Folk Entertainment and Ritual In
FOLK ENTERTAINMENT AND RITUAL IN
SHAKESPEARE'S EARLY COMEDIES
by
W. Barry Thorne
B.A., University of British Columbia, 1957
A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF Master of Arts IN THE DEPARTMENT OF English
We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard
THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
September, I960 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission.
Department of English The University of British Columbia, Vancouver 8, Canada. ABSTRACT
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the elements of folk entertainment, pastime, and ritual in four of Shakespeare's early comedies, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of
Verona, Love's Labor's Lost, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, with a view to determining the pattern into which the playwright's use of these elements evolved, and to demonstrate their importance in the development of the sophisticated comedies,. This investigation considers these elements in their significance to the Elizabethan society and in their relation to the play in which they appear©
The introduction defines those elements of social ritual and play which are later elaborated upon in their order of appearance in the plays examined. The significance of the evidence derived from such a detailed examination is cumulative, and the reappearance of certain elements in the four plays examined lends weight to the
conclusions drawn in each chapter. These conclusions evaluate the role which ritual and entertainment play in each comedy, and the
concluding chapter bases on the results of the entire study a more general account of this influence and its significance to
Shakespeare's later career. The frequency of references to tra• ditional folk-drama and the structural use of its formal elements
indicates the extent of Shakespeare's debt to the popular culture of his time and to a dramatic tradition which derives ultimately
from primitive pagan rituala The basic elements of the traditional folk-drama most fre• quently met with in the early comedies centre on the motifs the
Maying theme, the "flight to the woods", misrule, and the celebra•
tion of the rebirth of the yeare In The Taming of the Shrewa situ• ations analogous to those of the Mummers' Wooing sequences further the main action, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona weds the courtly and popular tradition in its use of the "flight to the woods" theme*
Maying themes become thematic and structural in Love's Labor's Lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream, where they supply the pattern of
the action0 In these, as in later plays, Shakespeare uses polarity, e.g. everyday-holiday, to provide a dramatic perspective for the examination or revaluation of actions, concepts, or ideals* The use of misrule or holiday allows the dramatist to create an action, apart from the ordinary, in which to limit his approach at his discretion,, I have used the term "fertility" to indicate a state of ordered harmony in both macrocosm and microcosm which, in the
Elizabethan view of nature, was considered favourable to life©
This investigation corroborates previous studies indicating that
Elizabethan drama is a hybrid growth blending the more consciously artistic elements of the classical drama with the mimetic aspects of a long standing popular tradition.. The vitality as well as the universality of Shakespeare's comedy may owe, perhaps, a great deal to the extent of his use of such traditional themes and rituals, TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION 1
II CHAPTER ONE: The Taming of the Shrew and Mummers' 20 Wooing Sequences.
Ill CHAPTER TWO: The Two Gentlemen of Verona and the 42 Popular Tradition.
IV CHAPTER THREE: Love's Labor's Lost and a Ritualistic 57 Structure.
V CHAPTER FOUR: A Midsummer Night's Dream and "May 110 and December",
VI CONCLUSION 165 FOLK ENTERTAINMENT AND RITUAL
IN
SHAKESPEARE'S EARLY COMEDIES
The purpose of this thesis is to make some assessment of the ritual and play elements in the Elizabethan drama, and to draw attention to the influence of ritual, pastimes, and entertain• ment in Shakespeare's early plays* I have limited the thesis to a discussion of the early comedies, in particular, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentleman of Verona, Love's Labor's Lost, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. C.L. Barber, Enid Welsford, CR. Baskervill, E.K. Chambers, and several other scholars have recog• nized the importance of ritual and play elements in Elizabethan drama, and their researches reveal that, during the Renaissance period and earlier, there was much interplay between drama and the other forms of entertainment which often bore mimetic qual• ities. Their studies indicate that the English folk-play and church ritual, between which there was a reciprocal influence, morality plays, miracle plays, and also the popular pageantry of civic processions significantly influenced the growing profess• ional drama of the London stage during the last quarter of the sixteenth century, Because these forms had never remained static, 2. the influence was never a one-way reaction. In the beginning, as the church, with its progressive missionary tactics, had changed and adapted ancient pagan ritual, it had also been stamped in• delibly by the beliefs and actions which it had assimilated. The same cultural elasticity prevailed in the moralities, miracles, and pageants which attended the later years of the church. These forms borrowed from and influenced one another so that, as in the familiar Mummers' play, it is often hard to sift out the various components, or even to attribute them to one original source. In many cases, however, the observations of the scholars have not been directly related to the drama of Shakespeare. This is one of the tasks that I have undertaken in this thesis.
The constant interaction between plays and entertainment in the Tudor Court was certainly a factor contributing to the growth and development of professional drama. As Miss Welsford observes,
Hall's Chronicle indicates the juxtaposition of court masque and folk morris dances in morality plays, the close relation between plays and disguisings, and, finally, the fact that the distinction 1 between dramatic performances and revels was very slight. Just as the ritual and drama of the church influenced the professional stage, the dramatic revels and masques of the Court had a
1 Hall's Chronicle; Containing the History of England, during the Reign of Henry the Fourth and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, in Which are-Particularly Described the Manners and Customs of those Periods, London, Printed for J. Johnson, 1809, Bk XVIII, p. 719, cited in Enid Welsford, The Court Masque, A Study in the Relationship between Poetry & the Revels, Cambridge, At the University Press, 1927, p. 276, 3o
significant effect upon the players. Children's companies, the actors in the private theatres, and the common players were fre•
quently at Court, performing both ordinary plays and the more dif•
ficult parts of the Court masques0 Probably because of this association, the players took to inserting masques and masque-like
episodes into ordinary stageplays, and, because of the audience's natural curiosity about Court functions, and the beauty and inter•
est of the new innovations, these spectacular interludes proved very popular,, Furthermore, the traditionally close association of music, dance, song, and the drama, as well as the universal pop•
ularity of the spectacular, whether it be in pageantry or crimin•
al executions, explains the stimulating variety of visual and auditory effect to be found in Elizabethan drama.
Ritual, pageantry, and the dramatization of life and its ex• periences were an important aspect of the people's lives, and the tendency to regard life as a drama and the individual as an actor on a great stage or a figure in a tremendous tableau was manifested in all levels and areas of life. Furthermore, the period under survey was a time when the significance of ritual and belief was still very great, a time when ritual observances and their meanings were not merely anachronistic survivals but were still in the blood of the people. The delight in pageantry and the belief in the efficacy of ritual, were not confined solely to the lower 4. classes, but also played an important role in the lives of the aristocracy. As Chambers explains:
Tudor kings and queens came and went about their pub• lic affairs in a constant atmosphere of make-believe, with a sibyl lurking in every court-yard and gateway, and a satyr in the boscage of every park, to turn the ceremonies of welcome and farewell, without which sovereigns must not move, by the art of song and dance and mimetic dialogue, to favour and prettiness. 2
It is the intense vitality of ritual and folk entertainment in Shakespeare's drama that I propose to examine in this thesis. Work has already been done by CR. Baskervill on the jig and on the prevalence of romantic drama before the Renaissance, by Enid Welsford on the origins in folk entertainment of the Court masque, and, finally, by CL. Barber on the importance of Maying and mis• rule celebrations in the "festive comedies.',' My own researches have indicated that Shakespeare's indebtedness to the culture of his time is even larger than has hitherto been suspected. Al• though I acknowledge gratefully my indebtedness to Mr. Barber's excellent book, I should point out that the emphasis of my ap• proach is different from his. Mr. Barber stresses the dramatic formula, "through release to clarification,';' in those comedies which he examines. My own approach has been to survey, without any preconceived concepts, the dramatic purposes for which Shake• speare uses ritual and folk entertainment, and to discover the
2 E.K. Chamber^ The Elizabethan Stage. Oxford, At the Claren• don Press, 1903, vol. 1, p. 107. See also Alice S. Venezky? Pageantry on the Shakespearean Stage. New York, Twayne Publish• ers, 1951, passim. patterns, if any, into which these elements may arrange themselves
The bulk of the present examination of Love's Labor's Lost had been completed before I read Mr. Barber, and therefore my find•
ings are independent of his. Mr. Barber does not examine The
Taming of the Shrew or The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and the ap• proach of the present thesis to Love's Labor's Lost and A Mid•
summer Night's Dream (which he also discusses) emphasizes an en•
tirely different area. The original research done on the Mum•
mers' play by E.K0 Chambers, C.R. Baskervill, R.J.E. Tiddy, and
others has been of immense aid to me in discovering evidence of
folk ritual in Shakespeare which has not, to my knowledge, receiv•
ed critical notice*
The method I have used in conducting this analysis has been
to survey Shakespeare's uses of folk entertainment and ritual in
the four early comedies, The Taming of the Shrew. The Two Gentle• men of Verona. Love's Labor's Lost, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
I have found these elements used to dramatic advantage in language
character, incident, setting, structure, and theme in the plays
surveyede Even when Shakespeare has borrowed his plot situation
from an earlier source or, indirectly, from a remote one, he has
often given it a local habitation for Elizabethan audiences by
alluding to the community rituals and entertainments of his own
periode
Often, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, forms of 6
ritual and belief which had lost their original meaning took on
new life as art forms or merely as folk entertainment9 The or• igins of the Court masque itself are rooted in the rituals of the people* The masque draws on elements of the folk fertility cele• brations, the King-game involving the election of a ruler, the sword-dance which is, in its origins, a momic rhythmic combat re• lated to the sacrifice of a scapegoat, and, finally, the activit- 3 ies of the mummers who participate in these age-old rituals.
The masque was also affected by the haphazard and gradual combin• ation and fusion of various other pastimes, some of which were of foreign origin. With the accession of the first Tudor king, the contact between the ritual and play spirit of the people and the art and pastimes of the nobility, which had always been close, be came even more intimate. Developing into a lively centre of nat• ional drama and revelry, the Court added to its roster a new offi ial, the Master of the Revels, who was concerned with dramatic productions designed for the entertainment of the Court. Similar ly, the annual appearance of an Abbot or Lord of Misrule at Court during the Christmas season, became customary in the reign of
Henry VH<» Later, these two quasi-officials came into conflict, and the Master of the Revels, outstripping the Lord of Misrule, became an important and powerful official. The first permanent
Master of the Revels, Sir Thomas Cawarden, one of the gentlemen
3 Welsford, Masque, p. 20. 7. 4 of the privy chamber, was appointed in 1545. Before his ap• pointment, the office had been a temporary one given to various officials of the Court.
"The catholic taste of the Tudors", Miss Welsford explains,
"led them to make their Court an attractive centre for humanism, national drama, folk-custom, and foreign fashion; so that all these various activities were kept in continuous and fruitful 5 contact with one another." As a result of this royal patronage, much of the literature of the time was permeated by the influence of the poetic masque and entertainment. During the period from the reign of Henry VII to the fall of Charles I, revelry and art in English culture were in an exceptionally close contact, and revelry with artistic and mimetic qualities played an important role in social existence.
Apparently there was not much distinction made between art and revelry, and, in the fifteenth century, "game" was a favourite term for drama. In Elizabethan and Stuart times, the words "rev• els" and "revellers" were applied rather loosely to all games or social practices that had aesthetic quality, and to.the par• ticipants in activities that obviously had their origins in rit• ual and folk-customs which had not altered significantly for
4 E.K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, Oxford, At the Clarendon Press, 1903, vol. 1, p. 405.
5 Welsford, Masque, p. 167. 6 hundreds of years. Miss Welsford also points out that the root meaning of "revel" is bodily movements made by a group of people in a state of excitement. Here lies the intimate connect• ion between ordinary revelry and ritual. In both ritual and rev• elry there is some degree of bodily movement, an atmosphere sup• plied by the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, and the sense of a special and carefully structured situation. Both stress the cohesiveness and interaction of the group, and involve activities that are co-ordinated in a traditionally patterned way
Because of this intimate relationship, ritual may easily dissolve into revelry, Holy days easily become holidays, and, finally, revelry may sometimes become ritual. Thus it is that, in Eliza• bethan culture, plays and dramatic spectacles were regarded as belonging to the realm of the revel only if they were part of a social function.
Because revel and ritual functioned as adjuncts to ordinary social activities, they had not only aesthetic value but also social utility for the Elizabethan communal observances. It is by no means unusual to find the artistic entertainments of the Court accompanied by the ruder forms enjoyed by the peasants. Similarly, Elizabethan dramatists often, like the anonymous authors of the moralities, combine tragedy and comedy, display peasants honouring royalty, present the traditional pageant of
6 Welsford, Masque, p. 360. 9. the battle between summer and winter, and even stage street tab• leaux in their own plays. All ritual succeeds in promoting group-consciousness, the recognition of the unity and continuity of the group, and Elizabethan England placed immense significance in the value of the group spirit. The most significant function of revelry is its capacity for the expression of achievement and satisfaction, the outward manifestation of surplus energy and inner joy. Apparently the value of revelry had long been re• cognized in England, especially during the Christmas and May celebrations, and it was accorded a definite place in the Eliza• bethan scheme of things. Escape from the dread tyranny of empir• ical fact and the inevitable chain of cause and effect can be attained through the gates of humour and magic. Ritual and rev• elry make use of these two escape mechanisms in much the same way, because both art and the revel are structured manifestations of the impulse to express the joy and value of experience. Al• though, in its crudest form, the "misrule" aspect of Elizabethan culture is an outburst of high spirits and superfluous energy, it is also an attempt to attain a sense of freedom from circum• stance by an adjustment of point of view, to "win for once over 7 the world's weight.'.*
Misrule offered the society a safety-valve for superfluous energies and repressed impulses dangerous to the personality; it
7 Welsford, Masque, p. 392 10.
provided a contrast to the normal, a temporary holiday from
restraint, a suspension of belief in normal law, and an opport• unity for satirizing society. Burlesque and misrule can have a positive social value as a vehicle for expressing and thereby
releasing impulses which must otherwise, according to the dic- 8 tates of society, be repressed. Misrule also provides a glimpse of the other side of the coin, a clarification of limits which comes from going beyond the limit. In The Court Masque. Miss Welsford traces the aesthetic development of misrule from social custom to its dramatic use on the professional stage. The lowest stage of comedy, laughter provoked by sheer grotesque- ness and abnormality, is in some ways parallel to the rowdier forms of misrule, the buffoonery and horseplay of the folk festival. The revels of Elizabethan society are significant be• cause they were maintained within a society that recognized constantly the mortality which is implicit in life itself. The death's head behind the fool is always somewhere in the conscious• ness of even the most carefree Elizabethan.
Although the Elizabethan Twelfth Night is the best-known folk celebration featuring folly and misrule, almost any time ap• propriate to do honour to the forces of nature might be made the occasion for a festival of misrule or folly. Students today are
8 Observers of the contemporary political scene indicate that in Russian satellite countries such as Poland, the necessary re• lease from the destructive tensions and inhibitions imposed upon Polish personalities under the Communist regime is found in hum• our and satire directed subtly and indirectly toward the state and its tyranny. In this way, the people experience a relief and release denied to them through ordinary channels. 11 often confused by the profusion of sixteenth century festivals celebrating the New Year, found at any time from September to
May, This confusion, which existed even in the minds of the cel• ebrants themselves, arises from the fact that early pagans con• ceived of the year as beginning with winter; later, however, the encroaching Christian religion assimilated these ancient celeb• rations and shifted them to conform with already existing cel• ebrations recognized and encouraged by the Church. For instance,
Twelfth Night, the Feast of the Magi, is a Christian overlay on a traditional pagan festival, marking the culmination of a period 9 of rejoicing over the return of the sun after the winter solstice. Seasonal feasts celebrating the rhythm of the year were exceeding• ly significant to the pagans, for they were originally landmarks framing the cycle of the year, and were observed in varying deg• rees of sophistication by most elements in the society.
Customs appropriate to festivals ushering in the New Year and promoting fertility are therefore to be found from Christmas to Midsummer - on Twelfth Night, Plough Monday, Valentine's Day,
Easter, and at Whitsuntide. These festivals have their roots in one ancient feast for which the Roman Saturnalia seems to be the prototype. Concerning this feast, Miss Welsford observes: The Kalends of January was a New Year festival which spread all over the Roman Empire. It was celebrated by the relaxation of all ordinary rules of conduct,
9 For this idea and others in this paragraph I am indebted to an unpublished paper, "Twelfth Night in Twelfth Night", by Marion B. Smith, Associate Professor of English at the University of British Columbia. 12.
and the inversion of customary social status. Masters and slaves changed places, feasted and played at dice together. 10 During this time, the Romans also decorated their houses with greenery to ensure a year of wealth and fertility. The Roman Saturnalia always involved the overturning of established val• ues, a conscious return to nature, to the golden age of Saturn, when natural behavior, untrammelled by the artificial conventions of society, had not only been the norm but had no unpleasant consequences. This principle of gaining rapport with essential nature was not lost, and is to be found in all celebrations of the seasons and especially in May, the month of Venus.
The Christmas celebrations of Elizabethan England often lasted two weeks, and involved considerable ritual and horse• play. The misrule to be found in most significant revelry is focussed during the twelve days of Christmas on the person of the official Lord of Misrule or King of the Bean, who superin• tended the celebration and acted as a mock King or Magistrate. As in the Roman Saturnalia, in misrule a transfer of authority was effected, the social order was inverted, and, for a short time, slaves became masters, and lords served as lackeys to their own servants. In addition, the pageantry and games assoc• iated with Twelfth Night are full of love motifs, and even the Mummers' Plays, which celebrated the death and revival of the old season, often present a wooing sequence or a ritual marriage.
10 Welsford, Masque, p. 9. 13.
The folk games and rituals of Twelfth Night and similar celeb• rations tended usually to take on a dramatic form, and the Mum• mers' play serves as an excellent example of the tendency for ritual to become drama or entertainment.
The Mummers' play, which involved a mock combat between a Christian and a pagan knight, as well as the slaying of the dragon or of one of the combatants, and the appearance of a mock doctor who healed St. George (or the fallen hero) of his wound, persisted as a Christmas custom in rural areas until the time of Thomas Hardy at the end of the nineteenth century. Similarly, both the spring and summer festivals of the folk survive to mod• ern times in various local celebrations, with arbors, pageantry, mimetic dances, song, and games. The Mummers' Wooing Play can be seen to trace its origins to pagan rituals celebrating the revivification of the year in the spring, to celebrations in which the sexual motif was paramount, and some elements in them seem to be survivals of medieval dramatic conventions that are in part literary but in larger part popular and of some antiquity.
In the spring, there were several celebrations designed
expressly to propitiate the goddess of fertility and to insure
the luck and fecundity of the new year. In England, May seems
to have been the favoured month for such celebrations, and mirth,
excessive eating and drinking, and misrule were the order of the
day. Masquerading, play-acting, amateur skits usually directed 14. at authority, and almost any kind of mockery, singing, and danc• ing were always a part of the festival. Like the Christmas cel• ebrations, the May games gave participants license to "flout and
Fleer" at customary objects of respect. These revels of May Day centred around a young tree or a "May-pole" set up in some open space in the village and adorned for the occasion with fresh gar- 11 lands and boughs brought from the woods. Especially the Pur• itans recognized the phallic symbolism of the May-pole, and their attacks on May celebrations and what they stood for, and on the popular drama and poetry and what they stood for, were connected on deeper levels. Of course, Puritans objected violently to the sexual license which sometimes accompanied these ceremonies, especially to the "flight to the woods" in which the young people, in groups and pairs, sallied forth to the woods the night before the celebration in order to "bring summer in" with the flowers and boughs that they gathered there. As Stubbes complains, many 12 a maid returned a maid no longer.
Fertility rites and symbolic contests between winter and summer played a large role in the celebrations. Plough Monday as an ancient feast is closely connected with the fertilization rites of early spring, and Valentine's Day also represents an ancient love festival. Ancient pagan rituals had, by this time, become
11 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, vol. 1, p. 117.
12 Frederick J. Furnivall, ed., Phillip Stubbes's Anatomy of the Abuses in England in Shakspere's Youth, London, N. Triibner & Co., 1879, P. 149. 15. adapted to suit the needs of a society in which the play spirit was strong, and, as a consequence, the secularization and sophist• ication of pagan motifs occurred as well among the aristocracy in whose games and entertainments ancient festival motifs were formalized and presented. Drawing our attention to the early dramatization of ancient ritual, Baskervill remarks:
On the whole, the assumption seems warranted that the process by which pagan ritual became folk pastime or drama had reached its final stage by 1200„ In the period from 1200 to the middle of the sixteenth cen• tury, folk-drama flourished in England, developing those features which later contributed to popular farce and the Elizabethan stage jig, and taking on much the form in which it has survived in modern times in singing games and Mummers' plays. 13
Public processions and pageants of all great festivals ended in evening feasts which were accompanied by the games of the folk. Frequently Court entertainments, like the Masque,were merely sophisticated adaptations of festival motifs, and the Court was usually amused by rustic performances presented in its honor. Similarly, Court dances were often embellishments of rustic ones originally part of festival celebrations. Even in the customary entertainments presented to Elizabeth during her summer progress• es, traditional festival observances were developed in masque, pageant, or play.
Even in recent literature we can see the conscious use of
myth and ritual to organize meaningfully the life of our times0
13 C„R. Baskervill, "Dramatic Aspects of Medieval Folk Fest• ivals in England", Studies in Philology, vol. 17 (Jan. 1920), p© 32. Traditional and symbolic values come to a writer from the society in which he operates, and it should not surprise us that Shake•
speare, with his intimate knowledge of his own society, should make dramatic use of the rituals and the play spirit with which he was so familiar. He was able to draw upon a body of sentiment,
sub-rational opinion and emotion, which could appeal to all levels of society. This frame of reference possessed by all classes is one reason for the more or less universal appeal of the plays to
an apparently extremely diversified audience. As Barber has pointed out, Shakespeare's gay comedy is saturnalian rather than 14 satiric. It dramatizes directly or indirectly the healthy
release from normal limitations to be gained from the principle
of the Roman Saturnalia. In this respect, the use of the theat•
rical institution of clowning was not a new thing; in fact the
clown or vice was a recognized rebel, who carried misrule to ab•
surd extremes. The ritual or festival occasion thus supplies a means for the organization of dramatic experience comprehensible
to all members of his audience. In the plays with a direct hol•
iday motif, and other early ones, elements of ritual and folk
entertainment are metamorphosed into conscious art. Sometimes
the experience of the whole play is presented in the form of a
revel. The atmosphere and the dramatic experience is presented
through the direct staging of pastimes such as dances, songs, 15 masques, and plays. The fundamental method is to arrange
14 C.L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy, A Study of Dram• atic Form and its Relation to Social Custom, Princeton, Prince- ton University Press, 1959, pp. 5-8. "~
15 C.L. Barber, "The Saturnalian Pattern in Shakespeare's Com• edy", Sewanee Review, vol. 59 (Autumn, 1951), p« 597« 17 the plot so as to place the characters in the position of festive celebrants. At other times the plays employ metaphors, situations, and scenes drawn from Elizabethan ritual and folk entertainment.
Often the plays ridicule the unnatural, but they also put holiday into perspective with life as a whole. By juxtaposing the festival and. the everyday world, they clarify ideas, the love emotion, and natural actions, and recognize the important role that the seasons of the year play in the activities of man.
Expressing the influence of love and the spring season as a com• pelling force in both man and nature, their mirth and exuberance carry with them the recognition of nature's beneficence but also of its limitations. If, in folk ritual and entertainment, Shake• speare could draw upon a valuable background of knowledge and ex• perience common to all strata of society, then, through the use of these ritual patterns and the play element, it was possible to achieve a heightened awareness of the relationship between man and nature, between man and society, and between man and man.
In a sense, Shakespeare's drama was taking over social functions which had been previously limited to folk celebrations, to fam• ilies, and to civic groups, the expression of the ritual spirit.
Usually revelry and ritual had been organized under leaders, and had been presented by a special group of entertainers represent• ing the talent of the community. Group dances or plays were prep• ared and were presented in the surrounding towns. That this struc• turing of the holiday experience was taken up by the stage is one IS.
more indication that, in Elizabethan culture, the distinctions between life and art, the stage and the world, were not yet set- tledo
Semi-dramatic folk-games or folk-drama provided an immense background of material upon which the professional dramatist could draw, but also conditioned, to a certain extent, the type of material which he could present. Because of the long drama• tic tradition in English entertainment, audiences demanded a good deal of song, music, and dance, to leaven the dramatic fare.
Dramatists were expected to divert their audiences with inter• ludes of music and dancing interspersed throughout their plays, and the intervals between presentations were enlivened by stage jigs, acrobatics, animal acts, and many of the familiar techiques of modern circuses. The influence of folk festivals upon the professional drama was to be felt for some time. Baskervill con• cludes that:
Festival customs of the folk affected English drama greatly even after the forces of the Renaissance were tending to divorce it from the merely popular and ephemeral and give it a truly literary character. 16
Even the dramatic experiments of the University wits owe much to the influence of the revels in general and to the continued in- 17 teraction between the play and folk entertainment. In masques and mythological plays presented during the seventies and eighties of the sixteenth century, there is considerable development of
16 CR. Baskervill, "Mummers' Wooing Plays in England", Modern Philology, vol. 21 (Feb. 1924), -p. 230.
17 Welsford, Masque, p. 277o 19. pastoral and sylvan scenes employing local traditions of fest- 18 ival pageantry in the classical Renaissance pastoral setting. As Northrop Frye indicates:
The earlier tradition established by Peele and devel• oped by Lyly, Greene, and the masque writers, which uses themes from romance and folklore and avoids the comedy of manners, is the one followed by Shakespeare. •These themes are largely medieval in origin, and derive, not from the mysteries or the moralities or the inter• ludes, but from a fourth dramatic tradition^ This is the drama of folk ritual, of the St. George play and the mummers' play, of the feast of the ass and the Boy Bishop, and of all the dramatic activity that punctuated the Christian calendar with the rituals of an immemorial paganism. We may call this the drama of the green world, and its theme is once again the triumph of life over the waste land, the death and revival of the year impersonated by figures still human, and once divine as well. 19
l£ C.R. Baskervill, "Some Evidence for Early Romantic Plays in England", Modern Philology, vol. 14 (August, 1916), p. 244.
19 Northrop Frye, "The Argument of Comedy", in Leonard Fa Dean, Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism. New York, Oxford University Press, 1957, p. 85. CHAPTER ONE
The Taming of the Shrew
and
Mummers' Wooing Sequences
In beginning this study, I have chosen to survey swiftly two of what are considered to be Shakespeare's earlier comedies,
The Taming of the Shrew, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in order to trace the tendencies to be examined in some detail in two other comedies, Move's Labor's Lost and A Midsummer Night's
Dream0 Analysis of another early play, The Comedy of Errors, reveals little or no references to the ritual, pastimes, and en• tertainment of Elizabethan England, probably because of its great similarity to its source, theMenaechmi of Plautus. The doctor of the typical Mummers' play seems to appear in the person of
Pinch, the schoolmaster, and there are certainly reflections of the conventions of folk-drama, but nothing so fully developed as
those in Love's Labor's Lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream0 For this reason it has been excluded from consideration in this study,,
The Taming of the Shrew is much more rewarding for this study,
even though the Induction, typical of interludes and similar plays presented before the nobility, is soon dropped,,
The play opens witha.number of references to Elizabethan drinking habits, as the "dronken Slie" is ejected from his ale•
house for refusing to pay for the glasses that he has shattered,
and it continues with the pastimes and entertainments popular 21. among the nobility of the time. After Sly has fallen asleep outside the alehouse, a Lord enters, just returned from hunting with his hounds. In the ensuing dialogue between the master and his huntsman on the breeding and selection of hounds, the terms and practises of hunting are revealed. In presenting the
Lord devising a jest to play on "this drunken man", the dramatist paints a comprehensive picture of contemporary customs, pastimes, and means of entertainment:
What think you, if he were conveyed to bed, Wrapped in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers, A most delicious banquet by his bed, And brave attendants near him when he wakes, Would not the beggar then forget himself? (Induction, i, 37-41)
The Lord's directions to his attendants concerning the handling of the jest continue to reveal the daily life of the nobleman.
