughts of melancholy, and appears in his true character as a noble prince, scholar and gentleman. Evidently Hamlet had not seen these players for a long time; for what cause he had abstained from the theatre he does not state. In the interval the chief actor had grown old, and was bearded. The young lady alluded to is the boy actor who had grown at least many inches since Hamlet last saw him; in fact, by the altitude of chopine, this last object was a kind of heel attached to a shoe or boot, measuring a good height, sometimes as much as eighteen inches. The ladies of Venice were chiefly addicted to this fashion at the end of the sixteenth century, being much ridiculed for so doing, perhaps to the same extent as the ladies of our period when the hobbled skirt was introduced. The fashion of wearing a chopine did not extend as far as this country, although Walter Scott introduces the custom in his novel of the Fortunes of Nigel. The allusion to the lady’s voice being cracked within the ring, refers to the boy changing his voice from the boy to the young man’s stage. There was a ring on the coin of the realm within which the sovereign’s head was placed; if the crack extended from the edge beyond the ring, the coin was rendered unfit for currency.
“One speech in it I chiefly loved, ’twas Æneas’ tale to Dido.” Should we consider this play which Shakespeare so admirably criticises as an imaginary composition or one by a living author? I think, after reading Marlowe and Nash’s drama, entitled, “Dido, Queen of Carthage,” there can exist no doubt that Shakespeare was criticising this play, and he certainly moulded the piece he chose for recitation on this production. If any conclusion can be drawn from this piece of criticism, one conclusion is certain, that Shakespeare himself admired the classical drama, and if he had composed plays only for the study they would have been written more in conformity with classical methods. Having a mixed audience he was obliged to flavour his plays with savoury matter, what we should call spicy bits, for seeking the suffrage of the groundlings, and on some occasions treated these matters in no very delicate way according to our present notions. Shakespeare used the big brush, and laid it on pretty thick, proving the truth of Pope’s couplet:
“For gain, not glory, winged his wordy flight
And grew immortal in his own despite.”
Many critics have taken this speech as being ironical, or a burlesque on the old play, but there would have been no point in making Hamlet praise the piece so extravagantly. I think the critics who favour this theory may this time be dismissed with a caution, but should they offend in the same manner again they will be hardly dealt with. I regret seeing Professor Gollancz’s name in the list.
Shakespeare refers to the actors as the abstract and brief chronicles of the time. The Shakesperean canon comprises thirty-seven plays, not one of which, with the single exception of “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” deals with contemporary events, therefore, by his own confession, we owe Shakespeare little for pourtraying the chronicles of the time. Had Shakespeare strictly adhered to the laws of the drama this censure might have more force, but in all the plays, whether Roman, English of bygone centuries, or Italian, characters and scenes are laid before our admiring eyes, bearing always a substratum of pure contemporary English manners, for which we must be ever thankful.
The same might be said of all the Elizabethan dramatists with but few exceptions. Perhaps Shakespeare was looking ahead, prophesying the time when the playwright would record the events of his day, as in our own time the happenings of the hour are fully recorded, vindicating the phrase voiced by the poet as “holding the mirror up to nature”:
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaimed their malefactions.
I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle.
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
II, 2, 617.
In hearing or reading this speech, the spectator or reader would naturally conclude that this was Hamlet’s first conception of the plot, in which he sought to prove by a mock performance of the murder the guilt or innocence of the king, yet a few minutes previously Hamlet had already conceived the idea of the play scene. Is this another sign of carelessness, or is Hamlet visualizing the effects of his scheme? Hunter, a Shakesperean commentator, would read “About ’t my brains,” that is, set about composing the lines which the players were to add to “The Murder of Gonzago,” he would also delete the word “hum.” By omitting the interjection he maintains that it makes prospective what is evidently retrospective. I contend that it does nothing of the sort, and the natural inference is, that the poet forgot that he had already invented the stratagem by which he intends catching the conscience of the king. Many instances occur in literature, whereas by means of a play representing a murder, the actual wrong-doer has confessed his crime, and been brought to justice. Such a scene is found in “A Warning to Fair Women,” a play acted by the Chamberlain’s company and printed in 1599. The play is founded on a celebrated murder case which took place in Lynn in Norfolk, in 1573.
HAM.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers—if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me—with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
HORATIO.
Half a share.
HAM.
A whole one I.
III, 2, 286.
The difficulties of determining the precise value of a share in a theatre are manifold. The value of money in those days does not correspond in any degree to that of to-day. The purchasing power of a sovereign being from seven to ten times greater now than at the end of the sixteenth century. With the exception of corn, which in normal times was about the same price as to-day, all food was ridiculously cheap compared with our present-day prices, so that anyone with an income of, say, three to four hundred pounds a year would be regarded as a rich man. Respecting the present passage, Horatio considers half a share a fair remuneration for a deserving actor. The shares in the Globe Theatre were divided into sixteen parts; out of this number Shakespeare possessed at one time in his life two whole shares, which, it is computed, brought him in £200 a year for each share, quite a goodly income. Shakespeare seems to have parted with his shares before his death, as in his will he makes no mention of them. The technical name for the proprietors of the theatre or shareholders was house-keepers; the word has now become obsolete. I cannot find the word in the New English Dictionary, an omission which I consider almost a record.
UNIVERSITY PLAYS.
HAM.
My lord, you played once i’ the university, you say?
POL.
That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.
HAM.
And what did you enact.
POL.
I did enact Julius Cæsar.
Brutus killed me.
HAM.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.
An entire volume of 400 closely printed pages, gives a detailed history of plays produced at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The list includes both classical and early English comedies and tragedies; this interesting volume has been written in a masterly and scientific manner, and treated in a most fascinating way rarely met with in this kind of literature. Professor Boas has thoroughly exhausted the subject, and his book can be commended to all Shakesperean students. Plays were acted at both Universities in quite mediæval times, becoming a regular institution in the reign of Henry VIII. The ancient Greek dramatists were presented either in the original Greek or in Latin translations. The first comedy written in the vernacular is called “A right pithy and pleasant and merry comedy, Intitled
Gammer Gurton’s Needle
Played on stage not long ago in
Christ’s College in Cambridge
Made by Mr. S. Mr. of Arts.”
The plays produced at Oxford and Cambridge were of a private character, each college paying its own expenses for the entertainment. In later years, assuming more of a public character, and finally magnificent dramatic entertainments were given before the sovereign and courtiers. The college authorities were lavish in their expenditure according to their means, but in no way rivalled the splendour of the Court productions. Queen Elizabeth honoured Cambridge with a visit in 1564, and a great dramatic exhibition was held in her honour. The performance took place at King’s College, and a great stage was erected in the College Hall; this being found too small, another was built up in the Chapel. A chair of State was placed on the stage for the Queen. In the Rood Loft another platform was placed for Ladies and Gentlemen, and still another under the Rood Loft was placed for the officials of the Court. The scholars on this occasion were not admitted. The Queen arrived on Saturday and took up her lodgings at King’s Lodge, and on the following evening, which was Sunday, a play was given. The Chapel was lighted by torches, which were held by the Guards. The play chosen was the “Aulularia of Plautus,” being acted by the students of the different colleges.
THE
RETVRNE FROM
PERNASSVS:
Or
The Scourge of Simony.
Publiquely acted by the Students
in Saint Iohns Colledge in
Cambridge.
AT LONDON
Printed by G. Eld, for Iohn Wright, and
are to bee sold at his shop at
Christchurch Gate.
1606.
The Shakesperean student will remember Polonius’ description of the literature of the drama. “Seneca is not too heavy or Plautus too light.” The next night another play was performed by the men of King’s College, who were responsible for the entertainment. The play represented was a tragedy, “Dido,” written by Edward Halwell, formerly a fellow of the College. The third night a play by Nicholas Udal, the author of the famous comedy, “Ralph Roister Doister,” was presented before the Queen. The play given on this occasion was a biblical one named “Ezechias,” performed by the King’s College scholars. All these plays were great successes. Another play was to have been performed the next night, but the Queen being so fatigued after visiting the colleges and hearing the deputations, sent messages of regret and excuse, much to the sorrow of the whole University.
Two years later, in 1566, the Queen visited the famous University town of Oxford, and stayed there a whole week. The stage for the nonce was erected at the west end of the Christ Church Hall, that being very convenient for the Queen, as her lodging was at the College. The Earl of Leicester, as Chancellor of Oxford University, received her in state.
The first performance was given on Sunday evening; although the Queen kept her apartment, and was not present, the play was acted before the Spanish Ambassador and the Court. On Monday evening the Queen attended; unfortunately, the performance was marred by a serious accident, caused by a wall giving way through the pressure of the crowd, and killing three persons, including one of the students. The play acted was “Palamon and Arcyte,” written in two parts, by Richard Edwards, the master of the Children of the Chapel; the second part was given on another evening. The play is founded on the Knight’s Tale in Chaucer, the same source as “The Two Noble Kinsmen,” part of which play has been attributed to Shakespeare, his name appearing on the title page in conjunction with Fletcher. I once possessed a copy of the first and only edition of the quarto, 1634, formerly belonging to Marshall, the Shakesperean editor and commentator.
A Latin play, acted on the following evening, closed the dramatic performances. A list of players who acted in these college state exhibitions is extant.
Reynolds, who was one of the actors, in after years became the greatest and bitterest opponent of the University stage plays. He states that he played the part of Hippolyta at Christ Church on the occasion of the Queen’s visit. The Queen left Oxford with many thanks to the whole University and repeated fond farewells to her dear scholars. The amount of the expenses connected with these plays totalled the goodly sum of £150, a large amount of money in those days.
THE
QVEENES
ARCADIA.
A Pastorall Trage-comedie
presented to her Maiestie and
her Ladies, by the Vniuersitie of
Oxford in Christs Church,
in August last.
1605.
At Oxford the chief dramatic centres were Christ Church, Magdalen, St. John’s, and in a lesser degree Merton; performances were also held at Trinity, Exeter and elsewhere. At Cambridge the dramatic fare was more widely distributed, Trinity, King’s, St. John’s, Queens’, Jesus’, Christ, and Clare Hall all presenting plays on frequent occasions. In spite of the fact that the spurious quarto edition of “Hamlet,” dated 1603, states that the play was acted at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, no record exists of any such performance being given. Possibly the play was acted in the town at a public place of entertainment. The University authorities were dead against the professional actors, and persecuted them in a like manner as did the Lord Mayor of London and the Corporation. As early as 1575 both Universities issued proclamations that stage plays should not be exhibited at Oxford or Cambridge, or within five miles of either of those towns.
The first notice is interesting on account of the mention of the Earl of Leicester’s players, who was patron and protector of a company of professional actors.
“Paid to the actors of the Earl of Leicester to depart with their plays without further troubling the University XX shillings.” This order was issued in 1587, and if Shakespeare was a member of the company at the time, which is generally supposed, his first appearance at Oxford was by no means a happy one, as he was paid to go away. Many similar payments are recorded in each year, until the death of Elizabeth, and even afterwards, sufficient proof that the title page must not be implicitly relied upon, and we must abandon the idea that Shakespeare’s masterpiece was acted before the Master Dons and students of the University Halls. The same restrictions were observed at Cambridge, and the professional players were banned acting even at the outlying village of Chesterton. The censorship remains in the power of the Universities in our own time; the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford has prohibited the production of “Hindle Wakes,” a most powerful play, which the authorities should have encouraged instead of censored.
Part I
Henry IV —
PLAY. EXTEMPORE. ARGUMENT.
Shall we have a play extempore?
Content; and the argument shall be thy running away.
II, IV, 310.
In Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a play extempore was a usual form of entertainment, and was deservedly extremely popular. In this country this nimble art never took root, and was purely known as an exotic of an Italian growth. From mere buffoonery the “commedia dell’ arte” or “all improvviso,” as it was indifferently named, developed into true comedy, and many of the situations were in later times used by Molière, the grand Comique, in the literary, as well as in its histrionic sense. The Commedia dell’ arte was a species of comedy in which the actors themselves provided the dialogue. The plot or different situations were rehearsed beforehand, but the words were entirely spontaneous. Naturally, under such circumstances, the plays were acted with more fire of action, truthfulness of gesture and deportment than if they had been written by another and learnt by heart. Evidently such a method had its drawbacks, the characters became types, the audience knowing beforehand by constant repetition the nature of the performance. There were several well known types, the most popular being Harlequin, Pantaloon, the swaggering Captain, and others. Ben Jonson’s Captain Bobadil must have been modelled on this personage. The comic personages were Sgnarelle, Scaramouche, and the valets and soubrettes of Molière’s comedies.
KING CAMBYSES’ VEIN.
For I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses’ vein. And here is my speech:
Weep not, sweet Queen, for trickling tears are vain,
For God’s sake, lords, convey my trustful Queen;
For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.
II, IV, 445.
This is in reference to a well-known play, entitled “A Lamentable Tragedie, mixed full of Pleasant Mirth, containing the Life of Cambises, King of Persia,” by Thomas Preston, Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. The printed play is without date, being written and acted at Court about 1570, and perhaps published the same year. The story is taken from an episode in the life of Cambyses, King of Persia, as related by Herodotus. The play was often parodied and held up to ridicule by Elizabethan dramatists, chiefly on account of the maudlin style of the King when in liquor. The putting to death of the Queen was also made fun of. “Weep not, sweet Queen,” may be an allusion to a scene in this play, where we read as a stage direction, “At this tale let the Queen weep.”
QUEEN.
These words to hear make stilling tears
Issue from crystal eyes.
KING.
What dost thou mean, my spouse, to weep
For loss of any prize.
Shakespeare must have seen or read the play when published. Another allusion will be found in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” where there seems to lurk a parody of the title page of Preston’s book, “A Lamentable Tragedy mixed full of Pleasant Mirth.”
In Shakespeare’s play there is mention of a tedious brief scene of young Pyramus and his love, Thisbe; very tragical mirth. Merry and tragical, tedious and brief, Cambyses’ vein has become proverbial for rant, chiefly in connexion with the stage.
PLAY.
I’ll play Percy and that damned brawn shall play Dame Mortimer and his wife.
II, 4, 122.
Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand forth for me and I’ll play my father.
II, 4, 477.
Play out the play.
II, IV, 482.
PLAYER.
He doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see.
II, 4, 437.
VICE. INIQUITY. VANITY.
That reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years.
