UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

A Learned Audience:

Spectators, Auditors, Shakespeare and Song

by

Paul L. Faber

A THESIS

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IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

CALGARY, ALBERTA

SEPTEMBER, 2009

© Paul L. Faber 2009

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Abstract

Faber’s thesis examines song references in Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and The Second part of Henry IV and how such references link to central issues in each play. He also demonstrates how Shakespeare, through clever dramaturgy, attempts to psychologically prepare his audience to perceive song references and the full extent of their implications. Faber argues that such preparation exposes Shakespeare’s view that all in his audience possessed similar critical “auditing” abilities regardless of education or social position.

ii Acknowledgements

A number of wonderful minds have shaped my experience for the last six years at the University of Calgary and, in their own way, colour this text to various degrees. I extend great thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Mary Polito who encouraged this line of inquiry early on and, through her consummate professionalism, innate positivity, and patient shepherding, inspired me to work as hard on this project as I have on anything in my life. I must also acknowledge here my father, Dr. Mel D. Faber and my wife, Amy Hinrichs, both of whom supplied relentless support as well as many insightful and, thankfully, sobering conversations as I chopped away. As this work represents my last academic endeavour at the University of Calgary, I would also like to thank the following: Dr. Michael T. Clarke, Dr. James Ellis, Dr. Jeanne Perreault, Dr. Mary Polito, Dr. Vivienne Rundle and Apollonia Steele, many of whose letters, I am convinced, were key to my placement with the ideal PhD supervisor in a fine institution, yet whose professional examples and many shades of grace, I am equally convinced, will benefit me far more. I must also offer thanks to the administrative staff at the University of Calgary English department: Barb Howe, Anne Jaggard and Brigitte Clarke for their everyday generosity and patience in their dealings with us all. Finally I would like to thank Dr. Katherine Zelinsky, whose great enthusiasm and fine teaching convinced me that the study of literature was something I not only could do but should do.

iii Dedication

This thesis is dedicated to all those who performed, listened, and criticized with me amidst the amphitheatres, nightclubs, arenas, hotels, cars and campfire light–the collage of spheres in which I was myself for twenty years of professional music. This entire effort springs from one moment in Shakespeare that I would never have recognized if not for all of you, in concert.

iv Table of Contents

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………. ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………... iii Dedication……...……………………………………………………………….. iv Table of Contents……………………………………………………………….. v Epigraph………………………………………………………………………… vi

Introduction……………………………………………………………………... 1 Broadside Ballads: The Popular Song as Signifier……………………... 3 Song and Semiotics……………………………………………………... 8 Chapter 1. “Have You Heard the News?”: From Spectator to Auditor in The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet………………………... 16 Overcoming Acoustics?...... 25 Chapter 2. To Please All: Auditors, Spectators, and Songs in Hamlet…………. 30 2.1. From the Grave: “I Lothe that I Did Love”………………………… 34 2.2. At Each Ear a Hearer: “Jephtah, Judge of Israel”…………...... 39 2.3. What We May Be: Auditing the Spectacle of Ophelia……...... 45 Chapter 3. The Taming of the Spectator: Act 2, scene 3 of Twelfth Night...... 73 Chapter 4. Marking a “Withered Old Knight”: 2 Henry IV…………………….. 92 4.1. Bad Apples…………………………………………………………. 92 4.2. Bad Apples II………………………………………………………. 101 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………. 111 Works Cited……………………………………………………………………... 116

v

“This cuff was but to knock at your ear and beseech list'ning.”

William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

vi 1

Introduction

Act 2, scene 3 of Twelfth Night opens to feature Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew

Aguecheek in the first turns of one of Shakespeare’s more famous late-night bacchanals.

Just after the call for wine, Feste enters hailing his comrades with the quip “Did you never see the picture of ‘we three’?”.1 His comment refers to a contemporary trick picture featuring two fools or asses heads–the implication being that the third is the viewer.2 Sir

Toby’s response “Welcome Ass” confirms the link (12). The initial joke is, of course, the notion of Feste the fool apprehending his two arguably foolish friends. Once we understand its contemporary significance however, “We Three” emerges also as a liminal device transcending the psychological boundary separating the world of the audience from that of the stage. In the process of imagining the trick picture, the spectator reflexively places him/herself within the dynamic of its joke–the recognition of the marked self. In the midst of watching a play, in which one often “forgets oneself,” such recognition would likely have generated for many a particular sobriety. For “We Three” not only reminds the audience of itself, it also suggests that the spectator must mine the full measure of the presentation before him/her–the spectacle and its qualifying words– else risk missing something of particular importance. Through Feste, then, we find

1 These and all other references to Shakespearean drama are taken from The Royal Shakespeare Company edition. Shakespeare, William. The Royal Shakespeare Company Complete Works. Eds. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2007. Print. 2 William Shakespeare. The Norton Shakespeare. Gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 1997. Print. Pg. 675, note 3. For a more detailed discussion, see Shakespeare, William. Twelfe Night or What You Will. Ed. Horrace Howard Furness. 4th. ed. London: J.B. Lippincott, 1901. Print: 108, note for line 20. The RSC edition does not contain a note explaining the picture reference. 2

Shakespeare delivering to his audience a subtle yet unmistakable directive: “Pay attention here.”

Of course, as Jeremy Lopez points out, Renaissance drama brims with devices which, at some level, encourage perspicacity. Yet I take Feste’s allusion to be of a different species than those examined in Lopez’s Theatrical Convention and Audience

Response in Early Modern Drama (2003);3 it is less overt than a pun, aside or exposition; it also lacks specificity, in that it marks neither elements of the plot nor a character’s intentions or motivation. Constructions such as Feste’s trick picture appear designed to tacitly move “spectators” to become “auditors” (to use Andrew Gurr’s terms)4 in preparation for key moments. In other words, “We three” exemplifies a dramaturgical technique designed to entice audience members from a passive, spectating role to an actively critical one in order that they may fully perceive the significance of coming phenomena. Yet the audience is never told what it must seek to understand, only that it must seek.

The most numerous, creative and complex examples of these preparatory constructions occur in three plays written in and around 1600-1601: Hamlet, 2 Henry IV, and Twelfth Night; and all are bound up with song. More specifically, they appear designed to prepare audiences to perceive song references, their implications and, concurrently, key dramatic issues the song references often appear to inform. My primary goal in this study is to illuminate these prompts and their operation while simultaneously

3 Jeremy Lopez. Theatrical Convention and Audience Response in Early Modern Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print: Passim. 4 Andrew Gurr. Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print: Passim, esp. 102-16. 3 exposing that which they seem built in part to serve: the song references and the

“meaning” they contribute to the larger work. Finally, I will explore the implications of my findings with regard to our current understanding of Shakespeare’s audience, its composition and capacities and, perhaps, how the author may have perceived such things.

Shakespeare appears to have chosen song references whose “meanings” in relation to the drama containing them could be perceived simultaneously by writerly, learned patrons, formally trained to make such connections, and by those considered less literary and of more spectatorial tastes–the “citizens” who comprised the bulk of London playgoers.

Through the preparatory efforts that surround these song references, Shakespeare demonstrates a basic confidence that all in his audience, regardless of education, possess the ability to actively audit these particular semiotic constructions–to “get” the messages, the issues, and thus the “soul” underlying the spectacle.

Broadside Ballads: The Popular Song as Signifier

The main objects of study in this thesis are popular songs, most of these of the ballad variety. Their place in studies of Renaissance drama has often been relegated to the esoteric, yet their presence within the culture was deep, their influence upon the stage in league with classical literature. Ballads–and indeed songs in general–ultimately originate in the infantile amnesia of language itself, when information transmission was purely oral and aural, its storage the sole province of human memory. For thousands of years before the emergence of writing, “the entire oral noetic world or thought world 4 relied upon the formulaic constitution of thought”5 to preserve all collective knowledge from history to mythology to negotiations of the everyday.6 Not surprisingly, systems of versified words set to memorable music evolved and thrived in the psychological, social and cultural spaces created under these exclusively oral/aural conditions. Indeed, many such systems remain abundant in modern pedagogy, advertising, national and corporate anthems etc.

In the age of Shakespeare, oral systems remained the chief way the still- predominantly unlettered population managed existence. However, as Adam Fox explains, the rapid growth of literacy and print culture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought printed material to more classes of people, engendering a collision of sorts between the ancient oral and emerging literate cultures.7 A rather ironic result of this collision was the wide dissemination of literature among the illiterate and semi- literate masses. The exemplar of this trend was the broadside ballad,8 a cheap, folio-sized printing of lyrics set to popular (and often ancient) tunes. Subject matter varied from traditional songs, to various mythologies, to the most current news and political gossip.

The popularity and ubiquity of these texts cannot be over emphasised. In the first ten years of Elizabeth I’s reign one can find close to “forty publishers of ballads…in the

5 Walter Ong. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. 1982. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print: 23. 6 Adam Fox. Oral and Literate Culture in England 1500-1700. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Print: 24. 7 Fox 14. 8 Earliest surviving examples of broadsides date to around 1535. For a concise discussion of the phenomena, see Leslie Shepard. The Broadside Ballad. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1962. Print; Simpson, Claude M. The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1966. Print; and Ross W. Duffin Shakespeare’s Songbook. New York: Norton, 2004. Print: 11-41. 5 registers of Stationers’ Hall and some thirty more can be found [that] were not registered.”9 The current list of known ballad writers approaches two hundred.10 But this surely represents merely a glimpse of the industry, for by the end of the sixteenth century, the number of printed ballad sheets has been estimated at a staggering four million.11

Particularly interesting, however, is the notion that, though clearly products of the literate, broadside ballads were designed primarily for mouth and ear, their catchy phrases and provocative subject matter meant to “[fly] through the air,” as Christopher

Marsh puts it,12 sung first by the minority who could read and then from the hearts of the majority who could not. Fox writes:

[W]hile print aided in dissemination of the message to an exponential degree, the form of the message is designed for retention in the fashion of an oral culture…In this semi literate world the value of couching a message in verse or song was clear: rhymes passed around quickly by word of mouth tripping easily off the tongue and lodging firmly into memory.13 Broadside ballads became so popular during the English Renaissance that by the end of the sixteenth century, they functioned as an impromptu educator of the masses. As Ross

Duffin writes:

They were the entertainment of the time, the Elizabethan equivalent of television sitcoms and miniseries, even feature films. They reflected the

9 Diana Poulton. “The Black-letter Broadside and Its Music.” Early Music 9 (1981): 427- 437. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 16 Feb. 2009: 428. 10 Poulton 428. 11 Fox 408. 12 Christopher Marsh. “The Sound of Print in Early Modern England: the Broadside ballad as Song,” The Uses of Script and Print. Eds. Julia Crick and Alexandra Walsham. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. 171-190. Print: 173. 13 Fox 304. 6

society at the same time as they affected it. Just as today more people probably know about Queen Elizabeth I through Shekhar Kapur’s 1998 movie Elizabeth than through more historical works, most Elizabethans knew about Dido, Diana and Daphne through ballads rather than through Virgil and Ovid.14 While their often-abysmal verse might suggest otherwise, ballads were enjoyed at every level of society.15 “Elite” composers include Christopher Marlowe, Walter Raleigh,

Sir Edward Dyer, Andrew Marvel and even James I. Moreover, common sense dictates that, in light of such ubiquity, ballads would have been encountered regularly by any and all who traversed the streets of London, as well as by those in proximity to the nurseries, kitchens and fields of the wealthy. It is thus easy to understand Shakespeare taking full advantage of the ballad phenomenon as he fashioned plays for the popular theatre.

Indeed, there are over one hundred and sixty instances of, or allusions to, popular song in

Shakespeare. Ballads represented an arguably universal mythological space, alive in the psyche and discourse of every one of his patrons.

There are perhaps a handful of book-length studies that target, to various degrees, popular song in Shakespeare. Authors include Richmond Noble (1923), John H. Long

(1955), Fredrick W. Sternfeld (1963), and Peter J. Seng (1967). In the twenty-first century, David Lindley’s Shakespeare and Music (2006) and particularly Ross Duffin’s

Shakespeare’s Songbook (2004) are essentials. However, while all are helpful, especially in concert, many of these works are unsatisfying for the student of literature in that they

14 Duffin 20. 15 For further discussions, see Duffin 17; Poulton 432 and Joshua B. Fisher. “‘He is Turned a Ballad Maker’: Broadside Appropriations in Early Modern England.” Early Modern Literary Studies 9.2 (2003): 1-21. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 25 Sept. 2008: 9. 7 are fundamentally musicological. Duffin’s book, with its accompanying CD, for example, is immensely valuable for its links to song sources; yet it is first and foremost an effort to link tunes with words–to demonstrate how the songs might have sounded; dramatic function is relegated to intriguing asides.

My study, conversely, privileges words and/or source text implied through a fragment or reference over their musical delivery vehicles. One might suspect an inherent flaw here due to the often-thorny problem of determining precisely to which song, or version, a fragment or reference a character/the author may allude. To this I submit that, in a great many cases, one need not be in possession of such particulars to develop legitimate, useful understanding. As with classical allusions in Shakespeare, it is often only broad themes that are important. When, for example, Orsino laments of his first encounter with Olivia, “I turned into a hart / And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds /

E’er since pursue me (TN 1.1.20-4), the audience need only possess the basics of the

Acteon/Diana myth,16 available from a multitude of sources, to appreciate his meaning.

As we shall see, the same is very often true with allusions to song: if we can manage to distil the story, theme, or even simply the genre or mood, it often appears to be all that is necessary to expose the extra level of entertainment.

16 The story is a commonplace in Renaissance literature. Acteon spies the goddess bathing who, as punishment, turns him into a hart to be pursued and eventually killed by his own hunting dogs. 8

Song and Semiotics

All songs in Shakespeare bear some degree of semiotic function. In light of my survey of the canon, and to ease discussion, I have separated such function into three general classes. The first and simplest of these marks songs utilized at face value to augment an established mood, aesthetic, or character trait. For example, Iago, in an attempt to persuade the reluctant Michael Cassio to drink, conjures a rousing refrain in the hopes that it will move Othello’s new lieutenant towards a more malleable humour:

IAGO. And let me the Cannikin clink, clink, And let me the Cannikin clink: A Soldier’s a man, O, man’s life’s but a span, Why then let a soldier drink. (2.3.62-66) While no source has yet been discovered for this reference, it seems clear that before us is a simple drinking song positioned as a musical prop and little more. Interchanged with a song of similar vein, the underlying message would be identical: here is a song of light- hearted comradeship designed to lure Cassio into a false sense of conviviality.

A second semiotic class includes fragments signifying source songs whose subjects, themes or lessons augment the drama of the moment. A delightful example of such operation occurs in Alls Well that Ends Well where Bertrand attempts to goad the blustering popinjay Paroles to recover his drum, so shamefully lost in battle. If undertaken, this quest will (and does) drive Paroles into the hands of the Lords Dumaine who plan to disguise themselves as the enemy and frighten the dandy into slandering

Bertrand, whom they believe esteems him erroneously. The excerpt runs as follows: 9

Enter PAROLES SECOND LORD. O for the love of laughter hinder not the honour of his design. [Aside to Bertram] Let him fetch off his drum in any hand. BERTRAND. How now, monsieur? This drum sticks sorely in your disposition. FIRST LORD. A pox on’t, let it go! ‘tis but a drum. PAROLES. ‘But a drum’? Is’t but a drum? A drum so lost! There was excellent command: to charge in without our horse upon our own wings and to rend our own soldiers! (3.6.26-32) From here, Parole’s choler is further stoked until he vows to singlehandedly sneak into the enemy ranks and retrieve his drum. Ross Duffin links the term “monsieur” in this passage to a tune entitled “Monsieur’s Almaine” to which was sung “A ioyful nevv

Ballad, declaring the happie obtaining of the great Calleazzo…” published by Thomas

Deloney in 1588.17 At first it may seem a stretch to link to a ballad tune18 what was during the period a common form of address, especially among French noblemen like

Bertrand and his compatriots. However, when one reads the text of the ballad, the link to the reference becomes clear, for the ballad is principally concerned with stories of the

Spanish Armada and tales of Englishmen triumphing against formidable odds. The following excerpt illustrates:

A flag of truce they did hang out, with many mournfull cries:

17 Duffin 269 and Thomas Deloney. “A Joyful Nevv Ballad, Declaring the Happie Obtaining of the Great Galleazzo” London: Iohn Wolfe, 1588. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 2 Dec. 2008. 18 It is interesting also that it is the tune to which the ballad was sung and not the actual title that triggers the connection. Marsh demonstrates convincingly that it was common for authors to assign to ballads well known tunes that in themselves delivered an extra layer of significance. 10

Which when our men, did perfectly espie: Some little Barkes they sent to her, to board her quietly

But these false Spaniards, estéeming them but weake: When they within their danger came, their malice forth did breake. With charged Cannons, …………………………………….. Like Lions fierce [The English] forward went, to quite this iniurie. And bourding them, with strong and mightie hand: They kild the men vntill their Arke, did sinke in Callice sand.19 It is conceivable, then, that for those familiar with this patriotic ballad and the tune to which it was sung, Bertrand’s comment of “How now monsieur?” signifies not simply a form of address but a challenge to Paroles’ courage and chivalry, one that the puffed up noble is unable to resist. Particularly interesting is how this new understanding of

“monsieur’s” significance effectively changes the interpersonal dynamic represented in the scene, for now it appears that Paroles’ bluster is not engendered entirely from within to then be encouraged through reverse psychology. Instead one finds him goaded from the beginning.