Carry him gently to my fairest chamber And hang it round with all my wanton pictures. Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet. Procure me music ready when he wakes, To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound; (Induction, i, 46-51) All these arrangements are made in order to produce a "pastime passing excellent".
Sly, as the butt of a jest, has become in reality a sort of
King of Misrule. At the order of the anonymous "Lord" with the sense of humour, the everyday realities and "considerations" of
Sly's life have been turned upside down temporarily. The humble tinker has been given "license" to frolic for a short while, and to enjoy the benefits of a much higher station in life. Though he is a laughing-stock, he is, for the moment, in control of a number of servants who satisfy his every desire. This is the essence of the traditional period of Misrule. The Lord of Mis• rule is a humorous figure whose commands carry no weight unless the crowd accedes to his wishes in a holiday spirit. His is a temporary reign characterized by license and drunkenness, and his period of sway ends rather abruptly at the end of the season.
When Sly is carried out, a trumpet is sounded to herald the approach of a group of players. What follows next is a reference to the traditional Mummers' Wooing play in which there is a sym• bolic courting of a fair maid by a gentleman and a fool, though
Shakespeare may have been describing the plays of the villages like Barton-on-the-Heath and Wilnecote from which the characters 1 of his Induction hail. This brief reference anticipates the roles of Gremio and Tranio in the play to follow. The Lord ex• claims: ....This fellow I remember, Since once he played a farmer's eldest son. 'Twas where you wooed the gentlewoman so well. . I have forgot your name, but, sure, that part Was aptly fitted and naturally performed. (Induction, i, 84-88)
The playerfe reply, "I think 'twas Soto that your Honor means", indicates that he may have played the role of the fool. The
Lord's reception of the players gives us an idea of the customs involved in the presentation of plays and interludes by groups
1 Baskervill, "Mummers' Wooing Plays", p. 230. 23. of travelling players. Both amateur and professional medieval folk-players travelled from place to place presenting their dram• atic fare. The inter-parochial and inter-village performances of the amateurs are a unique development of the folk games. As Baskervill informs us, "Visits of traveling players are definite• ly recorded for Reading toward the end of the fourteenth cen-
2 tury." It is interesting to discover that professionals were also performing traditional plays. This is the intermediary stage between the traditional folk-drama presented by the com• munity itself, and the use of the elements of folk-drama by
London professionals to embellish or frame their own plays.
The advance toward the sophistication of primitive ritual into social pastime proceeded in three stages. The first stage is that of the actual pagan ritual, which is still preserved in certain folk customs; the second is that in which festival customs, sophisticated as a result of advancing culture and the modification of pagan festivals by the church, developed among the folk as social pastimes; and the third is a stage in which the diversions of the festival celebration became pro• fessionalized through passing into the hands of village perform- 3 ers, minstrels, and players. The plot situation of the Induc• tion itself borrows from the Mummers' play in that it presents a drama of marriage, has a young boy dressed as a woman, and has a fool wooing her. The actual play, the "play within a play", has also humorous affiliations with folk-drama, expecially with
2 "Dramatic Aspects", p. 84.
3 Ibid.. p. 20. wooing sequences. The boasting by one wooer of his conquest of various women, love pleas of two or more rivals, discussion eith• er of a dowry by the girl and a wooer or of their possessions, a charge of insincerity brought by one suitor against another and the latter's defense, bawdy innuendo, jeering and mockery on the part of the girl and the wooers, a. contest for the girl, and her scornful rejection of at least one suitor are all fam• iliar elements of folk wooing sequences found, in one form or 4 another, in this play and in the other three under analysis.
Scene two opens with Sly surrounded by all the luxury of the Great Hall. Servants courteously offer him the delicacies of Elizabethan England, sack and conserves, and any amusement he desires. Lord. ....Harkl Apollo plays, And twenty caged nightingales do sing. Or wilt thou sleep? We'll have thee to a couch Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed On purpose trimmed up for Semiramis. Say thou wilt walk; we will bestrew the ground. Or wilt thou ride? The horses shall be trapped, Their harness studded all with gold and pearl. Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt? Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth. 1. serv. Say thou wilt course. Thy greyhounds are as swift As breathed stags, aye, fleeter than the roe. 2. serv. Dost thou love pictures? (Induction, ii, 37-51) The passage continues with references to the popularity of the displaying of paintings as a form of amusement or delight. Sly's wonderment at his transformation also reveals further details about drinking in taverns, and the measurement of drink,
4 CR. Baskervill, "Conventional Features of Fulgens and Lucres" Modern Philology, vol. 24 (1926-27), p. 429. 25.
"Because she brought stone jugs and no sealed quarts". When Sly is fully convinced that he is indeed a "Lord", a messenger en• ters to announce that his players are awaiting his pleasure to present "a pleasant comedy". Sly's reply, "Is not a comonty a
Christmas gambold or a tumbling trick?", casts some light on the indefiniteness of terms relating to drama and entertainment.
The country bumpkin would not be familiar with any drama more sophisticated than the folk-drama and games connected with folk festivals and celebrations. The page's reply that a comedy is
"a kind of history" is revealing in itself.
With the Induction completed, the dramatist begins the ac• tual comedy. The subjedt of the play, the breaking of the spirit of a woman, or man who has an evil disposition, seems to have been a popular one during the last quarter of the century. In 1598, a ballad called Robin and Kate was published, with the sub-title of "a bad husband converted by a good wife, in a dia- 5 logue between Robin and Kate". It may well be that there is some connection between the two, especially when the names of the women are the same. Scene one of the play opens with the arrival in Padua of a young man from Pisa, journeying forth to study and to gain experience of the world. As is the case in Love's Labor's Lost, the protagonist's plan is to follow the Renaissance course of study, to "haply institute / A course of learning and ingenious studies". His servant and loyal follower,
5 CR. Baskervill, The Elizabethan Jig and Related Song Drama, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1929, p. 174» 26 o
Tranio, tempers the program of study with the suggestion that the other delights of the body and mind must not be ignored:
Only, good master, while we do admire This virtue and this moral discipline, Let's be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray, Or so devote to Aristotle's checks As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured„ Balk logic with acquaintance that you have, And practice rhetoric in your common talk. Music and poesy useto quicken you. The mathematics and the metaphysics Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you. No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en. In brief, sir, study what you most affect. (I, i, 29-40)
In other words, Tranio is counselling Lucentio not to be a kill• joy, not to make the mistake of the King of Navarre, of feeding the mind at the expense of the body, or of denying the call of the spring season. This is essentially the philosophic justif• ication of the revel, and, consequently, we are not surprised that, when Lucentio first sees Bianca, all thoughts of study and philosophy flee his mind, nor that the remainder of the play takes the form of a period of misrule apart from the responsib• ilities and "considerations" of everyday life.
It may well be that the Induction and Tranio's remarks, as well as the misrule that pervades the body of the play, serve a conscious dramatic purpose. The atmosphere of "misrule" may, perhaps, take the edge off Petruchio's avowed fortune-hunting, the callousness of his remarks about Kate in the early scenes, and the rudeness and brutality of his later treatment of her.
The dramatist may be, in a sense, asking us to disregard some 27o of the normal emotional responsibilities and inhibitions demand• ed of the individual in the world of everyday, and to enter in• to a spirit of riot and license in which the laws of cause and immediate effect, and of ordinary morality, are repealed for a short time,. One could imagine that the plot situation of the play is more painful for the audience with the Induction omitted, as it is in most modern productions.
As Bianca and Katharina enter, the plot complication is soon revealed to the audience. Two men, an old and a young suit• or, are vying for the hand of the fair and gentle Bianca, but
"no one cared for Kate", her elder sister, for she is a vixen and a shrew, discouraging all suitors with her nasty disposition,,
She stands between her sister and the sexual consummation of marriage which insures the fertility of the coming year. Thus, in terms of the Elizabethan ritual of Maying and misrule, she presents a challenge to the young revellers who wish to partic• ipate in the delights of the season,. The bickering between Kath• arina and the suitors is likened to a pastime by Tranio, who first mistakes their procession for a "show" designed to welcome him and his master to Padua. Here Shakespeare is alluding to the ludicrous visual effect of some of the amateurish shows pres• ented for civic or state occasions. In a fashion somewhat like the burlesquing of the scornful lady rejecting wooers, Katharina threatens Hortensio,
To comb your noddle with a three-legged stool, And paint your face, and use you like a fool. (I, 1, 64-65) 28
The essential situation in this play is similar to that in A
Midsummer Night's Dream, in which a young woman is condemned to chastity or death unless she chooses to marry a suitor whan she does not like but who has been chosen for her by her father. The obstacle which "mews up" Bianca is Katharina, who is well nigh an old maid, and whose prospects of becoming anything else are indeed very slim.
In order to get a husband for Katharina, Baptista, her long- suffering father, has determined that the young Bianca shall not marry until her elder sister has found herself a husband. This decree leaves Bianca's two suitors in somewhat of a quandary, and, in consequence, they reluctantly join forces to procure a husband for Katharina. Though they liken Katharina to the devil incarnate, they consider Bianca to be a prize well worth the troub• le of winning. The metaphor of winning a prize is continued as Hortensio exclaims that he who runs fastest in the race for Bianca wins the traditional ring, which, in the May games, was usually fashioned of rushes, and, in folk festivals, was always the prize for dancing wooers. Also smitten with love for Bianca, Lucentio, who has overheard the conversation, begs advice from his servant-companion, Tranio, a realist who attempts to gauge the depth of his love. Between them, they concoct a plan by which Lucentio is to disguise himself as a schoolmaster in order to gain access to the fair Bianca, and Tranio is to pass himself off as his master, in order to delude the friends and acquaintances of his master's family in Padua. 29
Thus, as is customary in the revelry of misrule and Maying,
servant and master have exchanged roles for the purpose of im• proving the state of the community. They have entered into the
spirit of misrule in which "anything goes", and will attempt also to win the prize for Lucentio. In the early comedies, of• ten the women are fertility symbols which represent the well- being of the community as a whole. In this case, the finding
of a husband for Katharina, and the freeing of Bianca from her
captivity, will resolve an unhealthy situation in the family
and also, symbolically, in the community itself.
Scene two introduces Petruchio who, like Lucentio, has jour• neyed to Padua to "wive and thrive as best I may". He also has gone abroad to seek experience and to "see the world", and, reaching Padua, immediately goes to visit his old friend Horten- sio. Grumio, his servant, who has just received a beating for wilful disobedience, complains in a metaphor from the card game of one and thirty, ....Well, was it fit for a serv• ant to use his master so, being perhaps, for aught I see, two and thirty, a pip out? (I, ii, 30-33)
In jest, Hortensio suggests that Petruchio seek a profitable marriage with the shrew, Katharina. Much to his surprise, Pet• ruchio leaps at the opportunity of enriching his coffers, and determines to "woo her, wed her, and bed her, and rid the house of her!" He says, "As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,.... I come to wive it wealthily in Padua: / If wealthily, then hap- 30„ pily in Padua.", and cares not if his wife be a shrew. Recol•
lections of the conventions of Mummers' plays recur fairly reg• ularly as Petruchio takes on some of the aspects of the fool or of one of the suitors in the typical Mummers' Wooing plays. With
the bargain made, Petruchio agrees to "board" Katharina, and to
introduce Hortensio, disguised as a "schoolmaster well seen in music", to her father.
Seeing this plan afoot, Grumio, the bruised servant of Pet• ruchio, expresses one of the main themes of the play, saying,
Here's no knavery. See, to beguile the old folks, how the young folks lay their heads together. (I, ii, 139-41) Later, in reply to Gremio's outspoken surprise concerning his desire to woo Katharina, Petruchio replies in terms reminiscent of the boasting of the fool in the Mummers' Wooing plays: Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puffed up with winds, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And Heaven's artillery thunder in skies? Have I not in a pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets' clang? And do you tell me of a woman's tongue, That gives not half so great a blow to hear As will a chestnut in a farmer's fire? Tush, tushS Fear boys with bugs. (I, ii, 201-211)
The theme of the plot situation up to the moment is the age- old struggle between the young and the old. In the Mummers' plays, the old and young suitors were traditional elements, and 31,
were representatives of the old and the new seasons in fertil• ity rites. Both Lucentio and Hortensio, as young men, are at• tempting to beguile an unreasonable old father into releasing a young, desirable virgin from her captivity. This plot situation in its essence is similar to that of The Two Gentlemen of Ver• ona, Love's Labor's Lost, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, in that the plot conflict involves an unnatural restriction placed on the young by the old or by kill-joys. The situation is as old as the primitive ritual underlying the May flight to the woods, and all the many forms of Saturnalia or misrule. In the case of the four comedies under study, Gremio, Baptista, the Duke of Mil• an, Sir Thurio, the King of Navarre and his men, and, finally, old Egeus and Demetrius are all hindering in some way the smooth course of true love. They are the kill-joy figures who refuse to recognize love or the spring season as an integral part of life itself, and, in doing so, run counter to their nature as men. In each play, this essential conflict is presented by draw• ing upon spring ritual celebrations, familiar to the Elizabethan audience, and imposing additional meanings on the basic plot action. As Northrop Frye observes, in connection with all the comedies, those who impede the progress of the comedy are
always people who are in some kind of mental bondage, who are helplessly driven by ruling passions, neurotic compulsions, social rituals, and selfishness. The es• sential comic resolution, therefore, is an individual release which is also a social reconciliation. 6
Later in the play, in Act Two, scene one, when the future of
6 Frye, "The Argument of Comedy", p. 81. 32.
Katharina is assured and there is no longer any necessity for continuing the reluctant peace treaty between them, the suitors resume their rivalry in the traditional form of the young and old suitor in the Mummers' Wooing plays,
Gre. Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I. Tra, Greybeard, thy love doth freeze. Gre. But thine doth fry. Skipper, stand back. 'Tis age that nourisheth. Tra. But youth in ladies' eyes that flourisheth. (II, i, 339-41) This bickering serves to reinforce the theme of the conflict be• tween the young and the old. In Mummers' plays, the abuse of the old wooer and his offers of gifts or possessions is conventional, and Gremio proceeds to "top" his rival's "bids" as do the old suitors in these plays. Like Lysander and Demetrius, the con• tenders enumerate their possessions and qualities, and their contest is a burlesque, paralleling the clown's conventional boasting of his wealth. Listing his gold and lands, Gremio de• clares that all this shall be Bianca's after his death; Tranio replies in kind, and his boasting speech smacks of the speech of the eldest son in the Revesby Mummers' play. I am my father's heir and only son. If I may have your daughter to my wife, I'll leave her houses three or four as good Within rich Pisa walls as any one Old Signior Gremio has in Padua, Besides two thousand ducats by the year Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure. What, have I pinched you, Signior Gremio? (II, i, 366-73) The following quotations are extracts from the Revesby play, spoken by Pepper Britches, Pickle Herring, and Cicely, revealing 33. the parallels between the two.
P.B. I am my father's eldest son, And heir of all his land, And in a short time, I hope, It will fall into my hands. P.H. Sweet Ciss, if thou wilt be my love, A thousand pounds I will give thee. Cic. No, you're too old, sir, and I am too young, And alas! old man, that must not be. 7 Cic. Your gold may gain as good as I, But by no means it shall tempt me; For youthful years and frozen age Cannot in any wise agree. 8
Outbidding Gremio, Iranio is forced to submit proof that his father will endorse the offered dowry, as assurance that the bride will not be left penniless at Tranio's death. The old- young antipathy is continued as the scene ends, and Gremio ex• claims :
.... Now I fear thee not Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool To give thee all, and in his waning age Set foot under thy table, Tut, a toy! An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.
(II, i, A02-406) In defiant reply to old Gremio's ephemeral triumph, Trania makes use of a gaming metaphor, to indicate that he has successfully bluffed him, and says, "Yet I have faced it with a card of ten." He is left with the problem of supplying a father or losing Bianca for his master. He expresses the dilemma in terms of the wooing play,
7 E.K. Chambers, The English Folk-Play. Oxford, At the Clar• endon Press, 1933, p. 117.
8 Ibid.. p. 119. 34
Must get a father, called - supposed Vincentio. And that's a wonder. Fathers commonly Do get their dhildren, but in this case of wooing, A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning. (II, i, 410-13)
Often in the Mummers' play there is some confusion concerning the ages and relationships of the characters. Sometimes the fool, who is nominally the "father" of the others, claims to be younger than they are, therefore their son, and boasts of his sexual prowess. Claiming that he begets full-grown children before lunch, he finally ends by winning the lady. Despite the confidence of the elderly Gremio, and the temptation of his of• fer, Bianca, like the traditional Mummers' "lady", in the end marries for love not gold.
Act Two begins with proof of Katharina's shrewishness, which also symbolizes the traditional antipathy between younger and older sisters. She has tied Bianca's hands behind her back, and strikes her when she does not admit to loving either the aged but wealthy Gremio or the youthful Hortensio. The appear• ance of Baptista prevents any further torture, and Katharina cries in frustration, I must dance barefoot on her wedding day And for your love to her lead apes in Hell. (II, i, 33-34)
"It was an old (and humiliating)custom for an elder unmarried sister to dance barefooted at the wedding of her younger sis- 9 ter." Thus, the conflict between Katharina and Bianca is
9 G.B. Harrison, Shakespeare, The Complete Works, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1952, p. 343• 35e motivated by traditional jealousy, which supplies additional motive for Katharina's shrewishness. It also makes it seem less "un-natural", and perhaps suggests that it is not incorrig• ible, being in part circumstantial rather than congenital.
Upon the arrival of the group of suitors, accompanied by the false tutors, Petruchio broaches the subject of his marriage suit immediately. The bluntness of his approach is very much in character, and foreshadows his methods and his success in break• ing Katharina's spirit. In traditional wooing sequences, there is often a comic wooing scene which parallels the main one, and the wooing scene sequence between Katharina and Petruchio seems to be a burlesque. Furthermore, Petruchio's speech includes lines and refrains from popular ballads and wooing songs. The
line, "And every day I cannot come to woo" (II, i, 116) was a 10 popular refrain in the Ballad of John and Joan. The line, "we will be married o' Sunday", (II, i, 326) is also a popular 11 "tag" of the contemporary ballad. His wooing technique is indeed an ingenious one, for he praises all of Katharina's vir• tues, and ignores her shrewishness, much to her own vexation and the astonishment of the others. In this scene, as the res• pective wooers present their gifts of tutors, and offer their services and love, we see a picture of wooing techniques in general, and the customs associated with the marriage ceremony and its celebration. Petruchio loses no time in ascertaining
10 Baskervill, Jig, p. 194.
11 Ibid., p. 214. 36.
the amount of Katharinafs dowry, and in entering into an agree• ment with her father. The marriage contract reflects contemp• orary values and customs, for it was the custom in Elizabethan
England for the father to endow his daughters with a certain sum against their marriage. In this case, Baptista has to pay dearly for the privilege of losing a daughter and gaining a son, who intends to woo "not like a babe", but to use policy and subterfuge in order almost to brainwash the girl.
Say that she rail; why, then I'll tell her plain She sings as sweetly as a nightingale. Say that she frown; I'll say she looks as clear As morning roses newly washed with dew. (II, 1, 171-74)
The insult and badinage that passes between the two is also reminiscent of the burlesque scenes in Wooing plays in which a main character is rebuffed by the maiden until he determines to leave; then, humbled, she calls him back. When her father ar• rives to see how the suit has sped, Katharina rails at him, accusing him of wishing to wed her to, ...one half-lunatic, A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack That thinks with oaths to face the matter out. (II, i, 289-91) However, Petruchio ignores her bad temper, and arranges for the marriage to take place on the next Sunday.
Act Three opens with a wooing contest between the two false tutors, Lucentio and Hortensio in disguise, which parallels that between Tranio and Gremio. The "flyting contest" between the two develops into an argument concerning the relative merits of philosophy and music. Their bickering is interspersed with comments which draw upon the terms and practices of music and musical instruments. Scene two introduces Katharina, awaiting the arrival of her fiance', who is extremely tardy. Petruchio's delay is but another element in his elaborate scheme to "break"
Katharina. His arrival, dressed in a desreputable fssiion, and riding a nag to match the ill assortment of his dress, burlesques the ritual solemnity of the marriage ceremony. His speech, But what a fool am I to chat with you When I should bid good morrow to my bride And seal the title with a lovely kissl
(III, ii, 123-25) reflects the first of the ceremonies in a wedding in which the husband-to-be awakens his bride on the morning of their mar• riage, and also burlesques the magic kiss of love which breaks the spell of bewitchment in folk tales.
As the marriage proceeds, Lucentio and Tranio decide to steal Bianca away from the watchful scrutiny of her father, so that she may secretly marry Lucentio. Tra. We'll overreach the greybeard, Gremio, The narrow-prying father, Minola, The quaint musician, amorous Licio, (III, ii, 147-49) Their plans reinforce and make clear the theme of the inevitable conflict between the old and the young, between the demands of 3d. winter and of spring. Their dialogue labels them as revellers who are plotting to confound the kill-joys, and to consolidate and strengthen the misrule in which they are engaged. When the wedding company arrives, Petruchio very discourteously refuses to preside at the wedding feast, and takes his bride away on an arduous journey to his home. In Elizabethan England, such an act was extremely rude, for the major part of a wedding was the ceremonial feast that followed it, symbolizing and celebrating the new union.
Obey the bride, you that attend on her. Go to the feast, revel and domineer, Carouse full measure to her maidenhead, Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves. (Ill, ii, 225-28)
Using the pretence that they are beset with thieves, Petruchio hustles Katharina away, voicing the doctrine that the wife is part of her husband's "chattels". I will be master of what is mine own. She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything; (III, ii, 231-34)
Act Four opens with the preparation of Petruchio's country house to receive the bride, and Grumio's version of the hard• ships of the trip. His conversation with Curtis reveals the kinds of preparation involved in the upkeep of an Elizabethan country house, and the clothing and duties of household servants. Grumio's reply to Curtis' demand for the news is a quotation of a conventional line from a "news" ballad. Baskervill remarks, 39.
"A round from Ravenscroft's Pammelia. (No. 56) begins "Jacke boy, 12 ho boy newes". The scene ends with Petruchio's soliloquy concerning his methods, in which he draws upon the metaphor of hawking, and likens his treatment of his new wife to the train• ing of a hawk. My falcon now is sharp and passing empty, And till she stoop, she must not be full-gorged, (IV, i, 193-94) In scene three, references to contemporary terms and customs in clothing abound, and scene five presents the victory of Pet• ruchio when Katharina bows to his will saying,
What you will have it named, even that it is, And so it shall be so for Katharine. (IV, v, 2122)
He replies borrowing a metaphor from the sport of bowling,
Well, forward, forwardI Thus the bowl should run, And not unluckily against the bias. (IV, v, 24-25)
The short last act of the play presents the denouement, in which the deceivers are unmasked and forgiven. Lucentio and Bianca have flown to a clandestine marriage, "while counterfeit supposes bleared" the eyes of Baptista. Thus, their deception is somewhat like the Maying flight to the woods which celebrates the spring season, and facilitates the independence of youth from the commands and discipline of age. The play ends with all reconciled at a banquet given by Lucentio in honour of the three new marriages. The grouping by three was conventional in
12 Baskervill, Jig, p. 68 40 e popular games, dances, and Mummers' plays. Badinage between the widow and Kate develops bawdy implications, and Bianca, using the metaphor of hunting with the bow and arrow, withdraws with the other women following.
Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush, And then pursue me as you draw your bow. You are welcome all. (V, ii, 46-48) The conversation continues between the men who pursue the hunt ing metaphor,
Pet. This bird you aimed at, though you hit her not. Therefore a health to all that shot and missed. Tra. Oh, sir, Lucentio slipped me like his grey-hound, Which runs himself and catches for his master. Pet. A good swift simile, but something currish. Tra. 'Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself. 'Tis thought, your deer does hold you at a. bay. Bapt.Oh, ho, PetruchioI Tranio hits you now. Luc. I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio. Hor. Confess, confess, hath he not hit you here? Pet. A' has a little galled me, I confess;
In order to test the obedience of their wives, and to shame Petruchio, Lucentio and Hortensio arrange a wager. All three summon their wives, but only Katharina appears. The play ends as Petruchio uses a term from the sport of archery to have the last word over the losers of the wager.
Come, Kate, we'll to bed. We three are married, but you two are sped. •Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white, And, being a winner, God give you good, night I (V, ii, 184-88)
The Taming of the Shrew, adapted as it is from an earlier 41. play, clearly illustrates how deeply rooted in folk tradition were Shakespeare's earlier comedies. The choice of metaphor, and even character and plot, has been significantly influenced by the folk-drama, the ritual, and the pastimes of the sixteenth century. In this play, Shakespeare has drawn upon wooing se• quences in Mummers' plays, May games, pastimes, and popular bal• lads, and has used the ritual of his time to lend additional meaning to a familiar plot. As a result of the parallels with folk wooing sequences, the characters of both Petruchio and
Tranio acquire additional significance, and even the action of the plot itself has connotations which the Elizabethan audience could not help noticing. However, the adaptation of popular materials on the professional stage becomes even more evident in the plays to follow. Though the references to contemporary customs and sports are indeed numerous in this play, they tend to become more consciously functional and dramatic in the plays to be dealt with later. CHAPTER TWO
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
and the
Popular Tradition
Drawing heavily for theme and incident upon the literary traditions of Italian romantic comedy, and less heavily on the rituals of courtly love, The Two Gentlemen of Verona does not • present as fertile a field for study of folk elements in the drama as do most of the other early comedies. It would seem, however, that, in this play, Shakespeare is presenting A Mid• summer Night's Dream in swaddling clothes, since most of the basic plot elements of the latter are present. The most ob• vious difference between the two is, of course, that in A Mid• summer Night's Dream Shakespeare has supplied a supernatural justification for the fickleness and infidelity of the lovers. Nevertheless, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare is presenting the basic situation of the flight to the woods though without labelling it as he does in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In both plays, young love is balked by Age and by the "consid• erations" of civilized behaviour. Reflecting the contemporary ideal of the supremacy of friendship over love, the plot sit• uation of the play is somewhat similar to John Lyly's novel,
1
Euphues. The marriage of these distinctly different elements presents an excellent example of the courtly and popular trad-
1 In Lyly's novel, Euphues, the hero falls in love with his friend's fiancee. She, unlike Silvia, returns his love, and laments her predicament in much the same way that Proteus re• proaches himself for his sin against sacred friendship. In it are also to be found witty discussions of the conflict between the egotistical recklessness of youth and the sober prudence of old age, and the rival claims of friendship and love. 43. itions being used together for the same purpose.
The opening speech of the play indicates to the audience that its action will deal with maturing of youth, and with the contest between love and the everyday world. Valentine is a typ• ical Shakespearian character in that he scorns idle and fickle love and that, like Berowne, Benedict, and Troilus, he will repent of his scorn later in the play. In contrast, Proteus, his friend and later his rival, represents fickleness in love and destruct• ion of friendship. The play also touches on the effect of love upon the individual, how he is set in opposition to the dictates of his settled society, and lives in a world of his own. As in The Taming of the Shrew, the sending off of Valentine to Milan to seek his fortune and gain experience of the ways of the world, re• flects the Medieval and Renaissance custom of sending young noble• men to the wars, the universities, the court, or the household of a great lord to learn the ways of courtiership.