II, 4, 452.
In the old Morality plays, Iniquity was one of the vices, and generally played by a clown. In Marston’s “Histriomastix,” a stage direction adds, “Enter a roaring Devil with the Vice on its back. Iniquity in one hand and Juventus in the other.” “I’ll marry you to Lady Vanity,” another of the seven deadly sins, occurs in Marlowe’s “Jew of Malta.”
CRESSETS.
At my nativity
The front of heavy was full of fiery shapes of burning cressets.
III, 1, 15.
A vessel of iron or the like made to hold grease or oil, or in an iron basket to hold pitched rope, wood or coal, to be burnt for light. Cotgrave, in his French and English Dictionary, 1611, describes them under the word “falot,” a cresset light, such as they use in playhouses.
Part II
Henry IV —
I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur’s show.
III, 1, 300.
Apart from dramatic performances, there existed in Shakespeare’s time several societies, which occasionally presented spectacular shows elaborately prepared, in order to amuse a number of spectators. These were sometimes held at the Court, and were generally of the nature of dumb-shows or masques, or formed a kind of pageant. These shows originated from the guilds of mediæval times, in which the craftsmen of the different companies gave an entertainment in the streets of important towns on Corpus Christi and other festival days.
In this particular show, Sir Dagonet is Arthur’s fool in the story of Trestam de Lyonesse. Arthur’s show was an exhibition of archery by a society of 58 members, which styled itself “The Auncient Order Society, and Unitie laudable of Prince Arthur and his Knights Armory of the Round Table,” and took the names of the knights of old romance. The meeting of the society was held at Mile End Green.
ACT. STAGE.
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed contention in a lingering act.
The rude scene may end.
I, 1, 156.
ACTING. SCENE. ARGUMENT.
For all my reign hath been but as a scene
Acting that argument.
IV, 5, 199.
PLAY.
I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better.
Epilogue, line 10.
NINE WORTHIES.
Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies.
II, 4, 239.
VICE.
And now is this Vice’s dagger become a squire.
III, 2, 343.
Henry V
ENTER PROLOGUE.
All modern editions head this opening scene as “Prologue. Enter Chorus.” The First Folio omits the word chorus. In the four subsequent acts, “enter chorus” is used.
CHORUS.
Admit me Chorus to this history.
In ancient Greek plays the chorus consisted of several performers, but in Shakespeare’s time the number is reduced to a single personage, who enters before the beginning of a play and explains or comments upon different events which are to follow in course of the narrative. In reality, he serves the same purpose as the speaker of the prologue. In other passages the word is used as synonymous with prologue, but in this quotation the word bears the original meaning as applied to Attic tragedy, in which the chorus, chanting the choral odes, passed in review the episodes which had taken place upon the stage, and also prepared the audience for scenes which were to follow. The tragic chorus of a Greek play numbered fifteen members, who entered the orchestra (dancing place) three abreast. Between the acts they recited choral odes, accompanied by a dance movement. In the dialogue between the chorus and the actors, only the coryphæus, the leader of the chorus, acted as spokesman.
MORRIS DANCE.
Therefore I say ’tis meet we all go forth
To view the sick and feeble parts of France,
And let us do it with no show of fear;
No, with no more than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun Morris Dance.
II, 4, 25.
The Morris Dance was a popular element in the village May games, and, although with no literary associations, it may claim equal popularity with the dumb-shows and motion plays of the sixteenth century. A painted window at Betley, in Staffordshire, has a representation of these village dances, which include six Morris dancers, with a Maypole, a musician, a fool, a crowned man on a hobby horse, a crowned lady with a flower in her hand, and a friar. This window dates from the reign of Edward III. Sometimes, included amongst the dancers, was a dragon, and, no doubt, the rider of the hobby-horse personated St. George. A reference to the hobby-horse occurs in “Hamlet,” where Hamlet exclaims, “O for the hobby-horse is forgot,” referring to the omission of that living property from the show, which was fast becoming obsolete at the end of the sixteenth century. The Morris Dance proper consisted of six personages, each dancer wearing a broad garter below the knee. There are two sets of figures: in one handkerchiefs are carried, in the other short staves are swung and clashed. Sometimes the dancers sing to the air of an old country dance. There is always a fool, who carries a stick with a bladder and a cow’s tail. The music is that of a pipe and tabor, played by one man. The name is a corruption of “Moorish,” and is immediately derived from the Flemish “morriske dans.” The reason for this name is that the performers blacked their faces, but whether they derived the name because of their Moorish appearance or dressed up to represent Moors is undecided.
CUE.
Now we speak upon our cue. And our voice is imperial.
ACT. SCENE. STAGE.
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.
Prologue, line 3.
PLAY.
Gently to hear, kindly to judge our play.
Prologue, line 34.
Linger your patience on, and we’ll digest
The abuse of distance; force a play.
Prologue II, line 32.
For if we may, we’ll not offend one stomach with our play.
Prologue II, line 40.
Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring devil i’ the old play, that every one may pare his nails with a wooden dagger.
IV, 4, 73.
The devil was supposed to keep his nails unpared from choice, and therefore to pare them was considered an insult. The character of the “Devil” was a feature from the old Miracle and Morality plays.
Edward the Black Prince
Who on French ground play’d a tragedy.
I, 2, 106.
PLAYHOUSE.
There is the playhouse now, there must you sit.
Prologue II, line 36.
PROLOGUE.
ENTER PROLOGUE. PROLOGUE I.
Prologue, like your humble patience pray.
Prologue I, line 33.
SCENE.
The scene
Is now transported, gentles,
To Southampton.
Prologue II, 34.
Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.
Prologue II, line
Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought.
Prologue II, line 1.
And so our scene must to the battle fly.
Prologue IV, line 48.
STAGE.
A kingdom for a stage.
Prologue I, line 3.
Which oft our stage hath shown.
Epilogue, line 13.
PROMPT.
Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story
That I may prompt them.
Prologue V, line 2.
THIS WOODEN O. SCAFFOLD. COCKPIT.
O, for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention;
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene,
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the part of Mars; and at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles, all
The flat, unraised spirits that hath dar’d
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object; can this cockpit hold
The vasting fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
SCAFFOLD.
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth.
In mediæval times the ecclesiastical plays were usually performed in churches or chapels upon temporary scaffolds erected for that purpose. The term survived even to the seventeenth century in the sense of a platform, or stage, on which theatrical performances took place. This is the only instance in which Shakespeare uses the word.
COCKPIT.
The name applied to a theatre and the pit of a theatre, deriving its name from a pit or enclosed area usually of a round formation in which gamecocks are set to fight for sport.
THIS WOODEN O.
All the early Elizabethan theatres were constructed in a circular or octagonal shape. An uncertainty prevails as regards the theatre intended. Quite possibly the reference might be to the newly erected Globe, which was opened in the summer of 1599, about the time “Henry V” was written, and was under the management of Shakespeare and his fellow actors belonging to the Lord Chamberlain’s company. Some critics favour the Curtain Theatre, in Shoreditch, as the original house in which “Henry V” was first produced.
Part I
Henry VI —
This play is of doubtful parentage. Many would ascribe it either singly or in conjunction to Greene, Peele, Marlowe, Nash, and Shakespeare. It appears in the First Folio amongst the collected works of Shakespeare, and for that reason is admitted in the Shakesperean canon of modern editions. There exists grave doubts whether Shakespeare ever wrote a single line of this composition. This play was written as early as 1590, thirty years before Heminge and Condell, the editors of the First Folio, issued their book. Perhaps Shakespeare revised the work of others, and thus it appeared in its latest form under his name. The altering of a play by another hand without acknowledgment did not constitute in those days any literary offence, although at times an author objected to his work being so treated, and was not mealy-mouthed in proclaiming the fact. An excellent instance of this tampering with another’s property can be read in Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, 1592, where he denounces Shakespeare in no measured terms “as an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers,” in reference to his treatment of the three parts of “Henry VI.” Greene may have been mistaken in identifying Shakespeare as the author. Every critic understands by the “only Shake-scene in the country” as referring to Shakespeare. The entire question is one of the most difficult problems in Shakesperean studies.
HEAVENS.
Hung be the Heavens with black.
I, 1, 1.
The heavens were part of the stage buildings. It was built over the stage in shape of a sloping roof. The stage being open to the sky, it protected the actors against the inclemency of the weather, and also acted as a sounding board. An illustration of the “heavens” can be seen in De Witt’s drawing of the Swan Theatre, c. 1596. Contemporary documents prove that all the theatres were provided with this necessary commodity. Cotgrave, in his French and English Dictionary, 1611, has under the word “volerie,” a robbery, also a place over a stage, which we call the Heaven. In Hatzfeld and Darmsteter’s Modern French Dictionary there is no reference to such a meaning as given by Cotgrave, but under the word “volet” one definition is given as a kind of shutter before a window.
Hung be the Heavens with black.
I, 1, 1.
When a tragedy was played, the stage was draped with black; many references to this custom are found in contemporary authors. In Sidney’s Arcadia, 1598: “There arose even with the sun a veil of dark clouds, before his face, had blacked all over the face of heaven, preparing as it were a mournful stage for a tragedy to be played on.” In Marston’s The Insatiate Countess: “The stage of heaven is hung with solemn black. A time best fitting to act tragedies,” and in A Warning for Faire Women, 1599: “The stage is hung with black, and I perceive the auditors prepared for Tragedy.”
PLAYED. PART.
Pucelle hath bravely play’d her part in this
And doth deserve a coronet of gold.
III, 3, 88.
MASQUERS. REVEL.
Tell false Edward, thy supposed king,
That Lewis of France is sending over masquers
To revel it with him and his new bride.
III, 3, 224.
This passage is repeated in IV, I, 94:
At my depart these were his very words:
“Go tell false Edward, thy supposed king,
That Lewis of France is sending over masquers
To revel it with him and his new bride.”
Masquers were those performers who took part in a masque. As a rule they were gorgeously costumed. The performers were chiefly chosen for their agility and grace in dancing. In later years a dialogue was added to the masque, which the masquers took part in.
There are no theatrical allusions either in Part II or Part III of “Henry VI.”
Henry VIII
THE PROLOGUE.
SCENE. SHOW. PLAY.
I come no more to make you laugh, things now
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high and working, full of state and woe
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow
We now present. Those that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear:
The subject will deserve it. Such as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth, too. Those that come to see
Only a show or two, and so agree
The play may pass, if they be still and calling
I’ll undertake may see away their shilling
Richly in two short hours. Only they
That come to hear a merry play,
A noise of targets or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat guarded in yellow,
Wil be deceived, for gentle heavens, know
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
Our own brains and the opinion that we bring
To make that only true we now intend
Will leave us never an understanding friend.
Therefore for goodness’ sake, and as you are known
The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad as we would make ye, think ye see
The very parsons of our noble story
As they were living, think you see them great
And followed with the general throng and sweat
By thousand friends; then, in a moment see
How soon this mightiness meets misery:
And if you can be merry then, I’ll say
A man may weep upon his wedding day.
I’ll undertake may see away their shilling
Richly in two hours.
In commenting upon this play, the reader must bear in mind that this is one of the doubtful plays of Shakespeare. Much ingenuity has been displayed in endeavouring to unravel the mystery of its authorship. Most scholars discern the hand of Fletcher, together with that of Shakespeare. Others would award the entire play to Fletcher, while on the other hand, the entire play has been considered as fully Shakesperean. A great poet, Tennyson, was of the opinion that most of the play was written by Fletcher. Spedding, who has devoted much thought to this problem, would assign to Fletcher a great portion of the dialogue, including the famous “Farewell” speech of Wolsey, which I for one cannot for a moment allow, as this speech, above all others, has the true Shakesperean ring. Two very interesting items of theatrical history can be gathered from this prologue, namely, the price of admission to the best seats and the duration of a five act play of Shakespeare’s time. Spedding would give the Prologue and the Epilogue to Fletcher.
The price of admission to the best seats would be a shilling, as we learn from Dekker’s books of Gull’s, where he mentions the twelvepenny rooms as being the best place in the theatre. This price was for the best seats or a seat upon the stage, which at this period was allowed at some of the theatres. When the custom was introduced of allowing a few of the spectators a seat on the stage is uncertain. The matter has not been fully examined or explained, and little information can be gathered from contemporary sources. The boxes, or rooms, as they were styled, were priced at a shilling at the Globe and Blackfriars Theatres. The twelvepenny rooms were situated near the stage, in the lowermost gallery, and are seen on the drawing of the interior of the Swan Theatre, close to the word orchestra. Why the writer should refer to the shilling seats only is difficult to make out. Perhaps for the first performance of a new play a shilling was charged for all the seats. We know that a different scale of charges did exist, but the accounts are somewhat confused. It was during a performance of this play that the thatched roof of the Globe Theatre caught fire and was burnt to the ground. This took place on St. Peter’s Day, June 29th, 1613.
ACT. PART. PLAYED.
I would have play’d
The part my father meant to act upon
The usurper Richard.
I, 2, 195.
THE EPILOGUE. PLAY. ACT. CLAP.
’Tis ten to one this play can never please
All that are here; some come to take their ease
And sleep an act or two; but those we fear
We have frighted with our trumpets, so ’tis clear
They’ll say ’tis naught.
For this play at this time, is only on
The merciful construction of good women;
For such a one we show’d ’em if they smile,
And say ’twill do I know within a while,
All the best men are ours for ’tis ill hap
If they hold when their ladies bid ’m clap.
MASQUE.
Now this masque was cried incomparable.
I, 1, 27.
PAGEANTS. SHOWS.
’Tis well; the citizens,
I am sure, have shown at full their royal minds
And let ’em have their rights they are ever forward,
In celebration of this day with shows,
Pageants and sights of honour.
IV, 1, 2.
PLAYHOUSE. AUDIENCE.
These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse and fight for bitter apples; that no audience but the tribulation of Tower Hill or the limbs of Lime House, their dear brothers, are able to endure.
V, 4.
MASQUE. REVELS.
Enter the King and others as masquers, habited like shepherds, ushered by the Lord Chamberlain. They pass directly before the Cardinal, and gracefully salute him.
A noble company! What are their pleasures?
Because they speak no English, thus they pray’d
To tell your grace, that, having heard by fame
Of this so noble and so fair assembly.
PAGEANT. PLAY. PART.