19 This excerpt comes from verses 5 and 6 of the ballad. 11

A third semiotic class identifies song references delivering significantly more complicated messages than the previous two. Such messages are often multiplicitous and unresolved, presenting numerous aspects of characters’ personalities and/or messages of forthcoming events. Many of these references also appear devoted to the crystallization of specific issues in the minds of audience members. Additionally, I find a common feature of this third class of song to be an air of obliviousness; often it seems that no one onstage recognizes the reference and its significance, thus leaving the impression that there exists a message designated principally for the audience rather than for those within the conjured world on stage. Returning to act 2, scene 3 of Othello, the second song Iago sings in his effort to woo Cassio into drunken irascibility is a compelling example of this kind of phenomenon. Just after singing “And let the cannikin clink” (2.3.61-6), Iago cries: “O sweet England!” and then sings:

King Stephen was and-a worthy peer, His breeches cost him but a crown: He held them sixpence all too dear, With that he called the tailor lown He was a wight of high renown, And thou art but of low degree. ‘Tis pride that pulls the country down: Then take thy auld cloak about thee. (2.3.73-80) To this Cassio remarks, “‘For God, this is a more exquisite Song than the other” (2.3.84) suggesting he is indeed turning towards drink and his eventual fate of demotion due to brawling. More attentive members of Shakespeare’s audience, however, would have gleaned an extra, sinister connotation lurking within the reference. Iago’s “song” is in 12 fact a variation of the seventh stanza of a popular Scottish ballad existing under various titles including “Bell My Wife,” “The Auld Cloak,” and “Take Thine Auld Cloak About

Thee.”20 The original stanza reads:

SHE. King Harry was a very good King: I trow his hose cost but a crown; He thought them twelvepence over too dear, Therefore he call’d the tailor Clown. He was a king and wore the Crown, And thouse but of a low degree: It’s pride that puts this country down: Man, put thine auld cloak about thee!21 The main theme of this ballad, to which I will refer henceforth as “The Auld Cloak,” is an appeal for order at the grassroots level. “SHE,” a woman named Bell, successfully lobbies her husband to stay home and tend to domestic affairs rather than contribute to seditious elements within the royal court in the hopes of elevation. What makes this understanding of Iago’s song so provocative is the observation that the villain has changed the name of the monarch mentioned in his chosen stanza from Harry to Stephen.

As Rosalind King points out, the reign of Stephen of Blois (the only “King Stephen” in

English history) from 1135 to 1154 was “notorious as a time of strife and anarchy.”22 The son of Adela of Normandy, sister to Henry I, Stephen’s ascent to power has been described as a “pre-emptive coup,” a race across the channel upon Henry’s death to

20 Thomas Percy. Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript. Ballads and Romances. London: N. Trübner, 1868. Internet Archive. The Presidio of San Francisco, 2008. Web. 20 Jan. 2009: 320-4. 21 Percy 324. 22 Rosalind King. “‘Then Murder’s Out of Tune’: The Music and Structure of Othello.” Shakespeare Survey 39 (1987): 149-158. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 10 July 2009: 154. 13 snatch the crown before Henry’s daughter Maud could mount a claim.23 The result of this power-grab was nineteen years of civil war, with the two claimants and their respective supporters submerged in a veritable stew of political intrigue, duplicity and instability.

Although modern historians question the actual severity of the chaos, it is important to understand that medieval chroniclers uniformly recorded the reign of Stephen as a period of bloody lawlessness resulting from a breakdown of what they saw as a peaceful, orderly political system.24 In early modern literature, references to Stephen are numerous and his association with chaos and civil war a commonplace. Holinshed’s Chronicles (1577) contains a lengthy account of his reign in which we read:

The kingdome…diuided into two seueral factions, was by all similitudes like to come to utter ruine: for the people kindled in hatred one against another, sought nothing else but reuenge on both sides, and still the land was spoiled and wasted by the men of warre which lodged in the castels and fortresses, and would often issue out to harie and spoile the countries.25 Holinshed continually identifies the root cause of the conflict to be the breaking of oaths by all concerned, but especially by Stephen whose eventual demise is ultimately the province of God who “meant to punish him for his periurie committed in taking vpon him the crowne, contrarie to his oth [of allegiance] made vnto the empress [Maud] and hir

23 Henry had no male heirs at the time of his death. His only legitimate son, William, was drowned in a shipwreck in 1120. For the full discussion see George Garnet. “Conquered England.” The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England. Ed. Nigel Saul. New York: Oxford UP, 1997. 61-101. Print: 83. 24 Garnett 84. 25 Raphael Holinshed. Chronicles. 1577. Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. 1807. Vol. 2. New York: AMS, 1965. Print: 92. 14 children.”26 In 1608, Thomas Dekker speaks of the Stephen years as “a flaming combustion of discord”27 while in 1612 Samuel Daniel sums them up as a period

“wherein we are to haue no other representations, but of reuoltes, beseiging of Castles, surprizings, recouerings, loosings againe, with great spoyles, and destruction; in briefe a most miserable face of a distracted State.”28 It thus takes little to appreciate the contemporary irony likely produced by Iago’s “king-switch.” For Iago is as seditious, duplicitous and chaotic a figure as they come. Indeed, the substitution marks him as a proponent of exactly the sort of behaviour the original ballad discourages. From here, then, one can see how the king-switch produces a foreshadowing of sorts; a textual hint that Iago is precisely the kind of man the coming tragedy proves him to be. Curiously, there is no indication that other characters on stage at the time of Iago’s utterance recognize the allusion. Indeed, one wonders if even Iago himself “realises” the implications of his words–words that so many in attendance would instantly appreciate.

This third class of song reference, then, represents a method of direct, poignant transmission between author and audience, one that transcends temporal and theatrical boundaries to convey important messages at particular moments–the message in this case being Iago’s truly evil nature.

26 Holinshed records numerous instances of lies and betrayal on both sides of the conflict. See Volume 2, 79, 80, 81, 82, 87 etc. 27 Thomas Dekker. The Dead Tearme. Or, VVestminsters Complaint for Long Vacations and Short Termes Written in Manner of a Dialogue Betweene the Two Cityes London and Westminster. London: W. Jaggard, 1508. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 2 Dec. 2008: Document image 13. 28 For the full discussion, Samuel Daniel. The First Part of the Historie of England. London: Nicholas Okes, 1612. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 27 Jan. 2009: 202-38. 15

The song references comprising the main focus of this thesis are of this third class. Yet, unlike the above example, most of the following are buttressed by phenomena designed to focus audience attention. Chapter one examines two early plays, The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet in which, I argue, exist early models of such preparatory techniques. Later in the chapter, I suggest reasons as to why such dramaturgy may have developed. Chapter two offers a brief overview of the playgoing environment in 1600 and then provides an exposition of the emerging concepts of auditors and spectators that flourished in the intense competition for business during the period. With such conditions and concepts in mind, I will then turn to a detailed analysis of song references and preparatory tactics in select portions of Hamlet. Similar analyses of

Twelfth Night and The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, two plays written at roughly the same time as Hamlet, are offered in chapters three and four respectively. I will then conclude with a summation of my main argument: that through these analyses we can not only perceive a valuable dimension of Shakespeare’s dramatic art, we can also detect the author’s perception of his patrons’ critical abilities and his concentrated dramaturgical effort to entice all at the Globe, regardless of status or education, into actively auditing specific dramatic phenomena in order that they may appreciate all the levels of entertainment he has so cleverly assembled.

16

Chapter 1. “Have You Heard the News?”: From Spectator to Auditor in The

Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet

As mentioned my introduction, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and The Second Part of

Henry the Fourth contain a high concentration of third-class song references, most of which appear augmented with ancillary preparatory phenomena. Before considering such phenomena, it is necessary to touch briefly on what Jeremy Lopez describes as the

“hyperactivity of language” present in early modern drama: the predominance of metaphor, puns, asides and expository speech in early modern drama that surely cultivated perspicacity in theatre audiences.1 While this aspect of the art must surely be counted, I think it a mistake to herd the preparatory dramaturgical constructions examined in this thesis into the same corral. I believe this because the language Lopez labels as hyperactive would seem, I argue, far less so by the early moderns. It must be understood that hyperactive dramatic language is firstly a symptom of a literature rising and blooming from the still-predominantly oral culture that was its earth, a culture still operating in a “sound-dominated verbal economy…consonant with aggregative

(harmonizing) tendencies.”2 In other words, Shakespeare’s audience was a culture in which catchy, rhyming, clever sayings mined from the mouths of others were staple commodities to the successful operation of living. Lopez’ observation of a hyperactive language, stuffed with attention-encouraging constructions is ultimately a recognition of

1 Lopez 55 and passim. 2 Ong 72. 17 exemplary distillations of a culture’s quotidian discourse and the underlying psychodynamic of the everyday perpetuating it.

As we will see, the preparatory dramaturgy examined here is not part of this kind of discursive dynamic. Feste’s trick picture is a special kind of underscoring, a tacit, yet premeditated and often protracted, dramaturgical effort to encourage audiences to use their particular critical gifts at particular moments. While the most sophisticated of these appear in the three plays mentioned above, all of which were written around 1600-01, there are a few compelling examples within some of the author’s early plays, one of which, The Taming of the Shrew (1592), suspiciously involves song references. I offer thus as an introduction to the more sophisticated dramaturgical constructions in the above trio of plays, an analysis first of song references in select portions of Shr. and next an illumination of what seems a similar but far simpler effort by the younger Shakespeare to prepare his audience to recognise and appreciate important phenomena.

At the opening of act 4 of The Taming of the Shrew, Grumio enters what the audience shortly recognises as his master’s house. Petruchio will shortly arrive with his new bride and it appears Grumio has been appointed vanguard. The house is cold; he is irritated, muttering wearily of “mad masters, and all foul ways” (3.3.1). At line 8, Curtis enters and proceeds to grill Grumio for news of their master’s progresses and condition.

Below is a truncated version of the exchange with key lines emphasised in bold:

CURTIS. Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio? GRUMIO. O, ay, Curtis, ay; and therefore fire, fire; cast on no water. CURTIS. Is she so hot a shrew as she’s reported? GRUMIO. She was, good Curtis, before this frost; 18

…………………………………………………………………. CURTIS. I prithee, good Grumio, tell me how goes the world? GRUMIO. A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and therefore fire: …………………………………………………………………. CURTIS. There’s fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news? GRUMIO. Why, ‘Jack boy! ho, boy!’ and as much news as thou wilt. CURTIS. Come, you are so full of cony-catching! GRUMIO. Why, therefore, fire; for I have caught extreme cold. Where’s the cook? ………………………………………………………………… CURTIS. All ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news. GRUMIO. First know my horse is tired; my master and mistress fall’n out. CURTIS. How? GRUMIO. Out of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby hangs a tale. CURTIS. Let’s ha’t, good Grumio. GRUMIO. Lend thine ear. CURTIS. Here. GRUMIO. There. Strikes him CURTIS. This ‘tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale. GRUMIO. And therefore ‘tis call’d a sensible tale; and this cuff was but to knock at your ear and beseech list’ning. Now I begin: Imprimis, we came down a foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress. (3.3.11-43 emphasis added) Two aspects of this passage bear consideration. The first is that there are two song references present. “[F]ire, fire; cast on no water” alludes to a catch3 whose earliest extant source is in the Lant Roll (1580) at Kings College. It reads:

3 Catch: “A type of comic round for male voices, popular in England from the late 16th century until about 1800.” Grove Music Online. For the full definition, see David Johnson. 19

Scotland is burning Scotland is burning Look out! Look out! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Pour on water, Pour on water.4 This catch and its revised version which reads, “England is burning etc.” is still, “with

‘Three Blind Mice’ … perhaps the most popular round in existence today.”5 The second reference, “‘Jack boy, ho boy’ and as much news as wilt thou” clearly recalls another catch found on the Lant Roll (1580), as well as in Thomas Ravenscroft’s Pammelia

(1609) and in the Melvill Book of Roundels (1612). The full version reads:

Jack boy, ho boy, news, The cat is in the well, Let us ring now for her knell Ding dong ding dong bell.6 One quickly understands the “Fire Fire” reference as a song of the first semiotic class– simply a display of Grumio’s personality, for he uses ballads semiotically in his everyday speech throughout the play, and at the moment he is cold. “Jack boy, ho boy,” however, is clearly a more sophisticated, third-class reference, one foreshadowing Katherine’s impending doom for, like the cat in the well, Kate will shortly find herself a helpless prisoner, facing “famishing” (4.1.3) in this cold, dark place into which she has fallen.

Moreover, it is easy to conceive the sound a cat would make once stuck in a well and, correlatively, the connection of such a sound image to the futile protestations Kate will

“Catch.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, 2007-9. Web. 8 May 2009. 4 Jill Vlasto. “An Elizabethan Anthology of Rounds.” Musical Quarterly 40 (1954): 222- 234. Oxford Journals. Web. 16 Mar. 2009. Web. 14 Feb. 2009: 229. 5 Vlasto 229. 6 Vlasto 226. 20 make, as she comes to recognize her predicament. On an additional level, the term “jack boy” is intriguing. The OED defines it as “a boy employed in menial work,”7 which clearly resonates, for Curtis appears to be precisely that. Beyond these connections, Ross

Duffin argues that the “bell-like refrain” of the catch tune would remind early modern listeners of a “Jack o’ the clock” “…a mechanical figure that struck the bell in an automatic clock,”8 an idea that will gain currency shortly.

The second notable aspect of this passage is the cuffing of Curtis. Grumio’s excuse for the blow, that Curtis requires a “knock at [his] ear [to] beseech listening,” is decidedly strange, for Curtis has been asking if he may listen to the news for over thirty lines. What then of the cuff? Aside from a comical interlude between servants to introduce the new scene, I argue that this exchange has been designed to goad the audience into paying closer attention to the significance of future phenomena. Consider that, for over thirty lines, the audience witnesses someone asking for the news and being consistently denied. It is not hard to see how, by the end of the exchange, the audience would be just as desirous of the news as Curtis. Consider also the reference to the “Jack o’ the clock,” and the sound it makes in the calling of public attention to the hour.9 The link to a cat in a well brings a poignant, siren-like sound-image to the mind. Like the bell of the clock, such a sound, to any mind, signifies one thing: pay attention to me. Imbibed with such signification and then so punctuated with Grumio’s beseeching slap, one thus

7 Def. 1. OED Online. Ed. John Simpson. Oxford UP, 2009. Web. 20 Mar. 2009. 8 Duffin 225. 9 Consider further the general implication of large tolling bells during a period when such devices functioned (as they still do to a degree) to relay other important public messages (it is time for prayers, the city is under attack, someone has died etc.). 21 finds the first forty-four lines of act 3, scene 3 devoted, at multiple levels, to a simple message: pay attention here; and surely it is a message designed not for the overtly curious Curtis, but for us, the audience.

The only question now is what precisely it is to which we should pay special attention. I argue that part of the answer lies in the lines immediately following. These comprise Grumio’s synopsis of the trip home in all its slapstick disaster:

GRUMIO. Tell thou the tale. But hadst thou not cross’d me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she under her horse; thou shouldst have heard in how miry a place, how she was bemoil’d, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he beat me because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to pluck him off me, how he swore, how she pray’d that never pray’d before, how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle was burst, how I lost my crupper, with many things of worthy memory which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return unexperienc’d to thy grave. (3.3.48-55) This passage differs from the majority of those in the play in that it necessitates active audience participation rather than passive. Instead of simply watching action unfold upon the stage, the audience must listen to the story and imagine it in their minds. Thus, it seems clear that the lines preceding Grumio’s tale have been fashioned in part to subliminally muster the audience from the comparative hypnosis of passive engagement to a more active, critical consciousness–to “beseech listening”–in order that they be better suited to fully absorb Grumio’s telling of the news.

I also suspect that, to a degree, the psychological residue of scene 3.3’s opening, preparatory exchange leaves the audience in a better state to appreciate more song references that shortly follow. Approximately fifty lines after Grumio’s recounting of the 22 news, we encounter Petruchio petulantly abusing his servants and, perhaps the first serious indication that his unreasonable, capricious behaviour might well constitute his true character. In the midst of his tirade, he quotes two ballads, both of which bear directly upon the present situation as well as comment on the play as a whole:

PETRUCHIO. You peasant swain, you whoreson malt-horse, drudge. Did I not bid thee meet me in the park And bring along these rascal knaves with thee? GRUMIO. Nathaniel’s coat, sir, was not fully made, ………………………………………………………. The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly; Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you. PETRUCHIO. Go, rascals, go and fetch my supper in. Exeunt Servingmen ‘Where is the life that late I led? Sings Where are those–’ Sit down, Kate, and welcome. –Soud, soud, soud, soud! Enter servants with supper Why, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.– Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains, when? A Servant takes off his boot ‘It was the friar of orders grey, Sings As he forth walked on his way–’ Out, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry; Take that, and mend the plucking off the other Kicks him Be merry, Kate. Some water, here, what, ho! (4.1.90-110 emphasis added) The first reference, “Where is the life” probably refers to a ballad registered around

March 1566 as ‘A New ballad of wone who misliking his liberty sought his own bondage 23 through his own folly’ but has still yet to be discovered.10 However, the scholarly consensus is that a ballad contained in Clement Robinson’s A Handful of Pleasant

Delights (1584)11 entitled “Dame Beauties replie to the Louer late at libertie: and now complaineth himselfe to be her captiue, Intituled: Where is the life that late I led” is a response to the ballad to which Petruchio refers. The first four lines of this ballad read:

The life that erst thou ledst my friend, was pleasant to thine eies: But now the losse of libertie, thou seemest to despise12 The rest of the ballad offers essentially the same sentiments. One can also likely finish

Petruchio’s line with the help of a character from another play: Pistol who, in 2 Henry IV, laments his own past exclaiming, “‘Where is the life that late I led’ say they: / Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days” (5.3.112-3). “[P]leasant days” seems, thus, a likely end for Petruchio’s reference. Accordingly, one finds obvious dramatic irony in

Petruchio’s referencing a ballad which laments the loss of freedom that comes with marriage. For while other men might mourn carefree days of bachelorhood lost after the altar, Petruchio, it seems, is having a grand time tormenting his hapless staff and, of course, poor Kate, the cat caught in the well. Beyond this, there appears an even deeper irony, for indeed it seems Kate and not Petruchio should be singing “Where’s the Life” as it is her “pleasant days” that have been disrupted by marriage, perhaps never to return.