There shall he practice tilts and tournaments, Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblement, And be in eye of every exercise Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth (I, iii, 30-33) In the first two acts, references to current pastimes are con• fined to isolated passages such as the dialogue between Julia and Lucetta (I, ii, 79-96) which draws on contemporary musical 2 terms, and afterwards refers to the game of Prisoner's Base.
Just as his father and uncle are determining to send him to the court of the Emperor, Proteus arrives, having newly plighted
2 See II, iv, 33-34; II, v, 60-61; II, vii, 34-35; II, vii, 45-48 44. mutual troth with Julia. Unaware of his son's love affair, Ant• onio inadvertently comes between the young lovers by sending him away. Thus the play sets up a dichotomy similar to that which ap- 3 pears in pageant form in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Proteus' desire to conceal his love letter from Julia only serves to con• firm the arrangements of his father, who is adamant in his des• ire to put forth his son "to seek preferment out". The imagery of Proteus' lamentation over his fate glances at the traditional pageant contest between summer and winter: Oh, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all awayj (I, iii, 84-87) Thus Proteus is faced with the dilemma of Hermia, but, unlike her, he accedes to parental demands, and "the sweetest bud" of his love is blighted by the "eating canker" of separation.
Act Two commences with a courtly love convention, the young lover's worship of an article of his mistress's clothing. The byplay concerning Silvia's glove is followed by a conventional "character" or "blazon" of the melancholy lover. There is also a parallel use of courtly love conventions later in the scene in the Valentine-Silvia letter episode, a recognized gambit in the wooing ritual where the lover is socially inferior to his mistress and is therefore prevented from taking the initiative. Scene two is the soul of brevity, serving the requirements of
3 Like Egeus, Antonio prevents his child's marriage (but, of course, unknowingly). Later the conflict between youth and age, love and society, becomes clearer in Valentine's struggle with the Duke, Silvia's father. 45 the plot by dispatching Proteus to Milan as swiftly as possible.
It is followed by a comic interlude of Launce and his dog, in which Launce1s soliloquy makes use of humorous devices remin• iscent of the topsyturvy humour commonly used in typical Mummers1 plays. Baskervill remarks about this monologue:
In connection with the song and dance specialities of the clown it is worth remembering that the art of the old mimus was very highly developed in the Renaissance. Comic descriptions and narrative pieces are frequently broken by dialogue in djLts, sermons joyeux. etc. The device survives in the monologues of vices in English moralities, and reaches its finest development in the two monologues of Launce on his "Curre". 4
Silvia's speech ending the altercation between the rival lovers in scene four draws upon the metaphor of shooting, "A fine volley of words gentlemen, and quickly shot off." As the scene continues, the arrival of Proteus is announced, and the conversation concerning his merits leads into a discussion of the senses of the lover and the blindness of love, which appears to be one of the central ideas in the play. The conversation between the reunited friends turns once more to the idea of the penance required of the cynic who had scorned love. Val. Aye, Proteus, but that life is altered now. I have done penance for contemning Love, Whose high imperious thoughts have punished me With bitter fasts, with penitential groans, With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs; For, in revenge of my contempt of love, Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes, And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow. 0 gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord, And hath so humbled me, as I confess There is no woe to his correction, Nor to his service no such joy on earth.
4 Baskervill, Jig, p. 86. 46,
Now no discourse, except it be of love. Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep, Upon the very naked name of love. (II, iv, 128-43)
Valentine's praise of his lady reflects the traditional pageant battle between summer and winter.
She shall be dignified with this high honor - To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss, And, of so great a favor growing proud, Disdain to root the summer-swelling flower, And make rough winter everlastingly, (II, iv, 158-63)
Valentine reveals that the Emperor prefers Sir Thurio as a suitor because "his possessions are so huge". Thus the play begins to take on some of the qualities of the humanistic debate as to whether wealth or learning, military prowess, liberality, or courtliness is preferable in a lover. The presence of a Knight and a Clerk as rival suitors is common in Medieval rom• ance and in Mummers' Wooing plays in which a gentleman and a 5 fool vie for the lady's favours. In emphasizing the worth of nobility, the play again reflects the practice of early sixteen• th century wooing drama. The scene ends with Proteus' soliloquy on his loss of "love" for Valentine, and his determination to woo Silvia himself. Scene five contains a reference to the cus- 6 torn of "church Ales".
5 On this point see also L.L.L., Chapter Three, p. 7-5•
6 Baskervill points out that the characteristic feast of the folk from Easter to autumn seems to have been the ale. Origin• ally, an "Ale" was a festival or banquet at which much ale was drunk. The widespread use of the term is indicated in the term "bridal" still used as a name for the marriage feast. The sum^ mer feast of the folk, particularly that of Whitsun, is often called an ale - a whitsun ale, a king ale, a play ale, or even a Robin Hood ale. The "Church Ale" involved the custom whereby the officers of the church collected contributions of malt from 47*
Scene six is very similar to Act Four, scene three of Love1s
Labor's Lost in that it reveals the forsworn lover Proteus searching for a rationalization to support him in the betrayal of his best friend and his mistress. His speech parallels Ber- owne's rationalization which enables the King and his party to ignore their previous oaths of abstinence and study. Proteus re• veals himself to be a Machiavel in the presence of innocents as he decides, like Helena, to reveal the lovers' plans to flee the rigors of the Emperor's commands. The next scene introduces
Julia planning to follow Proteus, to make a love-journey which she likens to a pilgrimage and a pastime. In a speech which comments on contemporary male fashions, Julia states her intent• ion of disguising herself as a man in order to protect herself along the way.
In Act Three, Proteus divulges the plans of the lovers to the angry father, who decides to catch Valentine in the act and banish him from the court. The Duke's clever speech to the un• suspecting Valentine reflects the symbolic battle between Age and Youth, and parallels the complaint of Egeus in A Midsummer Night's Dream:
No, trust me. She is peevish, sullen, froward, Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty, Neither regarding that she is my child, Nor fearing me as if I were her father. And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers, Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her; And, where I thought the remnant of mine age Should have been cherished by her childlike duty, I now am full resolved to take a wife, And turn her out to who will take her in„ (III, i, 68-76) the parishioners, from which a quantity of ale was brewed and sold at periodic festive gatherings for payment of church expenses. ("Dramatic Aspects of Medieval Folk Festivals", p. 75 •) 48.
The enforced chastity of the maid, and the unnaturalness of the father's actions, are emphasized in his remarks that ost• ensibly concern the woman he wishes to woo.
But she I mean is promised by her friends Unto a youthful gentleman of worth, And kept severely from resort of men, That no man hath access by day to her. (Ill, i, 106-12)
Valentine's reply to the Duke's query on how to win a lady reveals contemporary wooing customs as well as his own methods and plans with regard to Silvia. The Duke's condemnation of
Valentine repeats the complaint that he is wooing a woman above his station in life, and reinforces the plot's similarity to
Mummers' Wooing plays. Launce's statement that, "There's not a hair on's head but 'tis a Valentine.", emphasizes the sym• bolic connotations of true love that appear in Valentine's name.
After the departure of Proteus and Valentine to the North gate of the city, Launce's revelation that he, too, is in love smacks of the burlesque wooing scenes of folk-drama. The clown's des• cription of his lady with its burlesque note is common in Mum- 7 mers' Wooing plays. ....yet I am in love. But a team of horse shall not pluck that from me, nor who 'tis I love. And yet 'tis a woman, but what woman, I will not tell myself. And yet 'tis a milkmaid. Yet 'tis not a maid, for she hath had gossips. Yet 'tis a maid, for she is her master's
7 Baskervill, "Conventional Features of Fulgens and Lucres", p. 430. See also L.L.L.. IV, i, 60-86; I, i, 284-316; and the comments of Touchstone in A.Y.L.I., III, ii; and V, iv, 56-64. 49.
maid, and serves for wages. She hath more qualities than a water spaniel- 8 (III, i, 264-71)
In scene two, the conversation between the Duke and Proteus concerning Silvia's love for Valentine sets up Sir Thurio and Valentine almost as traditional pageant figures in opposition to one another. Proteus' advice to Thurio concerning the win• ning of Silvia's love draws on contemporary courting practices in which the young man composes sonnets, and visits "by night your lady's chamber window / With some sweet consort."
Act Four introduces the flight to the woods, and the Robin Hood motif of the play. Though Shakespeare does not emphasize this Maying theme, it is evident that Valentine's flight to the woods parallels Hermia's and Lysander's flight from the "sharp Athenian law" in A Midsummer Night's Dream. As is usual in the Robin Hood Mummers' plays, a traveller is accosted by a number of
8 The following excerpt from Fulgens and Lucres is typical of the clown's conventional analysis of his lady love. I trust that within a lytyll space That wenche shall be myne. I tell you it is a trull of trust All to quenche a mannes thrust Bettyr then ony wyne. It is alytyll praty moucet, And her voyce is as doucett And as swete as resty porke; Her face is somewhat browne and yelow, But for all that she hath rioAfelow In syngynge hens to yorke Fulgens and Lucres (II, 834-63), cited in Baskervill, "Con• ventional Features of Fulgens and Lucres", pp. 429-30. 50. outlaws in the forest, and is invited to join their band because of his comeliness, courage, and accomplishments. Valentine is given the choice of joining the outlaw band as its leader, or suffering death at the hands of the outlaws for refusing their courtesy. The speech of the third outlaw,
By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar, This fellow were a king for our wild factionI (IV, i, 36-37) serves to underline the significance of the plot situation. As it turns out, theirs is an "honorable king of thievery", for, like Robin Hood and his merry men, and Valentine himself, they are all men banished for petty offenses, and do no harm to "sil• ly women or poor passengers". The forest scenes seem to be based almost entirely on Robin Hood plays and the legends surrounding the myth. Most of the familiar elements of the legend, the com• radeship and the gentlemanliness of the outlaws, the treasure concealed away, the waylaying of travellers, the presence of a Friar, the respect for courtliness and for womanhood, the young man, whose fortunes have fallen, followed to the wood by his lady love, and the pardon given to all by the ruler who also journies to the forest, appear to be present in the play.
The plot situation itself is very like one of the popular incidents in the life of Robin, the restoring to Allan a Dale of his lady love. The following are extracts from a ballad "Rob• in Hood and Allin a Dale Or, a pleasant relation how a young gentleman, being in love with.a young damsel, she was taken from him to be an old knight's bride: and how Robin Hood, pittying 51. the young man's case, took her from the old knight, when they were going to be marryed, and restored her to her own love again. 9 To a pleasant northern tune, Robin Hood in the green-wood stood."
Robin and his men spy a youth dressed in scarlet cavorting in the woods; later they see the same young man transformed into a traditional melancholy lover. They accost him, and the young man cries,
Stand off, stand off, the young man said, What is your will with me? "You must come before our master straight, Under yon green-wood tree."
And when he came bold Robin before, Robin askt him courteously, 0, hast thou any money to spare For my merry men and me?
I have no money, the young man said, But five shillings and a ring; And that I kept this seven long years, To have it at my wedding.
Yesterday I should have married a maid, But she from me was tane, And chosen to be an old knight's delight, Whereby my poor heart is slain. (25-40)
When asked how much gold he will give for the return of his true
love, Allin a Dale replies,
I have no money, then quoth the young man, No ready gold nor fee, But I will swear upon a book Thy true servant for to be.
(49-52)
Pleased by the young man's character, Robin speeds to the church
with his men, sees the lovely maiden and the wealthy old knight,
and exclaims,
9 John Mathew Gutch, A Lytell Geste of Robin Hode With Other Ancient & Modern Ballads and Songs Relating to this Celebrated Yeoman, London, Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, 1847, p. 259. 52
This is not a fit match, quod bold Robin Hood, That you do seem to make here, For since we are come into the church, The bride shall chuse her own dear.
Then Robin Hood put his horn to his mouth, And blew blasts two or three; When four and twenty bowmen bold Came leaping over the lee. (73-80)
The ballad ends with Robin and Allin and his wife returning to the "merry green-wood, / Amongst the leaves so green." The sim• ilarity between Valentine's banishment and the Allan a Dale leg• end serves to underline the Age-Youth antipathy inherent in the play.
In the next scene, Julia's conversation with the Host takes place against a background of music and song. The dramatic presentation of the circumstances which force Julia to stand and watch her lover wooing another woman glances at the familiar children's and adults' singing and wooing games in which one mem• ber must stand aside without a partner, the target for scorn and 10 jest. Later this parallel becomes clearer in Act Four, scene four and, finally, in the last scene of the play when Julia, like Helena and, later, Hermia of A Midsummer Night's Dream, must stand aside unhappily to watch her lover making love to another woman. Scene three introduces Sir Eglamour, who will guide Sil• via away from the harshness of her father's will, in the hope that she may eventually find Valentine. The name of "Eglamour"
10 See also The Shrew. Chapter One, p. 27, and M.N.D.. Chapt• er Four, pp. 141-42. 53. was popular in Elizabethan plays and there is evidence of a 11 considerable vogue of the Eglamour theme among the folk. Tales of the gentle hero who braves all obstacles to claim his bride, and of the innocent maiden, the Constance who flees from an unnatural father, are common among the folk. They find lit• erary expression in such romances as Sir Eglamour and Sir Tor• rent of Portyngale. Like Julia and Hermia, she, too, plans a pilgrimage to meet her love, a flight to the woods, To keep me from a most unholy match, Which Heaven and Fortune still rewards with plagues. IV, iii, 30-31)
Sent to deliver to Silvia the ring which she had given to Proteus, Julia, in describing herself to the sympathetic Silvia, reveals the practice of superimposing classical motifs on the May games: Sil. How tall was she? Jul. About my stature; for at Pentecost, When all our pageants of delight were played, Our youth got me to play the woman's part, And I was trimmed in Madam Julia's gown, Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments, 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 agood, 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, iv, 162-77) Her speech glances at the plays which the folk often presented
11 Baskervill, "Early Romantic Plays", p. 501 54* on festival occasions, in this case on WhitSunday, in which boys played the part of women. The passage also reveals that, in addition to the traditional mimetic performances based on ancient rituals, the folk had also taken to borrowing classical 12 themes and plots for their dramatic entertainments.
Act Five presents Silvia's flight to the woods, accompanied by the faithful Sir Eglamour. Discovering her escape, her enraged father and Sir Thurio, her wealthy suitor, determine to pursue her in order to bring her back to the law of society. In this typical contest between the knight and the clerk for the hand of the lady, it appears as if the knight will again come off second best. After the capture of Silvia by the outlaws, scene four presents a soliloquy spoken by Valentine praising the merits of the wood and of the pastoral existence. He draws aside to listen as Proteus appears, pleading with Silvia for her favour. The plea and struggle for a kiss is the theme of a number of dialogue 13 songs in the sixteenth century. Similarly, the refusal of a pretty woman to kiss a suitor, and her avowal of her fidelity 14 to an absent lover are conventional elements of wooing jigs.
Valentine bursts from the thicket when he sees Proteus offer to
"force" Silvia, and matters are resolved in a fantastically short time when the erring Proteus repents. With the appearance of the Duke, captured by Valentine's men, and Sir Thurio's cow-
12 See also M.N.D.. Chapter Four, p. 150.
13 Baskervill, "Conventional Features", p. 431.
14 Baskervill, Jig, p. 263o ardly refusal to fight for Silvia's hand, all is resolved. The
Duke pardons Valentine and his band, promising to "include all jars / With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity". The play ends with the suggestion of a double marriage and happiness in the community.
Close analysis of The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Tam• ing of the Shrew leads one to recognize that Shakespeare used very early in his career the dramatic potential of the body of material available in the ritual, pastimes, and entertainments of his time. It is evident that, in these two plays, he has already drawn upon the folk-drama to supply conventions, themes characters, and plot devices, and this tendency is to become increasingly evident in the plays to come. This adaptation of old festival motifs in general, the insertion of references to games and pastimes, and the use of song and music in both plays discussed can be seen to increase and to find dramatic ful• fillment in Love's Labor's Lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
It is obvious that The Two Gentlemen of Verona contains in essence the elements of the Maying flight to the woods, and the traditional opposition between Youth and Age. The plot is sim ilar to that of A Midsummer Night's Dream in that it contains parental opposition to two love matches, the successful flight to evade the "law" of the parent's will, and a plot situation of two men loving or wooing the same woman, with one woman, 56, jilted, forced to stand and watch. However, this time the men, instead of the women, are friends, and their friendship is strained by love. Furthermore, a father promises his daughter to his fav• ourite, who is wealthy but whom she despises. The father and the unwelcome suitor follow the symbolic flight to the woods, where all are reconciled as the Duke welcomes Valentine, recog• nizing his worth, and promising a fresh start, a "new" year.
Mr. Northrop Frye draws our attention to the play's indebt• edness to the ritual of the flight to the woods, but he uses an original term, "the green world", for what Is in essence the principle of release offered by misrule, Maying, and the revel in general. Recognizing the hero's role as banished outlaw, he ex• plains that all the other characters are reconciled and "convert• ed" in the wood. The movement of the action begins in the "norm• al" world then transfers to the "green world" where it goes in• to a metamorphosis to achieve the resolution, and then returns 15 once more to the normal world. Noticing the implicit parallel between the play's action and the traditional conflict between the seasons, he concludes: The green world charges the comedies with a symbolism in which the comic resolution contains a suggestion of the old ritual pattern of the victory of summer over winter. This is explicit in Love's Labor's Lost. In this very masque-like play, the comic contest takes the form of the medieval debate of winter and spring. 16
15 Northrop Frye, "The Argument of Comedy", p. 81. 16 Ibid., p. 86. 57 < CHAPTER THREE
Love's Labor's Lost,
and a
Ritualistic Structure
In Love's Labor's Lost. Shakespeare draws upon the play spir• it and the ritual element of Elizabethan culture to fashion a play intended for the entertainment of the Court, or possibly for a select group of courtiers at a Christmas house party. On the plot level, the pastimes with which the French Princess's embassy is entertained, the dances, the Masque of the Muscovites, the show of the Nine Worthies, the pageant of winter and summer, all reflect the holiday spirit of the society as a whole, and
give us a remarkable opportunity to observe its revels in action8 The social gamut of the "play and ritual" element of Elizabethan England is also being used as the basis of structure and allusion in the play's action. Though it draws upon traditional entertain• ments of all levels of society, the play has also an intellectual focus directed to a particular class. As Mr. Barber observes:
The whole character of the piece marks it as something intended for a special group, people who could be ex• pected to enjoy recondite and modish play with language and to be familiar, to the verge of boredom, with the "revels, dances, masques, and merry hours" of courtly circles. 1
Seemingly designed to convey the experience of a revel, the play dramatizes rituals, pastimes, and entertainments familiar to a courtly audience, and exhibits the aristocracy's own special in-
1 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 87o terests, and all of society's holiday pursuits, placed in proper
perspective with regard to life as a whole.
The "movements" of the play are like those of an elaborate ballet. The structure is rhythmic and seems to be patterned af• ter the measured groupings of.an Elizabethan dance, particularly the galliard, a courtship dance. The first movement comprises the taking of the oath, the introduction of the theme of the de.-- rial of nature, and the first comic interlude, which introduces Armado, Moth, Costard, and Jaquenetta. The second movement in• cludes the arrival of the women, and their reaction to the sit• uation existing at the Court of Navarre. The third also presents an interlude introducing Holofernes and Nathaniel, and a dance• like revelation of the forswearing of the lovers; and the fourth
presents another interlude of the pedant and the curate, and con- 2 eludes with the Masque of the Muscovites. The "dance pattern" in the play's structure places the revel in its perspective by imposing upon it beauty, grace, stateliness, and, finally, un• reality. When brought into contact with the world outside its framework, the action, which is so gracefully ordered and deter• mined by the code and atmosphere of a revel, dissolves like "an insubstantial pageant faded", and swiftly returns to reality and to the recognition of the proper place of the holiday spirit in the totality of human experience.
In this play, Shakespeare is dramatizing a spring festival,
2 Harrison, Works, p. 394» and is expressing to his audience the spirit of freedom and joy ousness which follows the release from the repressions imposed by winter, society, and study. In both Love's Labor's Lost and A Midsummer Might's Dream, as Mr. Barber points out: The whole action is shaped to express the psycholog• ical release to be gained from participation in a rev• el, and to provide occasion for comic clarification of the relation between man's vital energies and the rest of his experience. 3
The festivals in English folk life supplied the opportunity for communication across class lines and for a realization of the c 4 mon humanity of every level of society. This communication is paralleled in the drama by the intimate connection between audience and players, a tradition of long standing in both courtly and popular entertainments. Baskervill informs us that In early drama and in mummers' plays, the jesters and presenters formed a link between the audience and the more formal dramatized action. In festival plays, the sense of the unity of the whole assemblage was doubt• less more significant so that the occasion and the audience were frequently dramatized.
In presenting the King's party, Armado, and Costard in love, Shakespeare is presenting a series of wooing games, and, as a result, the emphasis in the action lies mainly in the fig• ured activities of the group as a whole, not in the actions of individuals. The overriding impression the audience receives of the action is the effect upon a group of people of a force
3 C.L. Barber, "Saturnalia in the Henriad", in Leonard F. Dean, Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism, New York, Oxford University Press, 1957, p. 171. 4 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 111. 5 Baskervill, "Conventional Features", p. 438. 60e 6 of nature greater than their individual wills. This is the
situation that underlies most celebrations, especially those which commemorate the rhythm of the year.
The sociological function of revelry is examined in the play. In the opening scenes, the asceticism of "anti-revel" is in the ascendancy. However, with the arrival of the women, a movement toward the restoration of balance begins, and the play swings into the spirit of revelry. As is frequent in Shakespeare, a dialectic has been set up, revealing the two extremes, and the play moves toward a mean, a compromise founded in "sweet reason• ableness". A holiday group asserts its liberty from the respon• sibilities of everyday and promotes its solidarity by partici• pating in group revels. The period of misrule, the epitome of the revel and all that it implies, involved a transfer of author• ity rather than anarchy, an overturning of established values, and a momentary return to what was considered to be a more nat• ural life. In the Saturnalian pattern, rulers are dethroned, priests unfrocked, and fools set in their places. All normal harmony becomes cacophony, the servant becomes the master, men wear skirts and women trousers, virtue is spurned and unchastity
honoured, drunkenness is a virtue and sobriety a crime, and sleep 7 is for the day„ By acting as a safety-valve to relieve the
frustrations and inhibitions of civilized behaviour, the revel
served to insure the health of the individual and of the commun-
6 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 88. 7 M. Wilson Disher, Clowns and Pantomimes, London, Constable & Co. Ltd., 1925, p. 41. 61. ity.
Because of their pagan roots, folk celebrations centered around the enjoyment of the vital pleasure of those moments in the cycle of human life and of the seasons when nature and soc- 8 iety were hospitable to life. As leaders of community rev• els, Kings of Misrule were selected not only for the Christmas celebrations, but also for the Spring and especially the May cel• ebration. In this play, Shakespeare is using for his action the model of games and pastimes, in fact, the whole action is made up, like Medieval pageants of the besieged castles of maidens, so that it can be swept away. The inopportune vow imposed by the King is no sooner made than it is mocked, no sooner mocked than marred, and both the speakers and the audience realize that it is one impossible to keep.
The first scene of Love's Labor's Lost opens with all the dignity and solemnity of the ritual of oath-taking, a business of no little import to the Elizabethans. This particular oath, how• ever, a vow to abstain from all the delights of sensual life, is treated in a humorous, and often in a mock-heroic fashion, espec• ially in the comments of Berowne. Actually, the King and his men are dedicating themselves to achieving through scholarship the triumph of fame over time, a popular theme during the Renaissance. In the ritual setting, the three companions of the King, Longaville, Dumain, and Berowne, become knightly novitiates swearing fealty
8 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 7. 62
to their lord, and resolving to devote their lives to his "quest", to study and to value the things of the mind. All four commit the folly of underestimating the power of nature and of the seas• on; in fact, they obligate themselves to follow a course of action, which, it is obvious, will lead them to disaster,. Though the rit• ual is medieval, the proposal made by the King reflects the six• teenth century's interest in learning, scholarship, and reading,,
Because the medieval mind fastened upon the ideal rather than the real, the humourist's natural recourse was to burlesque the pag• eant of perfection. Berowne's refrain, "Which I hope well is not enrolled there;" (I, i, 3$), casts the oath into its humorous perspective, and prepares the audience to take the proceedings very lightly,, The fact that Love's Labor's Lost was intended as a piece of entertainment for the Court adds a new perspective to the humour, and the fact that such vows clash violently with the traditional spirit of the spring celebrations adds a note of ex• pectancy to the Elizabethan audience's reactions to the situation,,
Berowne's attempted refutation of the King's intention, to
"know which else we should not know" (I, i, 56), expresses the spirit of the springtime festivals, the May celebration, and the
Saturnalian revels of the winter and the early spring, because he reverses their accepted values, makes black white, and finds a
clever rationalization to circumvent each article of the oath. He is, thus, for the moment, Spring rebelling against the rigours of
Winter and its harsh restrictions. In this scene, we see prepared 63 o a conflict between the demands of winter and summer, of things associated with age and youth, and we see clearly foreshadowed the ultimate and traditional defeat of Winter at the hands of virile and joyous Spring. In folk celebrations, the ritual con• test between Summer and Winter champions usually appears on a date near St. George's Day, the twenty-third of April, and is followed by May games celebrating the victory of Summer. Eventually in 9 the folk-drama, the Summer champions became St. George.
The gist of Berowne's speech parallels the ethic of the Christ• mas season, in which vice is transformed into virtue, disorder in• to order, and chaos into harmony. Berowne replies, significantly enough, to the sallies of his comrades, "The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding". (I, i, 97) This comment is a ref• erence to the young goose or gosling. May is the time for a green or grass-fed goose. "After a gosling is a month or six weeks old, you may put it up to feed for a green goose, and it will be 10 perfectly fed in another month following." At this, the others accuse Berowne, whose text is the old dictum that there is a seas• on for all things, and who is the representative of reason, of be• ing "like an envious sneaping frost that bites the first-born infants of the spring." (I, i, 99) The irony of this accusation lies in the fact that they themselves are the frost that would nip in the bud the first manifestations of spring. Berowne's re• ply parallels his previous snub to Dumain, "Fit in his place and time". (I, i, 98) His; position seems to be one of "sweet reason• ableness". At the moment, he is the only member of the King's
9 T. Fairman Ordish, "English Folk-Drama", Folk-lore, vol. 4 (June, 1893), p. 159. 10_ The_Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford, At the Clarendon Press. 64. party who recognizes the individual demands of each season, and knows that everything is part of a larger rhythm.
In justifying his position to his accusers, Berowne replies,
Well, say I am. Why should proud summer boast Before the birds have any cause to sing? Why should I joy in any abortive birth? At Christmas I no more desire a rose Than wish a snow in May's newfangled shows, But like of each thing that in season grows. So you, to study now it is too late, Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate. (I, i, 102-109) This reply in its context certainly smacks of the allegorical contests between Summer and Winter so popular in the Christmas and springtime fertility celebrations of the country folk, and often presented for the entertainment of the Court. Fertility rites and flyting contests or dramatic battles between charact• ers symbolizing the seasons date from a very early period in English festival. Moreover, up to and during the period of the Renaissance, love games and the symbolic marriage of seasonal Kings and Queens were characteristic of the "ludi" from Christmas to Easter. The King's reply to Berowne's objections is couched
in language reminiscent of a card game. "Well, sit you out. Go home, Berowne, Adieu." This command labels him a spoil sport who will not continue with the game because he does not agree with its rules, and it certainly has its effect in shaming him to rejoin the others.