I will not be slack
To play my part in Fortune’s pageant.
PROLOGUE. PLAY. TRAGEDY.
I know their complot is to have my life:
And if my death might make this island happy
And prove the period of their tyranny,
I would expend it with all willingness;
But mine is made a prologue to their play.
For thousands more, that yet suspect
Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.
III, 1, 151.
SHOWS.
And now what rests, but that we spend the time
With stately trumpets mirthful comic shows
Such as befits the pleasures of the Court.
ACT. ROSCIUS. SCENE.
What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?
V, 6, 10.
Roscius was the most celebrated comic actor of his times. He lived in the first century A.D., dying in the year 62. Throughout the ages he has been personified as the greatest actor of all times, and his name has often been applied to any actor of great eminence. In Shakespeare’s period, Richard Burbage was the Roscius of the day, and was known as “Roscius Richard.”
ACTORS. PLAY’D. TRAGEDY.
Why stand we like soft-hearted women here
Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage;
And look upon, as if the tragedy
Were play’d in jest by counterfeiting actors.
II, 3.
This night to meet here, they could do no less,
Out of the great respect they bear to beauty,
But leave their flocks, and under your fair act
Crave leave to view these ladies and entreat
An hour of revels with them.
Act II, Scene IV
Crave leave to view these ladies and entreat
An hour of revels with ’em.
Under the name of Revels was included many kinds of merrymaking and festivities. From the fourteenth century onwards such diversions were held at the Court and at the houses of noblemen. The Revels included dancing, games, masking, mummings or disguisings and other forms of lively entertainments. In Tudor times these amusements had assumed vast proportions. In Henry VII’s reign the Master of the Revels first makes his appearance, and that official post continued to be held until the Restoration. Queen Elizabeth formed a separate company, called Children of the Revels, which took part in many important functions. These children also acted in regular plays, and caused much heart-burning and dissension amongst the adult players.
King John
THEATRE. SCENES. ACTS.
As in a theatre, when they gape and point
At your industrious scenes and acts of death.
It will be generally observed that when Shakespeare introduced a simile drawn from theatrical art, other similes of a like nature regularly follow, and are accounted for by the law of association of ideas. An interesting study could be made of enquiry whether this rule applies to other dramatists of the period. Perhaps some patient and industrious student will collect all the passages bearing on this subject and publish the fruit of his labour. A study of the early stage is of so fascinating a pursuit and of so engrossing a nature that such a work ought easily to find a chronicler, not forgetting the fact that the results would be so welcome and interesting to other students. The worker in such a field of enquiry will not find that his time has been spent in vain, especially as no such collection is to be found amongst the multitudinous books written about the drama.
MASQUE. REVEL.
This harness’d masque and unadvised revel.
V, 2, 132.
Julius Cæsar
CLAP. HISS. PLAYERS. THEATRE.
If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they used to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man.
I, 2, 258.
These terms “clap” and “hiss” seem to have been the usual methods of showing signs of approval and disapproval in the theatre in Shakespeare’s time, as it is still with us. Dryden confirms this statement by mentioning that to clap and hiss are the privileges of a freeborn subject in a playhouse. Pepys, in his Diary, 1669, says: “Indeed, it was very finely sung as to make the whole house clap her.” Both these methods were adopted by the spectators in all playhouses in Europe. In the Spanish theatres, when the players said anything that pleased the audience, everybody cried out “Victor! Victor!” This was a custom peculiar to their country. They also had another custom which, fortunately, did not travel beyond the confines of Spain, when they wished to show signs of disapproval either with the play or the actors, they did so by blowing a whistle, much after the fashion of our football enthusiasts when a goal has been scored.
ACTORS.
Let not our looks put on our purposes,
But bear it as our Roman actors do
With untired spirits and formal constancy.
II, 1, 226.
PLAYS.
He reads much,
He is a great observer,
He loves no plays, as thou dost, Antony,
He hears no music.
THEATRE.
That done, repair to Pompey’s theatre.
JIGGING.
What should the wars do with those jigging fools?
IV, 3, 136.
MASQUER. REVELLER.
A peevish schoolboy
Joined with a masker and a reveller.
ACTED. SCENE.
How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over.
III, 1, 112.
A favourite device of Shakespeare, often repeated in his plays, of making his characters allude to the stage, thus enveloping his own imaginary dramatic efforts with a reality, which almost deceives the audience that they are witnesses of living actions.
King Lear
CATASTROPHE. OLD COMEDY.
(Enter Edgar.)
Edm. And pat he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy.
I, 2, 149.
The catastrophe of a dramatic piece always occurred towards the end, and came when the audience were on the tiptoe of expectation, awaiting the final dénouement, as it is called in modern times.
CUE.
My cue is villanous, melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o’ Bedlam.
I, 2, 147.
PART.
You come with letters against the King, and take vanity the puppet’s part, against the royalty of her father.
II, 2, 40.
VANITY.
And take vanity, the puppet’s part.
II, 2, 40.
Vanity was one of the seven deadly sins often presented in old Morality plays, and many references are made to this character by the Elizabethan dramatists.
INTERLUDE.
ALB.
If you will marry, make your loves to me;
My lady is bespoke.
GON.
An interlude.
V, 3, 90.
Goneril would intimate that the interview is becoming quite interesting, and compares the scene with an interlude or a farcical play.
Love’s Labour’s Lost
NINE WORTHIES.
None so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.
V, 1, 130.
Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.
V, 1, 110.
The original Nine Worthies were composed of three Jews, Joshua, David and Judas Maccabæus; three Pagans, Hector, Alexander and Julius Cæsar and three Christians, King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon. But these original Worthies were not always strictly adhered to; the number remained the same, but other names were substituted in place of those above named.
Nashe, the Elizabethan dramatist and pamphlet writer, remarks in one of his prose works, entitled, The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jack Wilton, a book dedicated to Lord Southampton, Shakespeare’s patron, to whom he dedicated Venus and Adonis and Lucrece: “To Charles the Fifth, then Emperor, they reported how he shewed the Nine Worthies, David, Solomon, Gideon, and the rest in that similitude and likeness that they lived upon earth.” Shakespeare introduces Hercules and Pompey without any authority; thus it would appear that any author might choose his own Worthies, totally ignoring historical precedence. These Worthies formed part of a pageant, a form of entertainment given by our ancestors at Christmas time and on other festive occasions. In some instances, speaking parts were allotted to the performers. Fortunately, a genuine specimen has been preserved in a manuscript of the time of Edward IV, in which the first named Worthies all appear. The text of these pageants were in most parts composed by ignorant people, and were not considered worth preserving. Shakespeare’s pageant is a parody on this kind of entertainment, similar to that of the Athenian mechanics in their play of Pyramus and Thisbe in “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Shakespeare seems to have taken infinite delight in parodying these monstrous entertainments.
ACTORS. PART. WORTHIES.
B.
By Jove, I always took three three’s for nine.
C.
O Lord, sir! it is a pity you should get your living by reckoning, sir.
B.
How much is it?
C.
O Lord, sir! the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will show where until it doth amount; for mine own part I am, as they say, but to perfect one man in one poor man, Pompey the Great, sir.
B.
Art thou one of the Worthies?
C.
It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompey the Great; for mine own part, I know not the degree of Worthy, but I am to stand for him.
V, 2, 501.
AUDIENCE. ENTER. EXIT. HISS.
HOL.
Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in minority; his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake. And I will have an apology for that purpose.
MOTH.
An excellent device, so that if any of the audience hiss, you may cry “Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!”
COMEDY.
Here was a consent,
Knowing aforehand of our merriment,
To dash it like a Christmas comedy.
V, II, 462.
The figurative meaning of the word dash is to destroy, frustrate, spoil; in this instance it would rather signify throwing cold water upon it. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was the usual word for the rejection of a Bill in Parliament.
As the cry of yea or no is bigger, so the Bill is allowed or dashed.
Sir T. Smith, Commonwealth of England, 1633.
The word is now obsolete except in the phrase: To dash one’s hopes or spirits.
ZANY.
Some carry tale, some please man, some slight Zany.
To make my lady laugh.
VII, 463.
EXIT.
ERGO.
I come with this apology.
Keep some state in thy exit and vanish.
EPILOGUE.
It is an epilogue or discourse to make plain some obscure precedence.
III, I, 76.
MASKS. REVELS.
Revels, dances, masks and merry hours
Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
IV, 3, 379.
The latter quotation is interesting on account of its having been quoted in an extremely valuable anthology in the last year of the sixteenth century. This publication being of such extreme interest I shall transcribe the title page in full.
ENGLANDS
PARNASSUS
OR
The choysest Flowers of our Moderne Poets with their Poetical comparisons, Descriptions of Beauties, Personages, Castles, Pallaces, Mountaines, Groves, Seas, Springs, Rivers, &c.
Whereunto are annexed other various discourses, both pleasant and profitable.
(Printer’s Device)
Imprinted for N. L. C. B.
and T. H. 1600.
The initials N. L. stand for Nicholas Ling, one of the publishers of the famous piratical “Hamlet” quarto, 1603, also the corrected editions of 1604 and 1605.
There are 2,350 quotations in this Anthology, of which 95 are taken from Shakespeare, 30 from the plays and 65 from the poems. The above is numbered 1,292, under the heading:
PLEASURE
Revels, dances, masks and merry howers,
Forerun faire love strowing her way with flowers.
W. Sha.
Although not a rare book, it is of priceless value to the Elizabethan student. Extracts from extant plays being assigned to their proper authors, notwithstanding that the plays in which they appeared were printed anonymously.
Sometimes the editor goes astray and assigns the wrong name to an author; in this work there are 130 such attributions. This important book has been splendidly edited in recent years by Mr. Charles Crawford, who must have spent laborious hours in tracing the different extracts and allotting them to their rightful owners. Every lover of Elizabethan poetry should possess this book, which can be purchased for quite a moderate sum. I should mention that in a dedication to Sir Thomas Mounson the writer signs himself “R. A.” Farmer, the Shakesperean scholar of the eighteenth century, saw a copy with the name Robert Allot printed at length, and ever since, this author has always been considered the editor of this Anthology.
PLAY.
I will play three myself (three characters).
V, 1, 150.
Our wrong doth not end like an old play;
Jack hath not Jill.
V, 2, 884.
A twelvemonth and a day, and then ’twill end,
That’s too long for a play.
V, 2, 883.
PROLOGUE. SHOWS.
Their shallow shows and prologues vilely penned.
V, 2, 305.
SCENE.
Worthies away! the scene begins to cloud.
V, 2, 730.
Of these four Worthies, in their first show thrive,
These four will change habits.
V, 2, 541.
There is five in the first show.
V, 2, 543.
It should have followed in the end of our show.
V, 2, 898.
The King would have me present the Princess with some delightful ostentation or show a pageant or antic or firework.
V, I, 115.
WORTHY. (NINE WORTHIES.)
He is not quantity enough for that Worthy’s thumb.
V, I, 138.
For the rest of the Worthies? I will play three myself.
V, I, 149.
I will play on the tabor to the Worthies.
V, I, 161.
They would know whether the three Worthies should come in.
V, 2, 486.
I know not the degree of a Worthy but I stand for him.
V, 2, 508.
Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies.
V, 2, 537.
My hat to a halfpenny Pompey proves the best Worthy.
V, 2, 504.
He will be the ninth Worthy.
V, 2, 582.
There a Worthie’s acoming.
V, 2, 588.
Room for the insensed Worthies.
V, 2, 703.
Worthies away the scene begins to cloud.
V, 2, 730.
MASKS. VIZARD.
You have a double tongue within your mask
An would afford my speechless vizard half.
V, 2, 242.
HOBBY-HORSE.
But O, but O—the Hobby-horse is forgot.
III, I, 30.
Macbeth
ACT. PROLOGUE.
Two truths are told
As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme.
I, 3, 128.
PLAYER. STAGE.
A poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.
V, 5, 24.
Show.
Then yield thee coward
And live to be the show and gaze o’ the time.
We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
Painted on a pole and underwrit:
“Here may you see the tyrant.”
V, 7, 53.
Measure for Measure
STAGE. APPLAUSE.
I love the people,
But do not like to stage me to their eyes,
Though it do well, I do not relish well
Their loud applause and Aves vehement.
I, 1, 69.
This passage would seem connected in some manner with the theatre. The Duke, who expresses this sentiment, wishes to convey that he is anxious in avoiding the vulgar gaze. The “Aves” may refer to exclamations of applause, and were possibly signs of approval at the Universities in Elizabethan times. Its general signification is Hail! Welcome, or Farewell! adieu. Also a shout of welcome. The word is better known in the angelic salutation Ave Maria.
Merchant of Venice
MASQUE.
Will you prepare for this masque to-night?
II, 4, 23.
The mask, or later masque, was an entertainment which had been introduced into England as far back as the reign of Edward III. In 1348, Edward II kept Christmas at Guildford, and a mask was held there in his honour. When first seen in England, dancing was the only factor of the masque, most often in masquerade, somewhat after the fashion of our balmasques, with this difference: that stately dances nearly filled the programme, the Master of the Revels allowing only two or three round dances, such as galliards and corantos. A mask is introduced in Shakespeare’s play of “King Henry VIII,” the King and his companions, attired as shepherds, with masks covering their faces, enter the palace of Cardinal Wolsey, and take part in the Revels. Early in the sixteenth century, dialogue and scenery were introduced, and soon became a prominent feature of the masque, but very shortly developed into set speeches. This class of entertainment, under the guidance of Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, had become quite a literary and artistic undertaking. Thousands of pounds were lavished on these court revels, and even the King and Queen took part in them (King James the First and his consort, Anne of Denmark).
The masque at this period, 1620, was a combination in variable proportion of speech, dance and song. The Masquers were dressed in gorgeous costumes in accordance with the characters they represented. During James’s reign, the mask for the face was dispensed with, as it was regarded as quite an unnecessary disguise. At the outbreak of the Civil War, 1642, the masque abruptly ceased, and was never revived. Many masques are extant, and survive in manuscript and printed copies.
PAGEANT.
Your mind is tossing on the ocean,
There where your argosies of portly sail,
Like Signors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or as it were, the pageants of the sea.
An allusion to those enormous machines that were drawn about the streets in the ancient shows or pageants. These machines were in the shape of castle dragons, ships, giants, and were regarded as the most important part of the show.
DUMB-SHOW.