10 Duffin 453. 11 There also appear to be still older fragments of this work. To view them, see Clement Robinson. A Handful of Pleasant Delights. n.p., 1575. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 10 Dec. 2008. 12 Robinson document image 11. 24

Another second-class ballad reference occurs three lines later when Petruchio sings, “It was the friar of orders grey…” One perceives here another irony, for friars and nuns were/are traditionally thought to share traits of kindness, graciousness and, most importantly, abstinence. At this point in the play, husband and wife have certainly shown themselves to be of a similar temperament, yet it is hardly of a saintly hue. From another angle, portrayals of lusty friars and nuns had become a commonplace since the

Reformation, often manifested in popular song.13 One thus finds further irony in the spectacle of these two abrasive, irascible characters grappling toward what is, at the last, their wedding night. On top of this, there also exists evidence that singing songs of lascivious friars and nuns was a custom at wedding feasts during the period. Peter Seng points out a note in Nicholas Udall’s 1542 translation of Erasmus that reads:

There was in Campania a toune called Fescenium, […] In this toune was first inuented the ioylitee of mynstrelsie and syngyng merie songes and rymes for makyng laughter and sporte at marryages, euen like as is nowe vsed to syng songes of the Frere and the Nunne, with other sembleable merie iestes, at weddynges, and other feastynges.14 In light of Udall’s passing remark, Seng comments on yet a further level of irony:

Petruchio has dragged Kate away from her own wedding feast in Padua and brought her to his country house for the jejune repast he thinks fit for a shrewish bride. He calls to his servants to bring in food for himself and his bride, and then sings a customary “merie songe” to celebrate the wedding feast he will not allow Kate to taste. Shakespeare’s audience,

13 Peter J. Seng. Vocal Songs In the Plays of Shakespeare: A Critical History. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1967. Print: 3. 14 For the entire note in context, see Desiderius Erasmus. Apophthegmes. Trans. Nicholas Udall. London: Ricardi Grafton, 1542. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 9 Dec. 2008: 244-5. 25

familiar with the customs of the marriage feast, and probably knowing by heart the song Petruchio sings, would have been delighted by the incongruity of the situation.15 Once one understands the significance of each of Petruchio’s references, one finds the passage and scene in which they appear augmented with multiple layers of irony colour and humour. Yet, even if one takes from Udall’s reference that ballads like “The

Friar and the Nun” were common, I am still suspicious that earlier efforts to make sure the audience pays attention to “the news” also extends to these references. I suspect this because, like the story told by Grumio, the appreciation of semiotic ballad references necessitates active participation by the audience rather than passive; thus I find it suspicious that Shakespeare conviniently offers us semiotic songs so shortly after Grumio has cuffed our ears fully open. Moreover, even if these particular references were as popular as Udall suggests, not everyone would pick up their significance instantaneously.

One only has to tell a joke at a party today to understand that some people, for whatever reason, take longer to “get it” than most. Hence, it seems logical that a playwright would wish to make sure that the implications of song references were understood by not just most people, but by the most people possible.

Overcoming Acoustics?

There may be also a secondary, and altogether different reason for Grumio’s appeal for listening that should be considered. It is quite possible that Grumio’s delay in telling of

15 Seng 5. 26 the news is a device designed to minimize, at key moments, audio challenges latent in early modern amphitheatres. The prevailing opinion among scholars regarding crowd noise in the time of Shakespeare is that, although audiences were generally well behaved and attentive, Elizabethan amphitheatres were markedly more clamorous environments than the theatres and playhouses of today.16 Audiences were far more vocal than their modern contemporaries, often loudly voicing their reactions to and opinions of performances. Other more extraneous distractions included smoking, the playing of card games,17 the cracking of nuts, the selling of food by vendors, the wearing of large hats and, quite likely, sounds of a more somatic variety resonating in the vessels provided.18

There is also evidence that, in the days of Will Kempe and Richard Tarlton, audience members would often exchange banter with the players.19 Lastly, the sound of London itself must be considered as a potential enemy to the auditing ear. Consider the findings of Claire Van Kampen, musical director of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the

Royal National Theatre, while constructing a ‘period-sounding” recording of

Shakespearean drama at the Globe in 2006:

One would imagine that without overhead aircraft, honking river boats and the incessant background hum of traffic, that Bankside in the 1600s would

16 For various discussions on crowd noise see Gurr, esp. 43 and 52-6; and Alfred Harbage. Shakespeare’s Audience. New York: Columbia UP, 1941. Print. 92-112; and Lopez 28-9. 17 Claire Van Kampen, Keith McGowan and William Lyons. “Performing Early Music at Shakespeare’s Globe.” Shakespeare’s Globe: A Theatrical Experiment. Ed. Christie Carson and Farah Karim-Cooper. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008. 183-193. Print: 185. 18 For various discussions of other potential distractions of the Elizabethan theatre, see Harbage 112; and Gurr 44-7. 19 Gurr 156-8; Cook 38-9; Tom Rutter. Work and Play on the Shakespearean Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008. Print: 98-9; and Tiffany Stern. Making Shakespeare. London: Routledge, 2004. Print: 28-9. 27

have been a tranquil environment for the actors’ sound-waves to make their trajectory through the Globe’s auditorium. However, when I reconstructed a basic ‘Elizabethan soundscape’ to create a context for the opening track on our CD set of music and speech from our former productions, I found the opposite to be true. The clunking of oars, and the continual cries of ferrymen, street traders, cattle and sheep being driven to market, dogs, birds, carts on cobbles and above all, church bells from more than the 100 churches in one square mile created an atmosphere outside the playhouse that must have been high on decibels and multilayered in texture.20 If poets found a need to encourage silence at certain times–and encourage it in the manner shown above–one, then, must ask what is so important about Grumio’s news to warrant such a dramaturgical effort at this point in the play. I suggest that, beyond an extra helping of comedy and, perhaps, tacit preparation for coming song references,

Shakespeare places Grumio’s news here to ensure that every audience member is “up to speed,” so to speak, with essential details. Within such a participatory, noisy audience and under such potentially hostile auditory conditions, it seems quite possible that tropes such as listening for the news were incorporated to guide audiences to dramatic milestones, loci of essential information positioned at key points. Consider that by the time we are finished listening to the Grumio’s news, we have just enough information to negotiate what comes next. If we have missed elements, for whatever reason, during previous action, his reading of the news ensures that one can, at the least, follow along from here.

20 Van Kampen 185. 28

I find support for this argument in another comedy from Shakespeare’s early period,

Romeo and Juliet, within which we find in act 2, scene 4, a scene strikingly similar to the one in Shr. just described. Here, the nurse returns from a meeting with Romeo and delays telling Juliet of the encounter. For close to fifty lines, Juliet repeatedly asks for the news, i.e., whether Romeo will follow through with his proposal of marriage, until finally:

JULIET. Here’s such a coil! Come, what says Romeo? NURSE. Have you got leave to go to shrift today? JULIET. I have. NURSE. Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrence’s cell, There stays a husband to make you a wife: Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks, They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news. Hie you to church, I must another way, To fetch a ladder, by the which your love Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark: I am the drudge and toil in your delight, But you shall bear the burden soon at night Go, I’ll to dinner: hie you to the cell. JULIET. Hie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell. Exeunt (2.4.63-76) Along with the clear similarity to Grumio’s scene, particularly curious here is the above passage’s superfluity; every piece of information it conveys has been clearly presented in the previous scene (2.3.134-7), which also contains plenty of comic relief through the nurse’s encounter with Romeo’s friends. So why is it presented at all? I suggest that, as with the its counterpart in Shr., beyond an extra bit of comedy, Shakespeare places it here to focus audience attention on precisely how the marriage of the two lovers will operate 29 and who will be involved; And, as with Grumio’s news, it is compelling to note that, now that she has Juliet’s /and the audience’s full attention, the Nurse provides just enough information to enable those who may have missed something earlier to appreciate coming events.

Early in his career, then, we find charming yet quite unsophisticated examples of

Shakespeare attempting to turn spectators to auditors, to move those in his audience who might be less attentive, to focus their faculties at key moments. Such moments appear packed with information, much of which will aid in the overall appreciation of the drama to come. Near one of these attention-focussing moments are song references whose meanings in relation to the action represent a further level of entertainment that, conveniently, the audience is well prepared to perceive. In 1600, this entire dramaturgical dynamic surfaces again, substantially developed in its sophistication to the point where songs, key themes (the nature of Hamlet’s madness, for example) and audience preparation emerge as interwoven, multi-dimensional equations designed to entertain experienced auditors and, it appears, to promote the auditory potential Shakespeare believed to be present in others. 30

Chapter 2. To Please All: Auditors, Spectators, and Songs in Hamlet

In the course of my research into the semiotic function of songs in Shakespeare, there emerged a pronounced concentration of third-class song references in three plays, all of them written around 1600-1. It seems thus appropriate to understand not only the operation of these references, but also the reason behind their sudden flowering in this slim timeframe. I believe the answer lies in the changes in theatregoing taking place also at precisely this time in London. In the beginnings of the London public theatre, the city’s two playing companies, Henslowe’s Lord Admiral’s Men and Burbage’s Lord

Chamberlain’s Men, offered much the same fare to a conglomerate of Londoners.1 In the last two decades of the sixteenth century, most scholars accept that, perhaps in reaction to contemporary politics, there begins a divergence of repertoires and, to some degree, corresponding patronage.2 Around the Burbage players congeals a more progressive oeuvre while the Henslowe theatres gravitate towards more conservative, citizen tastes.3

The revival of the boy companies in 1598, the construction of the Globe in 1599, the

Fortune in 1600 and the Red Bull in 1601, fostered intense competition among theatre companies for market share and, through this, affected a further tuning of generic loyalties, at least as far as the companies were concerned. During this hyperactive time, the boys of Blackfriars and Paul’s, boasting works of erudition and acerbic contemporary

1 Harbage 62-3, 88, 158; Gurr 157; and Judith Cook. The Golden Age of the English Theatre. London: Simon and Shuster, 1995. Print:171. 2 Gurr passim and Rutter, 96. 3 Gurr 181. 31 satire,4 whose cultured, elitist appeal, they hoped, would draw the Inns of Court students and the wealthy, arguably represented one end of the generic spectrum. At the other were the Henslowe theatres, proudly touting the old favourites of Marlowe and Kyd along with the decidedly Protestant and political “elect nation”5 plays, all of which consistently drew those of the lower social levels: the shopkeepers, artisans, their apprentices and others.

To this brief historization, I must also append an unpacking of the concepts of auditors and spectators incorporated earlier, for they are integral to understanding how these respective camps conceptualized themselves and, most important for this thesis, how they valued the audiences for whom they wrote. In Playgoing in Shakespeare’s

London, Andrew Gurr offers compelling evidence that concurrent with the generic divergence of the popular theatre was a trend among its playwrights to divide playgoers into two types: those that came to the theatre to hear poetry and those that came to witness spectacle. This theory, championed by Ben Jonson and spiking in popularity around 1600, often incorporated the term ‘auditor’ to represent the educated,

4 An integral component to this was the trend of “railing” popularised by the boy companies in which public figures, including other playwrights, were satirized, often outrageously. For an account of the “Poet’s War” between Ben Jonson, John Marston and Thomas Dekker, in which railing is the principal weapon, see Cook 159-61. 5 Judith Doolin Spikes offers this description: “[A] single, unified dramatic action centring in the mortal conflict between the Protestant protagonist and a Catholic antagonist; adjunct episodic material designed to locate the protagonist’s story in the context of universal history…an appeal to the audience, often direct, to behold this exemplum of God’s great plan for the English people, and to carry it forward with all dispatch” (147). For the Complete discussion, see Judith Doolin Spikes. “The Jacobean History Play and the Myth of the Elect Nation,” Renaissance Drama 8 (1977): 117-49. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 25 Feb. 2009. 32

“judicious,”6 poetry-lover, while terms such as ‘beholder’ and/or ‘spectator’ were often associated with the ignorant masses. From Gurr:

Understandably the writers valued their poetry more than the ‘shows’ of the common stage, and consequently rated hearing far above seeing as the vital sense for the playgoer. Every time Jonson called his audience ‘spectators,’ as he almost invariably did, he was covertly sneering at the debased preference for the stage spectacle rather than the poetic ‘soul’ of the play, which he claimed they could only find by listening to his words.7 As more theatre companies emerged and sought to ally themselves with certain groups of theatregoers, it appears that this theory of audience types served to delineate the respective camps. Gurr writes:

The evidence indicates that the opening of the Blackfriars along with Paul’s sprang the social divide amongst playgoers, making the different kinds of fare on offer more distinct than they had been before. There was now such a variety that the choice between hearing and seeing became an issue, carrying with it the whole range of options between different repertoires.8 It was the hope of Jonson and others of his faith that the Blackfriars, with its expensive seats and covered roof, would draw a more cultivated, discerning group of auditors leaving the spectators–the “stinkards”9–in the yards of the amphitheatres. While Gurr

6 Harbage 128. 7 Gurr 103. 8 Gurr 109. 9 “Stinkards” was a term used by many of the playwrights, including Dekker (who ironically wrote for the Henslowe companies), Middleton, Chapman and Jonson, to describe the lower orders and/or undesirables often in relation to the theatre. A common quote from Thomas Dekker’s The Gull’s Hornbook (1609) reads: “Sithence then the place is so frée in entertainement, allowing a stoole as well to the Farmers sonne as to your Templer: that your Stinkard has the selfe same libertie to be there in his Tobacco-Fumes, which your swéet Courtier 33 argues that Jonson never felt his vision fully achieved,10 for our purposes it is only necessary to understand that a distinction was made within the culture of the theatres and their playwrights that, in general, linked auditors to the educated, lettered elite, and spectators to average London citizens whom they saw as comparatively ignorant. In

1600, when competition for audiences was arguably at its peak, the boy companies sought to attract the former, the Henslowe players the latter.

It was in this climate that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men began its rise to pre- eminence. Although there are different opinions as to their ultimate loyalties,11 most agree that Shakespeare’s company chose to present plays of a more neutral generic nature, perhaps seeking to “please all,” as noted by Antony Scoloker in relation to Hamlet in 1604,12 and thereby draw customers from both spheres. With all this in mind, particularly interesting is Gurr’s note that, while Shakespeare acknowledged Jonson’s view, if “less emphatically,”13 “from 1600 onwards [Shakespeare] abandoned the idea of an auditory and called his customers spectators,”14 thus suggesting that perhaps the poet conceived the majority of his patrons to be of the less critical, spectator type. Analyses of

Shakespeare’s use of song in three plays written at precisely this moment in theatre

hath” (Dekker 28). For the rest of the discussion of Stinkards and other aspects of London playgoing , see Thomas Dekker. The Guls Horne-Booke. London: Nicholas Okes, 1609. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 8 Dec. 2008. 10 Gurr 112. 11 For various arguments, see Gurr 186-7 and passim; Cook 172-4; Harbage 128-30, 155, 158; and Lopez 8. 12 The quote reads: “...like Friendly Shake-speares Tragedies, where the Commedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on Tip-toe: Faith it should please all, like Prince Hamlet.” For the quote in context see Antony Scoloker. Diaphantus. London: T. Creede, 1604. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 02 May 2009: Document image 2. 13 Gurr 104. 14 Gurr 111. 34 history suggests Shakespeare’s view of his audience was far more complex. Certainly, through the playwright’s use of song, we can identify an attempt to satisfy the auditory abilities associated with the learned elite. Yet it is equally clear, through his choice of song and inclusion of preparatory dramaturgy, that Shakespeare simultaneously played upon the precisely the same qualities inherent in the ordinary citizens and groundlings in the yard. Indeed, as we shall see, through song, we can find Shakespeare simultaneously reaching to the auditing abilities of all his patrons, providing every audience member with points of access to what it seems he felt were salient phenomena.

2.1 From the Grave: “I Lothe that I Did Love”

Perhaps the least demanding example of this all-access-via-song dynamic comes from arguably the most recognizable song in Hamlet (1600). It is that of the gravedigger heard in the first moments of act 5 as he exhumes Ophelia’s future resting place with professional insouciance:

FIRST CLOWN. In youth when I did love, did love, Sings Methought it was very sweet, To contract-O-the time for-a-my behove, O, methought there-a-was nothing-a-meet. HAMLET. Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at grave-making? HORATIO. Custom hath made it in him a Property of easiness. HAMLET. ‘Tis e’en so. The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense. FIRST CLOWN. But age with his stealing steps Sings 35

Hath clawed me in his clutch, And hath shipped me intil the land, As if I had never been such. Throws up a skull HAMLET. That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the knave jowls it to th’ground, as if it were Cain’s jaw-bone, that did the first murther. This might be the pate of a Politician, which this ass o’offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not? HORATIO. It might, my lord. HAMLET. Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?’ This might be my Lord Such-a-one, that prais’d my Lord Such-a-one’s horse when he meant to beg it–might it not? HORATIO. Ay, my lord. HAMLET. Why, e’en so! and now my Lady Worm’s, chapless, and knock’d about the mazzard with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution, and we had the trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play at loggets with ‘em? Mine ache to think on’t. CLOWN. A pickaxe and a spade, a spade, Sings For and a shrouding sheet; O, a Pit of clay for to be made For such a guest is meet. Throws up another skull. (5.1.46-73 emphasis added) The words of this song come from the first, third and eighth stanza of a poem acknowledged to be the work of Thomas, Lord Vaux (1509-1556) found in

Tottel’s Miscellany (1557) under the title of “The Aged Louer Renounces

Loue.”15 The poem was registered as a ballad for publication in 1563-4, and

15 “The…poem in Tottel's Miscellany (no. 212 in Rollins's edition), headed ‘The Aged Lover Renounceth Love’ and beginning ‘I Lothe that I did love’, is…unattributed, but ascribed to 36 perhaps again in 1579.16 Another ballad containing grave imagery and found in A

Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions (1578) calls for the tune “I Lothe That I

Did Love,” a further indication of the song’s popularity.