The plot complication of the embassy of the French King's 65. daughter is introduced early in the play as Berowne mentions it to prove that one article of the oath is "made in vain". However, after Berowne agrees to the vow, the King suggests Armado, the trad• itionally comic foreigner, as a meet target for "quick recreation", and also as a source of appropriately intellectual refreshment.
The King's criticism of Armado as,
One whom the music of his own vain tongue Doth ravish like enchanting harmony; (I, i, 167-68) can later be attributed to himself and his followers when they fall in love with love itself and make use of "Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise."
Despite the ascetic avowals of the King and his company, ref• erences to pastimes and entertainments are kept constantly before the audience. As was previously suggested, no sooner is the vow completed than it is put in its proper perspective by the guilt of Costard who is taken with a wench. In general, the roles of the commoners appear to be intended to place the action and the festivities in their proper perspective. Costard's quibbling ef• forts to avoid the charges against him act as a parody of the lat• er sophistries of Berowne when he tries to prove that he and his companions are not forsworn. The device of his capitulation to the "ancient pulse of germ and birth" also serves as an introduct• ion to the humorous figure of Armado, who is also in love.
Scene two provides an interlude introducing this humorous gentleman and his spry, witty page, both of whom are stock char- 66. acters on the Elizabethan stage, but who also appear to bear a topical reference to the lumbering, clumsy Armada, and its des• truction by the tiny, light British vessels. Some critics believe the caricatures of Armado and Moth to burlesque a certain "fan• tastical Spaniard", resident at the court of the Queen, and a 11 French Ambassador, De la Mothe, long popular in England. As Baskervill points out, "Strange figures from foreign lands are 12 popular, however, in English wooing songs." There was a strong convention operating of grossly lascivious foreigners with amus• ing dialects, bent on winning English women to their purposes. This convention is allied to that of the familiar comic lustful wooer. Armado is soon shown up in his role as the dupe and the butt of his diminutive page, whose quick-witted repartee soon cor• roborates for the audience the opinions of the King concerning Armado's character. In this scene (I, ii, 45-57), there is pre• sented one of Shakespeare's numerous references to dice and sim• ilar occupations of gentlemen.
Next, Armado "discovers" to the audience that he, too, is in love, and with a base wench. The discussion which follows (I, ii, 105-130) concerning the merits of the maid reflects the popular appeal of the ballad in Elizabethan England in all its many forms, and foreshadows the ballads and sonnets written by the love-sick King and his cohorts. The scene ends with a reference to "fast and loose", a cheating game, and to the popularity of the gentle-
11 Hardin Craig, Shakespeare: A Historical and Critical Study with Annotated Texts of Twenty-one Flays. Toronto, W.J. Gage & Company Ltd., 1931, p. 90.
12 Baskervill, Jig, p. 274 man's sport, duelling:
Arm. ....Cupid's butt shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and there• fore too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello he regards not. His disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valor! Rust, rapier! (I, ii, 180-87) This passage is made up of technical terms for the procedure of duelling.
Shakespearian commentators point out that Jaquenetta's speech in mocking Armado's wooing has similarities to the stock 13 speech of clowns in Elizabethan drama. Baskervill points out that: The principle of burlesquing the serious characters and plot seems fundamental in the technique of early drama as well as in folk plays wherever the comic Presenter or intriguer appear. In winter games and plays where the leader or presenter was usually a figure symbolizing misrule, as in monastic, academic, and royal households, the tendency to emphasize the burlesque element would inevitably be the strongest. 14 Certainly in this play, the role played by the commoners is gen• erally a dramatic burlesque of the main action, and it is also one means of placing this action in its correct perspective.
Act Two- introduces the second movement of the ballet, the ar• rival of the women, escorted by Boyet, who is sent by the Princess as an ambassador to the King. Her commands to Boyet picture her and her women as "humble-visaged suitors", almost as traditional mummers bearing with them the luck and fertility of the coming
13 Baskervill,"Early Romantic Plays", p. 433.
14 Baskervill, "Conventional Features", p. 437. 63 year. But this picture is soon to be changed. The scene begins to take on a dance-like quality as the Princess's attendants des• cribe the King's votaries in refrain. Already the men and women are being paired off like couples awaiting their cue to enter the dance. Moreover, the play begins to reflect, more an more, courtly delight in light and witty conversation, flirtations, and the clever manipulation of word meanings. The male dancers who are about to besiege the fortress of love are epitomized in the women's descriptions of them as possessing masculine charm but too much cutting wit and insincerity. Theirs, apparently, is the folly of wit which thinks itself too wise. After an ambig• uous introduction, in which the women act almost as Presenters in a Mummers' play, the gentlemen and their attendants arrive ceremoniously with a ritual welcome to the fair visitors which is doomed to failure because of their insincerity and their fail• ure to acknowledge the Princess's embassy properly. Thus, we find presented, in a ritual pattern, the beginning of the sallies betwe the men and the women. The replies and their returns begin to assume, more and more, the patterning of an elaborate group dance, as well as the connotations of the symbolic conflict between two groups.
It is my opinion that, at the symbolic level of the action, the Princess's reaction to the oath of the King is not provoked and determined solely by his denial of hospitality, but by his refusal to share in the nature of the season, to acknowledge the significance of love and the spring season as an integral part 69, of life. Thus, the play becomes, to a certain extent, a drama• tization of the punishment, in spring celebrations and periods of revel and misrule, of all those who deny the demands of the season, its regenerative qualities, and the emotional release traditionally associated with the defeat of winter. Thus, in taking a vow such as they have sworn, the gentlemen are denying an essential part of their nature as men. What follows later in the play is a "civil war of wits", the encounters of which , des• cribed in military terms, observe the ritual of conflict.
Ber. Here stand I. Lady, dart thy skill at me, Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout, Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance, Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit, And I will wish thee never more to dance. (V, ii, 396-400)
The approach of the young men to the women of the Princess's entourage is characterized by questions and rejoinders that take on, in the dramatic presentation of the play, all the character• istics of part songs, or ballads with refrains and balanced group• ings. Similarly, their questioning of Boyet about the women has its dance-like structuring which preceded the pleasant banter when Boyet informs his mistress of the reactions of the King and his company. In reply to BoyetTs jesting, the Princess says,
Good wits will be jangling, but, gentles, agree. This civil war of wits were much better used On Navarre and his bookmen, for here 'tis abused. (II, i, 225-27) The men's questioning of Boyet, which foreshadows the coming wooing of the women, and their social amenities are received humorously, with badinage, lively wit, and scorn. The setting is now laid for 70 o the storming of the Castle of Love by the young gallants who will readily succumb to the delights and demands of the spring season.
The love-game comedy of the encounters between the men and the women soon becomes of foremost interest in the play, and seems to be a reflection of the popularity of the wooing game, the storming of the Castle of Love, and the abundant pageantry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Such a subject was indeed popular in pageantry presented within the great hall, and the spectacle of a number of knights besieging a citadel defended by lovely young women was a favourite and a well-known one. From .as far back as the twelfth century, this siege of the castles of maidens can be traced in European pageantry, and it enjoyed an extraordinary popularity that lasted through the Renaissance. Similarly, the ritual use of tents and castles has an interesting and significant history, In the Middle Ages, tents and castles had been erected in the fields in connection with midsummer fest• ivals and with church eelebrations. At some time these apparent• ly had been substituted for arbors, bowers, or castles of immem• orial antiquity placed by pagans in fields, on hills, or at trees and wells where they might perform sacred marriages or celebrate 15 the death of winter. The presence of the Princess and her ladies encamped in the fields before the Court of Navarre would remind an Elizabethan audience of all the connotations of tents raised in the fields, and, consequently would tend to cause its members to regard them as connected, in some way, with ritual, and
15 Baskervill, "Dramatic Aspects", p. 32 probably with mummers. That a play intended for nobility should draw upon popular festival motifs should by no means surprise us.
The formal organization of the Elizabethan courtly celebration of
May is usually simply an overlay upon a basic structure borrowed from the popular tradition. Baskervill makes this influence quite clear:
The pageantry and disguising of the courtly groups often took some of the popular forms....But apparent• ly very early the art of love allegory with its elab• oration and imaginative splendour, separating courtly literature from popular, wooing dialogues of spring festivals, from simple Valentine customs etc.. changed the May day bower into paradise or castle with its presiding god or goddesses, and brought formal organ• izations of the nobles for the celebrations of May and other spring fetes. 16
In addition, both the Elizabethan entertainment and the masque represent a gradual sophistication of medieval festival dance.
This was the case with most of the pageantry and disguisings of the courtly groups. As this play itself reveals, the tend• ency to borrow from the popular is also evinced on the profess• ional stage. Old Festival motifs were adapted and used frequent• ly in popular Elizabethan drama. The Robin Hood plays which were so popular on the London stage at the end of the sixteenth century provide an excellent example of the professional stage's tendency to adapt and develop themes of old folk-plays. Of course, the Court-of-Love type of disguising and the guild play 17 on classical themes may also have furnished conventions.
16 Baskervill, "Early Romantic Plays", p. 467
17 Welsford, Masque, p. 482. In the period with which we are dealing, the selection and ideal• ization by Shakespeare of midsummer celebrations seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Baskervill cites evidence for a great impetus, in the decade 1570-1580, toward the production of romantic plays, and this burst of romantic drama seems to have followed a customary pattern of presentation. There was usual• ly a festival performance, some or a good deal of ritual para• phernalia, frequency of sung parts and of interspersed and final dances, a semicircle or line from which actors advanced, some type of marching, the presence of devils and clowns, buffoonery and drolleries, a closing song or sung epilogue with a request 18 for gifts, and, finally, a feast of the folk at the close.
Even the contest between rivals, like the rivalry between Cos• tard and Armado which appears in this play, was certainly an old formula of popular drama in England. In essence, Baskervill sees an evolution from the simple song and wooing drama of the
May games and folk festivals through the religious drama of the miracles and moralities, to the drama developed from other fest• ival traditions, and, lastly, among the upper classes, to the love allegory and. mythological motifs in dramatic form. Thus, derived as it is from the rituals associated with the spring games, the Mummers' wooing dialogues, and so forth, such an al• legorical presentation as takes place in Love's Labor's Lost is entirely in the tradition of English drama.
According to Enid Welsford, the theme of the Court Masque
18 Welsford, Masque, p. 506 was always basically the same, a theme of social harmony glor•
ifying marriage as a social function, and idealizing a united 19
nation under a strong centralized government. The ideal of
the harmony in nature being paralleled and reflected in the har• mony in the state was strong in Elizabethan culture, and recurs
frequently in Shakespearian drama, notably in Macbeth and King
Lear though it can also be seen in the comedies. Disruptions in
the one are often seen reflected symptomatically in the other.
Apparently, in the plot situation up to the beginning of Act III, we have the traditional ingredients for a Court masque and its
social theme: the women's pavilion erected upon the green, the
opposing factions defined and presented almost allegorically,
the presence of a representative of Cupid, Boyet; some form of
the Court-of-Love symbolism, and, finally, the spirit of part•
icipation in a common cause so intrinsic to all revels -whether
they be those of Christmas misrule or spring fertility rites.
The main underlying theme of the confounding, by the experience
of real life, of the men's false idealism and denial of nature
has been presented, and three wars have been defined: the group
of scholars dedicated to warring against their own affections in
their little "Academe", the war of the men upon the women in the
cause of love, and, finally, the defence made, by the wits of the
women in their determination to punish the kill-joys, against
the wounding wit of the men. The victory traditionally goes to
the champions of spring, the upholders of the rhythm of nature.
Act Three introduces another interlude concerning the fan-
19 Welsford, Masque, p. 389 tastic Armado and his page. Mothfs comments on the "brawl", the French dance, serve to illustrate the popularity of dancing, and to keep before the audience's eyes the similarities between the play they are seeing and the dance itself. What is more, these comments serve as a concomitant to the masque of the King, and give it an additional perspective.
Moth. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl? Arm. How meanest thou? Brawling in French? Moth. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's end, canary to it with your feet, humor it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose as if you snuffed up love by smell• ing love; with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes; with your arms crossed on your thin- belly doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket like a man after the old paint• ing; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are complements, these are hu• mors. These betray nice wenches that would be be• trayed without these, and make them men of note - do you note me? - that most are affected to these. (Ill, i, 9-26) In this speech, Moth is poking fun at the tricks and fashions of wooing in general, and is also indirectly anticipating the later attitudes and actions of the King and his men when they determine to "woo these girls of France".
Later, Moth ridicules Jaquenetta by likening her to the "hob• byhorse", the imitation horse worn by mummers, also the slang term for a jaded prostitute. This scene serves as a minor burl• esque of and prelude to the main action in which the King and his 75 company attempt to storm the Castle-of-Love, and the minor char• acters are increasingly burlesquers of their immediate superiors.
Jaquenetta, Costard, and Moth ridicule the pretensions of Armado, and, in turn, the figure and weaknesses of Armado as a wooer burlesque the romantic siege of the gentlemen. Costard's and
Armado's wooing of Jaquenetta parodies the romantic posturings of the King and his comrades, and serves as an additional perspect• ive by which to evaluate their sincerity. Furthermore, Armado's wooing letter parallels Berowne's and serves later as a plot de• vice to reveal Berowne's own guilt in breaking his oath. The com• petition between Costard and Armado for the hand of the maid is also a familiar element of the Mummers' play. Often in the Mum• mers' play, rivals representing different social classes woo the same lady. Usually the fool, one of the suitors, is accused of begetting a bastard child. In wooing scenes in the folk-drama, there is often also a comic wooing scene which parallels the main one.
In addition, the kind of humour that characterizes the by• play between Moth and Armado is to be found in the Mummers' play in the episode of rustic humour involving the Doctor and Jack Fin• ney. A common characteristic of their dialogue is Jack's impudence to the doctor,which he conceals by swiftly withdrawing his in• solence and modifying it to a form of respect.
Doctor. Fetch me my pinchers, John Finney. John. Fetch them yerself, sir. Doctor. What's that, you saucy young rascal? John. Oh, I fetch them, sir. 76.
Doctor. What's throw, them down there for? John. Ah, for thee to pick them up agen, sir. Doctor. What's that you saucy young rascal? John. Oh, for me to pick them up agen, sir. 20
Berowne's soliloquy revealing to the audience his love for
Rosaline also serves to enlist him in the ranks of those compet• ing in Cupid's tournament. He invokes the power of the son of
Venus,
This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy, This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid, Regent of love rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents, Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces, Sole imperator and great general Of trotting paritors. — Oh, my little heart.'r- And I to be a corporal of his field, And wear his colors like a tumbler's hoop! (Ill, i, 181-90)
Act Pour returns to the pavilion of the Princess and her train, and immediately launches into a criticism of hunting. The method of hunting to be used by the women is the same as that practised by Queen Elizabeth and her ladies. The ladies were escorted to a suitable "blind", or protection, where they took a stand and 21 shot as the deer were driven by them. Prin. Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush That we must stand and play the murderer in? Forester. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice, A stand where you may make the fairest shoot. (IV, i, 7-10)
After teasing her forester in a play on words, the Princess exclaims,
But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill, And shooting well is then accounted ill. Thus will I save ray credit in the shoot — Not wounding, pity would not let me do't.
20 Chambers, The English Folk-Play, p. 45 21 Harrison, Works, p. 408. 77
If wounding, then it was to show my skill, That more for praise than purpose meant to kill. And, out of question, so it is sometimes Glory grows guilty of detested crimes, When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part, We bend to that the working of the heart - As I for praise alone now seek to spill The poor deer's blood, that my heart means no ill.
(IV, i, 24-35)
The Princess's comments about the brutality of the sport of hunt• ing, and her reply to Boyet, "And praise we may afford / To any lady that subdues a lord.", are broad enough that they may antic• ipate the forswearing of the oath of the King and his party and the subsequent insincerity of the men when they present their masque for the purpose of deceiving the women.
The arrival of Costard with a letter for Rosaline, which he has confused with one for Jaquenetta from Armado, supplies a furth• er plot complication, and also reflects a convention of the typ• ical Mummers' play. The wooer's offer of gifts as an inducement to his lady is the most constant feature of the comic wooing found in both Mummers' plays and broadsides during the sixteenth 22 century. In his letter, Armado's comments about his "love",as he offers her robes, riches, and titles, parallel the clown's traditional denigration of his "lady fair".
Using as his cue the Princess's remarks concerning mer^cy and the hunting of deer, Boyet begins to warp the conversation to a discussion of cuckoldry. The images progress from the horns of the deer to the weapon used to slay it, and take on bluntly sexual
22 Baskervill, "Mummers' Wooing Plays", p. 239. 780 overtones. Technical terms used in the sport of archery abound here as Boyet's retorts become increasingly bawdy. The altercation
ends with Costard's naive advice that, "She's too hard for you at pricks, sir. Challenge her to bowl". (IV, i, 11+0) Boyet replies,
still in the previous vein, "I fear too much rubbing", drawing
the literal significance of his remark from the sport of bowling, and indicating that he fears that there will be too much uneven- ness on the green, and therefore an unfair match.
Scene two introduces an interlude revealing the mutual ego• tism and foolishness of Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel. The sub•
ject matter continues to be the technical terms used in the hunt•
ing of the deer, but this time with a switch, for the two "learn•
ed" gentlemen continue the discussion in pompous Latinate and ped-
antical terms. Once again there is a na'ive observer, Dull, whose
humorous misinterpretations of the main action parallel those of
Costard in the previous scene. As Miss Venezky notices in her
book, Pageantry on the Shakespearean Stage.
All too numerous are the progress prototypes of Holo- fernes' verse which commemorates a minutia of the Prin• cess' pastime, the killing of the "pretty pleasing pricket". The hunt, of course, was a favourite diver• sion of Elizabeth on progress visits. Just as they did at Warwick, Cowdray, Althorp, and Kenilworth, the country people come to the estate to present some entertainment before the visiting royalty...." 23
The humour of this scene is interrupted for a moment by the ap•
pearance of Jaquenetta, who carries a letter intended for Rosaline
but delivered to her in error. In this letter, which takes the
23 Venezky, Pageantry on the Shakespearean Stage, p. 139. 79- form of a sonnet, Berowne is praising the pursuit of love, and is rationalizing it as the chief end of life, even the end of know• ledge and study. The scene ends as Holofernes cries, "Away! The
Gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation." (IV, ii,
173-74)
And so the gentles are at their game, and apparently it is the game of love. Scene three opens with a soliloquy from Ber• owne employing once more the terminology and metaphors from the chase.
The King he is hunting the deer, I am cours• ing myself. They have pitched a toil, I am toiling in a pitch - pitch that defiles. Defile! A foul word.
(IV, iii, 1-3)
With this revealing introduction, the scene presents a humorous tableau as the respective lovers enter and disclose their emotions to the audience and their hidden partners in perjury. Thus the scene dramatizes the folly of release taking over from the folly 24 of resistance. Each lord is mocked in turn by his fellows, as Shakespeare makes use of a technique of discovery reminiscent of scenes of foolery in which characters are discovered to be wearing masks and garments of Pretension. Stultorum numerus est infinitus.
Berowne's comments proceed to label the King, Longaville, and Dumain as the victims of a hunt.
Shot, by Heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid. Thou hast thumped him with thy bird bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets! (IV, iii, 23-25)
24 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedies, p. 89 80.
The King proceeds to read, within earshot of the concealed Berowne, a verse addressed to the Princess which likens her effect upon him to the effect of the sun on the morning rose. With both the King and Longaville hidden to watch the approach of the unsuspecting
Dumain, Berowne exclaims,
Ber. All hid, all hid, an old infant play. Like a demigod here sit I in the sky, And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'ereye. More sacks to the mill! Oh, Heavens, I have my wish! Dumain transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish! Dum. 0 most divine Kate! Ber. 0 most profane coxcomb! (IV, iii, 78-84) Recognizing the elements which the scene transpiring before the eyes of the audience shares in common with "an old infant play", this passage of course serves to place the scene in the continuum. It was customary in folk games to have serving men in sacks."All hid" is often a children's pastime. When adults play, however, a wife persuades her husband to creep into a sack, and she and 25 her gossips tie and beat him. Thus Berowne's likening of the scene transpiring before him to a children's game with disastrous results foreshadows the fate which awaits the four at the hands of the Princess of France and her women.
The reference to "sacks" and "woodcocks" is a reference to fools, their motley, and the sack, worn traditionally by the prof• essional fool, that enables him to be easily carried off the stage when the audience wearies of his foolery. Thus each lover's defectioi
25 Baskervill, Jig, p. 246. Bl. from the ascetic requirements of his oath is revealed in a series of choric-like statements, and replies in sarcastic asides by the concealed. Berowne. For the moment Berowne is playing the role of
"sneaping frost" in ridiculing the pretensions, the love-sickness, and the new follies of the other three, but, as is usual in Shake• speare, he himself is smitten though he criticizes his own passion in others. "The whippers are in love, too." (A.Y.L.I., III, iii, 424)
The'bde" which Dumain reads aloud is very much within the theme of the play, the sovereignty of love and passion in the spring season. In it, the smitten lover acknowledges the unnat• ural quality of the oath which he has taken, and its unsuitability to the demands of the season. Wishing the company of others in his defection, his remarks reflect the atmosphere and sentiment of both the revel of misrule and the spring fertility celebrations. Oh, would the King, Berowne, and Longaville Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill, Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note, For none offend where all alike do dote. (IV, iii, 123-26)
The theme of the triumph of the Court-of-Love becomes increas• ingly evident as the scene progresses. The King and his follow• ers have now taken on all the attributes of the traditional young man in love, from whom "sighs reek". The revelation of the de• ception practised by each of the four is all but complete, except for Berowne, who still maintains the pose of the stalwart critic of love's imperfections. Dramatic irony has played a large role in this scene, and now, in berating the others for their sins in breaking their oaths and concealing the fact from their brethren, 82*
Berowne returns to his original metaphor of an "old infant play."
Oh, what a scene of foolery have I seen, Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen. Oh me, with what strict patience have I sat To see a king transformed to a gnat I To see great Hercules whipping a gig, And profound Solomon to tune a jig, Nestor play at pushpin with the boys, And critic Tlmon laugh at idle toys! Where lies thy grief, oh, tell me, good Dumain? And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain? And where my liege's? All about the breast. A caudle, ho! (IV, iii, 163-73)
The spectacle to which Berowne refers has included a series of popular children's pastimes, and all end in a loss of dignity on the part of the players. The theme of the discourse is the folly of the wise and great. But Berowne's triumph is short-lived.
The arrival of Jaquenetta and Costard on the scene of the lists of love reveals the defection of the last "unnatural" man. Berowne's confession draws once more on the image of the four woodcocks in a dish. Berowne confesses that, "you three fools lacked me fool to make up the mess". (IV, iii, 207) Immediately afterward, as the spokesman for springtime, he cries out in affirmation of the season and its hold on the blood. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, oh, let us embrace! As true we are as flesh and blood can be. The sea will ebb and flow, Heaven show his face, Young blood doth not obey an old decree. We cannot cross the cause why we were born, Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn. (IV, iii, 214-19) This scene makes even clearer the relationship of the play to the spring celebrations of the rhythm of the year, which acknowledge through ritual the power of nature over the individual, and affirm love and the spring season to be an integral part of man's life.
Beauty doth varnish age as if newborn, And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy. Oh, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine. (IV, iii, 244-46)
After a brief passage of bantering between the four, Berowne is requested to supply some rationalization to support their def• ection from the ranks of Athena to those of Cupid. In presenting his "Praise of Folly", Berowne commences by addressing his compeers as "affection's men-at-arms", and Shakespeare keeps before the audience's collective mind the allegorical situation which is im• plicit in the action. Berowne shows that the oath which they had taken was "Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth." All that is natural to youth abhors the articles of the oath, fasting, abstinence, study, and flight from the beauty of a woman's face.
. From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They are the ground, the books, the academes, From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire. (iv, iii, 302-304) In their blindness, they have forsworn the use of their faculties, and Berowne praises the invigorating, the regenerative power of nature which, like spring's action upon the deadened winter world, "gives to every power a double power". (IV, iii, 331) Love con• quers all, the arts, valor, intelligence, even the tyrant or the savage ear. He ends by suggesting, "Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves." (IV, iii, 36I)
With this speech, the play swings into holiday action, and 84. all realize that at this season it is folly not to be a fool.
BerowneTs speech is a perfect antidote to the ascetic resolutions with which the play began. It draws upon the doctrine of the Ren• aissance cult of love which praised love as a medicine and an ed• ucational force, especially for the courtier. Furthermore, Ber• owne is apparently not concerned with the reciprocal effect of love as an experience between two people, but rather with what happens within the lover, presumably the male lover. The attitude here does not envisage consummation in physical terms, and the lady is merely a sense stimulus which turns the men into traditional moody lovers. All the emphasis on their own feelings is to lay the men open to being made fools of once again. It will soon become evident that they have overcome one kind of folly only to sink into anoth• er, and this is the folly of acting and talking love without actu• ally being in love. The delight which they take in making the motions of love, and participating in wooing games or love talk, is soon to be put into its correct perspective. Though Berowne enters nature's revel consciously, with humour that recognizes it as only part of life, and assesses his own extravagance by moving back and forth between holiday and everyday perspectives, he, and ultimately all the others, makes the error of considering love to 26 be a social game which can be learned and studied like a theory.
As the scene ends, the men swear allegiance to the god of love, and hasten to battle with the maidens.
King. Saint Cupid, then! And, soldiers, to the field! Ber. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords, Pell-mell, down with them! But be first advised In conflict that you get the sun of them. (iv, iii, 366-69)
26 Barber, Sh.Ts Festive Comedies, p. 239 85.
The sexual overtones of this passage are inescapable, and the
phallic symbolism of the "advancing of standards" seems to be sim•
ilar to that of the May pole and its attendant rites. The cry,
"Pell-mell down with them!", and the sun-son pun makes the ancient
conflict between men and,women only the more obvious. Now that
they have resolved to court the visitors, the gentlemen next de•
cide to prepare, some entertainment for the ladies in their tents,
as is customary in wooing sequences.
Ber. First, from the park let us conduct them thither, Then homeward every man attach the hand Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon We will with some strange pastime solace them, Such as the shortness of the time can shape; For revels, dances, masques, and merry hours Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers. (IV, iii, 374-78)
In the traditional wooing games, and in many singing games of
children, it is customary for a group of boys as a unit to woo
either a group of girls or a single girl. It is important to no- - tice that now the ladies are to be admitted properl^r to the Court
of Navarre, but it is too late to mitigate the offense of having
excluded them. This passage foreshadows the dance-like quality
of the Fifth Act and its heavy emphasis upon courtly celebrations
and revelry. The second last line of the act, "Light wenches may
prove plagues to men forsworn;", foreshadows the failure of the
men's onslaught in the name of Love.
Act V introduces once more the interlude of the pedant and
the curate. These two combine to render the appearance and per- 86. sonality of Don Armado ridiculous and "thrasonical". References to drinking and fencing bouts recur as Costard says to Moth, "Thou art easier swallowed than a flapdragon", and Armado refers to the art of fencing as he exclaims, Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch, a quick venue of wit - snip, snap, quick and home-! It rejoiceth my intellect - true wit! (V, i, 61-4) The term snap-dragon or flap-dragon probably originates from the snapping head of a dragon carried by mummers. Costard is actually referring to the then current use of the term to connote a child• ren's Christmas game in which they snatch raisins out of burning 27 brandy, and, extinguishing them by closing the mouth, eat them. As Spurgeon recognizes in her Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us. such references as Armado's to the weapons and man• oeuvres of war form a dominating series of running symbolical 28 imagery. This body of images serves to support the idea of the conflict within the Court-of-Love. Play and pastime imagery also abound as Holofernes scornfully cries to Moth, "Thou disputest like an infant. Go whip thy gig." The tender juvenal replies, "Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your in• famy circum circa - a gig of a cuckold's horn." In addition, the speeches of Armado become an implicit parody of the mannerisms of the conceited, travelled fop.