What say you, then, to Falconbridge, the young baron of England?
PORTIA.
He is a proper man’s picture, but, alas! who can converse with a dumb-show?
I, 2, 78.
MASQUE.
I will not say you will see a mask.
II, 5, 23.
No masque to-night.
II, 6, 64.
What! are these masques?
II, 5, 28.
PLAY. STAGE. PART.
ANT.
I hold the world, but as the world, Gratanio,
A stage where every man must play a part and mine a sad one.
GRA.
Let me play fool.
Gratanio wishes to play the Fool, or comic part, which was a regular character in the old morality interludes, whence came the phrase, to ‘play the fool.’
Merry Wives of Windsor
Properties.
Get us properties, and tricking for our fairies.
IV, 4, 78.
“Properties” for stage purposes was in use much earlier than Shakespeare’s time, and has remained in the vocabulary of the theatre until the present day. In its technical theatrical signification, such as the above quotation, it refers to any portable article whether costume, furniture, or weapons required during the acting of the play. In Elizabethan times the properties used were few and simple; they consisted of things that were absolutely necessary, thus giving a realistic appearance to the performance. If a bedroom scene is being represented, a bed, table, chairs or stools and lights are the properties mentioned in the play, and, no doubt, produced on the stage. In scenes of open country, a wood, a park, and artificial trees, mossy banks, and sometimes a rock, or a tomb, would be fixed on the stage. That such properties were in use can be proved from the notes in Henslowe’s invaluable Diary, where such things are mentioned. In shop scenes, a counter and a few articles to indicate the nature of the business were no doubt exhibited. No painted scenery was known, but the stage was draped with tapestry and perhaps a few pictures were also displayed. The floor in all scenes was covered with rushes, which were suitable for any setting. If a room was being represented, rushes were quite appropriate, as at that date they were the substitute for our carpet. If a nature scene, they harmonised with the green foliage and completed the picture. Many other articles besides the above-mentioned were brought into use; thus it is quite evident that, however simple the setting, it sufficed in conveying the proper allusion. Even in our own times, I have witnessed a play of Molière’s, in which a table and two chairs were the only properties on the stage.
“Of all properties for my Lord Admiral’s men, the 10th of March, 1598: 1 rock, 1 cage, 1 tomb, 1 Hell mouth, 2 marchepanes and the sittie (city) of Rome (rather a tall order), 2 wooden canopies, old Mahomet’s head, and other accessories.”
ACT. HISS.
If I do not act it, hiss me.
III, 3, 40.
CUE.
Remember you your cue.
III, 3, 40.
The concluding word or words of a speech in a play serving as a signal or direction to another to begin his speech. The word cue has been taken as French queue, that is, the tail or ending of the preceding speech; but no such use of queue has even been used in French, where the cue is called replique, and no literal sense of queue or cue leading up to this appears in the sixteenth century English. On the other hand, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries it is found written Q, q or qu, and it was explained by seventeenth century writers as a contraction for some Latin word (qualis, quando), said to have been used to mark in actors’ copies of plays the points at which they were to begin. But no evidence confirming this has ever been found.
Q. A qu, a term used among stage-plaiers, a Lat qualis—at what manner of word the Actors are to beginne to speake one after another hath done his speech. 1625.
Q. A note of entrance for actors, because it is the first letter of quando—when, showing when to enter and speak. 1633. From Butler’s English Grammar. The word is printed both Qu and Cue in the Folios and quartos. All modern editions print cue.
The clock gives me my cue.
III, 2, 46.
MASQUED. VIZARDED.
For they must all be masqued and vizarded.
IV, 6, 40.
In the early days of the masque the performers always wore masks or vizards.
PART.
(Enter Sir Hugh Evans, disguised with others, as fairies.)
Trib, fairies; come! and remember your parts; be bold, I pray you; follow me into the pit, and when I give ords, do as I pid you; come come; trib, trib.
V, 4, 2.
SCENE.
Fat Falstaffe
Hath a great scene.
IV, 6, 17.
COMEDY. PROLOGUE.
After we had embraced, kissed and protested and
As it were spoke the prologue to our comedy.
III, 5, 76.
A comedy was a theatrical piece generally depicting the manners of the period, always of an amusing and cheerful character, a happy conclusion being one of the essential features. Some of Shakespeare’s so-called comedies almost verge on the side of tragedy, as, for instance, the plot of the “Merchant of Venice,” “The Winter’s Tale,” and others.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
QUINCE.
Is all our company here?
Bottom.
You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.
QUIN.
Here is the scroll of every man’s name, which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.
BOT.
First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.
QUIN.
Marry, our play is, the most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby.
BOT.
A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.
QUIN.
Answer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
BOT.
Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
QUIN.
You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
BOT.
What is Pyramus? a lover or a tyrant?
QUIN.
A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
BOT.
That will ask some tears in the true performing of it; if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest: yet my chief humour is for a tyrant; I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.
The raging rocks
And shivering shocks
Shall break the locks
Of prison-gates;
And Phibbus’ car
Shall shine from far,
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.
This was lofty! Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein; a lover is more condoling.
QUIN.
Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
FLU.
Here, Peter Quince.
QUIN.
Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
FLU.
What is Thisby?—a wandering knight?
QUIN.
It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
FLU.
Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.
QUIN.
That’s all one: you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.
BOT.
And I may hide my face. Let me play Thisby, too; I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice: “Thisne, Thisne”; “Ah, Pyramus, my lover, dear! thy Thisby, dear, and lady dear!”
QUIN.
No, no; you must play Pyramus; and, Flute you Thisby.
BOT.
Well, proceed.
QUIN.
Robin Starveling, the tailor.
STAR.
Here, Peter Quince.
QUIN.
You, Pyramus’ father; myself, Thisby’s father; Snug, the joiner; you, the lion’s part; and, I hope, here is a play fitted.
SNUG.
Have you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
QUIN.
You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
BOT.
Let me play the lion, too: I will roar, that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the Duke say: “Let him roar again, let him roar again.”
QUIN.
And you should do it too terribly, you would fright the Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all.
ALL.
That would hang us, every mother’s son.
BOT.
I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us; but I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an’ ’twere any nightingale.
QUIN.
You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer’s day; a most lovely, gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs play Pyramus.
BOT.
Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?
QUIN.
Why, what you will.
BOT.
I will discharge it in either your straw colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French crown colour beard, your perfect yellow.
QUIN.
Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play barefaced. But, masters, here are your parts; and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there we will rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not.
BOT.
We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect. Adieu.
QUIN.
At the duke’s oak we meet.
BOT.
Enough; hold or cut bow-strings.
Act I. Scene II.
Bot.
Are we all met?
QUIN.
Pat, pat; and here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action as we will do it before the Duke.
BOT.
Peter Quince——.
QUIN.
What sayest thou, Bully Bottom?
BOT.
There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?
SNOUT.
By’r lakin, a parlous fear.
STAR.
I believe we must leave the killing out when all is done.
BOT.
Not a whit: I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem to say, we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom, the weaver: this will put them out of fear.
QUIN.
Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.
BOT.
No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.
SNOUT.
Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
STAR.
I fear it, I promise you.
BOT.
Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in—God shield us!—a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living, and we ought to look to’t.
SNOUT.
Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
BOT.
Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck; and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect: “Ladies,”—or, “Fair ladies—I would wish you”—or, “I would request you,”—or, “I would entreat you—not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: no, I am no such thing; I am a man as other men are”; and there indeed let him name his name, and tell them plainly, he is Snug, the joiner.
QUIN.
Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things; that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber, for, you know, Pyramus and Thisby meet by moonlight.
SNOUT.
Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
BOT.
A calendar, a calendar! look in the almanac; find out moonshine, find out moonshine.
QUIN.
Yes, it doth shine that night.
BOT.
Why, then, may you leave a casement of the great chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.
QUIN.
Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure, or to present, the person of moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.
SNOUT.
You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
BOT.
Some man or other must present wall; and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him to signify wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.
QUIN.
If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake, and so every one according to his cue.
(Enter Puck, behind.)
PUCK.
What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here,
So near the cradle of the fairy queen?
What, a play toward! I’ll be an auditor;
An actor, too, perhaps, if I see cause.
QUIN.
Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.
BOT.
Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet, ——.
QUIN.
Odours, odours.
BOT.
—— Odours savours sweet:
So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby, dear.
But hark, a voice! stay thou but here awhile,
And by and by I will to thee appear. (Exit).
PUCK.
A stranger Pyramus than e’er play’d here.
FLU.
Must I speak now?
QUIN.
Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.
FLU.
Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,
As true as truest horse, that yet would never tire,
I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.
QUIN.
“Ninus’ tomb,” man; why, you must not speak that yet; that you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues and all. Pyramus enter: your due is past; it is, “never tire.”
FLU.
O,—As true as truest horse, that would never tire.
(Re-enter Puck and Bottom, with an ass’s head.)
BOT.
If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.
QUIN.
O monstrous! O strange! we are haunted.
Pray, masters! fly, masters! Help!
Act III, Sc. I, lines 1–107.
THESEUS.
Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.
Phil.
Here, mighty Thesus.
The.
Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?
What masque? what music? How shall we beguile
The lazy time, if not with some delight?
Phil.
There is a brief how many sports are ripe:
Make choice of which your highness will see first.
The.
(Reads) The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.
We’ll none of that: that have I told my love,
In glory of my kinsman, Hercules.
(Reads) The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.
That is an old decide; and it was play’d
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
(Reads) The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
Of Learning, late deceased in beggary.
That is some satire, keen and critical,
Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
(Reads) A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.
Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?
Phil.
A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
Which is as brief as I have known a play;
But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
Which makes it tedious; for in all the play
There is not one word apt, one play fitted:
And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,
Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
The passion of loud laughter never shed.
The.
What are they that do play it?
Phil.
Hard-handed men, that work in Athens here,
Which never labour’d in their minds till now;
And now have toil’d their unbreathed memories
With this same play, against your nuptial.
The.
And we will hear it.
Phil.
No, my noble lord;
It is not for you: I have heard it over,
And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
Unless you can find sport in their intents,
Extremely stretch’d and conn’d with cruel pain,
To do you service.
The.
I will hear that play;
For never anything can be amiss,
When simpleness and duty tender it.
Go, bring them in: and take your places, ladies.
Hip.
I love not to see wretchedness o’ercharged,
And duty in his service perishing.
The.
Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
Hip.
He says they can do nothing in this kind.
The.
The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
Our sport shall be to take what they mistake:
And what poor duty cannot do noble respect
Takes in it might, not merit.
Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
Make periods in the midst of sentences,
Throttle their practised accent in their fears,
And, in conclusion, dumbly have broken off,
Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
Out of this silence yet I picked a welcome;
And in the modesty of fearful duty
I read as much as from the rattling tongue
Of saucy and audacious eloquence
Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
In least speak most, to my capacity.
(Re-enter Philostrate.)
Phil.
So please, your Grace, the Prologue is address’d.
(Flourish of trumpets.)
(Enter Quince for the Prologue.)
Pro.
If we offend, it is with our good will.
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with good will. To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end.
Consider, then, we come but in despite
We do not come, as minding to content you
Our true intent is. All for your delight,
We are not here. That you should here repent you.
The actors are at hand; and, by their show,
You shall know all, that you are like to know.
The.
This fellow doth not stand upon points.
LYS.
He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he
Knows not the stop. A good moral, my lord:
It is not enough to speak, but to speak true.
Hip.
Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder; a sound, but not in government.
THE.
His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?
(Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine and Lion.)
PRO.
Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
This man is Pyramus, if you would know;
This beauteous lady, Thisby, is certain.
This man, with line and rough-cast, doth present
Wall, that vile Wall, which did these lovers sunder;
And through Wall’s chink, poor souls, they are content
To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,
By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn.
To meet at Ninus’ tomb, there, there to woo.
This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,
The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,
Did scare away, or rather did affright;
And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,
Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
And finds his trusty Thisby’s mantle slain:
Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
He bravely broach’d his boiling bloody breast;
And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,
His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain
At large discourse, while here they do remain.
(Exeunt Prologue, Pyramus, Thisbe, Lion and Moonshine.)
THE.
I wonder if the lion be to speak.
DEM.
No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.
WALL.
In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
And such a wall, as I would have you think,
That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,
Did whisper often very secretly.
This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show
That I am that same wall; the truth is so:
And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
THE.
Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
DEM.
It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord.
THE.
Pyramus draws near the wall; silence!
(Re-enter Pyramus).
PYR.
O grim-look’d night! O night with hue so black!
O night, which ever art when day is not!
O night, O night! alack, alack, alack,
I fear my Thisby’s promise is forgot!
And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
That stand’st between her father’s ground and mine!
Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!
(Wall holds up his fingers.)
Thanks, courteous wall; Jove shield thee well for this!
But what see I? No Thisby do I see.
O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!
Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
THE.
The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
PYR.
No, in truth, sir, he should not. “Deceiving me,” is Thisby’s cue; she is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will fall pat as I told you. Yonder she comes.
(Re-enter Thisbe.)
THIS.
O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,
For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
My cherry lips have often kiss’d thy stones,
Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
PYR.
I see a voice: now will I to the chink,
To spy an’ I can hear my Thisby’s face.
Thisby!
THIS.
My love thou art, my love I think.
PYR.
Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grave;
And, like Limander, am I trusty still.
THIS.
And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
PYR.
Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
THIS.
As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
PYR.
O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!
THIS.
I kiss the wall’s hole, not your lips at all.
PYR.
Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?
THIS.
’Tide life, ’tide death, I’d come without delay.
(Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe.)
WALL.
Thus have I, wall, my part discharged so;
And, being done, this wall away doth go.
THE.
Now is the mural down between the two neighbours.
DEM.
No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear without warning.
HIP.
This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
THE.
The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
HIP.
It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
THE.
If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.
(Re-enter Lion and Moonshine.)
LION.
You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
May now perchance both quake and tremble here,
When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
A lion-fell, nor else no lion’s dam;
For, if I should as lion, come in strife
Into this place, ’twere pity on my life.
THE.
A very gentle beast, and of good conscience.
DEM.
The very best at a beast, my lord, that e’er I saw.
LYS.
This lion is a very fox for his valour.
THE.
True; and a goose for his discretion.
DEM.
Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his discretions; and the fox carries the goose.
THE.
His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour for the goose carries not the fox. It is well: leave it to his discretion, and let us listen to the moon.
MOON.