The significance of Lord Vaux’s song, however, becomes potentially far deeper once we get a glimpse of his position in the Elizabethan courtly sphere and of the evidence we have of his reputation as a writer. Vaux, while perhaps not a principal, was nevertheless an active member in the court of Henry VIII.17 He is often associated with other court poets of the day such as Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and Thomas Wyatt with whom he appears to have had a personal association.18 While Lord Vaux effectively retired from politics in his last twenty years, it is unlikely that his name had faded from collective court memory at the turn of the sixteenth century, for his nephew Edward, fourth Baron Vaux of Harrowden (1588-1661), was a ward of Elizabeth I for ten years ending in 1598.19 One can assume, therefore, that not only was Thomas Vaux’s poem familiar to many at the time of Hamlet, its authorship, at least in more aristocratic circles, was also recognised.

Vaux in two contemporary manuscript miscellanies (Bodl. Oxf. MS Ashmole 48 and BL, Harley MS 1703)…in his Posies of 1575, George Gascoigne referred to the poem's first line as written by Vaux, and ‘thought by some to be made upon his death bed’” (Woudhuysen 2). For the full account, see H.R. Woudhuysen. “Vaux, Thomas, second Baron Vaux (1509-1556).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford UP. 2004-9. Web. 05 Dec. 2009. For the complete version of the poem, see Thomas Vaux. “The Aged Louer Renounces Loue.” Songes and Sonettes. London: Richard Tottel, 1557. 71-3. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 6 Feb. 2009: 71-73. 16 Woudhuysen 2. 17 Woudhuysen 1. 18 “In March 1535 he signed a document acknowledging the payment to him of £280 by Roger Chomley for the manor of Newington Luces, Kent; the other witnesses were Sir Thomas Wyatt and Sir Thomas Poynings.” For the account, see Woudhuysen 2. 19 Woudhuysen 3. 37

If one accepts these conditions as probable, then the evidence of Thomas Vaux’s reputation as a writer is tantalizing indeed, particularly in light of its location in relation to Shakespeare, for all we have on Vaux the poet comes from George Puttenham’s The

Arte of English Poesie (1589), a book with which Shakespeare was surely familiar.

“[U]nanimously considered by scholars [to be] the central text of Elizabethan courtly poetics,” we know that Ben Jonson owned a copy and his meticulous marginal notes demonstrate that he afforded it scholarly attention.20 While we do not have direct evidence, it seems improbable that his friend Shakespeare would have neglected what appears to have been a “must read” for playwrights and the most up-to-date book on the subject of poetics at the time of Hamlet’s creation. It seems quite likely, therefore, that

Shakespeare would have been familiar with Puttenham’s descriptions of Thomas Vaux, the most compelling found on page 200: “a noble gentleman, much delighted in vulgar making, and a man otherwise of no great learning but hauing herein a maruelous facillitie.” How delightfully suspicious, then, that Shakespeare places the “vulgar” words of this apparently unlearned yet talented lord into the mouth of a character so similar in capacity. Of course, it cannot be proven, but the idea is compelling in light of the competition between the London theatre companies described above. Clearly, a popular ballad confronting death sung from a grave by a layman whose “unlearned” wit is sharp enough to challenge a noble such as Hamlet would have resonated on a number of levels with the bulk of citizens and groundlings. Yet with the connection to Lord Vaux and his reputation both as a courtier and as a writer, we can see Shakespeare, through his choice

20 May, Steven W. “Puttenham, George (1529-1590/91).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford UP, 2004-9. Web. 6. Feb 2009: 1. 38 of song reference, working to include all of his patrons in the fun. For, if Puttenham’s assessment of the Barron was even remotely accurate, it seems likely that many occupying the better seats in the Globe would have gotten an extra kick out of

Shakespeare’s grave digger, a man of no great learning but marvellous facility, singing

Vaux’s famous ballad, from a grave that, when asked by Hamlet, (who has just finished lamenting the multitude of “politicians,” “courtiers” and “Lords” reduced to forgotten, dusty bones) as to whom it belongs, answers “mine sir” (89). Indeed, it would seem as if

Shakespeare had ironically resurrected the old Barron himself. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, considering Rosencrantz’s remarks in act 2, scene 2 regarding how the very real resurgence of the boy theatre companies had caused “many wearing rapiers” to be “afraid of goose quills” i.e., nobles afraid of being satirized by the children and thus avoiding the theatres (2.2.310-1), while those unfamiliar with Lord Vaux and his reputation could still find substantial entertainment in the spectacle, those of more writerly spheres could enjoy the kind of comedy offered in the more “elite” playhouses of

Blackfriars: railing. Indeed, with the idea of pleasing all in mind, it is interesting that this particular instance of railing is comparatively safe; the object of satire (Lord Vaux) is, unlike more common targets such as Thomas Dekker and the notoriously dangerous

Jonson, dead and, ultimately, of minor importance. Through his song, then, it seems

Shakespeare’s unlearned, yet witty gravedigger invites all kinds of patrons to be pleased

(albeit in different ways perhaps) yet offends none.

39

2.2 At Each Ear a Hearer: “Jephtah, Judge of Israel”

Closer to the beginning of Hamlet, we find the first of a number of third-class song references; and it is here that we also discover the first evidence of the preparatory structures and semiotic potentials of the sort toyed with in The Taming of the Shrew and

Romeo and Juliet; yet now they have evolved significantly. As with the gravedigger,

Shakespeare’s choice of song betrays a desire to include both auditors and spectators, but here there appears additional dramaturgical effort spent to ensure all in the audience are as prepared as possible to apprehend the full extent of its implications, for they pertain to one of the central issues of the play: Hamlet’s madness.

The reference comes in the midst of act 2, scene 2 where, amid a conversation with Polonius regarding the arrival of the players, Hamlet abruptly interjects to dub the old man “Jephthah, judge of Israel.” The passage reads:

POLONIUS. The actors are come hither, my lord. HAMLET. Buzz, buzz! POLONIUS. Upon my honour– HAMLET. Then came each actor on his ass– POLONIUS. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history pastoral ………………………………………………………………….... …For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men. HAMLET. O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou! POLONIUS. What treasure had he, my lord? HAMLET. Why, ‘One fair daughter, and no more, 40

The which he loved passing well.’ POLONIUS. Still on my daughter. Aside HAMLET. Am I not i’ th’ right, old Jephthah? POLONIUS. If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well. HAMLET. Nay, that follows not. POLONIUS. What follows then, my lord? HAMLET. Why, ‘As by lot, God wot’, and then, you know, ‘It came to pass, as most like it was’– the first row of the pious chanson will show you more, for look where my abridgments come.– Enter four or five PLAYERS (2.2.347-372) The reference to Jephthah and his daughter links to an Old Testament tale told in Judges

11.29-40 in which a Hebrew warlord strikes a deal with Jehovah. In exchange for victory in battle, Jephthah promises to sacrifice “whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of [his] house to meet [him]” upon his return from the field (Judg. 11.31). This arrangement, not surprisingly, goes tragically awry, for the first thing to greet Jephthah is his only child, a daughter. Upon notice of her father’s folly, the unnamed maiden piously encourages him to obey the will of the Lord, her only request being that she may “go up and down in the mountains and bewail [her] virginity” (Judg. 11.37). The lyrics Hamlet quotes in the above passage (indicated by quotation marks21) are taken from a popular ballad whose

21 The quotation marks are in the RSC edition used for this thesis but are absent in the 1604, 05 and 11 printings. They are also absent in the First Folio; yet the lines “As by lot, God wot / It came to pass, as most like it was” end with colons that seem to mark them as verses. For a view of the First Folio page, see William Shakespeare. Mr. VVilliam Shakespeares Comedies, 41 earliest source is found in the Shirburn manuscript (ca. 1585-1615) and of which numerous later copies exist.22 “The first row,” or stanza, of this “pious chanson” reads:

I read that many years ago, when Jepha, Judge of Israel Had one fair daughter and no mo’, whom he beloved passing well And as by lot, God wot it came to pass, most like it was, Great wars there should be, and who should be chief but he, but he.23 The ballad then continues to recount the Old Testament story. Clearly, there are numerous parallels between the Biblical tale, its ballad version, and the fates of Polonius and Ophelia. At the most basic level, both maidens resonate as needlessly sacrificed, pious innocents, unintended casualties of fathers who foolishly engage mercurial forces far more powerful than themselves. Indeed, if one considers the early modern idea that royalty was the closest thing to God on earth, one finds a neat parallel existent between political affairs in the house of Denmark and military campaigns depicted in the Bible, for both are, ultimately, the provinces of “Gods.” A further echo of the Jephthah story can be found in the death of Polonius himself, for Hamlet, wielding so foolishly the power of life and death, blindly kills the first thing that “greets” him from behind his mother’s curtain, someone who turns out to be essentially an innocent (3.4.25-8). Turning back to

Ophelia, it could also be argued that she bows to the will of her “God”– her father and

Histories, & Tragedies Published According to the True Originall Copies (The “First Folio”). London: Isaac Iaggard and Ed Blount, 1623. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 27 Feb. 2009: 263. 22 Duffin 228. 23 Duffin 227. 42 king–and obediently pursues one last engagement with Hamlet, the effects of which arguably drive her to eventually “bewail” her virginity in the wilderness of madness, the swan song of a death which she, like Jephthah’s daughter, chooses.

With Hamlet’s reference thus far unpacked, two impressions surface as salient.

The first is that again it appears that Shakespeare offers a semiotic song reference perceivable by all, for those less familiar with the Jephthah of the Bible might still recognize the street ballad version and vice versa. The second point worth noting is that the events suggested by Hamlet’s reference have yet to occur. To these we can add a third component: preparation, the analysis of which, when considered with the first two notions, illuminates the metadramatic function of this scene substantially. Just before

Hamlet’s “Jephthah” outburst, we find an echo of Grumio preparing his audience to hear

“the news” (Shr.3.3.11-43). One would think the prince’s explicit directions to “the first row of the pious chanson” and the quoting of its lyrics (2.2.371), would be all the playwright need do to have his audience recognise and savour the reference’s full significance. Yet, consider the passage immediately preceding:

Flourish for the Players HAMLET. Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come: the appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in the garb lest my extent to the players–which, I tell you, must show fairly outward–should more appear like entertainment than yours. You are welcome: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived. GUILDENSTERN. In what my dear lord: HAMLET. I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw. 43

Enter POLONIUS. POLONIUS. Well be with you, gentlemen. HAMLET. Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too–at each ear a hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swathing-clouts. ROSENCRANTZ. Happily he’s the second time come to them, for they say an old man is twice a child. HAMLET. I will prophesy: he comes to tell me of the players, mark it.– You say right, sir: for a Monday morning, ‘twas so indeed. POLONIUS. My lord, I have news to tell you. HAMLET. My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome– POLONIUS. The actors are come hither, my lord. HAMLET. Buzz, buzz! POLONIUS. Upon mine honour– (2.2.329-49) It seems curious that, at line 338, Hamlet not only calls for Rosencrantz and

Guildenstern, who are already listening, to listen intently, he also directs each listener to each of his ears. In positioning Rosencrantz and Guildenstern this way, Shakespeare creates an arguably universal visual symbol denoting the act of listening: two bodies flanking a third, each with the head bent to listen. One can thus perceive in this moment an extra dramaturgical effort to entice the audience to listen closely to what Hamlet is about to say. And what a suspiciously benign thing it is that the black prince so compellingly bends our collective ears to hear. Hamlet’s great prophecy is that Polonius will tell him of the arrival of the players. Of course, it may well be that Shakespeare has

Hamlet act this way to illustrate the contempt he holds for Polonius and his use of the word “prophesy” simply mocks the great “news” that Polonius so dutifully brings. I think it far more likely, however, that this scene is meant to psychologically prepare audiences 44 to identify Hamlet’s comparatively thundering, baleful “prophesy” delivered nine lines later through a ballad reference whose Biblical connection affectively “delivers the news” to every kind of Elizabethan sitting or standing in the Globe.

And what of it? Why is it so important that people perceive and understand this news, this prophecy Shakespeare sets before them? I submit that Shakespeare positions the clever semiotic construction that is the Jephthah reference to ensure that all audience members confront the issue of Hamlet’s madness at this particular point in the play; for, now that we know the significance of his reference, how can we but wonder: is Hamlet really mad or is he feigning? Consider that, in his “prophetic” outburst, Hamlet, in very much the classical tradition, behaves like the “mad” prophet, through whose voice comes a seemingly supernatural foretelling of future events. His choice of a popular English ballad as a reference fits this role perfectly, for classical oracles habitually prophesise in convoluted, metaphoric language understood only by those “in the know.” Indeed, do we not then find Shakespeare in the role of God, communicating directly through the ravings of his oracular prince to the audience he has so well prepared to be “in the know”? On the other hand, Hamlet’s direction to “the pious chanson”(2.2.403) suggests that he is aware of the empirical world surrounding him–a world with streets and ballads and contemporary culture–and, thus, not quite in the state of delirium normally associated with classical oracles. Yet his outburst is clearly prophetic, and its appearance in the middle of a rather pedestrian discussion24 is a jutting contrast, as if it were the product of a spontaneous fit. Arguably, Hamlet’s reference could simply be a comment on

24 The prince et al. were in the midst of “catching up” on current events, recent developments in the theatre etc. See act 2, scene 2, lines 232-327. 45

Polonius’s relationship with his daughter–a relationship that is drawing her into potentially dangerous court intrigue–that, ironically, comes true in a way Hamlet could not have imagined. Hamlet could also be simply affecting the sporadic “north-north- west[erly]” madness he suggests in the beginning of the above excerpt. Indeed, it is impossible to know. What seems quite clear, however, is that “Jephtah Judge of Israel” has been carefully positioned to deliver perhaps the fundamental question in Hamlet to the ears of every member of the Globe audience, all of whom, at this precise moment, have been prepared to act as hearers.

2.3 What We May Be: Auditing the Spectacle of Ophelia.

One of the most captivating and complicated spectacles laced with song is, of course, Ophelia’s madness scene (4.4). While there is still relatively little evidence available linking the numerous snippets to extant works, what we do have, in combination with our knowledge of Elizabethan song, engenders a compelling glimpse of what may be a heretofore forgotten component of Shakespeare’s aesthetic. Instead of simply observing Ophelia rambling on about anything and nothing in pathetic spectacle, one finds her song illustrating psychic movement through various states of awareness and hysterical musings that palpably, progressively blend towards a toxic crescendo where reality and fantasy are indistinguishable. And, once again, Shakespeare has taken clear steps to make sure his audience is well prepared to perceive what is happening. 46

Before examining the references themselves, it must be noted that Ophelia’s musical performance in itself may well have been considered highly irregular and indicative of her madness.25 F.W. Sternfeld argues that musical performance was very much a private matter for the nobility of the period. Thus Ophelia’s “public” performance of ballads, an act entirely “inappropriate to her social station,” serves “an important function in helping to achieve the apotheosis of ‘the poor wretch’.”26 Peter Seng disagrees, contending that Sternfeld draws “from the courtesy books more than this episode really allows,” for Ophelia’s audience consists of only Gertrude, Claudius and her brother Laertes and is thus hardly public.27 He suggests also that the early modern

“courtesy books” from which Sternfeld draws–primarily Castiglione’s The Book of the

Courtier (1628)–have not yet been shown to be “the exclusive arbiters of taste for

Shakespeare and his contemporaries” nor “the acknowledged norm of practical English behaviour.”28 Close to forty years later, opinion seems to gravitate towards Sternfeld.

David Lindley, in his Shakespeare and Music (2006), while not officially taking a side, calmly offers passages from Castiglione as well as Peacham’s Compleat Gentleman

(1622), both of which support Sternfeld’s contention.29 He also cites two incidents in

Shakespeare where members of the nobility respond with clear reluctance when asked to

25 Or suspected, for the quarto of 1603 contains stage directions calling for Ophelia to enter carrying a lute. While many modern editors have chosen to include this particular stage direction, the editions of Hamlet printed in 1604, 1611, and 1623 do not. Thus, apprehension of Ophelia’s musical performance presumably occurred later in the scene when she begins to sing. 26 F.W. Sternfeld. Music in Shakespearean Tragedy. London: Routledge, 1963. Print: 66. 27 Seng 133. 28 Seng 133. 29 David Lindley. Shakespeare and Music. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2006. Print: 79- 86. 47 perform music publically30 and suggests that propriety is, perhaps, the reason. To this I would add that, while agreeing with Sternfeld, I am curious that none of these authors considers the scene metadramatically. Knowing Shakespeare’s habit of blurring boundaries of dramatic space, we surely must consider Olivia’s musical performance as occurring not merely before a select trio of royals but in the company of the approximately twenty-five hundred in attendance at the Globe, the vast majority of whom were of a lesser social order than Ophelia and certainly her noble Danish audience.