At this, Armado mentions once more the intention of the King
27 O.E.D.. vol. 4, p. 287. 28 Caroline F.E. Spurgeon, Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us, Beacon Hill Boston, Beacon Press, 1958, p. 271. to present to the Princess, "some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antique, or firework.", and he enliststhe aid of Holofernes and Nathaniel, who determine to present "the
Nine Worthies". As in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare is here casting gentle humour upon the sometimes delightfully incon• gruous attempts of the country folk to present their pageants or mumming plays to honour some royal or honorable personage. The na'ive efforts to cast the presentation are very similar to those that occur under Quince's leadership in the later play. The pres• entation of the Nine Worthies suggested by Holofernes is in the tradition of country presentations on most important occasions.
Dull, despite his failure to comprehend the pseudo-sophisticated byplay between Armado and Holofernes, offers to accompany the presentation by playing the drum, and dancing in the hay, the country dance popular at festival occasions. As in the similar presentation by Bottom and his mechanicals, the humour in this scene lies in the seriousness of its simple presenters.
Scene two sets the stage in the opposing camp of the maidens who are about to be besieged. There love's damsels are playfully comparing the gifts which they have just received from the prep• aring besiegers. A minor siege of wit with bawdy overtones is commented upon by the Princess as she likens her women to tennis players. "Well bandied both, a set of wit well played." (V, ii, 29) The ladies' decision to make their lovers regret their hyp• ocrisy and insincerity in courtship foreshadows the penance to be imposed upon them at the end of the play. Once more in parallel 88« form to the revelations of the male suitors, the Princess and her women each in turn reveal the nature of their gifts, all the while commenting on the insincerity of the giver. Further• more, the scene reflects the ritual sequence of events in El• izabethan courtships. The forsworn lovers ply the objects of their affection with gifts and rhymes, and then propose to con• front them in person.
However, the new folly of the men will not run its course unhindered, for the women plan to make fools of them, and to become their "fate". The Princess's remarks castigate the fol• ly of the wise, and place the turnabout of the King's party in another perspective which prepares the audience to accept the final events of the action; Rosaline and Maria complete the de• nunciation:
Prin. None are so surely caught, when they are catched, As wit turned fool. Folly, in wisdom hatched, Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school, And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool. Ros. The blood of. youth burns not with such excess As gravity's revolt to wantonness. Mar. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note As foolery in the wise when wit doth dote, Since all the power thereof it doth apply To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.
(V, ii, 69-78)
Upon the arrival of Boyet, who calls them excitedly to arms, the pageant of the besieged ladies becomes clearer. The imagery of his warning parallels the call to arms of the men, and is reminiscent of many of the allegorical presentations at Court in which a group of women in a castle or pavilion are assailed by an equal number of men. £9. Boy Prepare, madam, prepare! Arm, wenches, arm! Encounters mounted are Against your peace. Love doth approach disguised, Armed in arguments - you'll be surprised. Muster your wits, stand in your own defense, Or hide your heads like cowards and fly hence. Prin. Saint Denis to Saint Cupid! What are they That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.
The plans of the King are all revealed in a trice, and Boy- et's account of their embassage compares it nicely to the intend ed presentation of the Nine Worthies. They come to visit, as
Boyet says,
Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess. Their purpose is to parle, to court and dance; And everyone his love feat will advance Unto his several mistress, which they'll know By favors several which they did bestow. (V, ii, 121-25) Knowing the intention and costume of the King's party, the women propose to meet strategy with strategy, and to be also masked when their visitors arrive.
Here Shakespeare reverses the traditional situation which attends the appearance of masked or disguised revellers or mum• mers. The spectators, too, are masked, so that they they become part of the presentation for the purpose of frustrating it. Furthermore, the masking of the ladies re-introduces their orig• inal symbolic significance as "humble-visaged suitors", and wreaks poetic justice on those who had previously refused to recognize them. Instead of presenting a woman-man figure, as is customary in the majority of fertility mumming plays, Shakespeare has the women exchange favors for the purpose of deceiving the deceivers, and turning their jesting approach back upon them.
Princ. The effect of my intent is to cross theirs. They do it but in mocking merriment, And mock for mock is only my intent. (V, ii, 138-40) They intend their reception of the revellers to be so unexpected that it will confuse the men and render them speechless and. sil• ly. The Princess comments:
There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown, To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own. So shall we stay, mocking: intended game, And they, well mocked, depart away with shame. (V, ii, 153-56) At this, a blast of trumpets signals the approach of the gentle• men, who arrive in ceremony, masked and attended by Blackamoors and music. It was customary for the approach of masked mummers to be heralded by trumpet blasts; at Rogate, before the present• ation, the Presenter blows a cow-horn to announce the approach 29 of the mummers.
Traditionally masked, the King and his cohorts are costumed suitably in "Russian habits". The entertainment they plan to of• fer the Princess and her ladies is really a masquerade, or masked dance, rather than a masque. "When we consider this Mask of the Muscovites", Mr. Long remarks, "the first thing we notice is its simplicity. In contrast to the later Stuart masques, such as those written by Jonson and Campion, the little masque of Love's 30 Labor's Lost contains in itself no dramatic elements." Often
29 Chambers, Folk-Play, p. 13. 30 John H. Long, Shakespeare's Use of Music: A Study of the Music and its Performance in the Original Production of Seven Comedies, Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1955, p. 67. 91. the term masque is used primarily to refer to the masked process• ion.
The court masque itself was an exclusive and aristocratic, artificial and sophisticated form of entertainment, yet it was also primitive and popular in that it was often the dance of the seasonal festivals. It is a rudimentary form of art, whose stir• rings are seen whenever people express an emotional attitude to life by means of their own bodies, or perform any direct emotional expression by rhythmic or imitative movement, by dance or song 31 or dressing up. Characterized by a lack of practical purpose, an intentional loss of contact with ordinary life, it could take the form of art, or play, or ritual. As Miss Welsford draws to our attention in The Court Masque, the court masquerade was more primitive than the drama of the rough Elizabethan playhouses. It was close to ancient and world-wide ritual because it drew upon the situation of the arrival of persons masqued to dance a dance or present an offering, and was hence really a sophisticated form of mumming. The group of mummers is correctly defined as a set of disguised persons who perform some action which is of rit• ual, origin, and thus, at this point in the play, the King's party has taken on a similarity to such a group. Mummers dance so that the crops may grow, and the aristocratic mummers of Love* s Labor's Lost dance so that they may advance their suits and 32 participate in the joys of the season. It is an anthropological truism that the lower strata of ritual and belief persist in a
31 Welsford, Masque, p. 356.
32 Ibid., p. 3. society often almost unchanged, though intellectual and political 33 systems rise and fall. The contest which follows between the men and the women is also suggestive of Easter and Hocktide abuse and contests between the sexes. Hocktide is a pagan festival whose characteristic feature was a contest between the men and the women of a community as opposing groups.
Such activities as are referred to here still held immense significance for the majority of Shakespeare's audience. In ad• dition to the lower classes, the more educated and sophisticated levels of society seem to have valued the old rituals and games because they could be made amusing. During the late Middle Ages, there was apparently a gradual transformation of folk-games sur• viving from primitive ritual into bourgeois, scholastic, and ar• istocratic revellings. The final amalgam, which often appears in the works of Shakespeare and other dramatists, is the product of the absorption of various characteristics of the religious 34 drama, the civic pageant, and the institutions of chivalry. Shakespeare is expressing the true character of the origins of the masque when he presents it as an impromptu social affair. The fact that Elizabeth's habit of making progresses through England, spending her summer visiting the country houses of the nobility, encouraged the masque is of some interest in this anal• ysis because of the obvious relation between the gentlemen's masque and the presentation of the Nine Worthies which was also a humble means of doing honor to the King, his company, and
33 Welsford, Masque, p. 9.
34 Ibid.. p. 20. 93. his guests.
Moth, coached in the role of presenter of the Mummers' play, as Boyet has already reported, stumbles through the beginning of his speech but he is swiftly overcome by the stalwart silence of the ladies and their persistent refusal to "mark" him. Getting off to a bad start, the revellers soon find themselves in even hotter water. The ladies skillfully affect wide-eyed naivete', and pretend not to recognize the visitors. Of course such a pretense is entirely in keeping with the customs of mumming. The identity of the masked visitors is usually known, but the cere• mony is kept intact by the feigned surprise and consternation of those receiving the visit. When the ladies are invited to "tread a measure", they refuse ungraciously. However, at the completion of some sparkling repartee, the couples join hands briefly in what appears to be a dramatic dumb show rendition of the dance. The couples draw apart gracefully, each pair moving aside to converse. Immediately the conversation takes on the balance and measure of the dance as each couple draws forward, completes its word fencing, and draws back to converse apart, making room for the next. The charming joining of hands mimicking the dance is made even more effective by a musical accompaniment which lasts until the Princess's words, "and so the measure ends".
In addition to the emphasis upon the dance as both pastime and entertainment, references to other pastimes continue to re• cur. Berowne replies to the Princess's sallies: 94 B Nay then, two treys, an if you grow so nice, Metheglin, wort, and Malmsey. Well run, diceI There's half a dozen sweets. (v, ii, 232-35)
To which the Princess replies, "Seventh sweet adieu. / Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you." At this, they draw aside and converse away from the centre of interest. The three remain• ing couples follow suit respectively, and, at the completion, it is almost as if the couples had danced together after all. The battles of wit are transmuted into real conflicts by Boyet's state• ment that, The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen As is the razor's edge invisible, Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen, Above the sense of sense. So sensible Seemeth their conference, their conceits have wings Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things* (V, ii, 256-61)
After the embarrassed departure of the gentlemen, the ladies rid• icule their vows of love until they return, this time unmasked. The disgruntled Berowne's criticism of Boyet is the customary criticism of the polished fop, and it is couched in terms approp• riate to the pastimes of the affected gallant. ....Why, this is he That kissed his hand away in courtesy; This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, That, when at tables, chides the dice In honorable terms. Nay, he can sing A mean most meanly, and in ushering, Mend him who can. (V, ii, 323-29)
At the attempts of the men to ingratiate themselves with the women, the Princess acknowledges that,
We have had pastimes here and pleasant game. A mess of Russians left us but of late (V, ii, 359-60) 95* However, by stating bluntly that the visitors had been a party of fools, Rosaline soon dispels any illusions they may have entertain• ed concerning the success of their venture. At this juncture,
Berowne drops all pretense and admits his guilt. He even abjures masking and the flouting of wit, and makes an oath to no more
...trust to speeches penned, Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue, Nor never^come in vizard to my friend, Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's songI (v, ii, 402-405)
The lesson has been dearly bought, and he determines to forswear
"maggot ostentation".
However, the discomfort of the unfortunate suitors is not to end here, and after the revelation of the exchange of favours,
Berowne exclaims bitterly:
I see the trick on't. Here was a consent, Knowing aforehand of our merriment, To dash it like a Christmas comedy. Some carrytale, some pleaseman, some slight zany, Some mumblenews, some trencher knight, some Dick That smiles his cheek in years, and knows the trick To make my lady laugh when she's disposed, Told our intents before. (V, ii, 460-67) Turning to Boyet, he accuses him of destroying their jest, saying,
You put our page out. Go, you are allowed. Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud. You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye Wounds like a leaden sword. (V, ii, 478-81) In this bitter speech, Berowne likens Boyet to the privileged fool who will be buried in his motley long coat or a lady's night• dress. The weapons carried by fools, fashioned of either lath or lead, were incapable of wounding. The comment also serves to re- mind the student of the Elizabethan period of the often lavish and somewhat eccentric funerals accorded to Court and house fools who continued to play their roles even in death. Will Summers and others of his ilk enjoyed a very peculiar position in society and seem to have been the object of a good deal of affection as well as derision. In reply to Berowne's comment, and to further bolster up the central idea of conflict between opposing groups,
Boyet likens the confounding of the King's forces to a display of horsemanship on the tilting ground. "Full merrily / Hath this brave manage, this career, been run." (V, ii, 481-82)
The main action being complete, and the King's abortive masque displayed and dashed, Shakespeare now introduces the pageant of the Nine Worthies, presented by the pedant, the curate, and Don Armado. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it was customary for the Nine Worthies to be shown at the May games and other popular celebrations. The climax of the low comedy, the burlesque "antic" of the Nine Worthies, because it is present• ed before the assembled nobility, also serves to draw the parallel 35 plots together for the end of the play. This presentation serves as a final example of the play's dramatization of the rit• ual celebration of the rhythm of the year by both the simple folk
and the royalty alike. Referencesoblique, implied, and direct7 to the pastimes, entertainments, and customs of Elizabethan Eng• land abound in this particular play and in those to follow it.
The actual presentation of the "Worthies" seems to ridicule
35 Long, Sh.'s Use of Music, p. 67. 97, one of the pageant's stock subjects. Miss Venezky brings to our attention that:
Such hardy perennials as the Virtues, the Nine Worthies, and the Labours of Hercules were as standard at the time of Love's Labor's Lost as they had been in 1578....the style or the pageant verses is unmistakeably mirrored in Pompey's speech in septameter lines which are more intent upon rime than reason. With the characteristic distraction of the amateur arranger, Holofernes confuses the show of the labours of Hercules with that of the Nine Worthies, and exhibits Hercules as one of the his• torical worthies. By concession to the available, this hero is presented at one of his infant labours. Strang• ling the snake, the boy Moth stands mute, while the school-master-presenter delivers an explanation embel• lished with the classroom Latin so typical of the street shows....Far from Ben Jonson's ideal pageant where "'Tis all in every part," this show of the Nine Worthies par• odies not only the hackneyed subjects of the amateur shows, but the foolish props, the poor speakers, the forced rime, limping metre and needless explanation that "This is a Dog". 36
Although the King fears that the presentation will shame him, • both the Princess and Berowne offer reasons or justifications for its acceptance, both of which refer obliquely to the fiasco of the masque of the Muscovites. Ber. We are shameproof, my lord, and 'tis some policy To have one show worse than the King's and his company. King. I say they shall not come. (V, ii, 513-15) In reply, the Princess comments on the nature of the faltering, humorous results of some unrehearsed rustic performances. Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now. That sport best pleases that doth least know how, Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Dies in the zeal of that which it presents. Their form confounded makes most form in mirth When great things laboring perish in their birth. (V, ii, 516-21)
36 Venezky, Pageantry, pp. 159-60. 9a.
A reference to dicing appears once more as Berowne exclaims,
Abate throw at novum and the whole world again Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein. (V, ii, 547-48) Such a fantastical set of mummers as "the pedant, the braggart, the hedge priest, the fool, and the boy" are to be seen again in A Midsummer Night's Dream, in Shakespeare's next picture of the countryfolk's welcome to royalty on an important occasion.
However, unlike Theseus and his tolerant acceptance of the humble efforts of his loyal subjects, the King and his party proceed to confound the simple presentation in much the same manner that the Princess and her forces dashed their own masque "like a
Christmas comedy".
Costard's speech following Nathaniel's embarrassed depart• ure serves as explicit comment on the good intentions of the rustics in presenting their plays. ....There, an't shall please you, a foolish mild man - an honest man, look you, and soon dashed. He is a marvelous good neighbor, faith, and a very good bowler. But for Alisander - alas, you see how 'tis - a little o'er- parted. (V, ii, 583-89) Thus gentle irony is cast upon the efforts of the performing rustics. However, the zeal of the King and his followers lead them to dash the comedy with a little more cruelty than is absol• utely necessary, and their penance later takes this into account. Armado's declamations in the person of Hector of Troy are inter• rupted by the interjection of Costard, the clown, that Jaquenetta is pregnant by him. Costard's action of accusing Armado of be• getting a bastard son on Jaquenetta seems to have its origins also 99. in the Mummers' Wooing play where it is customary for an old woman or one of the supernumary characters to present the fool or one of the suitors with a bastard child. He is incensed, replies with invective, and usually enters into a battle with one of the other characters. Thus the pageant of Holofernes has some simi• larity to the Mummers' play in that it contains presenters and has a general melee at the end. Armado puts on a great show of being "infamonized" in front of "potentates", but the contest that is threatened between them is interrupted also by the arrival of Mercade, a messenger from France, bearing the sad news of the death of the Princess's father.
With this news, the atmosphere of merriment and revelry is shattered, and the grim realities of life obtrude. Berowne sug• gests once more that their actions have been merely dictated by the demands of the season and of Love, but the Princess replies that she and her^-women have not interpreted them in that fashion.
We have received your letters full of love, Your favors, the ambassadors of love, And in our maiden council rated them At courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy, As bombast and as lining to the time. But more devout than this in our respects Have we not been, and therefore met your loves In their own fashion, like a merriment. (V, ii, 787-94) Her speech places the action once more in the form familiar to a courtly audience, and serves also to remind us of the similarities of the present action to the allegorical presentations of courtly interludes and moralities in which the Castle of Love is besieged by knightly suitors. The imagery of her reply retains the 100. connotations of battle and warfare, and reinforces the suggestion that this has been a "civil war of wits". In order to test his love, the Princess demands of the King a penance even more severe than that demanded by his original vow. However, in this case, she is really requiring him to test his emotion outside the framework of the festivity.
To put the King and his men "on trial", to give them a pen• ance which forces them to test their motives in the light of everyday, is very similar to the folk custom of placing Carnival on trial. In folk custom, to do this is a way of limiting, by ritual, the attitudes and impulses set loose by ritual. Just as misrule can become a source of destructive consequences for society, so can the ritual wooing attempts of the King and his party, when insincerely undertaken, cause a certain element of disruption to enter into the situation. The ladies' punishment of their wooers, and their belief that all the courting and mum• ming has been prompted not entirely by sincerity is completely understandable, and their subsequent squelching of the holiday spirit, if seen in the light of Carnival on trial, seems only appropriate, as does Prince Hal's symbolic expulsion of the King of Misrule, Falstaff, in Henry IV", part II. The group must be made to recognize the place of ritual and the joy of the spring season within the larger rhythm of its continuing social exist• ence.
The Princess once more takes the hand of the King in a graceful leavetaking which bears with it promise of further 101. reward and consummation if her conditions are fulfilled. She intends to perform a ritual mourning for the period of one year, expect• ing the King to seek the realities of life in order to learn if they, like the sneaping frost, wil nip the blossoms of his love.
Thus, apparently, love's labors will not be entirely lost. In
The Jew of Venice (II, i), an English play related to The Merch• ant of Venice, Ancilletta refuses to decide between two lovers until a year has passed, in spite of the urging of her father, who is present at the debate. This deferment of a decision con•
cerning a lover until the passage of a year's time, which also ap• pears in Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, is apparently a common motif of festival wooing plays. Armado's vow of faithfulness to Jaquenetta at the end of the play parallels the promises of his betters to earn the loves of their respective mistresses.
At this point, the dialogue takes on the aspects of a bal• lad with its testamentary refrain of, "And what to me, my love? And what to me?", which Berowne demands of Rosaline. However, the Princess's ladies also demand penance or proof of the men's sincerity. Berowne is to become the doctor of sick souls, "To enforce the pained impotent to smile." (V, ii, 864) As Rosaline explains,
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it. (V, ii, 871-73) After agreeing to jest a twelvemonth in a hospital, Berowne can
only regret that:
37 Baskervill, "Conventional Features", p. 427 102. Our wooing doth not end like an old play. Jack hath not Jill. These ladies' courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy. (V, ii, 884-86)
Berowne's rejoinder to the King places the action once more in its focus as a revel, a dramatization of artificial and intense activity so familiar to its courtly audience, and hence not expected to receive a final culmination in the world of real• ity. The period of misrule has had its reign and now the "consid• erations" of the workaday world must take precedence. The pen• ance of the lovers, which requires their immediate though reluc• tant, return to prosaic reality, serves to underline the fleeting quality of this brief interlude, and to foreshadow its cyclical return one year hence.
The imposed penance of a year's austerity is, as Berowne says, too long for a play, and the battle between the represent• atives of austerity and spring is ended once more on a tradition• al note with the presentation by the country folk of two songs representing the owl and the cuckoo, and symbolizing the battle between winter and summer. Chambers notices that in one of the most interesting forms of the summer and winter battle,
the eighth or ninth century Conflictus Veris et Hiem- is, the subject of dispute is the cuckoo, which spring praises and winter chides, while the shepherds de• clare that he must be drowned or stolen away, be• cause summer cometh not. The cuckoo is everywhere a characteristic bird of spring, and his coming was probably, a primitive signal for the high summer festival. 38
38 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, vol. 1, p. 188 103.
The song of Spring brings with it the idea of fertility, that "wedlock would be nibbling", and the reply by V7inter praises the cold season,,
These two songs contrast sharply with the artificiality of the action, and substitute the everyday realities of the low• er class in place of the aristocratic revellings of the action. In addition, they shed light on the action for it is an accepted fact that the pastimes and entertainments, even the ritually structured events and activities, of the upper classes are often merely those of the lower classes refined and transmuted into revelry by the touchstone of classicism, chivalry, or other out• side influences. Mr. Long points out that music, both instrument• al and vocal, was used by the Elizabethans as a dramatic device,
as an aid not only to the intensification of the impact of the language, but also to the forward• ing of the action, the portrayal of character, the delineation of settings, and the creation of ap• propriate atmosphere, such as a mood of mystery or awe. In using the current musical tradition, Shakespeare was also able to differentiate be• tween the manners and tastes of all stations of his society. 39
It was customary for rustics to sing folk songs and ballads of the countryside, and townsmen to sing popular street ballads, but never for a gentleman to perform musically in public. Although all songs were popular with both the groundling and the sophist• icated play goer, these particular songs are introduced into the play in order to emphasize the pageant of winter and summer which has been implicit in its action.
39 long, Sh.'s Use of Music, p. 1. 104. The songs in Shakespeare's early comedies often make explic- 40 it or implicit reference to a holiday occasion. Instead of a wedding dance or masque, Shakespeare uses these songs as a finale, as an expression of the controlling feeling for community and season. Armado's presentation is also a pageant of a kind in that he is in all probability ushering in disguised pageant figures, representing winter, summer, the owl, and the cuckoo. The "de- bat" is presented by means of "praise of the owl and the cuckoo", and seems to catalogue the pleasures to be gained from the respect• ive seasons. Mr. Barber says of Armado's presentation, Of course these songs are not simply of the world they describe, not folk songs; they are art songs, conscious• ly pastoral, sophisticated enjoyment of simplicity. Their elegance and humor convey pleasure in life's be• ing reduced to so few elements and yet being so delight• ful. Each centers on vitality, and moves from nature to man. The spring song goes from lady smocks to the maidens' summer smocks, both showing white against the green of the season, from turtle cocks who "tread" to implications about people....In the winter song, the center of vitality is the fire....Even the kitchen wench, greasy Joan, keeling the pot to keep it from boiling over, is one of us, a figure of affection. The songs evoke the daily enjoyments and the daily com• munity out of which special festive occasions were shaped. And so they provide for the conclusion of the comedy what marriage usually provides; an express• ion of the going-on power of life. 41
The play ends very appropriately on Armado's observation* that
there is nothing more to be said.
In assessing the results of the foregoing analysis of the ritual and play elements of Love's Labor's Lost, we can recognize immediately the emphasis upon these elements both in plot mater-
40 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 114.
41 Ibid.. pp. 117-18. ial and action, and in the selection of images and metaphors. We also discover the play to possess all the characteristics of the ritual celebrations of the rebirth of the year, the conflict between the two seasons, summer and winter, the punishment of those who refuse to recognize the demands of the season, the sym• bolic death of a participant, the arrival of mummers, the gift giving of the mummers, the attempt to dance, the presence of a fool, the contest between a fool and a gentleman for the affect• ions of a maid, some indication of the cyclical nature of the event, and, finally, the acknowledgement of the larger rhythm of the year. In upholding the spirit of spring, this comedy crit• icizes the King's deliberate stifling of the play spirit in or• der to cultivate study and sobriety. However, it dramatizes not only the holiday or play spirit but also the need for revelry and the need to limit it. The spring celebrations are presented in conflict with everyday and with asceticism, and this juxtaposition enhances the meaning of the action. Mr. Barber comments on this effect:
In the idyllic plays there is a humor of perspective which recognizes the limitations of the reigning fest• ive moment by looking outward, from it, to the work- a-day world beyond, 42
As mummers themselves, the King and his party become mem• bers of a group full of the enhanced vitality that comes from shared enjoyment. Both the women and the men experience the sense of solidarity, of communion, and recognize a power of life great• er than the individual. In a sense, too, the audience also part• icipates in this feeling. Hitherto, the men had been unnatural
42 Barber, "Saturnalia in the Henriad", p. 173 106. kill-joys, Malvolios who refused to comply with the natural demands of the new year. Refusing to admit the mumming embassy of the
Princess, and almost refusing to accept the opportunity to set things right in the community, they commit a cardinal sin. The women, appearing as guests at the Court of Navarre, bear with them the offer of a gift of money and the opportunity to settle the af• fairs of the community. The failure of the King to acknowledge them suitably is on a plane with the sin of those who fail to welcome mummers, and, hence, by their actions place in jeopardy the.future welfare of the community. The representatives of re• generation and luck are thus being ignored and insulted. As do most kill-joys in the festive comedies, and in other plays, the men become the butts of the comic action, and are clearly punished for their unnatural reactions. Their punishment also carries with it connotations of the scapegoat who suffers so that the community as a whole may prosper.
The reason for the Princess's embassy to Navarre involves the unity and safety of the community, and supplies opportunity for the re-establishment of the political equilibrium. It is only the death of her father that settles the matter by inducing the King of Navarre to accede amicably to her demands and so rectify a situation potentially dangerous to the welfare of the commun• ity. This death becomes symbolically significant, and thus smacks of the sacrificial atonement supposed necessary to insure the fertility and success of the new year. This death also serves as the plot device to bring the holiday atmosphere to an end, 107. and places it in perspective with the realities of everyday life.
What is more, in presenting what amounts to a cross-section of the pastimes and entertainments of the Elizabethan period, the play expresses implicitly the delight which the nobility took in the pastime of word play. The use of the pun appears as a game in this play, as in most of the early plays, a courtly social diversion in which everyone engages. The Elizabethans took great pleasure in the wealth and ambiguity of their language, and played the game of wordplay very seriously. Mr. Clemen ob• serves:
The extensive and prolonged playing with words and im• ages with which we meet in the early comedies is fur• ther of great significance for the dialogue. The pun was of real importance in the development of the quick and witty dialogue by means of which the stiff• ness of the encounters of characters on the stage was overcome. 43
In the last act of both Love's LaborTs Lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare uses the linguistic abuses of the clowns and pseudo-intellectuals to distinguish them from the courtiers and 44 their rich punning virtuosity. Some such awareness seems to be behind Barber's statement: The aristocratic pastimes with language are set against the fantastic elaborations of the braggart and the schoolmaster, Armado puffing up versions of Euphuistic tautology and periphrasis, Holofernes complacently showing off his inkhorn terms, rhet• orical and grammatical terminology, even declens• ions and alternate spellings. 45
43 Wolfgang H. Clemen, The Development of Shakespeare's Imag• ery. London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1959, p. 32. 44 M.M. Mahood, Shakespeare's Wordplay. London, Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1957, p. 166. 45 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 96. Moth comments sarcastically in an aside to Costard, "They have been at a great feast of languages and stol'n the scraps." (V, i,
39) In Love's Labor's Lost, the game with words is conducted with zest and interest, especially in the area of the sexual.