This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;—
DEM.
He should have worn the horns on his head.
THE.
He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the circumference.
MOON.
This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;
Myself the man i’ the moon do seem to be.
THE.
This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be put into the lanthorn. How is it else the man i’ the moon?
DEM.
He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it is already in snuff.
HIP.
I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!
THE.
It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is on the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay the time.
LYS.
Proceed, Moon.
MOON.
All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man i’ the moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.
DEM.
Why, all these should be in the lantern; for all these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe.
(Re-enter Thisbe.)
THIS.
This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?
LION.
(Roaring) Oh,——.
DEM.
Well roared, Lion.
THE.
Well run, Thisbe.
HIP.
Well shone, Moon. Truly the moon shines with a good grace.
(The Lion shakes Thisbe’s mantle, and exit.)
THE.
Well moused, Lion.
DEM.
And then came Pyramus.
LYS.
And so the Lion vanished.
(Re-enter Pyramus.)
PYR.
Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
For, by thy gravious, golde, glittering gleams,
I trust to take of truest Thisby’s sight.
But stay, O spite!
But mark, poor knight,
What dreadful dole is here!
Eyes, do you see?
How can it be?
O dainty duck! O dear!
Thy mantle good,
What, stain’d with blood!
Approach, ye Furies fell!
O Fates, come, come,
Cut thread and thrum;
Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!
THE.
This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.
HIP.
Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
PYR.
O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
Since lion vile hath here deflower’d my dear:
Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame
That lived, that loved, that liked, that look’d with cheer.
Come, tears, confound;
Out, sword, and wound
The pap of Pyramus;
Ay, that left pap,
Where heart doth hop. (Stabs himself.)
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead,
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky;
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon, take thy flight. (Exit Moonshine.)
Now die, die, die, die, die. (Dies.)
DEM.
No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.
LYS.
Less than an ace, man, for he is dead; he is nothing.
THE.
With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass.
HIP.
How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her lover?
THE.
She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and her passion ends the play.
(Re-enter Thisbe.)
HIP.
Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus. I hope she will be brief.
DEM.
A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better; he for a man, God warrant us; she for a woman, God bless us.
LYS.
She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
DEM.
And thus she means, videlicet:
THIS.
Asleep, my love?
What, dead, my dove?
O Pyramus, arise!
Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
Dead, dead! A tomb
Must cover thy sweet eyes.
These lily lips,
This cherry nose,
These yellow cowslip cheeks,
Are gone, are gone,
Lovers, make moan:
His eyes were green as leeks.
O Sisters Three,
Come, come to me,
With hands as pale as milk:
Lay them in gore,
Since you have shore
With shears his thread of silk.
Tongue, not a word:
Come, trusty sword;
Come, blade, my breast imbrue: (Stabs herself.)
And, farewell, friends:
Thus Thisbe ends:
Adieu, adieu, adieu. (Dies.)
THE.
Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
DEM.
Ay, and Wall, too.
BOT.
(Starting up.) No, I assure you, the wall is down that parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?
THE.
No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse, for when the players are all dead there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe’s garter, it would have been a fine tragedy; and so it is, truly; and very notably discharged. But, come, your Bergomask: let your epilogue alone.
Act V. Scene I. Line 32–line 369.
Actors.
Read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point.
I, 2, 9.
Call forth your actors by the scroll,
Masters spread yourselves.
I, 2, 16.
I’ll be an auditor;
An actor, too, perhaps. If I see cause.
III, 1, 82.
Most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath.
IV, 2, 43.
The actors are at hand, and by their show
You shall know all.
V, 1, 116.
AUDIENCE.
If I do let the audience look to their eyes.
V, 1, 145.
COMEDY.
Our play is the most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.
I, 11, 12.
There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please.
III, 1, 9.
I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy.
IV, 2, 45.
CUE. PART.
And so every one according to his cue.
III, 1, 78.
You speak all your parts at once, cues and all.
III, 1, 102.
When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer.
IV, 1, 205.
“Deceiving me” is Thisby’s cue.
V, 1, 186.
ABRIDGEMENT.
Say, what abridgement have you for this evening?
What masques, what music? How shall we beguile
The lazy time if not with some delight.
V, 1, 35.
An “Abridgement” appears to be an entertainment consisting of a dramatic performance of short duration to while away the time. Another meaning was a compendium of a larger work with the details abridged. I cannot find any contemporary use of this term, as it is employed by Shakespeare.
AUDITOR.
I’ll be an auditor; an actor, too, perhaps.
III, 1, 81.
EIGHT AND SIX. PROLOGUE.
QUINCE.
We will have such a prologue; and it shall be written in eight and six.
III, 1, 25.
The ballads of the day were generally written in this metre, alternate verses of eight and six syllables. The sonnets of the time were composed in fourteen lines. All Shakespearean sonnets are written in this number. Quince may have had this reckoning in his mind when he recommended eight and six—fourteen. George Gascoigne, the Elizabethan poet, composed the verses for a masque in fourteen syllable metre. In the play as performed before the Duke, the prologue does not appear.
EPILOGUE.
Please you to see the epilogue or to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?
V, i, 360.
A Bergomask dance was performed after the manner of a dance by Bergamo peasants. Bergamo was formerly a town in Venetia; now it is in the province of Lombardy.
But come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.
V, i, 369.
ERCLES VEIN. PART.
I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in.
I, 2, 31.
This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein; a lover is more condoling.
I, 2, 42.
The “Ercles vein” referred to a style of acting widely prevalent in Shakespeare’s day. This method gained his unqualified disapproval, which he specially denounced in Hamlet’s advice to the players. Through his influence, this melodramatic bombastic ranting was finally driven from the stage, not, alas, without many pleadings for its retention amongst several playgoers. Robert Greene, the dramatist, in his Groatsworth of Wit, the same pamphlet in which he accuses Shakespeare of downright plagiarism, mentions an actor who observes how he heard “The Twelve Labours of Hercules thunder on the stage.” Henslowe, in his Diary, notes the name of a play on this subject, and others are also known. It gave an opportunity for a robust actor to carry an audience with him in his display of fiery outbursts of uncontrollable passion.
EXTEMPORE.
You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
I, 2, 70.
MASK.
FLUTE.
Nay, faith, let not me play a woman: I have a beard coming.
QUI.
That’s all one, you shall play it in a mask.
There is a tradition that masks were worn by ladies attending the theatres in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This custom may have originated from the stage use of boys and men playing female parts, sometimes in masks. Very little is known of the history of wearing masks, both in public and private performances. The above quotation proves that it would not be at all incongruous for an actor to play his part in a mask.
MASQUE.
What masques, what dances shall we have?
V, 1, 32.
What masque? what music? How shall we beguile
The lazy time, if not with some delight.
V, 1, 40.
INTERLUDE.
Here is the scroll of every man’s name which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude.
I, 2, 5.
APPAREL.
Get your apparel together, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen.
IV, 2, 36.
Although scenic effects did not play a great part in Elizabethan performances, the actors spared no pains in appearing before the audience in most elaborate costumes. The court masques were most gorgeously costumed, and the expenses totalled thousands of pounds. It is on record that noblemen lent their rich doublets and hose to actors on special occasions, all characters, whether ancient or modern, appearing in the costume of the day. Henslowe’s Diary affords many glimpses of the dresses supplied to the actors. In fact, the rich apparel of the actors is one of the noteworthy features of an Elizabethan play, and can be attested by many contemporary witnesses. We see here the rude mechanicals aping their betters, and Bottom’s request that the performers shall appear in their best and do everything in their power to make a goodly show before the Duke.
PLAY.
Say what the play treats on.
I, 2, 9.
Mary! our play is The most lamentable comedy.
I, 2, 11.
I could play Ercles rarely.
I, 2, 31.
Let me not play a woman, I have a beard coming.
You shall play it in a mask.
I, 2, 51.
Let me play Thisby, too.
I, 2, 53.
You must play Pyramus: And Flute, you Thisby.
I, 2, 57.
Robin Starveling you must play Thisby’s mother.
I, 2, 62.
Here is a play fitted
I, 2, 67.
Let me play the lion, too. I will roar.
I, 2, 72.
You can play no part but Thisby.
I, 2, 87.
What beard where I best to play it in.
I, 2, 93.
And then you will play barefaced.
I, 2, 100.
I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants.
I, 2, 105.
Doth the moon shine that night we play our play.
III, 1, 53.
Leave a casement of the great chamber window where we play, open.
III, 1, 58.
What a play toward.
III, 1, 81.
To rehearse a play.
III, 11, 2.
I will sing it the latter end of the play.
IV, 1, 23.
If he come not then the play is marred.
IV, 2, 5.
Our play is preferred.
IV, 2, 39.
Let not him that plays the lion pare his nails.
IV, 2, 41.
Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
V, i, 36.
A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
Which is as brief as I have known a play.
V, 1, 61.
For in all the play
There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
V, i, 64.
What are they that do play it?
V, 1, 71.
And now have toiled their unbreathed memories
With this same play.
V, 1, 75.
I will hear that play.
V, 1, 81.
Here she comes, and her passion ends the play.
V, 1, 321.
No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse.
V, 1, 362.
This palpable gross play hath well beguil’d
The heavy gait of night.
V, 1, 374.
PLAYED.
A stranger Pyramus than e’er played here.
II, 1, 91.
It was play’d
When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
V, 1, 90.
He hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder.
V, 1, 122.
If he that writ it had played Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe’s garter it would have been a fine tragedy.
V, 1, 365.
PLAYER.
Now name the rest of the players.
I, 2, 42.
For in all the play there is not one word apt, one player fitted.
V, 1, 65.
Never excuse, for when the players are all dead there need none to be blamed.
V, 1, 364.
PUPPET.
Fie: you counterfeit, you puppet you!
Puppet? why so?
III, 2, 288.
PROLOGUE.
Write me a prologue.
III, 1, 1a.
We will have such a prologue.
III, 1, 24.
Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
III, 1, 35.
So please, your grace, the prologue is addressed.
V, 1, 106.
He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt.
V, 1, 119.
Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder.
V, 1, 122.
PART.
Name what part I am for and proceed.
I, 2, 20.
I could play Ercles rarely or a part to tear a cat in.
I, 2, 31.
Snug, the joiner; you, the lion’s part.
I, 2, 66.
Have you the lion’s part written?
I, 2, 68.
You can play no part by Pyramus.
I, 2, 87.
Here are your parts; and I am to entreat you and desire you to con them by to-morrow night.
I, 2, 101.
Sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts.
III, 1, 102.
Every man look o’er his part.
IV, 2, 38.
Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged.
PLAYING.
O sweet Bully Bottom; Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life: he could not have scaped sixpence a day; or the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be hanged; he would have deserved it; sixpence a day in Pyramus or nothing.
IV, 2, 23.
There is probably an allusion here to some actor who had been pensioned by the Queen with this sum. The author of “Cambyses,” Thomas Preston, was pensioned, at the rate of twenty pounds a year, by the Queen for his rare ability in acting. The play in which Preston acted was John Ritwise’s “Dido,” played before Queen Elizabeth at Cambridge, 1564. Shakespeare likewise ridiculed the title page of “Cambyses” by alluding to the most lamentable comedy of Pyramus and Thisby.
After the lapse of so many years it is doubtful whether the audience fully appreciated or understood the allusion.
PROPERTIES.
In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties.
I, 2, 108.
REHEARSAL.
A marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal.
III, 1, 3.
REHEARSE.
A mile without the town, by moonlight: there will we rehearse.
I, 2, 105.
There may we rehearse most obscenely and courageously.
I, 2, 110.
Sit down every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts.
III, 1, 75.
Were met together to rehearse a play.
III, 2, 11.
Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess made more eyes water.
V, i, 68.
The first authentic use of this word, in its technical theatrical sense, is made by Shakespeare in this passage: “A marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal.” Cunningham, in his Revels Accounts, quotes the use of the word in 1580: “Rehersinge of divers plaies and their sundry Rehersells.” There is a grave suspicion of forgery overhanging Cunningham’s transcripts of the Revels Account. Most critics would condemn them as modern forgeries, while others uphold their genuineness.
REVELS.
The King doth keep his Revels here to-night.
II, 1, 18.
THESEUS.
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand?
V, 1, 36.
A fortnight hold we this solemnly
In nightly revels and new jolity.
V, 1, 377.
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What Revels are in hand? Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing house?
Call Egeus (Philostrate Master of the Revels).
There is a curious error in the above passage, which is copied from the First Folio. Egeus is simply an Athenian Lord, and is in no way connected with the household of Theseus. Philostrate, who is really Master of the Revels to the Duke, is correctly named in this extract in Fisher’s quarto edition of the play, issued in Shakespeare’s life-time. The error probably arose through the same actor’s doubling the characters of both Egeus and Philostrate, and must be attributed to the prompter, who adapted for the stage the quarto edition, dated 1600. This was, in fact, the original quarto, and fraudulently re-issued in 1619. It was called the Robert’s quarto, from the name of the printer, and this quarto was used by the editors of the First Folio in reprinting the play. Although the date of 1600, the same as that of Fisher’s quarto, is stamped on the title page, it has been conclusively proved by Mr. Pollard, of the British Museum, that this edition was really issued in 1619, together with other quartos, some of which bear false dates, and the nine false quartos were bound in one volume in the year 1619.
The Master of the Revels was an important official at the Court. All plays that were publicly acted were obliged beforehand to obtain the sanction of the Master of the Revels, much in the same way as the approval of the Lord Chamberlain must be obtained in our own times. During Elizabeth’s reign, Edward Tilney held this post in the Royal Household; his official residence was at St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, and here were stored the properties and costumes that were used in the masques and entertainments, which were presented at the palaces of Whitehall, Greenwich, Hampton Court, and other royal residences. During the last years of the Queen’s reign, Henry Carey, first Baron Hunsdon, was Lord Chamberlain; after his death, William Brooke, Lord Cobham, succeeded to the office, to be followed by George Carey, second Lord Hunsdon, the son of the earlier Lord Chamberlain.
SCENE.
Forsook his scene and entered in a brake.
III, 2, 15.
A tedious, brief scene of young Pyramus and his love, Thisbe.
V, 1, 56.
SHOW.
Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show:
But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
V, 1, 128.
STAGE.
This green plot shall be our stage.
III, 1, 4.
STUDY.