Further, if public musical performance by the nobility was, indeed, considered a private matter, it fits very nicely into the idea of Shakespeare’s desire to please all in that such a performance seems, like her loosened hair,31 a very convenient means by which to demonstrate Ophelia’s madness immediately and viscerally to everyone present. Lastly, even if this aspect of early modern society was not as pronounced as we might perceive it to have been, the spectacle of Ophelia singing snippets of ballads within her dialogue would arguably have been in itself disturbing, for she brings to her lips a genre of song considered beneath someone of her station. Lindley puts the objection to ballads by many in more Puritan and aristocratic circles

was, no doubt, partly occasioned by the ribaldry or the satire to which they gave voice…[D]isapproval also stemmed from

30 In act 2, scene 3 of Much Ado About Nothing, Balthazar is goaded into singing, “Sigh no more ladies.” Amiens in As You Like It displays a similar reluctance (2.5). For his entire discussion of musical performance and propriety, see Lindley 86-90. 31 The Elizabethan dramatic convention of loose hair on a woman signifying madness is well known. For a discussion of this and other iconographic indications of madness, see Judith Wechsler. “Performing Ophelia: The Iconography of Madness.” Theatre Survey 43.2 (2002): 201- 221. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 22 Mar. 2009.

48

contempt for the artistic standards of their composition…from class-conscious condemnation of those who wrote and performed them, from condescension towards the alehouses in which they circulated, and from the frequent association in the literature of roguery between the ballad-seller and crime. (76)32 Add to this the fact that many ballads (and some, it seems, to which Ophelia alludes) engage lascivious, bawdy subjects hardly fit for noble, maidenly contemplation let alone performance, and one can appreciate the simple act of singing ballads to be indicative to the contemporary audience that Ophelia behaves as one who is clearly “not herself.”

Turning to Ophelia’s song references, links to extant documents are, as mentioned, currently few. But before we confine the majority of her references to that singularly terminal space designated “lost to us,” it is wise to remember Horatio’s caution against the illusory nature of Ophelia’s ramblings. “Her speech is nothing” he warns his queen, “…the unshaped use of it doth move / The hearers to collection. They aim at it, /

And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts” (4.4.9-11). Hence the scarcity of links to Ophelia’s song references may be simply an indication that many of them may be snippets of sound and fury, constructed specifically for the play and signifying little in the Elizabethan collective ‘playlist’ of known ballads. Numerous examples of seemingly

“custom made” songs in other plays suggest this to be a real possibility. Feste’s song

“When That I Was” sung at the end of Twelfth Night, for example, is thought by many to be of Shakespeare’s creation.33 John Long argues that the “appropriateness” of “You

Spotted Snakes,” sung in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2.2.9-26), “to the situation and

32 Lindley 76. 33 Duffin 449; Seng 129-30; and Lindley164. 49 the close affinity of its structure to the art song suggest that Shakespeare wrote the song to be set to music especially composed for the play.”34 Both Lindley and Duffin’s discussions of song allusions in The Winter’s Tale suggest that many of them were likely custom made.35 Thus, it is entirely possible that the bulk of Ophelia’s musical outbursts may be operating in exactly the way Horatio suggests.

This notion of “fake” song references, however, adds an intriguing spice to the reading of this scene; for consideration of the few links we do have to some of

Ophelia’s song references, along with an analysis of the generic conventions suggested by all of her references, engenders a tantalizing perception of the psychic richness likely experienced by many of the contemporary audience as they witnessed the abandoned, bereaved young woman and her spiralling mental disintegration.

After the worried and cautionary exchange between Horatio and Queen

Gertrude alluded to earlier, Ophelia enters “Distracted, playing on a lute, and her hair down singing.” The initial portion of the exchange runs as follows:

OPHELIA. Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark? QUEEN GERTRUDE. How now, Ophelia? OPHELIA. How should I your true-love know Sings From another one?– By his cockle bat and’ staff And his sandal shoon. QUEEN GERTRUDE. Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? OPHELIA. Say you? Nay, pray you mark.

34 John H. Long. Shakespeare’s Use of Music. 1955. Cambridge, MA: De Capo, 1977. Print: 85. 35 Duffin passim and Lindley 164. 50

He is dead and gone, lady, Sings He is dead and gone; At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. QUEEN GERTRUDE. Nay, but Ophelia– OPHELIA. Pray you, mark. White his shroud as the mountain snow– Song Enter KING CLAUDIUS. QUEEN GERTRUDE. Alas, look here, my lord! OPHELIA. Larded all with sweet flowers; Song Which bewept to the grave did-not-go With true-love showers. (4.4.23-40 emphasis added) The first four lines of Ophelia’s song (25-28) allude to a ballad entitled “Walsingham” which seems to have been enormously popular around the time of the play’s creation and whose words are often attributed to Sir Walter Ralegh.36 As Duffin Notes, “The poem survives in several manuscript sources of the late sixteenth century and was probably first printed in Thomas Deloney’s Garland of Good Will (ca. 1592).37 Seng notes many later versions of “Walsingham” ballads as well as many different instances of the

“Walsingham” tune being used in the works of John Bull, William Barley, William Byrd and others.38 Below are some key verses of Duffin’s text version of the ballad constructed from two manuscripts, the first being Folger Library MS V.a.399 (ca. 1600) and the

36 Seng 138. The poem is also included in Walter Raleigh. The Poems of Sir Walter Ralegh. Ed. Michael Rudick. Tempe: Renaissance English Text Society, 1999. Print: 16-7; Walter Raleigh. Sir Walter Ralegh, Selected Writings. Ed. Gerald Hammond. Manchester: Carcanet P, 1984. Print: 35; and Walter Raleigh. Sir Walter Ralegh, Selected Prose and Poetry. Ed. Agnes M. C. Latham. London: The Athlone P, 1965. Print: 49-50. 37 Duffin 423. 38 Seng 136. 51 second being Huntington Library MS HM 198 also from around the same date.39 Given their proximity to Hamlet, it seems safe to assume that Shakespeare’s source would be fundamentally congruent with Duffin’s conflation, if not one of the two:

As you came from Walsingham from that holy land, Met you not with my true love by the way as you came?

How should I your true love know, that hath met many a one, As I came from the holy land that have come, that have gone? …………………………………… She hath left me here alone, all alone and unknown: Who sometime loved me as her life and called me as her own …………………………………… For love is a careless child and forgets promise past, He is blind, he is deaf when he last and in faith, never fast.40 If indeed the Walsingham ballad is that to which Ophelia refers, it appears applicable in a variety of ways. In a broad sense, the sentiments of the “Walsingham” source ballad seem to connect to the kind of emotional turmoil one would imagine

39 Neither of these versions is available for viewing online. 40 For the full version, see Duffin 423. 52 churns within Ophelia’s psyche. The first speaker, in the ballad’s conversation format, laments a female lover that has left on a pilgrimage and not returned. The feeling is clearly loss, abandonment and an underlying anger at love’s fickleness.

Moreover, one gets a sense that the speaker of the ballad grapples with a chaos of sorts. His description of being left not just “alone” but “unknown” suggest that he feels unable to recognise himself reflected through the eyes of another and, in a way that seems to anticipate Lacanian psychoanalysis, finds himself bereft of an integral,

“mirroring” component of his identity: his lover.

The reference also suggests Ophelia is thinking specifically of Hamlet. The prince has recently been exiled by sea to England, the result of his disruptive behaviour culminating in the accidental killing of Polonius. The “holy land” of

Walsingham mentioned in the ballad refers to possibly the most famous pilgrimage site in England at the time.41 Reputed to have been constructed in 1061 and standing until its destruction in 1538 by Henry VIII, the priory at Walsingham contained a replica of the house in Nazareth where Mary received the news from the angel

Gabriel that she had been chosen by God to bear the Saviour, Jesus Christ. If indeed pilgrimages to Walsingham were still familiar enough to entice the creative and financial investment of ballad producers in the 1590s, it seems likely that the reasons for making such pilgrimages were still resonant in, at least, the more Catholic minds

41 For discussions of the Walsingham Priory see Joseph Clayton. “Walsingham Priory.” The Catholic Encyclopaedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton, 1912. New Advent. 2009. Web. 20 Feb. 2009; and Alison A. Chapman. “Ophelia’s ‘Old Lauds’: Madness and Hagiography in Hamlet,” Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 20 (2007): 111-136. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 28 June 2009: 125-8. 53 of the period also. It is not difficult to see, then, how the Walsingham reference speaks to Hamlet’s present condition, for if the plans of Claudius come to fruition, the disruptive, manslaughtering Hamlet’s “pilgrimage” to England will end in fatal

“atonement” for his sinful behaviour. It is additionally interesting that at the moment of Ophelia’s reference, Hamlet is likely on his way back to Denmark in the company of pirates, a fact that seems to resonate with the probable connection of the poem to

Ralegh, a notorious privateer who, at the time of Hamlet’s production, was just coming back into the graces of Elizabeth after being famously banished from court for “sins” of his own.42

At possibly the outer limit of conjecture, Ophelia’s reference engenders a further, more feminine ripple of allusion. As Alison Chapman points out, mention of

Walsingham may have evoked a lament for a bygone era when pilgrimages provided means for women to travel independently and thus would have highlighted the pathos of Ophelia’s predicament. “Unlike the young woman in the song,” Chapman argues,

“[Ophelia] cannot follow Hamlet to England. Instead, she remains fixed in place, and, denied the freedoms of pilgrimage, she falls by default into the unconstrained license of madness.43 Parallel to this argument, one notes also that the Walsingham priory, due to its association with the Virgin Mary and the Annunciation, was especially

42 “At the beginning of the 1590s, Ralegh began a liaison with Elizabeth (bap. 1565, d. c.1647), also known as Bess, one of the queen's maids of honour, and daughter of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton (1515/16-1571) and his wife, Anne. At some point late in 1591, with Bess pregnant, she and Raleigh were married in secret, fully aware that news of this union, once it leaked out, would gravely displease the queen.” Raleigh was effectively banished from court until 1597. Mark Nicholls and Penry Williams, “Raleigh, Sir Walter (1554-1618)” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford UP, 2004-9. Web. 30 June 2009: n.p. 43 Chapman 127. 54 famous for its attraction of women seeking solutions to various maternal issues including, primarily, infertility.44 How fascinating, then, that we find Ophelia’s initial ballad reference not only suggesting her feelings of abandonment by Hamlet through his forced “pilgrimage” but also, through the reference’s connection to a specific place, resonating with Hamlet’s original “prophesy” made through his reference to

Jephthah Judge of Israel. For would not the mention of the still-famous pilgrimage site remind many female audience members of its reputation–a place where women used to have the power to “wander the wilderness” (i.e., make pilgrimages through the English countryside) to “wail their virginity” (their infertility) before the Holy

Mother? Thus, I suggest the Walsingham reference, in a number of subtle ways, marks the opening movement of Hamlet’s prophesy fulfilled, the beginning of the spectacle that will resonate to so many as Ophelia, wailing in the wilderness of madness before eventually dying a virgin.

Although Duffin contends that all of Ophelia’s “verses” above connect to

“Walsingham,” I can find no reason to agree. Neither the text he provides nor a very similar version contained in Deloney’s Garland of Goodwill (1678) appear to connect to Ophelia’s second verse “He is dead and gone” etc. (4.4.30-33), nor to her third,

44 “In medieval times the English shrine of Walsingham, associated with the Virgin Mary and the Annunciation, attracted women seeking solutions to problems of lactation and infertility and may have encouraged self-identification with the Holy Mother.” “Pilgrimage.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Web. 17 Dec. 2008; “At Walsingham, wax images representing miraculous cures decorated the shrine where a statue of Mary with the infant Jesus was the focus of meditation. This motherly image would appeal to women…who needed help for a specifically motherly problem.” Susan S. Morrison. Women Pilgrims in Late Medieval England. London: Routledge, 2000. Print: 23.

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“White his shroud as the mountain snow” etc. (4.4.36-40). Neither Seng, nor

Sternfeld, nor Chapman–all of whom have written liberally on the topic–offer any evidence that these next verses might somehow link to the first. Additionally, there seems a discernable change in tone from the first verse to the following two;

Ophelia’s first “Walsingham” verse, with its reference to the wearing of cockleshells and the carrying of staffs clearly alludes to a pilgrimage conducted by a living person.45 The second and third verses, on the other hand, allude to burial customs46 and thus resemble the words of a dirge.47 Of course, there is always the possibility that these three verses are connected metatextualy. If Ophelia sang all three stanzas,

45 “The scallop or cockle shell was worn as a badge by pilgrims who had been to the shrine of St James at Compostela in Spain; it later became part of the traditional pilgrim’s dress, along with the broad-brimmed hat, the staff, the scrip or satchel, the water bottle…” Philip Edwards. Pilgrimage and Literary Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. Print: 2. 46 Sternfeld 134-5. For a detailed discussion of Elizabethan funeral practices see Richard L. Greaves. Society and Religion in Elizabethan England. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 1981. Print. 695-735. 47 The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes a dirge as follows: “A burial song or (less commonly) one sung in commemoration of the dead; a song of mourning or an instrumental piece expressive of similar sentiments. The word is a contraction of ‘dirige’, the first word of the first antiphon in the first nocturn at Matins in the Roman Office for the Dead (‘Dirige, Domine Deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam’). When, as often happened, the invitatorium (‘Venite, exsultemus Domino’) was omitted, the office would begin directly with the antiphon, and so in late medieval English the word ‘dirge’ came to be used in reference to the service as a whole. However, as in the similar case of ‘placebo’ (the initial word at Vespers in the same Office for the Dead), it soon took on a more general meaning and could be used for any song in the vernacular sung at a burial. In this sense a dirge has much the same connotation as a Threnody or a lament, though each term carries its own shade of meaning. The dirge has perhaps the most doleful character of them all; it is more specifically associated with the time of burial and often has a march-like tread, reminiscent of a funeral procession.” Malcolm Boyd. “Dirge,” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, 2007-9. Web. 1 July 2009: n.p.; The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms supplies this definition: “A song of lamentation in mourning for someone's death; or a poem in the form of such a song, and usually less elaborate than an elegy. An ancient genre employed by Pindar in Greek and notably by Propertius in Latin, the dirge also occurs in English, most famously in Ariel's song ‘Full fathom five thy father lies’ in Shakespeare's The Tempest.” Chris Baldick. “Dirge,” The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford Reference Online, 2008. Web. 1 July 2009: n.p. 56 she may have linked them through a common tune. Yet if one can be sure of anything regarding these three initial fragments of song, it is that the subject matter changes from abandonment to bereavement thus strongly suggesting that the singer switches the focus of her musical lament midstream, moving from someone who has left

(Hamlet) to someone who has died (Polonius). This possible identification of ballad references to Hamlet and dirge-esque fragments to Polonius proves telling as the scene progresses.

Immediately following the above quoted passage, Claudius, in an attempt to wade through Ophelia’s ravings and, perhaps, reach some locus of sanity beneath, tentatively asks, “How do ye, pretty lady?” to which she responds, “Well, God’ield you. They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table” (4.4.41-43). Ophelia’s reference to the owl and the baker’s daughter has generated a volume of conjecture since Francis Douce (1757-1834) in his

Illustrations of Shakespeare Vol. 2. (1807) first connected the reference to a folktale in which Christ enters a baker’s shop and requests something to eat. As the baker’s wife puts the Saviour’s cake (or bread dough depending on the version) into the oven to bake, her daughter, in her niggardliness, reduces it by half. The dough, however, swells to an enormous size while at the same time the baker’s daughter is transformed into an owl with her human exclamations metamorphosing into owlish hoots. Most scholarship surrounding this explanation of Ophelia’s reference examines the origin and various 57 implications of the reference rather than ultimately questioning its source in folklore.48

Curious then, is Duffin’s connection of the reference to a ballad entitled “The Merry

Miller’s Wooing of the Baker’s Daughter of Manchester.”49 He argues that, rather than the conventional connection of Ophelia’s remark to said folktale, Ophelia is, instead, making a bad pun linking the hooting of an owl to the “wooing” of the baker’s daughter in the ballad. Duffin believes this notion links to the fact that Hamlet has, in the past,

“wooed” Ophelia. In a scene so woven with significations, there may be a connection between Ophelia’s reference to the owl and Duffin’s ballad. “Baker’s daughter,” for example, was apparently a contemporary term for prostitutes and this might connect in some way to Hamlet wooing of her.50 However, there is little else beyond broad themes of seduction and the “woo”-ing of the title that connects Duffin’s ballad to Ophelia’s character, her past or her future. Many maids of various descriptions are wooed in early modern ballads.51 The fact that one happens to be a baker’s daughter seems more coincidence than connection.