Of course, the sexual overtones of the jests and double-entendres are very apt in a play which draws so clearly upon fertility themes and rituals. The punning and teasing which goes on between the men and women serve as an indication of the sexual attraction which exists between them. In manyof the courting scenes between
Shakespeare's lovers, sexual puns and bawdy jests indicate drama• tically the strength of the undercurrent of feeling beneath the wit of the dialogue. The delight in word play is equalled only by the delight in wit and in sonneteering to be observed in the play, but, though the brilliant battles of wit are savored to the full, eventually even wit is put in its proper place in human ex• perience.
One is almost tempted to assert that Shakespeare himself has been at a "great feast" of rituals, pastimes, and entertain• ments, and has "stol'n the scraps". In the play, the conscious• ly functional and dramatic use of these materials, especially of the familiar fertility and May celebrations, supplies an addit• ional level of symbolic meaning surrounding the main action. It is evident that, basically, the play performs the same funct• ion as does the revel; it serves to place the holiday experience in its proper perspective with regard to life as a whole. The ecstatic submission to the demands of the spring season, as an 109« integral part of life, is seen to have its validity, but the play also recognizes the validity and importance of the everyday world and its demands upon the personality. At the end of the play, authority, order, and harmony have been imposed once more upon the community, and the holiday experience is seen in its
proper place in the continuum of Elizabethan life. For an Eliz• abethan audience, because of the parallels with elements of folk- drama and ritual, the plot level of the action, the foolish oath and the resulting treatment of the Princess's embassy, takes on additional meaning complementary to the psychological motivation
supplied for it by the maturing dramatist. Similarly, other rituals, pastimes, and entertainments drawn upon are artistically
subordinated to the dramatic purpose, and exemplify the devel• opment and improvement of Shakespeare's art. In the next play under analysis, A Midsummer Night's Dream, the tendency for the dramatist to use the materials of folk-drama and ritual as the basis of his action reaches its culmination. The tragedies and other plays to follow (except for Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest) owe less to the revel or ritual, and subordinate
such folk elements to controlling purposes which differ markedly
from those of earlier plays. 110.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Midsummer Night's Dream
and
"May and December"
Like Love's Labor's Lost, with its ritualistic structure,
A Midsummer Night's Dream is also firmly shaped in the form of
a revel, and draws heavily upon the ritual, pastimes, and enter•
tainments of Elizabethan England. Containing a profusion of
dance and song, a sprinkling of courtly compliment, and a sharp
contrast of poetry and clowning, the play is "a blend of low com•
edy and high comedy", developed through the mingling of prose, 1
poetry, and music with the supernatural and the masque form.
Although it is so full of marriage preparations that many crit• ics believe it was composed for a particular wedding, the play
also embodies rituals and revels of the May celebrations, with
all their attendant rites directed to insuring the fertility of
the coming year. For the community, these are bound up inex•
tricably with the beneficent results of marriage and the phys•
ical consummation of love. The May game, a folk-custom and
pastime common to all levels of society, supplies the pattern
1 Long, Sh.'s Use of Music, p. 82. Ill*
for the action of the plot, which moves from the town to the 2 wood and back again. The supernatural atmosphere pervading
the "wood" scenes is very closely akin to that of the revel, which demands that the usual considerations of everyday fade, giving place to the holiday mood. This awareness is behind Barber's comment: In making Oberon, prince of fairies, into the May King, Shakespeare urbanely plays with the notion of a supernatural power at work in holiday: he presents the common May game presided over by an aristocratic garden god. 3
The emphasis of the action is laid upon the flight to the woods and its benefits to the community as a whole. In ad• dition, the interlude of Bottom and company supplies the nec• essary elements of the Mummers' play to celebrate both the marriage and the season, and allows, albeit on the level of low comedy, for the symbolic death and revival necessary for the well-being of individuals and the community itself. As in the traditional May celebrations, the lovers go to the woods to escape harsh reality, and, upon their return, distribute the mystic results of their communion with Nature to the community also. The Maying sequence ends only after Oberon and Titania lead their train into the great hall to bring the blessings of fertility to the three marriages and the community at large.
Like Love's Labor's Lost, the play, with its balanced
2 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 119.
3 Loc. cit. 112, entrances and exits, has a structure which resembles the court• ly Elizabethan dance. Miss Welsford makes the point:
The plot is a pattern, a figure, rather than a series of human events occasioned by character and passion, and this pattern, especially in the moonlight parts of the play, is"the pattern of a dance. The appearance and disappearance and reappearance of the various lovers, the will-o'-the-wisp movement of the elusive Puck, form a kind of figured ballet. The lovers quarrel in a dance pattern: first there are two men to one woman and the other woman alone, then a brief space of circular movement, each one pursuing and pursued, then a return to the figure with the posit• ion of the woman reversed, then a cross-movement, man quarrelling with man and woman with woman, and then, as finale, a general setting to partners, including not only the lovers but fairies and royal personages as well. 4
This pattern, as Miss Welsford describes it, has a familiar ring, for it is reflected in the twentieth century "square dance" which sends runners far back to old roots in the Middle Ages.
The familiar square-dancing figures, "three hands round", the
"dip and dive", the "a la main left", and "grand chain all" (often
"grand change all"), have their origins in the ancient procession and round dance of primitive ceremonies. The appearance of the pattern on stage is also reminiscent of wooing songs or singing games in which one adult, who has not a partner, is forced to stand apart, often the target of jests until he or she obtains a 5 partner.
The "dance" movement of the play's structure is reinforced
4 Welsford, Masque.p. 331-32. 5 Cf. The Taming of the Shrew, in which Kate is the target, Much Ado About Nothing. II, i, 330-33> and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which Julia must stand and watch as Proteus woos Silvia. 113 by the songs and the dance sequences of the plot. Similarly, the music appropriate to enchantment and nocturnal occasions is skill• fully woven into the general pattern to produce an atmosphere of both ritual and revel. In order to dramatize the May experience, and to express the demands of the season by glorifying the mar• riage ceremony and its significance, the play is organized by pol• arities everyday-holiday, day-night, waking-dreaming, winter-sum• mer, and age-youth - which are calculated to produce and heighten the awareness, on the part of the audience, of the holiday and the 6 creative ambivalence of the birth-death cycle.
In Elizabethan England, Midsummer's Day was traditionally a general holiday and a time of merrymaking, and, as Dyer points out, "The festival.•.has existed in England, though its form has often 7 changed, from the earliest times." It seems to have been a rep• etition of the phallic festivals of India and Egypt, for it cele• brates nature's renewed fertility. Phallos in Greek signifies a pole, and the dancing around the May pole plays a significant role in the May celebrations, as did dancing about bonfires on Midsum• mer eve. Furthermore, the May games gave the participants license to "flout and fleer" at objects of customary respect, and the spring celebrations were consequently a period of misrule compar• able to that of the Christmas season.
Midsummer Night was the grand festival of witches and fairies,
6 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy,p. 161. 7 T.F. Thiselton Dyer, British Popular Custom, Present and Past; Illustrating the Social and Domestic Manners of the People. London, George Bell and Sons, 1876, p. 223. 114. and at midnight the youths repaired to the forest to bedeck them• selves with flowers, and to sport and spend the whole night in
"pleasant pastimes". The procession to the wood drew upon ancient ritual ultimately connected with the sacrifices and sympathetic magic of pagan times. On ritual days, Mummers passed through the village, carrying with them some symbol of good luck for the year which they had obtained from nature, often from the "sacred tree"*,
Their procession also bore with it branches or the heads, horns, or skins of animals, usually domestic animals, which were somehow connected with the primitive idea of sacrificial atonement. In their progress throughout the village, the Mummers brought with them the fertility of the coming year, and drove away evil spirits 8 and bad luck.
In general, Shakespeare's comedies present love's effects on a group, and this play is no exception, because in it the lovers are exhibited as being helplessly tossed about by a force greater than themselves, and beyond their control. The comedy's irony about love's motives and choices expresses love's power not as an attribute of particular personalities, but as an impersonal force 9 beyond the understanding and command of the persons concerned. The play draws particular attention to the lunacy of the lover, The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact. (V, i, 7-8)
8 For further information see Frazer, The Scapegoat, chapters VI and VIII, and Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, vol. I, chapters V - XII.
9 I, 1, 141-55; I, i, 226-51; IV, i, 150-203. 115. Furthermore, even Theseus confesses to Hippolyta that he had,
"won thy love doing thee injuries". The paradoxical nature of the emotion and also of the revel becomes an object of attention in the play. The significance of the roles of the fairy-crossed lovers lies not in individual speeches but in the whole evolution of the farce in the form of a graceful dance. As is common in
Elizabethan comedies, the main plot is composed of several strands: the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, the tribulations of the
Athenian lovers, the quarrel of Titania and Oberon, the attempt of the hempen homespuns to produce an interlude, and, finally, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe.
The play opens with the scene of an entire community preparing to observe the rites of May and participate in the customary rituals and revels associated with an important marriage. As early as this opening scene, it becomes obvious to the audience that Theseus and Hippolyta, though principals in the action, are not really protagonists, but rather the observers and focus of the action. They appear to be at least one remove from the main action, and yet, as is usual with Shakespeare, they are also significantly involved in it. Their comments about and interpretations of that action serve to supply a further perspective to the play's exper• ience, and give us another vantage point from which to evaluate it.
Scene one sets the action firmly within the bounds of a revel, and indicates the imminence of an important marriage in the 116.
community, and its effect upon it. The imagery involving the moon, and the dichotomy between passion and chastity, or all that the "cold fruitless" moon represents, is incorporated into Duke Theseus' opening speech, in which he determines to set aside the severities and considerations of everyday and give free reign to the holiday spirit. This imagery draws upon the implicit' hos• tility between young and old, between the demands of the moon and those of passion, and between those of spring and winter. The moon is described as "old" and is likened to a stepdame or a dow• ager, a symbol of infirmity and infertility. The antipathy between the desires of youth and the lingering authority of old age can easily be seen as a reference to winter lingering "in the lap of summer" to drain away the vitality and fertility of spring. Furthermore, as the scene moves on, one is reminded, as in The Taming of the Shrew, pp. 32-33, of the Mummers' plays in which a young and an old suitor compete for the affection of a young maid, though here, the old Egeus acts as proxy for the young unwanted suitor, Demetrius.
CR. Baskervill's studies of folk-drama have indicated that: The constant element in the wooing plays of England is the wooing of the "Lady" by a man who is usually represented as old....He is rejected for another suit• or, who is usually a young man and the leader of the games, often in the role of the "Fool"....The reject• ion and marriage symbolize the virgin union of the representatives of the new season and the displace• ment of the representatives of the old. With the wooing, a renouveau, or slaying and reviving of one of the chief characters, is often found in a form 117.
that seems to be an integral part of the symbolism of the wooing plays. 10
Tradition also has two wooers, the Gentleman and the Fool, danc• ing in contest for the hand of a maid. These elements are evi• dent in one form or another throughout the play, and will be analyzed in their order of appearance.
The Duke's commands to Philostrate serve to counterbalance the theme of his opening remarks, and usher in the sentiments of the revel and of misrule. Like the personification of age, Melan• choly, the pale companion, is relegated to funerals, well outside the boundaries of the revel. The realities of the sword and of conquest are to be superseded by those of another key, "with pomp, with triumph, and with reveling". "Go", hejcries to his Master of the Revels, Philostrate, commanding that the entire community participate in the nuptial festivities,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments, Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth. Turn melancholy forth to funerals. The pale companion is not for our pomp. Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword, And won thy love, doing thee injuries; But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling. (I, i, 12-19)
However, the essential conflict, which has been foreshadowed in the opening imagery, is reinforced by the ceremonial appearance of Egeus, the enraged father, who complains bitterly about the
10 Baskervill, "Mummers Wooing Plays", p. 227. 118. unwelcome!, wooing of his daughter by Lysander, a young noble• man of Athens. As a righteous father, he invokes the support of the Duke, and the authority of Athenian law, to preserve his right of "consent" concerning his daughter's marriage, his
"right" to interfere in the arranging of her future. Like a
Shylock, a typical kill-joy, bidding his daughter to shut herself from all "resort", he demands that she submit to his command upon pain of death or enforced chastity as a nun. In general, the kill-joy figure in a festival serves to consolidate feeling in support of the festive spirit, and, in this case, Egeus only suc• ceeds in strengthening Hermia's resolve not to give up Lysander, but to flee with him.
Referring to a series of familiar wooing techniques, Egeus accuses Lysander of alienating his daughter's affections, and demands "the law". Thus the play is setting up a dichotomy bet• ween natural love and the artificial dictates of society, between youth and "law", between desire and obligation, and between 11 "sense" and reason. This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child. Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchanged love tokens with my child. Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, With feigning voice, verses of feigning love; And stolen the impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth. With cunning hast thou filched my daughter's heart, Turned her obedience, which is due to me, To stubborn harshness. (I, i, 27-38)
11 I, i, 56-57 119
In this speech, the power of love is likened to bewitchment, de- 12
ception, cunning and to betrayal. Furthermore, the speech refers to the ritual of Elizabethan courtship, and rests its case upon the customary obedience due to a father. Egeus, as a person• ification of age and winter, begs the ancient privilege of Athens to bestow his daughter upon whom he chooses, ignoring the demands and force of love. Turning to the recalcitrant daughter, Theseus admonishes her, reminding her of her duty, respect, and subser• vience due to her father and his judgment. Her reply seems to acknowledge the presence of some supernatural power which heigh• tens her courage and awareness, and prepares her to accept the
consequences of her support of the goddess of love. Theseus1 re• ply to Hermia's anxious inquiry about the possible results of defi• ance of her father's will serves to place the play well within the bounds of a revel, and, by praising marriage and natural inter• course between the sexes, obliquely extols the demands of the season. There is no question that the Duke is an exponent of the
May season and all that it connotes. Either to die the death, or to abjure Forever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires. Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun - For aye to be in shady cloister mewed, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice blessed they that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
12 Cf. Hamlet, Polonius on lovers' oaths, (I, iii, 114-35)• OthelloT Brabantio on the presumed "bewitching" of Desdemona, (I, ii, 69-64). 120
But earthlier happy is the rose distilled, Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives,and dies in single blessedness. Herm.So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, Ere I will yield my virgin patent up Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke My soul consents not to give sovereignty. (I, i, 65-82)
This pronouncement by Theseus is almost in the form of a spring-time manifesto, identifying supernatural with unnatural chastity and acknowledging the operation of nature within man, the healthy necessity of yielding the "virgin patent up". Of course it is particularly apt that Theseus should laud marriage and natural intercourse between the sexes. He is at once an
intelligent, sophisticated, and experienced aristocrat, and a
"lover" pledged to marry in four days1 time. He has had his way• ward youth, and, as a result, he can both enter sympathetically into the action which will follow, and also view it objectively and realistically from the vantage point gained by a man who has experienced romance and passed beyond it. The imagery of his speech prepares the way for the imagery to come, which equates the moon with winter, age, and chastity, and the rose with spring, youth, and love. Again indirectly, he emphasizes the cold, unworld• ly quality of enforced chastity, "ingrown virginity", and deni• grates "austerity and single life".
The formality of the beginning of the play is achieved by the opening lines which set the scene around the royal presence of the
Duke, issuing his commands to the officers of the court. The appearance of Egeus supplies further formality in the form of an 121, almost ritual request for justice and for the Duke's support.
Egeus' statements reinforce the idea of legal right as opposed to the natural right of desire and youth, and, as a result,
Theseus becomes an arbiter whose job it will be to decide be• tween, if he cannot reconcile, the "rights" of winter and spring.
The legal terminology continues in Lysander's speech as, like the typical suitor for the "lady's" hand in the Mummers' play, he enumerates his qualities, accomplishments, and wealth, which are 13 certainly the equivalent of Demetrius's. Finally, Lysander points out his most cogent right, which is the fact that Hermia returns his love, and concludes, "Why should not I then prosecute my right?"
Thus this action has set the lovers under the jurisdiction of the rigid law of Athens, which brooks no abrogation, and, like the foolish oath of the King of Navarre, fails to recognize the force of spring and love. In Athens, Theseus has no choice; he renders judgment according to the law:
Hermia, look you arm yourself To fit your fancies to your father's will, Or else the law of Athens yields you up - Which by no means we may extenuate - To death, or to a vow of single life.
The Duke bids Hermia ponder the situation, and gives her until the next new moon, "the sealing day betwixt my love and me", to make her decision. Interestingly enough, it was a medieval tradition
13 See The Shrew, p. 32. 122. to refer to the ritual days of arbitration of community disputes as "lovedays". However, the rigor of the Duke's pronouncement has fixed their determination to flee. Furthermore, it has set the action in the form of the pageant of winter and summer, the sym• bolic conflict of the seasons. Lysander's solicitous questioning of Hermia recognizes that the flush of spring in her cheeks is fading and dying for want of sustenance. His speech also shapes the action in the form of a pageant as he exclaims that love, whose course "never did run smooth", is being laid siege to by age and paternal right. Both Hermia and Lysander see themselves as devoted followers of Venus and her blind son, and interpret their misfortunes as the penance due to those who join their party. Their vow to escape the "sharp Athenian law", which demands Hermia's life or perpetual chastity, leads them to plan to meet in a wood at a place-where, appropriately enough, they had once met "to do observance to a morn of May". In the wood where once Hermia and Helena had played as girls, both are to become women and obtain the men of their choice, all in the customary Maying fashion.
The proposed flight to the woods is thus similar to the rit• ual escape through misrule from the inhibitions imposed by parents and the organized community. Shakespeare is giving the lovers a temporary permission to embrace a view of life which questions social conventions, and temporarily suspends them insofar as they apply to accepted behaviour between the sexes. Unlike Helena, Hermia and Lysander make a point of observing the moral code - wood or no wood. In the play, as in the world, the ritual of 123 society is governed by law, and the social order depends on the fulfillment of social obligations. Under Athenian or Elizabethan law, Hermia is obliged to obtain the "consent" of her father be• fore selecting a mate, and she owes her father filial devotion, duty, and the humble submission to the authority of a parent.
However, as Richard Hooker points out in his Of the Laws of Eccles• iastical Polity. Book I, the laws of nature are always binding, but such is not the case with the laws of men and society, the validity of which rests upon the general consent of the governed and upon conformity with natural law and right reason. It is such doctrines as these which, in general, govern Shakespeare's approach to love and the demands of the spring. Thus the lovers participate naturally and unconsciously in a May festival of misrule which leads them to defy the rules and law of society to achieye a higher harmony with nature. But, at the end of the play, this period of misrule is placed in its perspective, is seen to be a part of the rhythm of nature, and is actually embraced by the structure of society as a whole since the lovers are returned solidly into the social frame of reference through the consummation and sanctifi- cation of the aberrant impulse in the ritual of marriage.
E.K. Chambers has this to say of the play:
Love, as interpreted by the comic spirit, is a certain fine lunacy in the brain of youth; not an integral part of life, but a disturbing element in it. The lover is a being of strange caprices. He is at odds for the time with all the established order of things, a rebel against the authority of parents, a rebel against friendship, a rebel against his own vows. 14
14 E.K. Chambers, " A Midsummer Night's Dream", in Leonard F. Dean, Shakespeare: Modern Essays in Criticism, New York, Oxford University Press, 1957, p. 92. 124.
Thus, according to Chambers, the central idea of the play is the "lawlessness and laughableness" of love. Furthermore, he says:
When we turn to the fairies, we find that what enters into human life only as a transitory disturbing element, is in them the normal law of their being. They show no trace of the sense of law and the instinct of self-control. 15
Although this last statement is something of an exaggeration, since the fairy world also returns to a state of order in the end, and the first statement fails to recognize that love is finally recog• nized as an "integral" part of life, the play does become, to a certain extent, an expression of the psychology of misrule, and we are allowed to participate vicariously in its experience.
As they plan to flee, the imagery of the lovers' oath of fid• elity draws this time not upon the bow shape of the moon but upon
Cupid's strongest bow and his best arrow. However, the appear• ance of Helena reminds the audience that just such an oath has already been broken by Demetrius, who had won Helena's heart and then spurned her for another. The picture of the doting Helena presents an objective substantiation that the course of true love never did run smooth, and foreshadows the "jangling" of Act Three,
scene two. The transmuting power of love is drawn upon as Hermia bids farewell to the Eden of her Athenian childhood.
Oh then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turned a Heaven unto a Hell. (I, i, 206-207)
15 Chambers, "A Midsummer Night's Dream", p. 95. 125.
Helena's wistful and admittedly jealous soliloquy on the blindness of love develops into a complete discussion of the transmuting power of love, and substantiates Lysander's claim that Demetrius has a prior vow to another, and hence has no real claim to Hermia. The Elizabethan marriage ceremony involved two steps, each as important as the other. The first step was the formal betrothal which could take the form merely of a verbal promise to wed, given before witnesses. Such a promise of marriage was tant• amount to marriage, and was often considered to give the fiance"' "bed right". Thus, in Elizabethan eyes, Demetrius' betrayal and abandonment of Helena is an evem more heinous crime that it is like• ly to be in ours, and, if retributive justice operates in the scheme of things, then Demetrius is the most likely to receive condem• nation in this play. In the end of this soliloquy, Helena deter• mines to hurry to Demetrius to inform him of the new turn of events, in the hope of ingratiating herself once more into his favour. In doing so, however, she violates the authority of friendship. Thus, all the lovers, like folk celebrants on the eve of Mayday, hurry to the wood, but for very different reasons. There they take leave of ordinary judgment, and become subjiect to irrational impulse under 16 the control of a Summer Lord and Lady, Oberon and Titania.
Scene two introduces the comic interlude of the "hempen home• spuns" preparing for their own interlude,with which they intend to honor the approaching marriage of the Duke and the Duchess. As Miss Welsford points out, "Bottom and company serve the same purpose as
16 On this point see Barber, "The Saturnalian Pattern", p. 603. 126, 17 the antimasque in the courtly revels* These simple men have the spiritual freedom of childish imagination, and present a "temporary relief from the tyranny of reason and from the pressure of the extern- 18 al world," The story of their efforts is required partly to in• troduce the interlude, but still more to provide the element of comic contrast, the "antimasque", which was always an essential feature of a masque, or a play written on the lines of a masque* The story of Pyramus and Thisbe burlesques the main love-plot, and the Bottom sequences, in particular Bottom as Thisbe, supply most of the ele• ments of a typical Mummers' play* Shakespeare's selection of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe supplies additional unity to an already well-rounded play, complementing the main action, revealing the pos• sibly tragic results of parental opposition to young love, and con• tributing to the "topsyturvy" theme because in it comedy arises from tragedy, "very tragical mirth". Thus, the traditional battle of summer and winter is given additional point in the world of reality, though it, too, has its comic side and supplies the traditional comic revival of the fallen hero in the Mummers' play.
When the "actors" have assembled, Quince, the director of the intended drama, at once announces the purpose of their meeting: 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, (I, ii, 4-7) In juxtaposition to the serious consequences of the rebellion of the lovers, the delightful incongruity of the humble thespians' humorously serious attempts introduces an entirely new element to
17 Welsford, Masque, p, 331.
18 Ibid*, p» 332, 127. the play, indicating to the audience its nature as a comedy, and the fact that the ordinary sequence of cause and effect is to be superseded by the psychological release of a revel. Miss Venezky remarks about their preparations,
Here are humorously represented all the details of such amateur rehearsals which so harass a director: improvised properties, inadequate settings, the need for additional dialogue, faulty readings, and the in• evitable self-styled genius. 19
This scene allows us to observe a slice of Elizabethan country ritual unaltered by the passage of time. We know from numerous accounts that it was the custom for humble people to do honor to royal per• sonages on important occasions by presenting for their pleasure or edification pageants, complimentary speeches, interludes, crude masques, or dances, which had often a history or ancient ritual associated with them. The humour of the Bottom scenes lies in the naive attempts of himself and his companions to accomplish something which they firmly believe to be remarkable and original. It follows then that, if this burlesque of country presentations is at all authentic, the Elizabethan recipients of the "honour" had much more patience and kindliness than is possessed by twentieth century aud• iences (or by some of those also present at this performance).
In the process of presenting this sympathetic burlesque, Shake• speare also manages to hurl pointed jibes at ham acting, and is perhaps criticizing indirectly the very performers who are taking the roles of Theseus, Bottom, and the Fairies. The literal-mind- edness of the "mechanicals" produces much humour as they themselves are deceived into thinking that their performances of their parts
19 Venezky, Pageantry on the Shakespearean Stage, p. 158. 128 will be construed as actuality. As the scene unfolds, the tact and diplomacy of Quince become apparent as he manoeuvres Bottom into accepting his role as "Pyramus" without further question.
The scene also serves to reflect the problems experienced by an amateur group preparing just such a presentation in any small village or hamlet. "There will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known."
Act Two introduces the third strand of the plot, the fairy world and its problems and duties regarding the imminent mar• riage in the world of mortals. Reflecting the rituals, customs, and superstitions of Elizabethan England, the fairy sequences lend beauty and mystery to the action, as well as complementing the Maying theme. The fairies themselves are a unique Shakes• pearian invention produced by a complex fusion of folk cult, superstition, pageantry, and popular game, and are embodiments of the fertility or love spirit believed by the pagans to reside in trees, flowers, and in men and women during the spring season.
The poetry of the play serves to make tangible for us the love tendency diffused in nature in the spring, and the fairies serve dramatically to symbolize the irrational impulse connected with love, and its complete and seemingly almost supernatural control over the personality.
Apparently there is dissension in the fairy world also, and
20 As Barber notes in Sh. *s Festive Comedy, p. 124. 129.
the bonds of matrimony are being temporarily annulled as Oberon
and Titania battle, for all the world like today's antagonists in
tawdry divorce contests, for the custody of a changeling child.
As the consummation of a love match is being hindered in the real world, so has the love of the royal fairies reached an impasse,
and the disturbance resulting from both disorders can be seen reflected symptomatically in the universe. The predicament of the royal couple may be patterned on Mummers' Wooing plays, in which it is customary for an old and previously mated pair to 21 play some part in connection with new symbolic marriage.
Scene one introduces the henchman of Oberon, Puck, who plays, in general, the role of Jester or Fool in the Fairy King's court, and has some affinities with "the roguish little Cupid of Ovid, the irresponsible child god, with his blinded eyes and his erring 22 arrows". His characteristics, as they are enumerated, label him as a reflection of the Warwickshire fairies who were, in gen• eral, personifications of perpetrators of domestic accidents or hindrances to daily life. The superstitious minds of the humble country folk contrived to see spirits in the dusk of evening and the pitch black of night, and they believed that the ghosts of the departed haunted their previous environment both sympathetic• ally and antagonistically, and must be propitiated at all costs.
In conversation with another fairy, the mischievous Puck reveals that, as in the real world, "The King doth keep his revels here tonight", and informs the audience of the antipathy between the
21 Baskervill "Mummers' Wooing Plays", p. 228.
22 Chambers, "M.N.P.", p. 92. 130.
Fairy King and his Royal Wife. The wrangle over the custody of the changeling is based on the common belief that the fairies could transport particularly desirable children to their own domain, leaving a less desirable exchange in their stead.