Have you the lion’s part written? Pray, if it be, give it me; I am slow of study.
I, 2, 69.
I am told that to study a part belongs to the theatrical vocabulary of to-day. Another proof of the conservatism of the English stage.
TIRING HOUSE.
This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring house.
III, 1, 4.
Every Elizabethan theatre possessed a tiring house or a tiring room, as it is generally named. The word is an abbreviation of attiring house: the place where the actors dressed or attired themselves. From the very earliest times the tiring room was a part of theatrical equipment. In the early days of the Greek drama, the Coryphæus mounted on a table, surrounded by choristers, who danced and chanted the dithyrambs in the orchestra. This was the name given to the flat service enclosed between the stage buildings and the inside boundary of the auditorium. It was called the orchestra, or dancing place, because in Greek theatres it was reserved for the performance of the chorus.
Thespis, who first introduced an actor on the scene, in the latter part of the sixth century B.C., erected a booth at the back of the orchestra in order to facilitate the changing of his costume. As this one actor impersonated all the characters in the play, it can easily be imagined how necessary the tiring room became. In later years, when the dramas of Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were produced, regular stage buildings, with ample accommodation for the actors, were then in vogue. The tiring house of the Globe Theatre was in all probability constructed at the back or on the side of the lower stage. Some critics would also allot a space on the first floor for a second tiring room, adjoining the music room, which was known to be situated in that part of the building. There can be no doubt that in the engraving of the so-called “Inside of the Red Bull Theatre,” spectators are watching the play from these rooms, but it is not safe to deduce any dogmatic conclusions from this drawing: one critic would place the tiring room behind the proscenium doors on the ground floor, and the second room behind the balcony windows on the first floor. It would also seem, by a quotation from Melton’s Astrologaster, 1620, that the tiring room was used for preparing scenic illusion. “While Drummer’s made thunder in the Tyring-house.” The whole subject of the exact situation and the uses of this room is beset with difficulties, and no one so far has grappled with them successfully. That an actors’ dressing room did exist is a positive certainty. The most convenient place would be at the back of the lower stage, and, until further proof is forthcoming, there it must be located. This is the only instance in which Shakespeare uses the word.
TRAGEDY.
Mary, if he that writ it had play’d Pyramus and hanged himself in Thisbe’s garter, it would have been a fine tragedy; and so it is, truly and very notably discharged.
V, 1, 367.
By the above quotation, the word discharge bore some theatrical meaning, but I have failed to trace the use of the word as connected specially with the stage.
TRAGICAL.
Very tragical mirth. Merry and tragical.
V, 1, 57.
And tragical, my noble lord, it is
For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
V, 1, 66.
THESEUS.
Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth,
Joy, gentle friends; joy and fresh days of love
Accompany your hearts.
Come now, what masques, what dances shall we have
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour.
Call Philostrate.
V, 1, 37.
When a marriage was celebrated in a nobleman’s family it was customary for a play, interlude or some kind of dramatic entertainment to be represented, in presence of the invited guests. This play of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” may have been written and acted to solemnize the marriage of the Earl of Southampton to Elizabeth Vernon, or that of Edward Russell to Lucy Harrington. Noblemen, who were nominally the patrons of the different actors’ companies, often requisitioned their services at their private houses or summoned them to their country houses, to play before them on some festive occasion. The assumption that this play was acted in honour of Southampton’s marriage is the merest guess, no atom of proof being available that such was the case. Perhaps a version of the play was acted before the Court, but even this statement is pure surmise.
Flourish of Trumpets.
V, 1, 107.
The above stage direction appears only in the First Folio; it is omitted in the quartos, but retained in all modern editions. These musical honours announced the commencement of the play. In the sketch of the Swan Theatre, the trumpet is being sounded, although the action of the drama is in progress. To account for this anomaly, we must infer that the artist drew his sketch from memory, and inadvertently overlooked this slight discrepancy. Dekker, in his Gulls Hornbook, first printed in 1609, addresses the Gallant, who is about to visit the theatre, not to present himself until the quaking prologue hath, by rubbing himself, got colour in his cheeks, and is ready to give the trumpets their cue that he’s about to enter. On the modern English stage a bell is rung to indicate the rise of the curtain. In France, three knocks on the stage announce the appearance of the actors.
TAWYERS WITH A TRUMPET BEFORE THEM.
Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine and Lion.
V, 1, 127.
This is a stage direction peculiar only to the First Folio; it is not included in modern editions. The correct direction should be: Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Moonshine and Lion, Tawyers before them with a trumpet. Tawyer was an actor who played subordinate parts; at one time he was in the employment of Heminge, one of the chief actors of the Lord Chamberlain’s servants, and more important still, one of the editors of the famous and the most precious books in all literature, the First Folio of Shakespeare’s Works, 1623. There is a monument erected in his honour and that of his fellow editor, Henry Condell, in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Aldermanbury, in the City of London. No true Shakesperean should omit paying a visit to this shrine. The real names of the actors occur several times in the Folio edition. In “Much Ado About Nothing” a certain Jacke Wilson is mentioned in the stage directions: “Enter Prince Leonato, Claudio and Jacke Wilson.” This Jacke Wilson impersonated the character of Balthazar, a servant of Don Pedro, who sings the well-known song in the second act, entitled, “Sigh no more, Ladies.”
There has been some controversy respecting the identity of this actor. He has been confounded with Dr. John Wilson, who composed the music to “Sigh no more, Ladies.” Jack Wilson, the actor and singer, belonged to St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, where he was baptized in 1585, whereas John Wilson, the Doctor of Music, was born at Faversham, Kent, in 1594. Dr. Wilson set to music many of Shakespeare’s lyrics, and is the author of a rare book, entitled Cheerful Ayres and Ballads, 1660. This book is also noted as being the first essay of printing music at Oxford. Although the editors strongly assert that the plays are printed from the author’s manuscripts, a slight acquaintance with the original edition will prove that this statement is not accurate. In fact, I doubt that any single play in the entire collection was copied from a Shakespeare holograph. The many stage directions alone indicate that transcript copies, expressly written out for the prompter, formed the basis of the text as it has come down to us. In some instances it can be proved that the latest printed quarto before 1623 served the compositors for setting up the type. The question is of great interest, and deserves a thoroughly exhaustive examination.
Enter Quince for the Prologue.
V, 1, 108.
In a prologue prefixed to Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Woman Hater,” 1607, the authors affirm that the person who delivered the prologue wore a garland of bay leaves, and was dressed in a black velvet coat. The bay was the sign of authorship, and the person who delivered the prologue was generally the author or his representative. In this instance, we are to accept Quince as the author of the interlude.
PYRAMUS AND THISBE.
The interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe, acted by the rude mechanicals, is a burlesque of a famous legend, related originally by Ovid, in the fourth book of the Metamorphoses. This poem, which consists of fifteen books, was composed shortly after the first years of the Christian era. The first printed edition, which was in Latin, was issued at Bologna, 1471. Dr. Rouse, in his beautiful edition of Golding’s translation (which, by the way, cost me more than the second complete edition of 1575) relates, in his interesting introduction, the following important information. In the Bodleian Library is a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, printed by Aldus in 1502, which bears on the title page the signature “Wm. Shr,” and opposite is written, in what appears to be a seventeenth century hand: “This little book of Ovid was given to me by W. Hall, who sayd it was once Will Shakespere’s T. N., 1682.” John Hall, it will be remembered, married Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna. The genuineness of the inscription has, of course, been questioned, and, no doubt, it is a clever forgery. The book has been used by more than one person for study. One has written in a fine minute hand meanings and paraphrases in Latin above the text throughout the earlier part of the volume. Many verses have been underlined, especially in the earlier books, and but very few pages show no marks of use. There are also marginal scribblings and caricatures, which are carelessly done, and do not appear to be so old as the rest. The first English translation of the Metamorphoses was made by Arthur Golding, which consisted of the first four books, and consequently included the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. This edition was printed and perhaps published, although the latter fact is not stated, by William Seres. The title page is as follows: “Imprynted at London by William Seres, anno 1565.” Two years later the entire fifteen books were published, and other editions followed in 1575, 1587, 1603, 1612. The Pyramus and Thisbe legend is found in most European literature. I possess an edition of Montemayer’s Diana, in Spanish, dated 1585, a pastoral romance well known to Shakespeare. At the end of this romance is related in verse the history of Pyramus and Thisbe. In French the same story is dramatised by Theophile de Vian, published in 1627. Other versions are known in Greek, Italian, German, Dutch and Roumanian.
Shakespeare has treated the story very unkindly, burlesqueing it in a most merciless fashion; even the rustic amateurs have not been spared being ridiculed in no less degree. Although exaggerated beyond recognition, the burlesque is most amusing, and must have caused endless delight and roaring laughter from the groundlings for whom it would appear it was principally intended.
Much Ado About Nothing
Bills.
Beatrice.
He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight.
I, 1, 39.
In Shakespeare’s day the only means of advertising were by posting bills all over the town. As early as 1579 we are told the players used to set up their bills upon posts certain days before the performances, to admonish the people to make resort unto their theatres, and that the players, by sticking up their bills in London, defile the streets with their infectious filthiness. These bills were mostly set up around St. Paul’s Cathedral. The monopoly of this trade was for many years held by Charlwood, a London printer. By marrying Charlwood’s widow James Roberts, the notorious piratical publisher of Shakespeare’s plays, succeeded to this business, and at his death, Jaggard, the chief promoter in publishing the First Folio, obtained this lucrative post. Roberts’ connexion with printing the bills for the players may in some way account for the fact that he managed to secure the manuscripts of the plays from the playhouse proprietors, and then print and publish them, either by bribing the players or some official connected with the theatre.
The first authentic quarto of “Hamlet” was published by Roberts in 1604, without doubt from a manuscript copy, whatever modern critics may say to the contrary. The idea that it was taken down in shorthand or longhand from the actors’ lips is preposterous; the copy could only have been obtained from genuine sources. The mutilated edition of 1603 is quite another story, and only confirms my theory. Many of the quarto editions of Shakespeare’s plays, although they may have been published without the sanction of the author or the owners of the manuscript, were nevertheless derived from authentic copies of the original manuscripts.
An excellent story, illustrating the nature of setting up bills for the play will be found in an early English jest book, entitled “Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, Very pleasant to be Readde.”
Imprinted
at London
in Fleete Strete by
H. Wykes. 1567.
Another book of this kind is more famous, having been mentioned by Shakespeare in this very play. The quotation will be found in Act 2, Scene 1, where Beatrice mentions Benedick as having said: “That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the Hundred Merry Tales.”
Well, this was Signor Benedick that said so.
A. C. Mery
Tales.
Thus endeth the booke of a C mery talys. Empryntyd at London at the sygne of the Merymayd at Powlys gate next to Chepe side. The yere of our Lord M.D.C.XXVI.
The XXII day of November.
How a merry man divised to call people to a play
C XXX III.
“A mery man, called Qualitees, in a time set up bills upon posts about London, that whosoever would come to Northumberland place should hear such an antic play, that both for the matter and handling the like was never heard before. For all that they should play therein were gentlemen. Those bills moved the people when the day came to come thither thick and threefold. Now he had hired two men to stand at the gate with a box as the fashion is, who took of every person that came in a penny or an halfpenny at the least. So when he thought the market was at the best he came to the gate and took from the man the box with money, and giving them their duty, bad them go into the hall, and see the room kept, for he should go and fetch in the players. They went in, and he went out and lockt the gate fast and took the key with him, and got him on his gelding, which stood ready saddled without Aldersgate, at an Inn, and toward Barnet he rode apace. The people tarried from two o’clock till three, from three to four, still asking and crying ‘When shall the play begin? How long shall we tarry?’ When the clock struck four all the people murmured and said, ‘Wherefore tarry we any longer? Here shall be no play. Where is the knave that hath beguiled us hither?’ ‘It were alms to thrust a dagger through his cheeks,’ sayeth one. ‘It were well done to cut off his ears,’ sayeth another. ‘Have him to Newgate,’ sayeth one; ‘Nay, have him to Tyburn,’ sayeth another. ‘Shall we lose our money?’ thus sayeth he. ‘Shall we be thus beguiled,’ sayeth this man. ‘Should this be suffered?’ sayeth that man. And so muttering and chiding, they came to the gate to go out, but they could not, for it was fast locked and Qualitees had the key away with him. Now began they afresh to fret and fume, now they swear and stare, now they stamp and threaten. For the locking in grieved them more than all the loss and mockery before; but all avail not. For there must they abide till ways be found to open the gate that they may go out. The maidens that should have dressed their masters’ suppers, they weep and cry, boys and ’prentices sorrow and lament, they wot not what to say when they come home, for all this foul array, for all this great fray, Qualitees is merry riding on his way.”
Another well known story, illustrating the custom of setting up bills, occurs in Tales and Quick Answers, a book printed by Thomas Berthelet, in Fleet Street, about 1533:
“Of him that lost his purse in London.”
“A certain man of the country, the which for business came up to London, lost his purse, as he went late in the evening. And by cause the sum therein was great, he set up bills in divers places, that if any man of the city had found the purse and could bring it again to him, he should have well for his labour. A gentleman of the Temple wrote under one of the bills how the man should come to his chamber, and told where. So when he was come, the gentleman asked him, first what was in the purse; secondly, what countryman he was; and thirdly, what was his name. ‘Sir,’ quoth he, ‘twenty nobles was in the purse. I am half a Welshman, and my name is John ap Janken.’ ‘John ap Janken,’ said the gentleman, ‘I am glad I know thy name, for now so long as I live thou nor none of thy name shall have my purse to keep. And now farewell, gentle John ap Janken.’ Thus he was mocked to scorn and went his way.”
CUE.
Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.
II, 1, 316.
DUMB SHOW. SCENE
That’s the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb show.
II, 3, 226.
PLAYED.
My Lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame.
II, 1, 225.
Hero and Margaret have by this played their parts with Beatrice.
III, 2, 79.
PART. DIALOGUE.
Fear you not my part of the dialogue.
III, 1, 30.
Othello
PROMPTER.
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it without a prompter.
I, 2, 84.
In a special theatrical sense, the prompter denotes a person stationed out of sight of the audience to prompt or assist any actor who is at a loss in remembering his part. In early days of the drama, the usual word for this official was book-holder, and is so quoted in Higgins’ Junius Nomenclator, 1588: “He that telleth the players their part when they are out and have forgotten. The prompter or book-holder.”