If we, however, accept that the main thrust or top note of this reference is a recollection of the folktale, there is a simple explanation for its incorporation, one that fits

48 For discussions relating to the folktale and Ophelia’s reference, see Chapman 111-119; Andrew Breeze. “Welsh Tradition and the Baker’s Daughter in Hamlet,” Notes and Queries 49 (2002): 199-200. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 19 Dec. 2009; Carmen Blacker. “The Folklore of the Stranger: A Consideration of a Disguised Wandering Saint,” Folklore 101 (1990): 162-8. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 6 Oct. 2008; Bridget Gellert Lyons. “The Iconography of Ophelia,” ELH 44 (1977): 60-74. LION.1996-2009. Web. 7 Oct. 2009; and L. Salmon. “Folklore in the Kennet Valley.” Folklore 13 (1902): 418-429. JSTOR. Web. 10 Oct. 2008: 421. 49 Duffin 280. 50 Robert Tracy. “The Owl and the Baker’s Daughter: A Note on Hamlet IV. v. 42- 43.”Shakespeare Quarterly 17 (1966): 83-86. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 10 Dec. 2008: 85. 51 A search of the key word “woo” combined with the subject heading “Ballads” on EEBO produces numerous examples. 58 the scene perfectly while simultaneously linking to one of Shakespeare’s principal sources for metaphor. In my mind, Ophelia’s owl reference is her way of answering

Claudius’ question, which she perceives as an inquiry into her psychological state. If her mad scene illustrates anything, it shows Ophelia moving in and out of reason, in and out of engagement with interior and exterior worlds. There are moments when she appears to understand her surroundings and interlocutors. Others find her raving and oblivious. The reference to “the owl and the bakers daughter” communicates to Claudius, and thus to the audience, that she experiences moments of lucidity and in such moments recognises that her ravings contain impenetrable language constructions. Supporting this hypothesis is the notion that, beyond a folk tale, the story of the owl and the baker’s daughter is decidedly Ovidian in flavour, recalling numerous stories from the author’s

Metamorphoses in which human characters are deprived of their voices (yet keep their human minds) through their transformation into animals. A particularly apt example is the story of Acteon and Diana from book 3. In the tale, the hunting Acteon spies Diana bathing in the woods. In her rage, the goddess turns him into a hart, leading to his pursuit and death by his own hounds. The purest moment of pathos comes when Acteon, still in possession of his human faculties, calls to his dogs as they tear him apart, only to realise that they do not recognize his voice, for it, like the rest of his corporeality, has transformed. Below is an excerpt from Arthur Golding’s translation, considered to be the version most likely used by Shakespeare and many of his contemporaries:52

52 Shakespeare’s relationship to Golding’s work is widely acknowledged. For examples, see The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare. Ed. Margreta de Grazia and Stanley Wells. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. Print: 41; and Jonathan Bate. Shakespeare and Ovid. Oxford: 59

He strayned oftentymes to speake, and was about to say. I am Acteon: know your Lorde and Mayster sirs I pray. But vse of wordes and speach did want to vtter forth his minde. Their crie did ring through all the Wood redoubled with the winde, …………………………………………………………………… No part of him was frée from wound. He could none other do But sigh, and in the shape of Hart with voyce as Hartes are woont, (For voyce of man was none now left to helpe him at the brunt) By braying shew his secret grief among the Mountaynes hie 53 The parallel of this story to Ophelia’s reference to the owl and the baker’s daughter is plain enough: the loss of both Hamlet and Polonius coupled with her “foolish” love for the prince finds her transformed into a madwoman who, like Acteon and the baker’s daughter, is unable to communicate effectively with those around her (or to control the transformation into something “not herself”). Ophelia’s reference, then, is her metaphorical explanation that she, like so many mad characters in the literature of any age, understands she is of a state within which, as she states immediately following her owl reference, “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” At the moment of

Claudius’ inquiry Ophelia, like Acteon and the baker’s daughter, perceives herself, yet simultaneously perceives her transformation into something not herself–something others find incomprehensible.

Oxford UP, 1993. Print; among others. 53 Arthur Golding. The. XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, Translated Oute of Latin into English Meeter.” Trans. Arthur Golding. London: Willyam Seres, 1567. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 12 Jun. 2009: 34.

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The notion of transformation resonates again in Ophelia’s next presentation of song. Reacting to her owlish answer to the question of her state, Claudius renders an analysis of Ophelia’s words as, “Conceit upon her father” (4.4.44) to which she responds,

“Pray let’s have no words of this, but when they ask you what it / Means, say you this:”

(4.4.45-6) followed directly by a recitation of what appear to be four stanzas of a song.

The passage reads as follows:

OPHELIA. Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day, All in the morning bedtime, And I a maid at your window, To be your Valentine. Then up he rose and donn’d his clo’es And dupp’d the chamber door, Let in the maid, that out a maid Never departed more. KING CLAUDIUS. Pretty Ophelia– OPHELIA. Indeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t! By Gis and by Saint Charity, Sings Alack, and fie for shame! Young men will do’t if they come to’t By Cock, they are to blame. Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me, You promis’d me to wed.’ ‘So would I ‘a’ done, by yonder sun, An thou hadst not come to my bed.’ (4.4.47-64 emphasis added) No source has yet been discovered for these stanzas. A possible clue comes in the form of a lost ballad registered with the Company of Stationers on 16 May 1591 entitled “A pleasaunt song of Twoo stamering lovers which plainely doth vnto your sighte bewraye 61 their pleasaunt meetinge on Sainct Valentines daie.”54 Regarding extant links, it seems prudent to consider here the likelihood that at least the last two stanzas could well have been created for the play, for Ophelia’s line “…without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t!”

(4.4.56) suggests that she offers the last stanzas as an alternative ending of her own creation. Beyond this, critical conjecture orbits around questions of Ophelia’s chastity evoked by the reference.55 At the least, it seems these verses continue the theme of

Ophelia’s metamorphoses through madness into something “unlike her.” Sternfeld’s argument of her performance of the songs being “contrary to all sense of propriety for an

Elizabethan gentle woman”56 (54) certainly resonates here along with Seng’s idea57 that

Ophelia’s grief at the loss of both her father and Hamlet evokes in her an kind of alter- ego that pathetically mimics the kind of woman both her father and brother had insinuated she might become if she maintained relations with Hamlet.58 Regardless, it seems these stanzas, with their references to lascivious, pre-marital behaviour, are meant to suggest that, at the most basic level, Ophelia has now turned her meditations away from her father’s death to focus again upon her relationship with Hamlet and her subsequent abandonment.

Shortly after this reference, Ophelia exits, Laertes is announced, and the confrontation with Claudius ensues. From a textual point of view, the dialogue changes dramatically as swirling allusions give way to what seems a reprieve of plain speech. As

54 Seng 145. 55 See Seng 144-6 for his and other author’s discussions; see also Chapman 119-125. 56 Sternfeld 54. 57 Seng 146-8. 58 Laertes’ lines 1.3.12-46 and Polonius’ lines 1.3.119-39. 62

Claudius begins to manipulate Laertes to his purpose, Ophelia enters for the second and final time and, to her brother’s horror, continues her disjointed reverie:

OPHELIA. They bore him barefac’d on the bier Sings Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny, And in his grave rain’d many a tear. Fare you well, my dove! LAERTES. Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge, It could not move thus. OPHELIA. You must sing ‘A-down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.’ O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master’s daughter. LAERTES. This nothing’s more than matter. OPHELIA. There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember: and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts. LAERTES. A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted. OPHELIA. There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays: O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There’s a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a good end–For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. Sings LAERTES. Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself, She turns to favour and to prettiness. OPHELIA. And will he not come again? Sings And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead; Go to thy death-bed; He never will come again His beard was as white as snow, All flaxen was his poll: 63

He is gone, he is gone, And we cast away moan. Gramercy on his soul! And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God buy ye Exeunt Ophelia [and Gertrude?] (4.5.171-200 emphasis added) As with earlier sections, there are as yet no sources linking definitively to the variety of musical references presented. Yet knowledge of early modern song, combined with the recognition of common generic themes, can still facilitate a deeper understanding of the aesthetic presented and, perhaps, illuminate Ophelia’s inner world to a useful degree. As we have seen, Ophelia offers examples from two genres of song: ballads and dirges, and seems to connect these genres respectively to Hamlet and Polonius. With this in mind one can map the preceding examples and thus find Ophelia alternating from anxieties associated with one man to those pertaining to the other. This pattern continues in her last group of song references. The lines “They bore him barefac’d on a bier” and “And in his grave rain’d many a tear,” along with the two stanzas at the end of the passage are indicative of a dirge, while her reference to “the false steward that stole his master’s daughter” reads suspiciously like a ballad title and, lines such as “hey nony nony…,” “A- down-a down…,” and “For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy” clearly represent common refrains from popular ballads imparting themes of the pastoral, “lads, lasses and springtime” and the associated amorous relationships.59 “[B]onny sweet Robin” in particular has attracted attention for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it seems to have been the

59 Sternfeld 57. 64 title of a popular, yet undiscovered, ballad for one finds its tune used in many others beginning at least in 1594.60 Second, Harry Morris notes that, in the sixteenth century,

“Robin” was one of the cant terms for the male sex organ61 and thus he argues that

Ophelia’s use of the term demonstrates a subconscious sexual frustration resulting from her relationship with Hamlet. While the relevance of such conjecture is, ultimately, impossible to determine, it serves to underline a general trend of more ballad-like references signifying Ophelia’s anxiety surrounding her relationship with and the departure of Hamlet, while the more sombre, dirge-esque snippets represent her thoughts of Polonius.

With these basic musical significations in hand, a re-read of the entire scene reveals a compelling aspect of Shakespeare’s madness aesthetic. Notice at the opening of the scene, the reference to the Walsingham ballad, signifying thoughts of Hamlet, is separated from the following dirge-like “Polonius” lines (He is dead and gone…etc), by

Gertrude’s inquiry, “Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?” (4.4.28). What seems the second half of the dirge (“White his shroud as the mountain snow” etc.) is also separated from the preceding stanza by a prose exchange between Ophelia and Gertrude (4.4.34-5).

Following this is Claudius’ inquiry as to Ophelia’s condition and her “owlishly” lucid reply. Whereupon, Ophelia presents us with four ballad “Hamlet” stanzas, the first and second of these perhaps taken from a contemporary work now lost, while the third and fourth seem likely written by “Ophelia” as an alternative ending. This group of four

60 Duffin 73. 61 Harry Morris. “Ophelia’s ‘Bonny Sweet Robin.’“ PMLA 73 (1958): 601-603. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 20 Dec. 2008: 601. 65 stanzas is also bisected by another prose exchange, this time between Ophelia and

Claudius (4.4.55-6). From here, Ophelia seems to mistake Claudius and Gertrude for her ladies in waiting and then exits. Then follows a break featuring Claudius’ lament on the general state of things and then the confrontation with Laertes.

When Ophelia returns, we find her psychic oscillations between thoughts on her father, Hamlet and reality occurring at a faster rate and drawing closer to conflation, suggesting that, as time passes, Ophelia’s madness is growing. Instead of comparatively large, clearly delineated musical references clearly suggesting anxiety related to one, but never both of the two men, her initial musical reference here seems to be three references in one, dirge-like lines divided by “Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,”62 a refrain indicative of a racy ballad (171-3) with a fourth line, “Fare you well my dove,” applicable to either man, closing the stanza. Her next reference comes as she attempts to incorporate Laertes, whom she seems to recognise, into the singing of a ballad she appears to title “the false steward, that stole his master’s daughter,” whose “wheel becomes it,” i.e. whose refrain she believes is appropriate (178). Here, we can see

Ophelia again entertaining a moment of comparative lucidity. However, this time, instead of suggesting that she recognises her condition and its effect upon others, Ophelia seems to have progressed to a state in which she unknowingly conflates the realty around her with her interior fantasy world–blurring “what we are” with “what we may be.”

Following this, we find her distributing flowers (which carry various significances of

62 Curiously, this line appears to have been added for the 1623 “First Folio” printing. While its addition seems to augment the crescendo/conflation effect discussed here, its absence does not weaken the effect to any significant degree. 66 their own) to those around her in a mock and/or hallucinatory funeral service presumably for Polonius. Yet, Ophelia caps her ceremony by conflating those living and dead with the singing of “bonny sweet Robin” as if thoughts of Hamlet have blended with the ceremony and, indeed, inspire its music. The last two stanzas of song in this scene indicate Ophelia’s realities have blended still further to the point where interior and exterior worlds seem to approach a unified, ambiguous chaos. The two initial lines of

“And will he not come again” could easily apply to either Hamlet or Polonius (190-91).

“No, no, he is dead; / Go to thy deathbed; / He never will come again” seem also to conflate the two men while also foreshadowing Ophelia’s suicide (for it is also possible that she addresses herself here) (192-4). “His beard was as white as snow” seems obviously designed to signify Polonius (195). However the next line, “All flaxen was his poll” seems to conflate the two men by the ambiguity of the word “flaxen.” The OED defines “flaxen” as white, yellow and blonde.63A quick search on EEBO confirms this, finding the term “flaxen” referring to the white hair of old men but also to the blonde hair of young Northern Europeans of both sexes.64 “He is gone, he is gone” (197) could easily refer to either Hamlet or Polonius and while “And we cast away moan” (198)

63 Def. 3a & 3b. OED Online. Ed. John Simpson. Oxford UP, 2009. Web. 21 Jan. 2009. Again, the OED uses this line from Hamlet for one of its examples. 64 Examples can be found in numerous texts from the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. See Robert Garnier. Cornelia. London: Iames Roberts, 1594. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 23 Jan. 2009. 6; Thomas Dekker. Blurt Master-Constable. Or The Spaniards Night-Walke As It Hath Bin Sundry Times Priuately Acted by the Children of Paules. London: Edward Allde, 1602. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 23 Jan. 2009:13; and Pierre d’ Avity. The Estates, Empires, & Principallities of the World Represented by ye Description of Countries, Maners of Inhabitants, Riches of Prouinces, Forces, Gouernment, Religion; and the Princes that Haue Gouerned in Euery Estate. With the begin[n]ing of All Militarie and Religious Orders. London: Adam Islip, 1615. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 23 Jan. 2009: 719. 67 seems to refer more to Hamlet and, of course Ophelia; “God ‘a’mercy on his soul!” could easily apply to both men, for while Hamlet has not died, his accidental murder of

Polonius is clearly a sin and, regardless of whether Ophelia is, in fact, aware that Hamlet is the author of her father’s death, her reference to the “Walsingham” ballad gives the distinct impression that she sees Hamlet as going on a pilgrimage of sorts and thus implies that she may believe his soul is in need of God’s mercy. It is also prudent here to note that corresponding with the mounting textual ambiguity is a seeming conflation of genres, for now ballad refrains and bawdy subject matter are absent, yet the words that remain are not wholly dirge-like; all could be either. Thus, one finds that everything for

Ophelia is rapidly losing signification leaving her alone and fundamentally disassociated, the only constant being her psychic pain.

What emerges through even a limited knowledge of extant sources and song convention is a heretofore-unexposed component of Ophelia’s madness scene. Through it we can appreciate that Shakespeare fashions for his audience an exhibition of pathos that is not only fluid but also flowing. Utilizing song, and the knowledge of song culture,

Shakespeare assembles an aesthetic of psychotic evolution, a madness that whirls ever faster towards an all-consuming, chaotic abyss. Hence, he does not merely offer audiences a portrait of one for whom all is lost; for his patrons, he presents the spectacle of all being lost.

Particularly intriguing is the way in which Shakespeare seems to prepare his audience to audit the above spectacle and then continuously goad their auditory faculties as the scene progresses. Preparation begins immediately at the opening of the scene with 68 the conversation between Horatio and Queen Gertrude:

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and HORATIO QUEEN GERTRUDE. I will not speak with her. HORATIO. She is importunate, indeed distract: Her mood will needs be pitied. QUEEN GERTRUDE. What would she have? HORATIO. She speaks much of her father; says she hears There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart; Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt, That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing, Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to collection. They aim at it, And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them, Indeed would make one think there might be thought, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily. QUEEN GERTRUDE. ‘Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds. Let her come in. HORATIO goes to the door or may exit. QUEEN GERTRUDE. To my sick soul–as sin’s true nature is– Aside Each toy seems Prologue to some great amiss. So full of artless jealousy is guilt It spills itself in fearing to be spilt. (4.4.1-21) It is difficult to imagine Shakespeare writing anything more enticing than this suspiciously superfluous introduction (it would take few lines to communicate the idea that Ophelia has gone mad). For twenty lines the audience hears not just of Ophelia’s madness, but its very symptoms. Yet we also receive explicit instructions not to attend to anything she says–even though it appears those who have encountered her so far have 69 found conjecture irresistible. Gertrude’s fear, that Ophelia’s words may “strew / dangerous conjectures to ill breeding minds” (4.4.16) further compounds the anticipation.

While clearly referencing dissenters within the royal court, it seems unlikely audience members would miss that they themselves represent by far the largest population of “ill breeding minds” present; all by now understand the guilt of Gertrude and Claudius in relation to Hamlet’s father. Hence, by the time of Ophelia’s entrance, Shakespeare has, as he did for Hamlet’s “Jephthah” prophesy, positioned “at each ear a hearer,” an audience goaded through reverse psychology into auditing Ophelia’s every word.

As for the targets of such preparation, again it appears Shakespeare works to ensure that all in his audience can access the upcoming, multi-layered aesthetic. Yet, for

Ophelia’s scene it may be that Shakespeare believed many in his audience to be in need of a little extra assistance in focusing and maintaining their auditory faculties–perhaps, as

Gurr suggests above, due to the author’s belief in their more spectatorial nature. The first hint comes in Horatio’s lines cited earlier, which appear to betray a focus upon the distinction between “hearers” and those more inclined to scrutinize “winks and nods”:

…Her speech is nothing Yet the unshaped use of it doth move The hearers to collection. They aim at it, And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts; Which, as her winks and nods and gestures yield them Indeed would make one think there might be thought. (4.4.8-13) Another clue, perhaps more indicative of “spectator targeting,” comes from the

1603 “bad quarto” which, unlike later versions, has Ophelia carrying a lute at her initial entrance. Whether its later omission is due to a change of actors (from one who could 70 play to one who could not) or for some other reason, the image it projects is compelling.