Like the Court of Theseus, and ultimately the Court of Elizabeth, the Fairy Court is bound up in ritual and customs which become immensely significant. The Royal Fairy couple is accompanied by a retinue of attendants and court officers, the most important of which is Puck, an amalgam of Jester, Master of the Revels, Presenter, and Little Devil Doubt, all rolled into one. Puck is the personification of all those mischievous supernatural agencies which conspire against the success of man's endeavours, but he also bears, in his name Robin Good- fellow, the connotations of the fairy agencies which bring good luck to those mortals with whom they are sympathetically attuned. His reply to the inquiry of the fairy identifies him as Oberon's jester.
I am that merry wanderer of the night. I jest to Oberon, and make hi(IIm , smilei, 43-44, ) His speech also includes a reference to the custom of floating roasted apples in drinks to supply additional flavor. And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab; And when she drinks, against her lips I bob And on her withered dewlap pour the ale. (II, i, 47-50)
The appearance of Titania and Oberon, "111 met by moon- 131.
light", confirms PuckTs announcement of the disruption of marital bliss in the fairy world, a conflict which also fails to observe the demands of the season. Titania's jealous reply to Oberon, "and you come to give their bed joy and prosperity?", refers to the ritual of the marriage festivity in which fairies and benevolent spirits were invoked to supply fertility to the marriage bed and to the new year. The customs and beliefs of
Elizabethans implicitly postulated that royal and favorite per• sonages had, in the other world or the fairy world, benevolent patrons who labored sympathetically for their well-being and success. Apparently both the fairy world and that of foolish mortals can supply the "forgeries of jealousy", and Oberon com• plains that "never, since the middle summer's spring" have they met but that there have squabbles and dissension, which have been accompanied, in the world of mortals, by disturbances in the form of fogs, heavy rains, floods, and a general failure in fer• tility. Thus, the consequences of a failure in the fertility of human intercourse and marriage are demonstrated to be serious and severe, not to say cosmic. Even the nine men's morris, a popular outdoor game played on a large board, laid out on the village green, is "filled up with mud" in the general inundation. The im• agery presents a composite pageant picture of a society suffering a general famine and flood symbolic of the failure of the fertil• ity of the new year. The moon, symbol in the play of chastity and asceticism, seems to be ascendant in the universe.
Therefore the moon, the governess of floods, Pale in her anger, washes all the air, That rheumatic diseases do abound. 132
And thorough this distemperature we see The seasons alter. Hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose, And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer, The childing autumn, angry winter, change Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world, By their increase, now knows not which is which. And this same progeny of evils comes From our debate, from our dissension. We are their parents and original. (II, i, 103-17)
Thus, the conflict in both worlds is summed up in a refer• ence to the traditional battle between summer and winter, but this time the symbolic conflict has become extended into the real world, and becomes extremely serious because it brings with it unwonted results in human experience. The war is so fierce that mortals are confounded by a combination of the two opposed seasons. Tit• ania' s description refers to what amounts to a pageantry personi• fication of winter, an old man with a wreath of summer buds sur• rounding his temples, in juxtaposition with summer, as represented by the metaphor of the newly opened rose, struck by the "sneaping" frosts of resurging winter. The personified seasons, in bitter dispute, change their accustomed liveries to the consternation of an already amazed world. All these results stem from the dissension in the fairy world. As often occurs in Shakespearian drama, unus• ual disturbances in the natural world indicate that something is rotten in the state, and portend evil to both states and individ- 23 uals. As Barber points out, Titania's speech to justify her
23 E.g. Macbeth, II, iv, 1-19. Hamlet, I, ii, 112-25. Julius Caesar, I, iii, 1-39. See also E.M.W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture. London, Chatto & Windus, 1952, p. 84o 133. action in keeping the changeling boy, conveys as well as the im• age of commercial fertility, "a wanton joy in achieved sexuality
...and a gay acceptance of the waxing of the body (like joy in the 24 varying moon)". Thus, this passage serves to reinforce the dominant idea in the play that the fairies are fertility spirits able to insure the success, good luck, and fertility of the coming year. The altercation between the two ends with Titania*s invit• ation to join in the revels, and Oberon's peevish refusal. Tita. If you will patiently dance in our round, And see our moonlight revels, go with us; If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts. (II, i, 140-42)
It is generally believed by most critics that Oberon!s next speech to Puck is a reference to a famous entertainment presented for Queen Elizabeth, in which she was throned by the west, and music was played from the water. If this is so, then this speech is in the form of an elaborate compliment to the great Queen her• self, and also draws upon the idea that important personages have their supernatural following, and can exert beneficent influence upon their environment. The imagery of the speech contributes to the general dichotomy between the moon and Cupid, and draws upon the belief that Cupid's arrows carried with them instantaneous in• fatuation which has been transmitted to Oberon's love potion. Oberon's plot to delude the senses of the Fairy Queen parallels Helena's speech concerning the biased senses of the lover, and the
24 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 137. 134.
transmuting power of love. The appearance of Helena and Demet• rius, and OberonTs recognition of and sympathy for Helena's plight,
supplies a further necessary plot complication.
Miss Weisford draws it to our attention that Oberon's speech is an idealized account of a typical Court entertainment. Oberon relates his vision to Puck immediately before despatching him on that errand which sets in motion all the complication of the plot. The vision is div• ided into two parts. First of all, there is the des• cription of what both Oberon and Puck saw, and that is simply an idealized account of what Oberon alone could see, and is the allegorical meaning of the performance, a meaning which is expressed in clear- cut pictorial imagery, which has a complimentary reference to Queen Elizabeth, and is possibly connect• ed with a definite piece of Court intrigue. Oberon's vision is no mere isolated compliment, but an ingen• ious device for turning the main theme of the play into a piece of subtle flattery and connecting the potency of Cupid's flower as well as Dian's bud with the charm and chastity of the Virgin Queen. 25
Shakespeare has arranged that, within a play which celebrates a May marriage, the Maying "observances" which Philostrate would have arranged to be performed in honour of Theseus' wedding appear naturally and inadvertently without his help, as the lovers partic• ipate in a general melee which ends in the usual results of a May• ing ceremony, marriage, consummation, and eventual fertility in the community. What otherwise might have appeared as pageant fict• ions occur naturally and are presented as actually happening, be- 26 cause the lovers walk into them unsuspecting. Helena's remarks,
25 Weisford, Masque, p. 341. 26 Barber, Sh.'s Festive- Comedy, p. 126. 135.
as she appears following Demetrius, support the Maying theme, and bring to the attention of the audience once more the fact that
the lovers are to meet in the wood in the time of the May celeb•
ration. In her despair, Helena trusts "the opportunity of night /
And the ill counsel of a desert place" with the "rich worth" of
her virginity. Virginity in this play is prized certainly, but marriage, the "rose distilled", is prized more highly. With re•
gard to Helena, Demetrius is denying the demands of the season,
and his betrayal of her is not merely a betrayal of one woman, but
is a scandal on her sex as a whole. As she explains,
We cannot fight for love, as men may do; We should be wooed, and were not made to woo. (II, i, 241-42)
Scene two re-introduces the retinue of Titania, and the rev•
els of her tiny court. She is seen bidding her followers to
present a roundel, a circular dance, and a song to speed her to
a dreamy sleep, "Come, now a roundel and a fairy song,". A song
follows, in two stanzas, presented by a single voice answered
by a chorus in refrain. The song, which is intended in the plot
to put the Fairy Queen to sleep and to protect her from disturbance
and marauders, seems also to be intended as a pretty compliment to
Elizabeth. It is an "ayre" in the form of a lullaby, a type of
song quite popular during the period; the language appropriate to
the subject and situation, and the parallel line structure suggest 27
that it is an "art" song. With the completion of the song, Ob•
eron annoints Titania's eyes, and Lysander and Hermia enter upon
the scene, and prepare to sleep until daybreak permits the contin-
27 long, Sh.'s Use of Music, p. 85. 136.
uance of their flight away from the "sharp Athenian law". Hermia's
purity of heart is evinced by her gentle reprimand that,
... in human modesty, Such separation as may well be said Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid, So far be distant. (II, ii, 57-60) Puck's condemnation of the sleeping, innocent Lysander, whom he
mistakes for Demetrius, connotes the punishment usually allotted to the kill-joy of the revels.
Pretty soulI She durst not lie Near this lack love, this kill-courtesy. Churl, upon thy eyes I throw All the power this charm doth owe. (II, ii, 76-79) Eye imagery becomes increasingly more significant as two pairs of eyes are smeared with the love potion, and Helena arrives to praise Hermia's eyes which have bewitched her Demetrius, not realizing that the object of her complaint lies asleep within a few feet of her.
Inadvertently, she awakens Lysander, who immediately, much to her consternation, falls fervently in love with her. Dramatic ir• ony becomes the major device in this scene as Helena refuses to believe that Lysander's sudden passion is anything other than a "false sport". Lysander's protestations of sincerity draw also upon the metaphor of the seasons as he exclaims, Things growing are not ripe until their season. So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason. (II, ii, 117-18)
The end of Act Two leaves Helena and Lysander to their own de- 137. vices, and reintroduces the preparations of Bottom and crew to pre• sent an interlude for the entertainment of the Duke's wedding party. With a green plot for a stage, and a hawthorn brake for a tiring house, the mechanicals prepare to run through a "dress rehearsal". Further humour abounds in their confusing of art with reality, and their naivete leads them to suggest the writing of a prologue that will inform their audience that all the action is but an "insubstantial pageant", and that "we will do no harm with our swords".
After delving into Mummers' plays and the ritual surrounding them, one discovers many similarities between them and the Bottom interlude. First, the interlude is presented in order to "honour" the marriage of the Duke. Second, the players wish the audience to realize that the symbolic death that occurs in it is not real and carries no harmful consequences. In point of fact, there would appear to be two "deaths" and "revivals" in the play. From the point of view of Bottom's companions, his translation and his mir• aculous return would seem like a death and a revival, and his la• ter "death" as Thisbe is followed by his immediate springing back to life. Furthermore, in general, the troup of mummers was ac• companied by one or two individuals wearing the horns, skins, or heads of animals as festival trappings designed to spread the fer• tilization spirit, and, therefore, Bottom's appearance with the head of an ass on his shoulders is appropriate to the custom.
Quince suggests that the proposed prologue should be written in "eight and six", a common ballad meter, but impetuous Bottom 138* overrules him by decreeing that instead it shall be in "eight and eight". The humble mummers carry their literalness to ridiculous extremes, and present an even more ludicrous picture as the rehear• sal proceeds. The practical producer, Quince, is worried by the need for moonlight in the presentation, for, like Oberon and Tit• ania, Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight. Their worries over the lighting problem serve to reflect the custom of presenting little interludes such as this in the hall of the great house. The penchant for pageantry, and the tendency for Elizabethans to think in terms of personifications is revealed in Quince's suggest• ion that moonshine may be "disfigured" by a figure bearing a bush of thorns and a lantern. Furthermore, Snout's avowal that, "You can never bring in a wall", gives us additional insight into the problems and the psychology of the rough mummers, and might have reference to the rustic actors in any Whitsun pastoral. Their humorous attempts are overheard by the mischievous Puck who cries,
What, a play toward!, I'll be an auditor - An actor too perhaps, if I see cause. (Ill, i, 81-82) The burlesque continues as the actors confuse their lines and speak their parts all at once, until Puck intervenes and places an ass's head on the shoulders of Bottom.
With the reappearance of Bottom from the brake, consternation in the ranks of the mummers reigns supreme, and the dramatic irony of Bottom's next speech, "If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thi ne," adds tremendously to the humour of the passage. His song to bolster up his flagging spirits contrasts markedly with the 139. beauty of the fairy songs, and adds another note of incongruity to the humour of the scene. Bottom's sensible reply to the voiced admiration of Titania, who has just awakened to be smitten with love for the "translated" Bottom, is directly at odds with the lovers1 claims that reason guides love, and adds a further per• spective to the action occurring in the other strand of the plot.
Her refusal to allow him to elude her charms serves also to ident• ify her as a fertility spirit who controls the fate of summer and of mortals.
I am a spirit of no common rate. The summer still doth tend upon my state;
(III, i, 157-58)
The scene ends as Bottom is led, with his tongue tied, to the bow• er of the Fairy Queen, and she exclaims, in imagery which reflects the moon's relationship to chastity, The moon methinks looks with a watery eye, And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting some enforced chastity. (Ill, i, 203-206)
Scene two returns once more to Oberon and the mad spirit
Puck, who, as jester, promotes the "night-rule" version of misrule over which Oberon is superintendent and lord in the "haunted grove".
As a representative of misrule, he has done his work well, for Tit- D ania now loves a mechanical with an ass's head, and the two pairs of Athenian lovers are hopelessly crossed. His speech labels Bot• tom and his cohorts "a crew of patches", typical clowns with thick skins and heads, and having the usual assortment of superstitious fears. Upon her appearance, Hermia comments on Lysander's fidelity
28 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 120. 140. in imagery which makes us aware once more of the moon and its con• notations. ....I'll believe as soon This whole earth may be bored, and that the moon May through the center creep, and so displease Her brother's noontide with the Antipodes.. (Ill, ii, 52-55)
Discovering Puck's error, Oberon upbraids him, declaring that his mistake has caused some true love to turn false, and not some false love to turn true. The cynic Puck replies lightly to this accusation, Then fate o'errules, that, one man holding troth, A million fail, confounding oath on oath. (Ill, ii, 92-93) The recurrence of imagery drawn from the sport of archery serves to support the conception of Cupid as a blind archer, whose shafts have the power to cause their victims to feel immediately the pangs of love. Leading the missing members of the pageant, Puck asks, Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! (Ill, ii, 114-15) His position as representative of misrule is also reflected by his next statement, Then will two at once woo one, That must needs be sport alone. And those things do best please me That befall preposterously. (Ill, ii, 118-21)
Helena, discovering herself to be wooed simultaneously by
two men, the one betrothed to her best friend, and the other, the man who had jilted her to woo her best friend, is understandably dismayed, and, like the Princess of France and her women in Love's 141.
Labor's Lost, believes that "you all are bent / To set against me
for your merriment". When Hermia arrives upon the scene, also
confused by the night's happenings, Helena construes the predic•
ament to be a general conspiracy.
Lo, she is one of this confederacy! Now I perceive they have conjoined all three To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.
(Ill, ii, 192-94)
Such an accusation of mockery or jeering on the part of the suitor
is a common element in the wooing plays. In chiding Hermia for
her betrayal of her own sex, Helena makes reference to a popular
pastime in which two young girls sew on a sampler, a piece of em•
broidery, to produce a single design. Furthermore, her accusation
draws upon the ritual procedure of heraldry concerning the mar•
riage between those who bear different coats of arms, for, after marriage, the coats of arms of husband and wife are united in one
coat under one crest. So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart, Two of the first, like coats in heraldry, Due but to one, and crowned with one crest. (Ill, ii, 212-14)
The bitter altercation which ensues between the two erstwhile
friends brings them almost to blows. After the meaningful epi•
thets of "doll" and "puppet" have been hurled back and forth, Her• mia calls Helena a "painted maypole" because of her stature. The mock battle between the two serves to characterize them as almost
directly opposite both in stature and in personality. In addition,
the ferocity of this "flyting contest" between the two women is
equalled only by that of the men. The "flyting contest" was ap•
parently so popular a pastime in the sixteenth century that it 142. was banned by officials of church and state. The mutual and recip• rocal insults hurled back and forth seem to reflect the defiance and mockery common to "swaggering" characters of medieval drama, like Herod, and the combatants of folk-plays. In most Mummers' plays that celebrate the fertility of the New Year, it is custom• ary to stage a contest between two men for the hand of a fair maid. In this case, the contest is for the hand of Helena, despite the fact that she believes it to be "false sport". The flyting contest between the two men, and between the two women, is also richly imbued with connotations of springtime festivities in which contests, both physical and verbal, play a large part. Mr. Bask• ervill remarks that:
Numerous singing games of children represent an un- chosen girl or boy as sitting apart in sorrow until a wooer comes. In games of adults the rejected man or woman seems to have been compelled to stand apart crowned with a willow garland. Such a game is re• flected in Beatrice's remark, in Much Ado About Noth• ing. (II, i, 330-32),
Good Lord, for alliance I Thus goes every• one to the world but I, and I am sunburned, I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a husbandl 29
Poor Helena inte-rprets the situation as one of these games, a "sweet jest".
In typical jester fashion, Puck takes great pleasure in the discomfiture of the lovers, saying,
And so far am I glad it so did sort, As this their jangling I esteem a sport.
(Ill, ii, 352-53)
However, he does his Fairy master's bidding, and leads the "testy rivals" astray, in the belief that they are following one another
29 Baskervill, Jig, p. 254. 143. to pursue the battle. Thus, Shakespeare is really presenting a mock battle and flyting contest which is undertaken seriously but bears no physical consequences for either of the combatants. Like the entire "woods" scene, it, too, is divorced from the reality of everyday and the sharp Athenian law, and becomes ultimately on• ly an element of the play's elaborate picture of the May celeb• ration that Shakespeare is presenting for our enjoyment and edif• ication. Furthermore, on stage the spectacle of two young men rushing about indiscriminately with drawn swords would probably remind an Elizabethan audience of the well-known Sword Dance, the ritual sacrificial dance performed by men on special occasions to insure the fertility of the year. The dance terminates with the mock death of one of the participants, usually the fool, and some• times includes his revival. Like the Sword Dance, the battle be• tween the two infatuated men bears no real consequences, and the sight of them falling to the ground in exhaustion is somewhat rem• iniscent of the mock death. Wooing contests between lovers have a long history and were an old formula of popular romantic drama, and wooing dances are chiefly connected with the May game, morris, 30 or pastoral festival belonging to summer.
As the rivals sleep, Oberon supplies a new drug that will clear the vision of Lysander and restore his true love for Hermia. He predicts that,
When they next awake, all this derision Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision, (III, ii, 370-71) After Oberon has given his commands to Puck, and indicated that all
30 Baskervill, "Conventional Features", p. 426 144. the problems of the lovers will be resolved in marriage, "With league whose date till death shall never end," a conversation en• sues between the two which draws on the popular belief that at night the souls or ghosts of the dead leave their graves to wander over the face of the earth, but must, at the first signs of return• ing day, "willfully themselves exile from light". But, as Oberon points out, "We are spirits of another sort". As Act III ends, the lovers are left asleep on the ground to await the coming morn• ing, and Puck presses the new liquid to the eyes of the sleeping Lysander, all the while chanting what amounts to a piece of country doggerel. His charming invocation, and the act of restoring Ly• sander' s true vision, which has been temporarily clouded, smacks of the St. George Mummers' plays which feature a bragging scene, mutual recrimination and insult between two rivals, a battle and a slaying, and, finally, a restoration to life. Such a slaying and renouveau carries with it the background of ancient sacrifice to insure the welfare and fertility of the new year. Similarly, as Puck's speech points out, his .anointing of the sleeping youth's eyes also carries with it the welfare of the lovers and the commun• ity as a whole because the play dwells on the beneficent effect of marriage upon the community also.
On the ground Sleep sound. I'll apply To your eye, Gentle lover, remedy. When thou wakest, Thou takest True delight In the sight Of the former lady's eye. And the country proverb known, That every man should take his own, Jack shall have Jill, Nought shall go ill, The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well. (Ill, ii, 448-63) 145. Puck's action in applying the "remedy" certainly seems parallel to that of the "doctor" in the Mummers' play, whose remedies restore to life the slain hero, and also restore the health of the commun• ity,, Seeing the importance of the role of the "doctor", Ordish notices that the element of the doctor and his cure of the wounded or slain combatant is common to the Sword Dance play, the Plough
Monday play, and the first portion of the Easter play, as well as 31 the Sto George play. In his role, the doctor usually brings in some liquid which is applied to the fallen warrior, sometimes to his eyes, which revives him„ Interestingly enough, in the Mum• mers' plays at Islip and Berks, the doctor is also called "Dr, 32 Good", At any rate, Puck's speech serves to express confidence 33 in common humanity and in what humanity have in common„ Act lour returns to Titania who still dotes on the mechanical with the ass's head on his shoulders. As they recline in the bow• er of the Fairy Queen, Titania speaks:
Tit, What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love? Bot. I have a reasonable good ear in musico Let's have the tongs and the bones. (IV, i, 29-31) Bottom refers to country instruments that supplied rough rhythm at festival and ritual occasions. Titania, as Barber notices, in embracing Bottom, describes herself in terms that suit her sur• roundings and connote the association between women and ivy in 34 the songs traditional at Christmas. It was the custom at
31 Ordish, "English Folk-Drama", p. 159. 32 Chambers, The English Folk-Play, p. 50. The Mediaeval Stage, vol. 1, p. 213. 33 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 131.
34 Ibid., p. 136. 146.
Christmas for the men to sing songs in praise of holly, their em• blem, against songs by the women in praise of ivy. Holly and Ivy seem to have been used frequently in the period before the Ren• aissance as symbols of rival groups of celebrants, and probably have some correspondence to such symhols as the Flower and the 35 leaf. As they sleep, Oberon and Puck arrive to remove the en• chantment from the eyes of Titania. Fairy music insures that the sleepers fall into an even deeper sleep, as Oberon and Titania take hands in a dance of reunion. In this case, music and dance are used to symbolize the concord re-established between Oberon and Titania, and to foreshadow the resulting harmony between the mortals.
The end of fairy strife and the disenchantment of the mortals, 36 clearly mark the turning point of the comedy. What is more, the emphasis upon music in the play reflects the Elizabethan be• lief in the curative powers of music for human ills, both mental and physical. Sound music. Come, my Queen, take hands with me, And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. Now thou and I are new in amity, And will tomorrow midnight solemnly Dance in Duke Theseus* house triumphantly, And bless it to all fair prosperity. There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity. (IV, i, 89-96)
At the completion of the dance, suddenly the horns of Theseus' hunting party are sounded to signal the approach of a new day.
35 Baskervill, "Early Romantic Plays", p. 250.
36 long, Sh.'s Use of Music, p. 93o 147.
The fairy world vanishes instantly, and the lovers are left gent• ly asleep on the ground. The Duke and his party have risen early to perform an observance to May, and all intend to enjoy the sound of the loosed hounds coursing through the valley.
Go, one of you, find out the forester, For now our observation is performed. And since we have the vaward of the day, My love shall hear the music of my hounds. Uncouple in the western valley, let them go. Dispatch, I say, and find the forester. (IV, i, 107-12)
This passage takes the form of an extended reference to the sport of hunting which was extremely popular at the time. Wealthy gentlemen bred hounds for the sole purpose of matching their voices to produce a musical "cry" capable of competition with their neigh• bours and others interested in the sport. In a well-balanced pack, each hound uttered a different note, the whole effect being 37 a harmony. Hip. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once When in a wood of Crete they bayed the bear With hounds of Sparta. Never did I hear Such gallant chiding; for, besides the groves, The skies, the fountains, every region near Seemed all one mutual cry. I never heard So musical a discord, such sweet thunder. Thes. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind, ^o flewed, so sanded; and their heads are hung With ears that sweep'away the morning dew; Crook-kneed, and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls; Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells, Each under each. A cry more tunable Was never holloed to, nor cheered with horn, In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly. (IV, I, 116-30)
At this, the hunting party discover the four "nymphs" asleep amicably together at their feet. Theseus immediately assumes that
37 Harrison, Works, p. 534. 148. they rose up early "to observe the rite of May," and came in com• pliment to his marriage. The day for Hermia's choice, the "love- day", has arrived, and the sound of the horns, mortal music, awak• ens sleepers who had dozed because of fairy music. When they a- waken, Theseus inquires how it is they sleep together in gentle concord. The lovers arise amazed and confused, unable to determine whether they are yet sleeping or are waking. When Lysander con• fesses that he and Hermia had originally come to the wood to es• cape the tyranny of the Athenian law, Egeus, like Shylock, a later kill-joy, begs the law on their heads. But the results of their journey to the wood are in keeping with the season, for, in the wood, Theseus overrules the "consent" of Egeus, and commands that they shall all be married with him in the temple. Still dazed by the night's proceedings, the happy lovers wend their way after the Duke and his train. The noise of these events has also awakened another sleeper, the mighty Bottom, who awakens ready to continue playing his part which had been interrupted by the appearance of the Fairy Queen. Overwhelmed by the wonder of the past night, the indefatigable Bottom determines to have Quince write a ballad to expound his dream. Bottom's speech indicating his amazement over the night's happenings is curiously similar to the usual speech of the revived combatant of the Mummers' plays who often exclaims about the remarkable sleep he has had. The tenor of his speech indicates to the audience renewed vigor and vitality on his part. It would seem that the tone of Bottom's speech is much the same, and would remind an Elizabethan audience of the ritual slaying and renouveau. 149
The last scene of this act leads Bottom back to his relieved thespians who welcome him in wonder and admiration. This scene refers indirectly to further details concerning the rustics' presentations of mumming plays and interludes. Snug cries, "If our sport had gone forward, we had all been made men," and Flute replies disconsolately, "Oh, sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day during his life," for the chances were that such a remarkable actor as they imagined him to be could not es• cape receiving a handsome pension from the Duke for his performance. Upon his arrival, the irrepressible Bottom wastes no time, takes over the direction of the performance from Quince, and gives his eager admirers their last minute instructions.
....Get your apparel to• gether, good strings to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps. Meet presently at the palace. Every man look o'er his part, for the short and the long is, our play is preferred. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen, and let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor gar• lic, for we are to utter sweet breath, and I do not doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. (IV, i, 35-45)
The opening of Act V places the events of the previous night in their proper perspective, and relates superstition, magic, and 38 passionate delusion as "fancy's images". Thes. ....I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact. (V, i, 2-8)
38 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 123. 150.
Theseus calls his Master of the Revels to demand what "revels are at hand", and Philostrate presents to his master a list of the var• ious entertainments which have been prepared. The Duke rejects
"The battle with the Centaurs", because he has already told that to his love. He also rejects "the riot of the tipsy Bacchanals" on the grounds that it is an old device which he has already seen, and rejects, lastly, a pageant of the nine Muses mourning the de• cease of Learning, because it is probably "some satire, keen and critical, / Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony". However, he de• lights in the announcement of the presentation of Bottom and crew,
"A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus / And his love Thisbe, very tragical mirth." The title is rather revealing, for at that time "Lamentable tragedies mixed full of pleasant mirth" were what 39 the public wanted. Furthermore, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe had a long record of popularity in medieval poetry and drama, and, as Baskervill explains, "both simple romantic stories and mytho• logical stories from the classics seem to have been popular in 40 dramatic form among the folk of Elizabethan England."
The conversation between Theseus and Philostrate reveals the pitiful inadequacies of the presentation, and Philostrate*s crit• icisms would seem to be applicable to most amateur productions of this kind.
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 player fitted. And tragical, my noble lord, it is,
39 Disher, Clowns, p. xix. This title is taken from the title page of Preston* s Lamentable Tragedy, Mixed Full of Pleasant Mirth, Containing the Life of Cambises, King of Persia.
40 Baskervill,-Jig, p. 485. 151.
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. (V, i, 61-70} As he points out, it is a play put on by, Hardhanded men that work in Athens here, Which never labored in their minds till now, (V, i, 72-73) Theseus commands that the play be shown, but Philostrate attempts to dissuade him by explaining that the play is insignificant, un• less the company can find "sport" in the "intents" of the country mummers, "Extremely stretched and conned with cruel pain, / To do you service." Theseus cries, ....I will hear that play, For never anything can be amiss, When simpleness and duty tender it. (V, i, 81-33) The gracious Duke accepts the play in the spirit in which it is tendered, and his comments indicate to a twentieth century reader the extent of a custom which demands of a King's subjects that they indicate their devotion and duty to him in a ceremonial fashion. Our sport shall be to take what they mistake. And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect Takes it in 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 practiced accent in their fears, And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke 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. (V, i, 90-103)
With a flourish of trumpets, Quince enters as the Prologue or 152.