Ben Jonson uses the word book-holder in several of his plays, likewise many dramatists of this period. The word is now obsolete.
Other references:
PROLOGUE.
Is he often thus?
’Tis ever more the prologue to his sleep.
II, 3, 134.
An index and obscure prologue.
II, 1, 264.
CUE.
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it without a prompter.
I, 2, 84.
Pericles
Play.
Our scene must play
His daughter’s woe.
IV, 4, 48.
Scene.
Whom our fast-growing scene must find at Tarsus.
Chorus IV, line 6, IV, 4, 6.
We commit no crime
To use one language in each several clime
Where our scenes seem to live.
IV, 4, 7.
While our scene must play
His daughter’s woe.
IV, 4, 48.
DUMB-SHOW.
Enter Pericles talking with Cleon.
Chorus II, line 16.
Enter Pericles and Simonides.
Chorus III, line 15.
Shows.
What pageantry, what feats, what shows,
What minstreling, and pretty din,
The regent made in Mitylene
To greet the King.
V, 2, 6.
Stage.
In your imagination hold
This stage the ship, upon whose deck
The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak.
Poems
ACT. DUMB-PLAY. CHORUS.
And all this dumb-play had his acts made plain
With tears, which chorus-like her eyes did rain.
Venus and Adonis, line 359.
Many critics have inferred that this poem was composed whilst Shakespeare still resided in Stratford. By the above lines it would be nearer the mark to assert that the first heir of his invention was composed after he had been acquainted with the theatrical literature of the London theatres.
ACTOR. STAGE. PART.
As an imperfect actor on the stage
Who with his fear is put beside his part.
Sonnet 23, line 1.
CHORUS. SCENE.
Co-supremes and stars of love
As chorus to their tragic scene.
Phœnix and Turtle, line 52.
STAGE. SHOWS.
This huge stage presenteth nought but shows.
Sonnet 15, line 3.
STAGE. PART.
My part is youth and beat these from the stage.
Lucrece, line 278.
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell.
Lucrece, line 766.
“My part is youth” may refer to some particular play, but “Lusty Juventus,” suggested by Stevens, contains no such scene.
In the interlude of “Youth,” youth drives charity from the stage, but with threats not blows. Malone supposes that Shakespeare was thinking of the conflicts between the Devil and the Vice in the old Morality plays, where the Vice was always victorious and drove the Devil roaring off the stage.
Black stage for tragedies refers to the custom of draping the stage in black when tragedies were performed. Another allusion to this custom is found in the first part of Henry VI.
SHOWS.
Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows.
Lover’s Complaint, line 308.
Richard II
ACTOR. THEATRE. STAGE. ENTERS.
As in a theatre the eyes of men,
After a well grac’d actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious.
V, 2, 24.
This passage is an excellent example of the use Shakespeare made of theatrical metaphors in giving life and reality to his dialogue. The well graced actor can only refer to Richard Burbage, the creator of Shakespeare’s most important characters. He was a fellow member of the same company of actors as Shakespeare, both belonging to the Lord Chamberlain’s company.
SCENE.
Al owing him a breath, a little scene to monarchise.
III, 2, 164.
Our scene is altered from a serious thing.
V, 3, 79.
Richard III
ACT. SCENE.
Duchess.
What means this scene of rude impatience?
Queen.
To make an act of tragic violence.
II, 2, 39.
CUE. PART.
Had not you come upon your cue, my Lord,
William Lord Hastings had pronounced your part,
I mean your voice.
III, 4, 27.
In the First Folio, cue is written Q.; in the later folios it is spelt kew.
III, 4, 27.
PAGEANT.
The flattering index of a direful pageant.
IV, 4, 85.
Pageants are dumb-shows, and the poet, no doubt, alluded to one of these shows, the index of which promised a happier conclusion. The pageants then displayed on public occasions were generally preceded by a brief account of the order in which the characters were to walk. These indexes were distributed among the spectators that they might understand the meaning of such allegorical stuff as was usually exhibited.
PLAY.
The beholders of this tragic play.
IV, 4, 68.
SCENE.
A Queen in jest only to fill the scene.
IV, 4, 91.
VICE. INIQUITY.
I say without characters, fame lives long,
Thus, like the formal vice iniquity,
I moralize two meanings in one word.
III, 1, 82.
“Formal” appears to be here used as we now use “conventional” to describe that which was regular and in accordance with ordinary rule and custom. The vice of the stage was a familiar figure to the audience, and they were thoroughly accustomed to his proceedings. It would appear from the present passage that one of his devices, in order to create a laugh, was to play upon the double meaning of words.
TRAGEDIAN.
GLOU.
Come cousin,
Canst thou quake, and change thy colour,
Murder thy breath in middle of a word,
And then begin again and stop again
As if thou were distraught and mad with terror?
BUCK.
Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian,
Speak and look back and pry on every side,
Tumble and start at wagging of a straw,
Intending deep suspicion; ghastly looks
Are at my service, like enforced smiles,
And both are ready in their offices,
At any time to grace any stratagems.
III, 5, 5.
This admirable passage forcibly illustrates the methods adopted by the actors in the art of acting in Elizabethan times. In our days this mode of producing stage effects is chiefly associated with the style of acting pursued by followers of the melodramatic school. If we examine carefully the substructure of Shakespeare’s tragic plays, we shall perforce arrive at the conclusion that melodrama enters largely into their composition.
Stript of their dialogue, the acts of these plays bear a striking resemblance to the lurid and blood curdling dramas nightly performed at our provincial theatres, and during the nineteenth century presented at the London theatres, principally those situated on the Surrey side of the Metropolis, and merely gaining the well-known sobriquet of the transpontine drama. These plays were interpreted by the actors in rather a boisterous manner by ranting and martial stalk, in reality tearing a passion to tatters, to very rags, tricks of the actors preserved by tradition from the very days of Shakespeare himself, who often alluded to and deprecated this inartistic and uncritical style of acting.
Romeo and Juliet
ACT. SCENE.
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
IV, 3, 19.
MASQUERS.
Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Masquers, Torchbearers and others.
WITHOUT-BOOK. PROLOGUE. PROMPTER. ENTRANCE.
Nor so without-book prologue faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance.
I, 4, 7.
The prompter was much in evidence in the early days of the theatre. The actor who spoke the prologue (not in the book of the play, but written by another hand at the command of the manager), no doubt, was much in need of that useful functionary.
MASK.
We mean well in going to this mask;
But ’tis no wit to go.
I, 4, 48.
How long is’t now since last yourself and I
Were in the mask?
’Tis since the nuptial of Incentio,
Some five and twenty years, and then we mask’d.
I, 5, 35.
SCENE.
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.
Chorus I, line 2.
CHORUS.
The first chorus is omitted in the First Folio. The second chorus at the end of the first act, or beginning of the second act, is included. Most critics would deny to Shakespeare both these compositions.
STAGE.
Is now the two hours’ traffic of the stage.
Chorus I, line 12.
The opening chorus of “Romeo and Juliet” contains the interesting information concerning the duration of an Elizabethan play. In those early days there were no long waits between the acts, no scenic effects to be staged, and but few properties required. Even allowing for the quick action without interruption, two hours is all too short for the proper representation of a Shakesperean play. There is evidence to prove that three hours was the limit. Ben Jonson, in the “Induction to Bartholomew Fair,” acted in 1614 at the Hope, refers to the space of two hours and a half, and somewhat more. Dekker, the prose writer and dramatist, mentions three hours: “Ye shall be glad to play three hours for twopence to the basest groundlings in London, whose breath is stronger than garlick and able to poison all the twelvepenny rooms.” The last phrase refers to the best places in the house.
Whetstone, as early as 1582, in his Civil Discourses, would allow three hours for a performance. If we bear in mind that a jig, which we should now call a farce, was performed after the regular piece and lasted at least half an hour, it must be conceded that three hours is none too many for the entire afternoon performance.
In winter the play commenced about two and lasted till dusk; in summer, three o’clock was the appointed hour. In a letter from Lord Hunsdon to the Lord Mayor in 1594, it is stated “that where heretofore they began not their plays till towards four o’clock, they will now begin at two and have done between four or five.” By this evidence about two hours and a half was the time required to act an Elizabethan play.
The quarto editions are not divided into scenes or acts. The text forming some of these plays was actually taken down from the actor’s lips, either by stenography or from memory, and if any interval had occurred it would have been recorded, which goes a long way to prove that the play was continuous throughout, otherwise three hours would be all too short to see the play through, especially a lengthy one like “Hamlet,” which has nearly four thousand lines. It is quite possible that a break of a few minutes may have taken place during certain scenes, but no stage directions exist sanctioning the usage.
Taming of the Shrew
THE PRESENTERS ABOVE SPEAK.
The presenter in former times was one who took part in a play, an actor. The word is now obsolete. Even in Shakespeare’s day it is rarely met with. The Presenters in this scene were represented by Sly, the Page and the First Serving man, all being seated in the balcony above the stage.
ENTER A MESSENGER.
Your honour’s players hearing your amendment
Are come to play a pleasant comedy:
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
SLY.
Marry, I will let them play it. Is not a Christmas gambol or a tumbling trick?
PAGE.
No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.
SLY.
What, household stuff?
PAGE.
It is a kind of history.
SLY.
Well, we’ll see it. Come, madam, wife, sit by my side. And let the world slip; we shall ne’er be younger.
COMEDY. PLAY. PLAYERS.
Your honour’s players hearing your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy.
Ind. Sc. 2, 1, 136.
Therefore, they thought it good you hear a play.
Ind. Sc. 2, line 136.
Marry, I will let them play it. Is not a Christmas gambol or a tumbling trick?
Ind. Sc. II, line 140.
Every actor in the time of Elizabeth was forced to serve in some company of actors, who were under the protection of a nobleman, otherwise the poor actor was classed as a rogue and a vagabond, and liable to be sent to prison. “Your honour’s players” does not necessarily infer that they owed entire allegiance to their patron, but most likely they were prepared at all times to offer their services to their Lord protector. During the last two decades of the sixteenth century this patronage became merely formality, but owing to the strictures of the law this regulation was almost compulsory, so that in all England every play actor was under the patronage of some nobleman. As every one knows, Shakespeare belonged for many years to the servants of the Lord Chamberlain, and Edward Alleyn, the Founder of Dulwich College, and the greatest actor of his time, was a member of the Lord Admiral’s company. Even to-day there is a well known case of a gentleman owning his own orchestra a band of musicians, so that it is not at all unlikely that some wealthy or powerful nobleman retained a company of actors who only performed at his pleasure.
PART. PLAY.
My Lord, I warrant you we will play our part.
Ind. Sc. I, line 69.
PLAY’D. PLAY. PLAYERS.
There is a lord will hear you play to-night.
Ind. Sc. I, line 93.
For yet his honour never heard a play.
Ind. Sc. I, line 86.
They thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth.
Ind. Sc. II, line 139.
My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.
I, 1, 2.
Players that offer service to your lordship.
Ind. Sc. 1, line 77.
PART. ENTER PLAYERS. PERFORMED.
LORD.
Now, fellows you are welcome.
PLAYERS.
We thank your honour.
LORD.
Do you intend to stay with me to-night?
PLAYERS.
So please your lordship to accept our duty.
LORD.
With all my heart. This fellow I remember
Since once he played a farmer’s eldest son,
’Twas where you woo’d the gentlewoman so well:
I have forgotten your name, but sure, that part
Was aptly fitted and naturally performed.
PLAYERS.
I think ’twas Soto that your honour means.
LORD.
’Tis very true: thou did’st it excellent.
After having copied out the above passage, which was quite a bonne bouche for my theory, that Shakespeare on all occasions that offered themselves, introduced theatrical affairs into his plays, it came as rather a disappointment to find, on consulting the old drama of “The Taming of a Shrew,” the same scene slightly differently treated.
This old play was the one on which Shakespeare founded his own comedy of “The Taming of the Shrew.” The scene in which the players are introduced is called The Induction, and is founded on an episode in the life of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, which is related in a Latin work by Heuterus, 1584, called De Rebus Burgundias. The story relates how the Duke, suddenly stumbling upon a drunken fellow lying in the road, has him conveyed to his palace, attires him like a lord, and when he wakes, the Duke and his followers keep the game up. The players present a comedy before him, and when he falls asleep he is again placed outside the ale house, and, on waking again, tells the host that he has had the grandest dream of his life, and if his wife vexes him he knows how to tame her. Strange to say, plays are mentioned in this Latin chronicle in which, to amuse the mock lord, the same incident is used in both English plays to entertain the so-called lord. I possess a late English book called Admirable Events. The fifth event relates the same adventures under the heading of “The Waking Man’s Dream.” It is believed that an early edition of this book was in circulation before Shakespeare’s time, but is now lost.
I have printed the players scene on account of its theatrical interest. It will be noted that the unusual word properties is used, also that the Duke is patron of a company of actors. The entire scene has an air of being taken straight from life. It was quite a common custom for actors to travel in the country or, as we should say, to go on tour. The company must have been a fairly large one, as several characters are introduced in the real play.
PLAYERS SCENE FROM THE OLD. PLAY.
MESSENGER.
And it please your honour your players be come,
And do attend your honour’s pleasure here.
LORD.
The fittest time they could have chosen out;
Bid one or two of them come hither straight,
Now will I fit myself accordingly,
For they shall play to him when he wakes.
(Enter two of the players with packs at their backs and a boy.)
Now, sirs, what store of plays have you?
SAN. (SANDER.)
Marry, my Lord, you may have a tragical or comodity or what you will.
THE OTHER.
A comedy, thou shouldst say:
Souns, thou’lt shame us all.
LORD.
And what’s the name of your comedy?
SAN.
Marry, my lord, ’tis called “The Taming of a Shrew.”
’Tis a good lesson for us my lord that are married men.
LORD.
“The Taming of a Shrew,” that’s excellent sure,
Go, see that you make ready straight,
For you must play before a lord to-night.
Say, you are his men and I your fellow,
He’s something foolish, but whatso’er he says,
See that you be not dashed out of countenance.
Now, sirs, go you and make you ready, too,
For you must play as soon as he doth wake.
SAN.