Considering her entrance comes on the heels of the preparatory lines noted above, it is easy to understand how the curious, anticipating audience would instantly suspect that her strange words that have compelled others to conjecture may in fact be coming in the form of song. Thus, the audience would naturally, and unconsciously prepare to interpret not just words but specifically song lyrics. I find it compelling that this, the first and only clue that Ophelia’s ravings will come via song, is wholly visual, designed perhaps to entice the attentions of the more spectatorial.

Beyond these clues, it also curious that Ophelia petitions her audience to pay attention to every one of her song references following the “Walsingham” allusion (for which, as we have seen, the audience is clearly well prepared through Horatio’s descriptions). At line 29, just before “He is dead and gone, etc.” Ophelia calls for Queen

Gertrude’s attention to her song with “pray you, mark.” She gives the same instruction to the queen at line 35 just before she sings, “White his shroud as the mountain snow, etc.”

Her statement to Claudius at line 45-6 which reads “Pray you let’s have no words of this, but when they ask you what it / means say you this:” is another instruction to pay attention to “Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day, etc.” When she playfully says to

Claudius, at the end of the two stanzas “I’ll make an end on it,” we read this to mean:

“Pay attention to my forthcoming improvised ending” which, beginning with “By Gis and by Saint Charity,” Ophelia immediately supplies (4.4.57-64). After the interlude with

Laertes and Claudius, Ophelia re-enters at line 159 and shortly sings, “They bore him barefaced on the bier, etc.” (171-4), to which Laertes exclaims, “Hadst thou thy wits and 71 didst persuade revenge / I could not move thus (175-6). Ophelia immediately scolds him with “You must sing ‘a-down a-down’, and you call him ‘a-down-a’. O, how the / wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter.” Clearly we can read this to mean in part: “You must pay attention to the song I have just sung and join in the refrain.” If we take, then, the opening twenty lines of act 4, scene 4, the appearance of the lute immediately after and the above appeals by Ophelia, we can count seven instances in less than one hundred eighty lines where Shakespeare delivers a message to his audience to pay attention to the songs Ophelia sings, with six of these occurring immediately before the song fragments are delivered. Considering those on stage have been arguably enthralled by the spectacle of Ophelia from the very beginning of the scene, it seems clear that these messages are ultimately designed to speak to the audience; first to alert them of upcoming song references that will require auditing ears, and then later to keep those who may not be used to criticising drama this way in an auditing frame of mind as the scene wears on and the references continue. In other words: these preparatory booster-shots seem designed to keep those of a more spectating sort employing the auditing skills Shakespeare appears to believe exist within them.

Even in the face of limited extant sources, analysis of Shakespeare’ use of song in

Hamlet provides a useful, relevant addition to the work’s seemingly limitless dimensions.

Additionally, through it we find a unique glimpse of a playwright striving to entertain as many palates as possible in his era’s most competitive time. His grave digger’s song offered a taste of the latest trend of railing in a package neutral enough for all learned auditors to enjoy, yet likely simultaneously entertained a large percentage of theatre- 72 goers likely ignorant of that side of the culture. His choice of a Biblical story presented through a ballad reference, augmented through additional dramaturgical preparation, suggests all in his audience, regardless of education or experience, were supplied the chance to invoke their auditing abilities and through them engage perhaps the salient question of the play: Is the prince in fact mad? This apparent philosophy of inclusion and encouragement is expanded further in the spectacle of Ophelia’s madness through which the poet seems to assist those whose concentration may falter in order that they may enjoy the fullest perceptions of her spiralling wretchedness. Be they auditors or spectators, Shakespeare evidently affords access to everyone.

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Chapter 3. The Taming of the Spectator: Act 2, scene 3 of Twelfth Night.

Twelfth Night contains one of the largest collections of song references in the

Shakespearean canon. Almost half of these occur in act 2, scene 3 between lines 15 and

101. From the outset, the scene seems almost pedestrian–three friends, Sir Andrew

Aguecheek, Sir Toby Belch and Feste drinking and singing to the irritation of Malvolio.

Yet, analysis of its song references and the various and creative ways the author prepares his audience to recognise them transforms the scene from merely a comedic interlude featuring key lines depicting the future gulling of Malvolio, to one fashioned entirely for the purpose of foreshadowing the ruse. Once this is understood, the scene emerges as a similar version of the dramaturgical equations illuminated earlier in The Taming of the

Shrew and Hamlet: a marker of salient information serving all who might otherwise remain, to some degree, ignorant of it. Accordingly, one can then find Sir Toby functioning here not simply as a vehicle for comedy but also as an instrument through which the playwright delivers third-class song references for the metadramatic appreciation of his patrons.

By the end of act 2, scene 3, it seems a given that Maria is the brains behind

Malvolio’s coming humiliation (his misguided wooing of Olivia) in light of her description of the general plan to Sir Toby et al.:

SIR TOBY. What will thou do? MARIA. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love, wherein by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and complexion, he shall find himself 74

most feeling personated. I can write very like my lady your niece; on a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands. (2.3.116-21) In lines 130-2, Maria speaks of “planting” Sir Toby and friends so that they may witness

Malvolio’s “construction” of her suggestive letter, thus adding further implication that she is the sole author of the plan–for Sir Toby and company seem just then to be learning the details. Yet, the allusions to ballads Sir Toby makes seventy lines earlier call into question this assumption, leading one to wonder if indeed he is in on the ruse from the beginning or, conversely, if Sir Toby is “unaware” of the implications his allusions engender and any such messages are thus meant to resonate solely in the minds of theatre patrons. The passage in which these allusions are made is included below:

SIR TOBY. My lady’s a Cathayan, we are politicians, Malvolio’s a Peg-o’-Ramsey, and ‘Three merry men be we’. Am not I con- sanguineous? Am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally-’lady’! ‘There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady lady.’ FESTE. Beshrew me, the knight’s in admirable fooling. SIR ANDREW. Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed, and so do I too. He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural SIR TOBY. ‘O’ the twelfth day of December MARIA. For the love o’ God, peace. (2.3.57-65 emphasis added) 75

In a manner recalling Curio’s ballad references in The Taming of the Shrew and Hamlet’s

“Jephtah” reference, Sir Toby’s allusions all signify more than simply random fragments of popular ballads sung by a crapulous knight. “Peg-o-Ramsey,” the first of these, connects to–of all things–yellow hose, a key sartorial accessory called for in the letter

Malvolio believes to have come from Olivia. Ross Duffin writes:

The original “Peg-a-Ramsey” song, fragmentary as it is, nonetheless clearly describes a young girl with yellow hair. Her hair colour was transferred to the stockings of John Tomson in the second [extant] version of the] ballad…from a broadside of ca. 1637 (though registered August 1, 1586).1 Duffin notes the call for the “Peg-a-Ramsey” tune in various other documents and collections, all dated within a decade of Twelfth Night’s putative creation. While the fragment of “Peg-a-Ramsey” included in his Shakespeare’s Songbook (2004) does not resonate with the gulling of Malvolio, perusal through the eighteen stanzas of a different ballad cited by Duffin,“A merry iest of Iohn Tomson, and Iakaman his vvife vvhose iealousie was justly, the cause all their strife. To the tune of Pegge of Ramsey” (1637, emphasis added) is compelling. Consider stanza 1:

When I was a bachelor I liv’d a merry life; But now I am a married man, and troubled with a wife, I cannot doe as I have done, because I live in fear: If I goe but to Islington,

1 Duffin 303. 76

my wife is watching there. Refrain Give me my yellow hose again give me my yellow hose; For now my wive she watcheth me, see yonder where she goes.2 The ballad not only highlights yellow hose but also recalls a cultural convention linking the loud garments to the unrestrained behaviour of young bachelors.3 One cannot help but connect such notions with the fate of Malvolio who, armed with false instructions and erroneous assumptions, dons yellow hose and attempts to woo his employer, Olivia, in a manner comically mimetic of a foolish young man.

Immediately following the “Peg-o’-Ramsey” allusion, Sir Toby employs “Three merry men be we” to mark himself, Sir Andrew and Feste (2.3.58). Both the nature of the expression, and its italicization in the First Folio strongly suggest it to be a ballad fragment or title.4 While a copy of the complete song is as yet undiscovered, Peter Seng links the reference to a song fragment contained in George Peele’s Old Wives’ Tale

(1595) which reads:

Three merry men, and three merry men And three merry men be we; I in the wood, and thou on the ground,

2 For the complete ballad, see M.L. “A Merry Iest of Iohn Tomson, and Iakaman His VVife VVhose Iealousie was Justly, the Cause All Their Strife. To the Tune of Pegge of Ramsey.” London: A. Mathewes, 1637. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 25 Nov. 2008. 3 Loreen L. Giese. “Malvolio’s Yellow Stockings: Coding Illicit Sexuality in Early Modern London.” Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 19 (2006): 235-246. LION. 1996- 2009. Web. 18 Jan. 2008. 237. 4 William Shakespeare. Mr. VVilliam Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies Published According to the True Originall Copies. 260-2. 77

And Jack sleeps in the tree.5 Again, we find this connection curiously resonant with the ruse to come. Consider that, in

The Old Wives Tale, “three merry men be we” is appropriated by three young “pages” whose chief role is that of audience to a second play supplied by a female character,

Madge. This “play within a play” is notorious for being a convoluted, “bizarre fantasy involving an incongruous medley of stereotyped themes, actions, and characters” with scenes that “seem to possess no logical relation to one another.”6 It is thus tempting to consider Sir Toby’s reference as linking the three pages in The Old Wives Tale to the co- conspirators in Twelfth Night (written six years later by Peele’s friend Shakespeare) a play featuring, within it, a “show” that is Malvolio’s bizarre, incongruous behaviour, authored by a woman (Maria) who plants “three merry men” as its audience. It is also interesting that what brings the “three merry men” in Peele (Anticke, Frollicke and

Fantasticke) into the wood–and into their role of audience–is their pursuit of their lord, who has been “led by Cupid” “to the faire Lady” who is “the only Saint he hath sworne to serue.”7 Of course, this sounds suspiciously, again, like Malvolio’s shameless pursuit of

Olivia.

Toby’s next reference, “There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady,” is the first line of an extremely popular ballad entitled “Of the Godly Constant Wife Susanna” or simply

5 Although in the play Anticke refers to the fragment as an “old proverb,” Frollicke’s suggestion that they sing it “to the tune of O man in despiration” suggests a known ballad or, perhaps, an impromptu construction. For the passage in context, see George Peele. The Old Wiues Tale A Pleasant Conceited Comedie, Played by the Queenes Maiesties Players. London: John Danter, 1595. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 30 Dec. 2009: Document image 3. 6 Laurilyn J. Rockey. “The Old Wives Tale as Dramatic Satire,” Educational Theatre Journal 22 (1970): 268-275. LION. 1996-2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2008: 269. 7 Peele document image 3. 78

“Constant Susanna.” As with Hamlet’s reference to Jephtah, “Judge of Israel,” it is one of many examples of Biblical material traversing semi-literate/oral/aural spheres through its incorporation into a ballad. The story comes from Daniel 13, one of two “Daniel” chapters generally omitted from both Jewish and Protestant canons of scripture yet included in the Clementine Vulgate Bible (1592), the primary text of the Roman Catholic church in Shakespeare’s day.8 The story recounts the maiden Susanna, falsely accused of lust, condemned to death, and then, at the last, redeemed by the voice of God speaking through the mouth of the prophet Daniel. The ballad text cited here is based on the oldest known printing, circa 1620. Stanzas one, seven, and eight (of nineteen) impart much of the general feeling:

There dwelt a man in Babylon Of reputation great by fame: He took to wife, a fair woman, Susanna she was call’d by name: A woman fair and virtuous, Lady, lady, Why should we not of her learn thus to live godly. …………………………………………………… These elders came to her anon, And thus they said, Fair dame, Godspeed! Thy doors are fast, thy maids are gone, Consent to us and do this deed; For we are men of no mistrust

8 “The Prophecy of Daniel: Chapter 13.” Latin Vulgate.com. Mental Systems. 2009. Web. 2 Sept. 2009.

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Lady, lady, And yet to thee we have a lust, O fair lady. If that to us thou dost say nay, A testimonial we will bring; We will say that one with thee lay, How can’st thou then avoid the thing? Therefore, consent, and to us turn, Lady, Lady, For we to thee in lust do burn, O fair lady.9 At first glance, it seems difficult to link this ballad to the fate of Malvolio; yet, there are compelling commonalities. The most salient of these is the theme of an innocent,

“constant” protagonist besieged by attackers bearing false witness. Malvolio is, like

Susanna, ultimately innocent and undeserving of his treatment. Also akin to Susanna,

Malvolio’s primary antagonists–through Maria’s letter of love written in the forged hand of Olivia–embarrass and ultimately bring about his incarceration through what amounts to a textual “false witness.” The apparent indifference of all concerned to Malvolio’s sanity pleas also echoes the apparent indifference of the public to the pleas of Susanna.

Yet, even in his most outlandish moments, the pious “Puritan” Malvolio (2.3.106) remains “constant” in the face of great indignity, to what he believes are the words of his

“Lord,” i.e. Olivia. Furthermore, the close of the play, in which all truths are revealed to

9 Duffin 238; See also “An Excellent Ballad Intituled, the Constancy of Susanna.” London: John Wright, 1640. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 28 Oct. 2008.

80 the highest authorities, resonates with the intervention of the Lord God via Daniel, who facilitates the revelation of truth and subsequent restoration of Susanna’s reputation.

Four lines after the reference to “Constant Susanna,” Sir Toby bursts out, “O the twelfth day of December,” a reference that brings still further connections. Greenblatt suggests that Toby may misquote the “Twelfth day of Christmas,” and thus contributes to the popular suspicion that the play was first performed for Elizabeth on, in fact, the

“twelfth night” of the winter holiday season.10 A second connection proves to be no less provocative. “O the twelfth Day of December” is the first line of a ballad entitled “Upon the Scots Being Beaten at Musselburgh Field” (ca. 1548) documenting the victory of the

English over the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh which occurred along the banks of the River Esk near Musselburgh on 10 September 1547.11 What is fascinating about this particular battle in relation to Twelfth Night is that the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh was also seen as the culmination of a period called the “Rough Wooing” in which Henry VIII sought to force the marriage of the infant Mary Stuart to his son Edward as part of his efforts to unify Britain. Particularly interesting is the popular opinion of many Protestants during this period. Scottish historian Roger A. Mason explains:

The crucial decade in the formation of…British unionist ideology was undoubtedly the 1540’s. In English eyes, the death of James V in 1542 leaving his sole heir the week-old Mary Stewart provided a golden opportunity to gain control of Scottish affairs through the betrothal of Mary to Henry VIII’s own son…The Scots were understandably

10 William Shakespeare. The Norton Shakespeare. Gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 1997. Print: 676, note 6. 11 Rosalind Mitchison. A History of Scotland. 3rd. ed. London: Routledge, 2002. Print: 107. 81

suspicious and, although they initially agreed to the match, they later reneged, thus initiating the bloody conflict known appropriately enough as the ‘Rough Wooing.’ To Henry himself, these Scottish wars seem to have been little more than a dynastic power play. To many of his subjects, however, they assumed the character of a Protestant crusade and were prosecuted with a self-righteous ferocity born of the conviction that the Scots were obstructing a providentially arranged marriage, which was part of a divine plan to overthrow the papal powers of darkness. This apocalyptical vision reached the peak of its intensity with the death of Henry VIII in 1547 and the accession of the ‘godly’ Edward VI under the protection of the duke of Somerset. The same year witnessed Somerset’s crushing defeat of the Scots at the battle of Pinkie and his subsequent occupation of the Lowlands…the barrage of propaganda which accompanied the military campaign is ample testimony to the heightened expectations engendered–particularly, but not exclusively, among Englishmen–by the prospect of the creation of a Protestant British monarchy.12 The irony is that Henry’s rough wooing, no matter how providential, came to nothing. At the last, the English lacked the resources to continue campaigns against the Scots. Adding insult to injury was the fact that, as a result of Henry’s pressure, Mary was spirited from her homeland to reside and eventually marry in France. Thus, the “militarily decisive

[yet] politically pointless”13 battle, to which Sir Toby likely refers, must have been viewed by many as the culmination of enormous energies and expense devoted to ultimately fruitless wooing. This rather grand historical theme clearly resonates with

12 For the full discussion, see Roger A. Mason. “Scotching the Brut: Politics, History and National Myth in Sixteenth Century Britain.” Scotland and England 1286-1815. Ed. Mason. Edinburgh: Donald, 1987. 60-84. Print: 67. 13 Mitchison 107. 82

Malvolio’s trials. Maria’s/Olivia’s lines in the counterfeit letter, “In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Thy fates open their hands” (2.5.106-8), are thick with providential overtones. Equally evocative is that the “providence,” supposedly written by Malvolio’s actual “lord,” is what incites him to pursue ambitions of elevation through marriage. Lastly, both the monetary and human cost of Henry’s fruitless “Rough

Wooing” reminds the reader of the humiliating personal cost the “Puritan” Malvolio incurs in his “wooing” that, while not particularly taxing on the object of his ambitions, could certainly be described as “rough” for him.

Consideration of these references, especially in concert, produces curious implications. If one agrees that from Sir Toby’s mouth come ballad references that relate to Malvolio’s fate, one must then wonder if Sir Toby is “conscious” of them. If so, we may be forced to redefine his role in the ruse, for Maria does not divulge her plans for another fifty lines. Yet, when she does, he responds to them with comments such as

“What will thou do?” (116) and “Excellent, I smell a device” (122) implying that only now is he learning of her designs. Has Sir Toby, then, been a conspirator from the start and does he simply feign ignorance? Such a course seems hardly in character; it seems improbable one as boorish and voluble as he would have the modesty to keep knowledge of the coming fun to himself–especially when early divulgence would garner more bragging rights. It is more sensible to assume that Sir Toby’s references are primarily metadramatic vehicles, their messages and implications mostly oblivious to those on stage, yet resonating strongly in those beyond its imaginary boundaries. Supporting this 83 argument is the realization that, once again, the majority of Sir Toby’s references are songs whose Biblical (“Constant Suzanna”), historical (“O’ the Twelfth Day of

December”), and theatrical (“Three Merry Men Be We”) subject matter make their meanings accessible by both writerly, educated auditors and ballad-savvy spectators.