Presenter of the play, but garbles his introduction horribly by not following the punctuation of his declamation, and makes, "per• iods in the midst of sentences". As Hippolyta humorously declares, "Indeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder - a sound, but not in government". A recorder was a simple flute popular at the time, and was used in harmony with other instruments to produce a consort, what amounts to a small orchestra. Quince proceeds to introduce the allegorical pageant figures and the main characters, in a fashion much the same as that of the Sum• mers' plays. In fact, almost half of the. interlude of "Pyramus and Thisbe" is taken up with mumming prologues introducing the
various personages. Next} he begs the indulgence of the assemblage, and then explains the details of the play. Shakespeare burlesques the illiteracies and gaucheries of the amateur productions by emphasizing the heavy alliteration, especially the b's in the line,
Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade, He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast. (V, i, 147-48)
Next, Snout introduces himself as Wall, and affords eminent opportunity for the Duke's party to ridicule his discourse. The dialogue between Pyramus and Thisbe is fraught with ridiculous warpings of lines, classical references, and several bawdy impli• cations. One by one, the performers introduce themselves in true mumming fashion, speak their piece, and depart, all to a chor• us of jests and ribaldries from the audience. The lion and the moon are soon dispensed with, Pyramus discovers Thisbe's bloody mantle, and, in a paroxysm of passion, bewails her loss and dies 153. at length. At this Demetrius makes a poor pun on the game of dice. 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. (V, i, 313-15) Theseus' reply to their witticisms places the action of the play Pyramus and Thisbe well within the framework of the St. George Mummers' play in which it is customary for St. George to kill an opponent, usually a Turk or Bold Slasher, and then call for a doc• tor or surgeon who goes through some traditional byplay, often humorous, and then revives the fallen hero. It is postulated that such a ritual slaying and revival hearkens back to ancient sacri• fices of a scapegoat to insure the stability and fertility of the community for another year. Thes. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass. (V, i, 316)
Mr. Barber has also noticed the similarities between Bottom and the slain combatant in the Mummers' plays, though he has in• cluded it in his book in the form of a footnote. I reproduce this footnote in order to provide some substantiation for my own claims, and also to draw attention to the differences in our approaches. The section of the footnote which is pertinent goes as follows: Perhaps when Bottom starts up, very much alive despite his emphatic death, to correct the Duke in the matter of the wall, his comic resurrection owes something, directly or via the jig, to the folk play. When the St. George, or Fool, or whoever, starts up, alive again, after the miraculous cure, the reversal must have been played as a moment of comical triumph, an upset, more or less grotesque or absurd, no doubt, but still exhilarating - to come back alive is the ultimate turning of the tables on whatever is an enemy of life. The most popular of Elizabethan jigs, 154.
"The Jig of Rowland", involves a device of playing dead and pretending to come back to life which may well be a rationalized development of this primitive resurrection motif. Rowland wins back Margaret from the Sexton by getting into a grave and playing dead; she laments him and then starts to go off with his rival; but Rowland jumps up behind them, aston• ishes the Sexton, sends him packing and wins the wench. (Baskervill, Jig., pp. 220-222) Such brief comic song and dance dramas as this were used as afterpieces following the regular play. Pyramus and Thisby almost amounts to a developed jig which has been brought into the framework of the play instead of being presented as an afterpiece, in the usual fashion. The dance element comes in when Bottom, after coming back alive, concludes by danc• ing a bergomasque. 41
At the death of Thisbe, Bottom springs up, offering an epi• logue or a Bergomask dance, a rough country dance, as alternative afterpieces to their play for the further entertainment of the com• pany. In the Mummers' play and the Sword Dance, both of which contain a ritual slaying and a revival, the revival of the sac• rificial victim is accompanied by rejoicing and a dance. Thus the Bergomask would seem to be particularly appropriate in this con• nection, following so closely, as it does, upon the death of Thisbe, and Bottom's exuberant leap back to life. At the command of Thes• eus, they omit the epilogue, and present the Bergomask, which marks an aesthetic division in the play, because Theseus ceases to speak in prose, and, in stately blank verse, commends the lovers to their respective beds.
His speech introduces the fairies once more, and acknowledges the efforts of the mummers by saying that, "This palpable-gross
41 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 154. 155. play hath well beguiled / The heavy gait of night". With the re• turn of night and the departure bedward of the Duke and his com• pany, who are determined to continue the revels the next day and for a fortnight thereafter, Puck enters, seemingly in the role of Presenter or actor in a typical ^Hammers' play. His speech charac• terizes the night, and announces that it is the lawful domain of fairies, sprites, and ghosts.
And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, wow are frolic. Not a mouse Shall disturb this hallowed house. I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door.
(V, i, 390-97)
Here he seems to play the role of Little Devil Doubt who often clears a space for the approaching mummers by crying for the at• tention of the audience. In comes I hind before, with my broad broom to sweep up the floor, a room for gallant store, prey give me room to rhyme, for I am come with my gallant men to show a little activity on this merry Christmas tide. 42
In the Mummers' plays with which we are familiar, it is cus• tomary for the Presenter, whether he be Father Christmas or some other figure, to come in with a broom in his hand. At Leigh, the performance of the St. George play is begun by Little Devil Doubt who sweeps a room for the actors just as sword dancers make a pre• liminary circle on the ground with a sword. The performance ends 43 by a quete preceded by a sweeping out. Miss Welsford brings to our attention that:
42 R.J.E. Tiddy, The Mummers' Play. Oxford, At the Clarendon Press, 1923, p. 170. 43 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, vol. 1, p. 216. 156
The lives of uncivilized people are profoundly affect• ed by their belief that the world is swarming with spirits and souls of the dead. The dead are honoured, placated, and fed (e.g. the custom of the bean). Some peoples celebrate funerals and anniversaries by invit• ing the dead to a banquet, eaten in silence, at which the dead are supplied with food, e.g. beans or peas.. ..There is also a strong feeling in primitive cultures that the dead should not encroach too much on the sphere of the living, and steps are taken to keep them at a distance. One simple method of getting rid of ghosts is to sweep them out of the house. Rites of this kind have points in common with scapegoat ceremonies and with popular customs of sweeping away evil spirits and witches with brooms. 44
For this reason mummers shout, ring bells, burn bonfires, and hum.
In The Scapegoat. Sir James Frazer substantiates these remarks by pointing out that sometimes Priests sweep misfortune out of 45 the house with brooms made from the leaves of special plants. Furthermore, his studies of a number of primitive peoples reveal that: The public and periodic expulsion of devils is com• monly preceded or followed by a period of general license, during which the ordinary restraints of society are thrown aside, and all offences, short of the gravest, are allowed to pass unpunished. 46 The Saturnalian pattern of ritual celebration finds its epitome in Rome where, apparently, every year on the fourteenth of March, a man clad in skins was led in procession through the streets, beaten with long white rods, and driven out of the city. This pattern of celebration of the rebirth of the year, characterized by an inversion of social ranks and the sacrifice of a man in the
44 Welsford, Masque, p. 7. 45 Sir James George Frazer, The Scapegoat, London, Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1933, vol. 6, p. 5.
46 Ibid., p. 225»
47 Ibid., p. 229. 157. character of a god, is apparently the prototype for similar observ• ances which were held at one time all over the ancient world from 48 Italy to Babylon.
In addition to the familiar processional, in pagan ritual a human couple formed a union which was intended to represent, as in a microcosm, the loves of all nature both plant and animal, and, in the psychology of sympathetic magic, was intended to complement 49 and stimulate the life of nature. The central idea or motive of agricultural festivals related to this ritual is the belief that, during the spring season, the fertilization spirit resides in the visible and tangible form of flowers, the foliage of the trees, or in the crops in the fields. The object of the festival becomes to obtain "the beneficent influence of the fertilization spirit by bringing the persons or places to be benefited into dir- 50 ect contact with the physical embodiment of that spirit." Thus a procession becomes an important part of the celebration.
Sacramental sacrifice, found ritually in the Mummers1 plays, or at least the sprinkling of holy water, enables primitive peoples to make physical contact with the source of life and growth, and the ceremonial procession following it, which still appears in the mummers' quetes and processional dances, is a conscious attempt to spread the mystic effects of the holiness throughout the whole 51 community. Even after the original sacrifice has long been
48 Frazer, Scapegoat. p. 407. 49 Ibid., p. 406. 50 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, vol. 1, p. 117.
51 Welsford, Masque, p. 6. 158, forgotten, the minor rites which once accompanied it are still perpetuated, as vestigial remnants, in the superstitions or the festival customs of the peasantry. As previously mentioned, the heads and hides of horses er cattle are worn or carried in the Mum- 52 fliers' dance in their procession through the village. Thus the hobby horse and buffoon are basically worshippers prancing in the skins of sacrificed animals. The same magic power is believed to be found also in the sacred tree, and hence mummers often wear leaves, and bring branches and flowers from the woods on ritual days. There are basically two dances natural to the mummers. The first is the processional which troops through the village, dis• tributing the mystic power, and the second is the ronde or round, a comparatively stationary dance which originates from the dance of a group of worshippers around the more sacred objects of the festival, such as the tree or the fire. When viewed in this light, the processional of the fairies becomes the quete of the mummers who bear with them the luck of the season. Moreover, the connect• ion between fairies and fertility is deep-rooted in folk lore and is hence doubly apropos in this connection.
It has been suggested, first by Johnson and then by later crit• ics, that two songs and two dances have been lost from the play, Mr. Barber suggests that the type of dance intended to accompany the blessing of the house is indicated indirectly in the dialogue:
Titania seems to start a circling dance with "First rehearse your song by rote"; by contrast with Oberon's "after me," she calls for "hand in hand". This com-
52 Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, vol. 1, p. 141 159
bination of processional and round dances is the ob• vious one for the occasion: to get the fairies in and give them something to do. 53
Such dances would be doubly appropriate in this context, because, as has already been pointed out, they are traditionally associated with primitive festivals celebrating and encouraging the fertility of the new year.
Oberon and Titania, as mummers themselves, lead their fairy band throughout the house, blessing it. Thus, their final danc• ing blessing of the mortals turns them into both mummers and fer• tility spirits who bless the bridal bed, and weave a charm that will protect its issue from all natural defects and mischance. The fairies are commanded to take field dew consecrated in the fashion of holy water. and sprinkle a blessing throughout the great house. Fertilizing and beneficent virtues are persistently ascrib• ed to dew gathering on May morning. It was bathed in and drunk in the belief that, at that time of the year, dew carried fertil• ity. There are also religious associations to "field dew consec• rate" suggesting the sanctification of love by marriage. As Bar• ber informs us:
It was customary for the clergy, at least in important marriages, to bless the bed and bridal couple with holy water. The benediction included exorcism, in the Manual for the use of Salisbury a prayer to protect them from what Spenser called "evill sprights" and "things that be not" (ab omnibus fantasmaticis demon- urn illusionibus). This custom may itself be an ec• clesiastical adaptation of a more primitive bridal lustration, a water charm of which dew-gathering on May Day is one variant. 54
53 Barber, Sh.'s Festive Comedy, p. 138
54 Ibid., p. 139. 160 o
Thus the fertility, safety, happiness, and luck of the household has been assured for another year, and the fairies troop away after having done their duty. As Barber remarks, the exorcism of evil powers is a natural corollary to the invocation of good.
Puck comes forth once more to speak what amounts to an epi• logue at the end of the play, ^e begs the audience's approval and applause in much the same way that traditional mummers end their presentations by begging food or money as a reward for their labours. Devil Doubt. Here comes I little Devil Doubt, if you don't give me the money I'll sweep you all out. Money I want and money I crave, If you don't give me money I'll sweep 'ee all to the grave. Gentlemen and Ladies since our sport is ended, our box now must be recommended. Our box would speak if it had a tongue, nine or ten shilling would do it no harm, all silver and no brass. All sing. Your cellar doors are locked and we're all like to choak and it's all for the drink that we sing, boys, sing. 55
The play ends by placing its action in its proper perspective. Puck. If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumbered here While these visions did appear, And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, (V, i, 430-35)
Shakespeare has concluded his tribute to an important marriage in a manner appropriate to festival and marriage, with songs, dances, and a blessing. In this play, the dramatist has been pre-
55 Tiddy, Mummers' Play, -p. 143 161. senting a number of rituals and kinds of entertainment. These, the Maying sequence of events, the flight to the woods, and the consummation, have all been presented as occurring naturally. In addition, the play has dramatized the traditional battle between summer and winter, and, in its burlesque of folk dramatics, has also presented what amounts to a Mummers' play.
In order to support the contention that Shakespeare has pre• sented a number of the elements of a Mummers' play in writing A Midsummer Night's Dream, it becomes necessary to quote Tiddy's analysis of the typical Mummers' play. As he points out: The typical Mummers' play opens with a naive induct• ion in which one of the performers craves the spec• tators' indulgence, asks for room, and promises a fine performance. When this is concluded, the two protagonists appear, and after each has boasted of his valour, they fall to fighting. In this duel, one or other is wounded or killed. A doctor is then summoned who vaunts his proficiency in medicine and proceeds to revive the fallen hero. Here the main business of the play ends. It is now the turn of minor characters to enter and provide irrelevant am• usement of a simple sort. One of them collects money and the performance finishes with a song. 56
On the basis of this generalization concerning the typical Mummers' play, one would hesitate to assert that Shakespeare is endeavouring to reproduce exactly either the folk-song or the folk-drama, but the similarities between parts of the play under analysis and the representative Mummers' play, it would seem to me, lead one to the conclusion that the dramatist is deliberately borrowing from the folk tradition, and, in some cases, taking the characteristics of some of the mummers wholesale, though putting
56 Tiddy, Mummers' Play, p. 73. 162. them in a different setting, and using them for a different pur• pose. As a consequence, some of the similar elements lose much of their traditional flavor, but retain just enough of it to be recognizable. The purpose of the dramatist seems to be twofold. He wishes to supply a comic element in a play which celebrates marriage. What could be more appropriate and welcome to his aud• ience than hints of their own tradition borrowed from Mummers' plays with which they are all familiar? furthermore, the Mummers' play is itself intended to supply comedy, so nothing is out of
taste in the borrowing. ^e also wishes to honour an important marriage. What could be more clever and complimentary than to place a marriage in a traditional ritual setting in order to re• gard it in terms of its effect upon the community as a whole? Elizabethan dramatists had several avenues open to them in appeal• ing to the diversified tastes which characterized their audiences. One of the most significant is the fact that they were able to draw from a body of folk tradition which passed from class to class virtually unmodified. The similarities in the rituals, pas• times, and entertainments of all social classes were, as a con• sequence, a great aid in producing Shakespeare's universal ap• peal.
In addition to the similarities between folk-drama and the play already mentioned during the course of this analysis, there are several others of a more general nature which become obvious when one surveys the play as an entity. First there is the mat• ter of the quality of the humour in the Mummers' play. The scenes 163. of humour in'these plays are based on the bragging of the comba• tants before they fight, on the quarrelling of wife and husband, 57 and on the impertinence of the doctor's man to his master,, Furthermore:, Bottom's very speech is somewhat reminiscent of the topsy-turvydom or nonsense popular in the humour of the Mummers' plays. In the play from Weston-sub-Edge, Gloucestershire, Be• elzebub has the following speech: I went up a straight crooked lane. I met a bark and he dogged at me. I went to the stick and cut a hedge, gave him a rallier over the yud jud kill• ed him round stout stiff and bold from Lancashire I came,....I came to a little big house, I knocked at the door and the maid fell out. She asked if I could eat a cup of her cider and drink a hard crust of her bread and cheese. I said, "No thanks, yes if yer please. 58 It seems to me that Bottom's humorous attempts to verbalize his experience with the Fairy Queen are a Shakespearian rendition of the same dramatic device. Bottom confuses senses in the same way that Mummers' plays confuse complementary articles and actions.
Thus, the play A Midsummer Night's Dream leans heavily on the tradition of the folk-drama, the ritual, and the play spirit of Elizabethan England. Possibly the best example of the use of these elements, this delightful play provides a representative reproduction of the age-youth antipathy and of the customs of Maying and revelry. In it, the flight to the woods is thematic and supplies a significant part of the dramatic experience for the Elizabethan audience. The evidence indicating the use of the elements of typical Mummers' plays is cumulative, and its bulk
57 Tiddy, Mummers' Play, p. 84. 58 Ibid., p. 167. 164. lends weight to the hypothesis. Like Love's Labor's Lost, the play defines the love experience in terras of life as a whole, and confirms the healthy necessity of responding to the demands of the season. Its references to the pastimes and entertainments of the period are similarly numerous, and serve to confirm the patterns already traced in the preceding three plays. 165. CONCLUSION
Shakespearian commentators have often drawn attention to
the abundance of allusions to country sport and pageantry in his
drama, but relatively few have noted the structural and thematic
significance in Shakespeare's plays of the folk ritual and folk-
drama which were a part of the_ Elizabethan heritage. The follow•
ing remarks by Miss Venezky are representative of critical com•
ment in this area:
Not only the pageant, but the entry, the welcome, and the progress entertainment provided an abundant field of reference for imagery to delight the mind's eye of the spectator just as his actual vision was served by the stage spectacle. In antithesis to Homer, who employed pictures of simple daily life to make the splendor of palaces and armies comprehensible to his audience, Shakespeare stirred his listeners by allus• ions to festive display, which not only clarified but colored his lines by reflecting the decoration and allegory of the pageant and progress entertain• ment • 1
Others have commented upon and tabulated the symbols, similes, metaphors, and running imagery which draw upon contemporary pas• times, customs, and sport and contribute subtle overtones to the action, and, ultimately, the theme. As the present study and those of others reveal, Shakespeare's debt to the dramatic tradition and the basic seasonal rituals of the folk is not small, nor can his use of these elements be ignored in any adequate appraisal of the play in which they appear. The search for the direct in• fluence of English folk-drama (which is itself a vestigial rem•
nant of a once-flourishing pagan religion) has become, during the last few years, progressively popular among students of the Elizabethan drama. The drama of England's greatest playwright,
1 Venezky, Pageantry on the Shakespearean Stage, p. 168. 166 o
however, has been largely neglected in this connection,.
In his approach to Shakespeare's Henriad and the comedies of
the middle period, Mr. C.L. Barber has been the pioneer in his
field, and, though much remains to be done, other scholars, notably 2 Mr„ Richard Wincor, in his article, "Shakespeare's Festival Plays", have begun to see the importance of folk-drama and ritual in the last plays, Cymbeline. The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, The present investigation has been fruitful and illuminating for the writer, in disclosing the genesis and early pattern of development of this element in Shakespeare's dramatic method.
The frequent references, not only in the early comedies but in the entire canon, to the pastimes of Elizabethan England, includ• ing a great variety of games and sports many of which are unusual and foreign to us, bring colour and life to the plays, as well as contributing to mood and, finally, through the running imagery, to theme. Sensitive to the cultural tone of his society, Shakespeare drew on its spirit of play and its love of ritual and tradition to embellish his drama, and, as the plays under analysis indicate, even dramatized that society at play. Some plays he constructed after the model of the revel, some through the use of the principle of misrule, and some he developed to project the wonder of the birth-death cycle, often dramatized among the folk as the conflict between the seasons, culminating in the triumph of spring, the season of rebirth. It is this pre-Christian resurrection motif which
2 Shakespeare Quarterly, vol, 1 (1950), pp. 219-40. 167, is in large part responsible for the ecstatic joy in life of the early comedies, prevailing despite the recognition of the death's head grinning through the exuberance of golden lads and girls, as it is for the serene fulfillment of the later romances, a re• conciliation which is also reached only through sorrow and tears.
Shakespeare's debt to English ritual and entertainment is not limited to mere reference. He often used the tradition as a frame• work upon which to mold plots borrowed from Italian or classical sources. In such instances, the framework itself is often trans• muted, and it is always subordinated to a conscious dramatic pur• pose. The pattern which has emerged in this examination of the uses to which the early comedies put English folk ritual and en• tertainment is that of a polarity - age-youth, winter-summer, rule- misrule, and everyday-holiday. These traditional oppositions, which Shakespeare manipulates almost as dramatic formulae, are found most commonly in the Mummers' play, the revelry and misrule of Christmas and May, and, generally, in all ritual and games which originate from pagan celebrations of the rebirth of the year. This dramatic use of polarity provides the spectator with a choice of perspectives from which to regard the action of the play, and places it in proper perspective in terms of life as a whole.
The principle of misrule is peculiarly suited to dramatization, because its use enables the dramatist to set up an artificial world in which the action,obeying its own rules of order in disorder, is for the moment divorced from the real world of which it is nev- 168. ertheless a vital part. As we 'can see in The Taming of the Shrew. Love's Labor's Lost, and A Midsummer NjghtfeDream, the period which is set aside in folk ritual for "misrule" lends itself read• ily to the support of a new or different frame of dramatic refer• ence, and can easily be adapted to suit the needs of an action which is apart from or contrary to the normal, the usual, or the conventionally acceptable. The use of this device enables the drama• tist to construct an action, or a "world", which is for a brief space unique and self-supporting, and in this "world" he may ex• amine and possibly resolve conflicts of persons, ideals, and con• cepts before returning the completed action, possibly by means of a fresh compromise, to the real world still existing outside the dramatic frame of reference. Thus the action of the play has for a time its own peculiar brand of reality, but this action is also shown eventually in the light of everyday reality, and its results are seen in yet a further perspective. This is what Shakespeare sometimes does with both the revel, a form of holiday (or the ob• verse of everyday) and with misrule, which is a highly specialized form of revelry. The rituals borrowed from spring celebrations are often used, within the limits of a revel or the traditional misrule, to support or alter the faltering romantic tendencies of the late Middle Ages, which were beginning to suffer from the in• creased onslaughts of Renaissance realism, the new "reason". Of• ten in the plays there is a conflict between idealism and skepticism, or between desire and social necessity, conveniently presented within the framework of a revel. In The Taming of the Shrew, the comedy is achieved by bringing together the ritual of courtly 169„ love, the traditional wooing sequences of the folk, and the fury of the conventional shrew. Both this play and The Two Gentlemen of Verona are examples of the Renaissance revaluation of the idea• listic thought of the Middle Ages. As is the case in A Midsummer-
Night's Dream. Valentine suffers from the social necessity that desire must be subordinated to duty. In Love's Labor's Lost.
Shakespeare presents both the appeal and the incongruities of the traditional Elizabethan ritual of courtship, and expresses skir• mishes of wit couched in feudal and military metaphors in the battle between the ascetics and the exponents of the spring season. Fin• ally, A Midsummer Night's Dream presents the conflict between the irrational force of sublunary passion and the irrational use of authority, in contrast to the rationally ordered court.
In these early comedies, folk ritual and entertainments of all kinds are used to dramatic advantage not only in the language, but also in the development of character, incident, setting, struc• ture, and theme. As the dramatist matures and becomes more ex• perienced in the manipulation of his materials, his use of "props" borrowed from the folk-drama becomes less artificial and more consciously dramatic and integrally functional. At first these elements appear most frequently at the level of rhetorical orna• ment, as the source material of similes. Later, they appear as metaphor or, where they are not a part of the formal imagery, as surrounding the action in an aura of connotation, overtone, and parallel, adding immeasurably to the subtle sophistication and significance of the theme. In his choice of metaphor and simile, 170. as, later, in structure and theme, Shakespeare uses elements of folk tradition common to all levels of society, and, therefore, familiar to the whole of his audience. In thus engrafting art upon that "scion of baser stock" the dramatic element in folk rit• ual, his "great creating nature" fashioned a new kind of drama for the new professional stage.
In each of the four early comedies under analysis, the essent• ial conflict is presented by drawing upon the rituals of the spring celebrations of the folk. In three of the four, the use of the rituals and customs of Maying is obviously thematic and intrinsic to the action. The age-youth conflict, found in both the tradit• ional Mummers' play and the pageant battle between summer and win• ter, supplies a pattern for the action and also provides numerous allusions and images. The conflict of the drama is resolved in the woods, according to the ritual of the "flight to the woods", and the characters who impede the progress of the action are "kill• joys", representatives of age and society, who refuse to recognize the place of the spring season in the life of man. In each com• edy, the situation is essentially the same, though developed through the use of different techniques. Always a symbolic repre• sentative of age, winter, asceticism, or society in some way pre• vents a young woman from marrying the man of her choice, or hinders the young from doing "observance" to the spring season^ This activating circumstance produces the conflict, arising from an unhealthy situation in the society, and the ensuing action moves toward the resolution of this conflict in a new social harmony, 171 o signified either by a wedding or by a masque
In the fourth play, The Taming of the Shrew, the use of the
folk tradition is not quite so obvious; however, Petruchio soon
acquires the characteristics of the wooers of the Mummers' plays,
and seems to participate in a period of misrule. Like Love's
Labor's Lost, this play begins by extolling study and abstinence,
but no sooner are the ideals set forth than they are shattered, or
tempered, by the holiday-misrule spirit. The traditions of
wooing sequences become obviously thematic, and emphasize the
age-youth antipathy inherent in the play. Like the Maying themes
of the other three plays, the atmosphere of holiday and misrule which pervades The Taming of the Shrew, culminates in marriage
and in harmony in the community. Whatever the details of the plot
may be, the resolution is always the same, the restoration of
social harmony. The unity of the community is assured and the
aberrant impulses are chastened or commended and returned solidly
within the framework of society itself.
The later comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, is an example of
a subtle and complex use of the tendencies traced in the four
plays already analyzed. Almost a tragi-comedy, the play is not
a conscious manipulation of the folk theme of misrule or of the
flight to the woods; it does, however, reveal the more artistic
use of such elements in combination with a more stylized molding
of metaphors employing folk ritual and entertainment, and contains
the traditional mock-death and revival of the Mummers' play, fore- 172.
shadowing the use of this device in the last plays. This play is especially interesting because, as Miss Caroline Spurgeon points out, it contains numerous functional references to folk pastimes. As Miss Spurgeon explains:
This atmosphere of outdoor sport is not imagination, but is supported by statistics. For the only time in Shakespeare's plays, the images from sport head the list, and are therefore more numerous than those of either nature or animals. They include many from bird-snaring, riding and fishing, as well as others from archery, shooting, tilting, hunting, fencing, bird-nesting, and bear baiting. Others, such as wrestling (listed under Bodily Action), might legitimately be added. 3
The play contains an approximation of the familiar pattern of the
traditional age-youth, summer-winter contest, but it is one that
is infinitely more complicated by the social and psychological motives which underemphasize its ritual significance and lean toward the philosophical tragedies of the central period. At the end of his career, Shakespeare is to return to the thematic and functional use of folk-drama and ritual involving the rebirth of the year, to produce the beautiful and often enigmatic plays of reconciliation, Cymbeline. The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest.
That the most eminent of English dramatists should make use of the customs and culture of his people in producing his master• pieces should not surprise us. To discover yet another level of significance to the great plays which have lived for three hundred and fifty years, still as exciting and vigorous as they were on their first days of performance, is but further tribute to the
3 Spurgeon, Sh.'s Imagery, p. 264. 173. remarkable genius that produced them. In creating his comedies, the dramatist drew from the cultural heritage of his people, and with his immense artistry molded it to a conscious dramatic pur• pose. On the one hand, Shakespeare's plays are the most uni• versal and timeless of our language; on the other, they are per• haps even more representative of their period than we suspect.
It is no longer possible to say that they represent a break• through from the dark-ages, or that they are the "woodnotes wild" of a new genius. We now recognize that they are blossoms on the stems of a long-established tradition of English popular drama which continued to nourish new buds well into the seven• teenth century. 174. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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II ANTHOLOGIES:
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