O brave, sirrah Tom, we must play before
A foolish lord; come, let’s go make us ready:
Go get a dishclout to make clean your shoes,
And I’ll speak for the properties. My lord, we must
Have a shoulder of mutton for a property,
And a little vinegar to make our devil roar.
LORD.
Very well, sirrah, see that they want nothing.
LORD.
May it please you, your honour’s players be come to offer your honour a play.
SLY.
A play, Sim. O brave be they my players?
LORD.
Ay, my lord.
SLY.
Is there not a fool in the play?
LORD.
Yes, my lord.
SLY.
When will they play him?
LORD.
Even when it please your honour, they be ready.
BOY.
I’ll go bid them begin the play.
SLY.
Do, but look that you come again.
BOY.
I warrant you, my lord, I will not leave you.
SLY.
Come, Sim, where be the players? Sim, stand by me and we’ll flout the players out of their coats.
LORD.
I’ll call them, my lord. Ho, where are you there?
Tempest
PERFORM. CAST. ACT. PROLOGUE. DISCHARGE.
We all were sea-swallowed, though some cast again
And by that destiny, to perform an act
Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come
In yours and my discharge.
II, 1, 252.
Actors.
These our actors
As I foretold you, were all spirits.
IV, 1, 148.
Cast.
We all were sea-swallowed though some cast again.
W. A. Wright would associate cast with its modern theatrical meaning, namely, of a company of actors to whom different parts of a play are assigned. The word in this sense was unknown in Shakespeare’s day; its earliest use as a theatrical term dates from 1631.
PLAYED. PART.
To have no screen between this part, he play’d,
And him he played it for.
I, 2, 107.
REVELS.
Be cheerful, Sir,
Our revels now are ended.
IV, 1, 148.
Timon of Athens
Act.
Performance is ever the duller for his act.
V, 1, 26.
Titus Andronicus
I have read this disagreeable play very carefully, and can find therein no theatrical allusion of any kind.
Although included in the First Folio, and mentioned by Meres, Shakespeare’s contemporary, in a book published by him in 1598, a great many critics refuse to believe in the Shakesperean authorship. Many monographs have been written on the subject for and against. The weight of evidence is rather against the Shakesperean authorship. The plot is of a most blood-curdling nature, and many of the episodes are too terrible and nasty to be represented on the stage. There are many passages in the play which are truly poetical. It is to be hoped for Shakespeare’s reputation that he had no hand in this vile composition.
Troilus and Cressida
ACTOR. PROLOGUE. ARGUMENT. PLAY.
And hither am I come
A prologue armed, but not in confidence
Of author’s pen or actor’s voice, but suited
In like condition as our argument.
To tell you fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of these broils,
Beginning in the middle, starting thence away
To what may be digested in a play.
Prologue, line 23.
Hiss.
Some two months hence my will shall here be made.
It should be now, but that my fear is this,
Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.
V, 10, 55.
Pageant.
Q.
Let my lady apprehend no fear; in all
Cupid’s pageant there is represented no monster.
III, 2, 80.
From this passage it must be inferred that a Fear was a part played or impersonated in our old pageants or moralities. To this circumstance, Aspatia alludes in The Maid’s Tragedy, “And then a Fear,” “Do that Fear bravely wench.”
Let Patroclus make demands to me,
You shall see the pageant of Ajax.
III, 3, 275.
PLAYER. SCAFFOLDAGE.
And like a strutting player, whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
’Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage.
Such to be pitied and o’er wrested seeming
He acts thy greatness in.
Good all round acting in Shakespeare’s time was not the order of the day, as practised in ours. One or two stars, and the rest nowhere. Thus Shakespeare compares the strutting actor to the wooden boards on which he treads, making up in martial gait and heavy tread what he lacks in spiritual fire. The scaffoldage refers to the wooden platform on which plays were enacted. A hamstring is one of the tendons which form the sides of the ham or space at the back of the knee.
APPLAUSE.
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause.
I, 11, 163.
PLAY.
Now play me Nestor.
I, 3, 165.
Now play him me Patroclus.
I, 3, 170.
SCENE.
In Troy there lies the scene.
Prologue, line 1.
Twelfth Night
STAGE. PLAYED.
Fabian.
If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as improbable fiction.
III, 4, 140.
This passage refers to the interview between Malvolio, Sir Toby, Maria and Fabian, after his appearance before the Countess in yellow stockings and the keep-smiling face. Shakespeare always strove to impress on his audience that his chief characters were impersonating events of everyday life; in order to heighten this belief, he frequently contrasts the real with the stage life or life of fiction.
VICE.
I am gone, sir, and Anon, sir,
I’ll be with you again. In a trice, Like to the old Vice
Your need to sustain; Who with dagger of lath
In his rage and his wrath, Cries ha! ha! to the devil
Like a mad lad, Pare his nails, dad.
Adieu, goodman devil.
IV, 2, 134.
The Vice is a character chiefly to be met with in interludes, for the sake of comic relief, much in the same manner as in our melodramas of to-day comic characters are introduced, in order to render less oppressive the serious or tragic situations. This personality was dressed in a cap with ass’s ears, a long coat, and provided with a dagger of lath. One of his chief employments was to make sport with the devil by leaping on his back and belabouring him with his cardboard property till he made him roar. The devil, however, always carried him off in the end. His Satanic Majesty was supposed from choice to keep his nails always unpared, therefore to pare them was considered an affront.
In an interlude, “The Trial of Treasure,” he appeared in his customary stage apparel, with the addition of a pair of huge spectacles, no doubt to render him more ridiculous. The character seems to have been quite a popular one in mediæval times. The Vice appears in several plays of the sixteenth century, and is frequently mentioned by Elizabethan dramatists.
INTERLUDE.
I was one, sir, in this interlude, one
Sir Topaz, sir, but that’s all one.
V, 1, 380.
The New English Dictionary describes an interlude as a dramatic representation of a light and humourous kind, such as was commonly introduced between the acts of the long mystery play or moralities, or exhibited as a part of an elaborate entertainment. This title was given to the first comedy written in English, “Our Comedie or Interlude which we intend to play is named ‘Ralph Royster Doyster in deede.’”
Sir A. Ward, the learned author of a history of English dramatic literature, writes: “It seems to have been applied to plays performed by professional actors from the time of Edward IV onwards. Its origin is doubtless to be found in the fact that such plays were occasionally performed in the interval of banquets and entertainments which, of course, would have been out of question in the case of religious plays proper.” Mr. E. K. Chambers, in his magnificent and scholarly work, The Mediæval Stage, would apply the meaning of the word Interlude to any kind of play, religious or otherwise, but instead of deriving the word from a “ludus” during the interval of something else, he would give it the meaning of a play carried on between (inter) two or more performers; in fact, a ludus in dialogue.
Ludus is the Latin for a play.
COMEDIAN.
Are you a comedian.
I, 5, 194.
This word, now in general use, was quite a novel introduction in Shakespeare’s time. The New English Dictionary quotes this passage as the first instance of the words being used in this sense. The date of this play is about 1601, which is proved from an entry in Manningham’s Diary, dated February 2nd, 1601; by our present reckoning this performance took place in 1602, as formerly the New Year began on the 25th of March.
“Feb. 2, 1601. At our feast we had a play called “Twelve Night,” or What you Will. Much like the “Comedy of Errors” or Menechmi in Plautus, but most like and near to that in Italian called Inganni.”
There is also a reference in the play to the map of the Indies. This map was issued in 1599, so between this date and the entry in the Diary 1601, this comedy must have been written.
ACT.
VIOLA.
My father had a mole upon his brow.
SEBASTIAN.
And so had mine.
VIOLA.
And died that day when Viola from her birth
Had numbered thirteen years.
SEBASTIAN.
O, that record is lively in my soul,
He finished indeed his mortal act
That day that made my sister thirteen years.
V, 1, 249.
It shall become thee well to act my woes.
I, 4, 26.
MASQUE. REVELS.
SIR ANDREW.
I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether.
I, 3, 121.
PART.
And all is semblative a woman’s part.
I, 4, 34.
WITHOUT BOOK.
An affectioned ass, that can state without book.
Without book was a technical theatrical term used by actors when they had got their part by heart. The phrase is now obsolete.
These pastimes were in great vogue when this play was written.
PLAY.
This fellow is wise enough to play the fool.
III, 1, 67.
That’s all one, our play is done
And we’ll strive to please you every day.
V, 1, 416.
REVELS.
Shall we set about some revels?
I, 3, 145.
ZANY.
MALVOLIO.
I take these Wisemen that crow so at these set kind of fools,
No better than the fool’s Zanies.
I, 5, 96.
The Italian Zanni or Zany is a contraction for Giovanni in the dialect of Bergamo, and is a nickname for a peasant of that place. The term Zany was generally applied in England to an inferior kind of fool imitating another or professional jester, corresponding in some degree to our own clown and pantaloon, the latter being the zany.
In connexion with the word Zany, it should be noted that Molière, the greatest dramatist after Shakespeare, usually introduced this character into his farces, under the name of Sgnarelle, which is a French rendering of the Italian word Zanarelle, the diminutive of Zanni. Molière himself generally acted this comic rôle.
Two Gentlemen of Verona
ACTED. PAGEANTS. WOMAN’S PART. PLAY. PART. PLAY’D.
How tall was she?
About my stature: for at Pentecost
When all our pageants of delight were play’d,
Our youth got me to play the woman’s part,
And I was trimm’d in Madam Julia’s gown;
Which served me as fit by all men’s judgment,
As if the garment had been made for me;
Therefore I know she is about my height,
And at that time I made her weep a good,
For I did play a lamentable part;
Madam, ’twas Ariadne passioning
For Theseus’ perjury and unjust flight:
Which I so lively acted with my tears,
That my poor mistress moved therewithal
Wept bitterly, and would I might be dead
If I in thought felt not her very sorrow.
IV, 4, 163.
The page who delivered this speech relates how he played the woman’s part. In Shakespeare’s time, and until half a century later, no woman appeared on the public stage. I have always held the opinion that it was on this account that so many of Shakespeare’s heroines were disguised as pages, thus enabling the boys who took their parts to be more natural. Most readers will call to mind Rosalind in “As you Like It” and Imogen in “Cymbeline,” but principally Viola in that delightful of all comedies “Twelfth Night.” Julia, one of the heroines in this play, also played the part of a page. The observant will notice that Madam Julia lent her gown to the impersonator of Ariadne, but in those days the costume of the period delineated was not regarded. By all accounts, all the characters were clothed in contemporary costumes. Even as late as the eighteenth century, David Garrick played Macbeth, dressed in a scarlet coat like a military officer, a waistcoat laced with silver, with a wig and breeches of the cut of the time. Macklin, a great actor of the eighteenth century, was the first to appear in a tartan and kilt about the year 1772.
MOTION. PUPPET.
O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!
Now will he interpret to her.
II, 1, 92.
A puppet was a figure dressed up like a doll and moved by strings by a person concealed behind a curtain, similar to our Punch and Judy and marionettes shows of to-day. The word was frequently used metaphorically by the early dramatists, when they wished to describe a person’s actions controlled by others, also applied contemptuously to a person as in the above passage. These puppet shows or motions, as they were termed, were exceedingly popular in Shakespeare’s time, and a special one is mentioned by Ben Jonson in Every Man Out of his Humour: “They say there’s a new Motion of the City of Nineveh with Jonas (not Maurice) and the whale to be seen at Fleet Bridge.” A Motion that was extremely popular was the history of the prodigal son, quoted by Shakespeare in a “Winter’s Tale.” “Then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal Son.” Biblical episodes often formed the subject of these shows.
Both puppet and motion, in their original sense, are now obsolete. “Now will he interpret her” refers to the dialogue spoken by the manipulation of the puppets
“The peeling accents of her voice, is like
a fained treble on one’s voice
that interprets to the puppets.”
The Winter’s Tale
ACT. AUDIENCE. ACTED.
The dignity of this act was worth the audience of Kings and princes,
For by such was it acted.
V, 2, 86.
PART. PLAY. HISS.
Thy Mother plays and I
Play too, but so disgraced a part whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave.
I, 2, 188.
I see the play so lies
That I must bear a part
IV, 4, 670.
PART. PERFORMED.
Good Paulina,
Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely
Each one demand and answer to his part
Performed in this wide gap of time since first
We were dissevered.
V, 3, 151.
Motion.
Then he compassed a motion of the Prodigal son.
IV, 3, 103.
The puppet or motion showman exclaims in “Bartholomew Fair”: “O, the motions that I, Lanthorn Leatherhead, have given light to in my time.”
PLAY. SCENE.
My care to have you royally appointed as if
The scene you play were mine.
IV, 4, 604.
SPECTATORS.
Though devised
And played to take spectators.
III, 2, 38.
PASTORAL.
I play as I have seen them do
In Whitsun pastorals.
IV, 4, 134.
The reference is to the several kinds of May games which were performed at this season of the year. They consisted of short dramatic pieces of French origin. The earliest known is that of the “Jeu de Robin et Marian,” which was played in 1392. M. Guy quotes it as folk going “desguiziez un Jeu qui l’endit Robin et Marian ainsi qu’il est accoutume de fere chacun an en les foiries de Penthecouste.” These pieces were a mixture of folk song and minstreling, which developed into a kind of primitive drama. The principal characters being represented by Shepherds and Shepherdesses, surrounded by woodland scenery. In Molière’s plays will be found two of these pastoral dramas, “Melicente,” comedie pastorale heroique; another was simply entitled, “Pastorale comique.”
THE
LONDON
Prodigall.
As it was plaide by the Kings Maiesties seruants.
By VVilliam Shakespeare,
ANDROMEDE
TRAGEDIE
Representée auec les Machines sur le Theatre Royal de Bourbon.
AVEC PRIVILEGE DV ROY.
M. D C. LI.
Et se vendent A PARIS,
Chez CHARLES DE SERCY, au Palais, dans la Salle Dauphine, à la bonne Foy Couronnée.
I cannot close this book without mentioning the assistance rendered me respecting the illustrations. As in a previous volume, my friend, Mr. H. Franklin Waghorn, kindly holds himself responsible for the photographic work he has so ably executed. My friend, in order to help me, made many visits to the British Museum on my behalf. The authorities of that marvellous institution graciously permitted Mr. Waghorn to take photographs of any rare books which he desired for my work, for which permission I beg to offer my best thanks. Mr. Fleming, who made the blocks for the facsimiles, has executed his work beyond all praise.