As with Hamlet, Sir Toby’s references also appear fortified with significant dramaturgical preparation. The first evidence of this is Feste’s reference to the trick picture “We Three” whose operation as a prompt to encourage attention by “pointing” to the viewer, i.e., members of the audience, was explicated at the opening of this thesis.

Immediately after the “We Three” exchange, Toby suggests the group “have a catch”

(12). Here, he refers to a song sung in round, i.e., the singing of a single musical sentence by two or more singers who begin at different times. The music and rhythm of the catch are arranged so that, as more singers join, even though each sings identical phrases, their combination forms pleasing harmonies and rhythms. The children’s song “Row, Row,

Row Your Boat” is a catch. With this in mind, it appears Shakespeare, now that he has the audience’s attention through the “We Three” reference, is indirectly inviting them to join the three friends in the catch they are about to sing; the ultimate theme of every catch is, after all, the incorporation of more singers. This notion is compelling indeed with regards to psychological preparation, for it suggests that Shakespeare, through such a device, evokes a socio-cultural mind-state so natural to homo sapiens that it has arguably permeated our very genes. For millennia, humans have gathered in public and private spaces to sing songs together; I submit that there are few people on our planet who have not been part of such circles and, once immersed in songs and singing, have not 84 consciously or unconsciously searched his/her brain for music to either contribute or request. Always, there is a period of deliberation. We ask ourselves, “What song shall we sing?” “Who shall sing it?” “Is it a song that everyone knows? “Is it a song that I know?”

Then, from somewhere, the songs breach. As we read lines 12-25, it is obvious that we witness this exact dynamic occurring between Sir Toby, his compatriots and presumably

Shakespeare’s audience, if only vicariously:

SIR TOBY. Come on, there is sixpence for you. Let’s have a song. SIR ANDREW. There’s a testril of me too; if one knight give a– FESTE. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life? SIR TOBY. A love-song, a love-song. SIR ANDREW. Ay, ay; I care not for good life. (2.3.21-25) Surely the audience here, so recently identified and tacitly included, would be enticed to engage in the same behaviour. Hence, we can understand that, when Feste finally chooses a song and opens his mouth to sing it, he reaches not only towards his cohorts but also to the surrounding patrons whose neural pathways have been lubricated with thoughts and memories of group music and are just as ready for songs and singing as those on stage.

The song that Feste offers at this point is not, in fact, a catch, yet it is appropriate on many levels. Entitled “O Mistress Mine,” it appeals to a “mistress” who is “roaming” and entreats her to wait patiently for a “true love” that “can sing both high and low.”

These lines obviously recall the abstinence of Olivia and the actual “roaming “ and gender transformations of Viola (again, it seems that Feste, like Iago, Sir Toby, and

Hamlet to some degree, is unaware of some of the dramatic implications of what he sings). The second stanza seems to urge the subject towards offered love:

FESTE. What is love? ‘tis not hereafter; 85

Present mirth hath present laughter; What’s to come is still unsure. In delay there lies no plenty, Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty: Youth’s a stuff will not endure. (2.3.34-39) Peter Seng describes this last stanza as offering a carpe diem message in “purely naturalistic terms.” The speaker argues:

This feast will have to end, and so will all of our lives. You are not getting younger (‘sweet and twenty’ is the contemporaneous equivalent of ‘sweet and thirty,’ at least). Give up this inconstant roaming; your little game had better end in your marriage, anyway.14 More compelling than these conjectures are questions surrounding the origin and specifically the authorship of the ballad. While Duffin believes that it likely comes from a popular contemporary song still to be discovered, 15 Harold Bloom argues that the words were written specifically for not only the play, but for Robert Armin, who apparently possessed “an excellent voice.”16 A strong contention for Shakespearean authorship (of only the words, of course) comes from Naylor who argues:

[N]ot only is its style Shakespearean, but also the suggestion of proverb, contained in the second stanza, is characteristic of his authorship. In that stanza, with its succinct insistence on present joys and the uncertainty of those deferred, together with the twofold meaning for ‘Youth’s a stuff will not endure’, is outlined the very spirit of the comedy, and altogether the

14 Seng 95. 15 Duffin 287. 16 Harold Bloom. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead, 1998. Print: 244. 86

stanza is too apt to have been written otherwise than expressly for the play.17 It would seem that Naylor’s evaluation rings true, especially when considering lines describing a love that “can sing both high and low” (28) recalling Viola’s dual-gendered representation. If we take the side of the Naylor, Long,18 Seng19 and Bloom and assume that the words are indeed Shakespeare’s, and then consider Seng’s observation that

“songs beginning ‘O Mistress mine’ are far from uncommon in early English literature,”20 the implication is provocative. The combination of common title and new words would demonstrate Shakespeare (in the true spirit of the broadside ballad) creating a popular ballad in the world of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew that is yet unknown to the

Elizabethan audience. Thus, it seems only logical that those immersed in English ballad culture would be enticed to compare Shakespeare’s “O Mistress Mine” to “real,” circulating ballads with identical titles. Such an exercise, then, appears to mark another link in a growing chain of preparatory efforts designed to draw the audience into criticizing–or, at least, listening very carefully to–song.

The chain continues. Between “O Mistress Mine” and Sir Toby’s “shotgun” of ballad titles analysed earlier are possibly two more ballad references. The first comes at line 43 where Sir Toby suggests that the group “make the welkin dance” implying that their music will, perhaps, influence the harmony of the spheres. Duffin connects this line to a popular ballad entitled “The Mad Merry Pranks of Robin Goodfellow,” a celebration

17 Quoted in Seng 81. 18 Long 169. 19 Seng 95. 20 Seng 97. 87 of the mischievous spirit so popular in contemporary folklore and familiar to modern audiences as the character of Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While there are,

Duffin contends, several versions of this ballad in existence, I find the only one available to me has little in relation to Sir Toby’s lines beyond the word “welkin,” which dates to the seventh century and was a common term denoting “the heavens” in Shakespeare’s time.21 Hence, it appears the word could as easily denote a ballad reference as not. That said, it is interesting to consider the figure of Robin Goodfellow, a notorious trickster and shape-shifter. Considering that much of the mischief in Twelfth Night germinates at this point in the play and results in Malvolio arguably behaving as if possessed, it seems possible that further research could confirm some connection.

There is no question, however, as to the relevance of the next musical reference in act 2, scene 3, which is entitled “Hold Thy Peace.” Another “catch” erroneously entitled

“Thou Knave” by Sir Andrew, it instantly inspires correction by the fool Feste:

SIR ANDREW. Most certain. Let our catch be, ‘Thou knave.’ FESTE. ‘Hold thy peace, thou knave,’ knight? I shall be constrained in’t to call thee knave, knight. SIR ANDREW. ‘Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave. Begin, fool: it begins, ‘Hold thy peace.’ (58-62) Interest in the “catch” “Hold thy Peace” comes not from its text, which is straightforward enough, but from its form, its history, and its positioning in the scene in relation to other references. Aside from a song sung in round, a “catch” is the simplest of structures. In

21 Welkin. Def. 2. “The apparent arch or vault of heaven overhead; the sky, the firmament.” OED Online. Ed. John Simpson. Oxford UP, 2009. Web. 22 Feb. 2009.

88 this regard, “Hold Thy Peace” is numbingly exemplary; the entire piece is two bars in length, rhythmically plain and contains eleven words, (Hold thy piece though knave /

And I prithee, hold thy peace). Currently, there are three possible musical settings to

“Hold Thy Peace” all dating around the time of Twelfth Night, suggesting that this round was quite popular. If one considers this background in light of the way the round is used in the play, an interesting picture emerges. It seems highly likely that Feste’s correction of Sir Andrew’s misnaming of a popular round would be echoed by audience members who would have identified Sir Andrew’s error as easily as we would identify an error in our national anthem. Thus, it seems, yet again, that Shakespeare attempts to entice his audience to participate critically when it comes to song, this time through the identification and correction of a character’s mistake.

It seems clear, then, that we have before us a chain of musical references designed, in part, to serve as a preparatory exercise, a critical “warm-up” that will facilitate the identification and appreciation–the auditing–of the allusions to follow. This chain begins with the “we three” reference signalling the audience’s attention and then progresses through various musical allusions, all of which encourage less engaged spectators to participate in auditing activity. At the end of this chain, a simple, well- known but mistitled catch is offered, seemingly as an easy challenge to pay attention to inconsistencies that may again occur. What better way to prepare a crowd of semi- literate, oral/aural citizens for Sir Toby’s rapid-fire ballad allusions that begin a scant five lines later? 89

Once the significance of each song reference is understood and evidence of auditory preparation and encouragement uncovered, it becomes evident that act 2, scene 3 of Twelfth Night is of a complexion and complexity that has been heretofore unrealised by critics. This analysis demonstrates again that even incomplete knowledge of contemporary song transforms the scene from a humorous break in the action with hint of coming events to a scene comprehensively designed from top to bottom to highlight, at multiple levels, future dramatic developments.

As with the other plays, one must now consider the purpose of this song/ preparation dynamic; again we ask: where is its value? It seems clear that, for proficient auditors, the entertainment value would be manifold. One can see from the exposition of

Sir Toby’s lines above and the previous analyses how an understanding of such meaning would add enormous colour and depth to the playgoer’s experience. To this we should add Lopez’s observation as to the pleasures of “getting” the references as they appeared in early modern drama:

[O]ne can feel privately clever while also feeling one’s cleverness affirmed and sanctioned by the openly private cleverness of everyone else in the audience...it must be seen as one of the cornerstones of the fundamental kind of pleasure Elizabethan and Jacobean drama sought to provide.22 It is important to understand here also that, as I have argued earlier, it is likely that many of Shakespeare’s less educated audience, still functioning in essentially an oral culture, possessed memories that could easily negotiate what seems to us often complicated meanings flashing by in blinks of dialogue. On top of this, it could be that semiotic ballad

22 Lopez 36-7. 90 references were a commonplace of Elizabethan drama and thus its fans may have been more prepared from the outset to catch what was in the air than one might initially imagine. In short, it is quite possible that more spectators had the capacity to “get,” and thus find entertainment in, Sir Toby’s allusions than one might assume.

One must also consider that Toby’s references could very easily represent an effort by the author to promote dialogue beyond the viewing of the play. Consider that Sir

Toby, through his ballad references, performs essentially the comedic equivalent of

Hamlet’s “mad” prophet routine: the spouting of “prophesy” in convoluted, symbolic, ballad-charged language. Subsequently, his “prophesy” engenders the same kind of entertainment as Hamlet’s: a debatable question. Like the issue of Hamlet’s madness, the question of whether the plot against Malvolio was Maria’s idea, Toby’s, or both seems a topic of discussion that might come up as patrons went from the theatre out into the evening. In short, Sir Toby’s song references and their implications could demonstrate, at one level, an effort to get the play “talked about.”

While I believe many, if not all, of the above considerations made ballad references valuable components of Shakespeare’s art, I suspect the underlying reason they are assembled here this way is to encourage the auditing abilities in all audience members through which they would have the best chance to perceive what the author believes to be phenomena central in importance. In Twelfth Night, this amounts to the details of Maria’s plan. As with The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet, Maria’s information, once understood, provides just enough information so that the listener may enjoy the rest of the play regardless of whether he/she has been paying attention up to this 91 point. While Shakespeare repeatedly encourages his patrons to pay attention to variegated message forms, ultimately in act 2, scene 3 of Twelfth Night the messages all work towards the same phenomenon: the gulling of Malvolio. Moreover, as with Hamlet’s gravedigger’s song and Jephtah reference, it appears Shakespeare again attempts to reach to every kind of audience member. Between the trick picture, the catches, and the ballad references, some of which intersect with Biblical and historical phenomenon, it appears no one in the audience, from the groundlings to the most writerly elites, could refrain from pricking up their ears to something. From here, it is tempting to speculate that this something–the gulling of Malvolio–is highlighted this way in this early scene to, perhaps, ensure that those who might not spend the energy to understand other, more complicated plot lines are still entertained. If this was indeed part of the philosophy behind the construction of act 2, scene 3, it would seem to give even greater weight to the argument that Shakespeare again seeks to please all, for it seems this element of the play is the simplest of spectacles and appears to speak to the simplest of spectators.

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Chapter 4. Marking a “Withered Old Knight”: Henry IV, Part 2

4.1 Bad Apples

There are apples in Henry IV, Part2 and in consideration of what has been exposed here thus far, the fruit is suspicious indeed. The difficulty is that, not surprisingly, we have even less solid information surrounding the ballad references in this play than we have for others discussed in this thesis. Yet, as with Ophelia’s madness scene, we are presently equipped with enough evidence to clearly identify the sort of dynamic we have seen in the Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet and Twelfth Night.

Again, the first clutch of ballad allusions and corresponding preparation appear in the second act.1 Here, two drawers prepare a room in The Boar’s Head in which prince

Hal and Poins will shortly disguise themselves as servants in order that they may coax

Falstaff towards incriminating bluster. Immediately, the audience is drawn to a problem:

Enter two Drawers FIRST DRAWER. What the devil hast thou brought there–apple-johns?2 Thou know’st Sir John cannot endure an apple-john. SECOND DRAWER. Mass, thou say’st true. The Prince once set a dish of apple-johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir Johns; and, putting off his hat, said ‘I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.’ It ang’red him to the heart; but he hath

1 Hamlet’s “Jephthah” reference occurs in act 2 scene 2 while Sir Toby’s string of ballad references occurs in act 2, scene 3 of Twelfth Night. Whether this is indicative of a methodology may be illuminated by further research. 2 The OED defines the term as: “A kind of apple said to keep for two years and having after this time a shrivelled, withered appearance.” “Apple John.” Def. 1. OED Online. Ed. John Simpson. Oxford UP, 2009. Web. 20 Mar. 2009.

93

forgot that. FIRST DRAWER. Why, then, cover and set them down; and see if thou canst find out Sneak’s noise; Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some music. (2.4.1-8) Eleven lines later two ballad references appear. Before moving to their analysis, it is helpful to illuminate the significance of this first passage, for it suggests that the author is again flagging his audience to forthcoming allusions. Lines 1-8 effectively amount to the preparation of a scene within a scene, one that will feature performances by prince

Hal and Poins as they impersonate servants. We shall also witness, arguably, a performance by Falstaff as he reacts to his tempters’ promptings, for his defamatory remarks seem designed in part for the entertainment of his dinner companions. Further, in featuring Falstaff in this “scene,” prince Hal spotlights, arguably, the greatest “actor” in the Shakespearean dramatic universe; unlike the actors in the Danish court for example,

Falstaff does not simply act for others, his entire life, his entire persona is one enormous performance. One can then understand the two drawers to be, in one sense, the set designers of a one-act play starring the purest Shakespearean actor of them all.

And what do these set designers speak of at the opening of act 2, scene 4 but the effects of the aesthetic they are in the process of constructing. Discussion focuses upon first drawer’s anxiety regarding a minor element that he recognizes as bearing a dangerous message. The apple-johns represent Falstaff; more than that, they signify his humiliation at the hands of Harry and his impending infirmity and death via old age. The first drawer’s response to this realisation is to admonish his colleague with a message that translates as essentially, “Pay attention! There are minutiae within this aesthetic imbued 94 with important significance.” In light of such a passionate outburst, it seems likely that the Globe audience would be compelled to take the drawer’s advice and pay extra special attention also. Still more compelling is the first drawer’s mention of Falstaff not liking apple-johns, yet in the next breath stating that the knight does not remember the humiliation with which they are associated. This then begs the question of why then their display is problematic. Is it possible that Falstaff now simply does not like them but does not remember why? Perhaps as Joan Fitzpatrick contends, apple-johns are a kind of unconscious reminder to Falstaff of his mortality.3 Or is the first drawer worried that the knight might, upon seeing the apple-johns, remember what they signify and perhaps be more mentally prepared in his “mind” to recognize the potentially humiliating ruse for which the drawers now prepare? One must also consider that, at the moment the First

Drawer recognizes the offending apple-johns, many in the audience would be in the process of eating them, for apple-johns–or “pippins”– were a staple of the Elizabethan theatre, sold like popcorn at our modern baseball games.4 Hence it seems here, at many levels, Shakespeare reaches through another trick picture again marking his audience with the same message “Pay attention to the picture; it involves you.”

Understanding this scene in this way opens some compelling suggestions considering that ballads shortly follow. For we can understand the entire passage as devoted to the recognition of a small sign within the aesthetic of a play that, when analyzed, links to a past event whose understanding seems to foreshadow events in the coming “drama.” Indeed, in the first part of act 2, scene 4, Shakespeare creates for his

3 Joan Fitzpatrick. Food in Shakespeare. Surrey: Ashgate, 2007. Print: 31. 4 Harbage 96 and Gurr 56. 95 audience the same dynamic of active participation necessary to the recognition of ballad references just as they are about to occur–the first drawer does what Shakespeare seems to want us soon to do. A further element to this preparatory dynamic appears when we realise that the first drawer’s explanation of the significance of the apple-johns would clash with the audience’s memory of it. Contemporary Shakespeare enthusiasts would likely recall another apple-john metaphor linked to Falstaff besides those in 2H4 occurs in 1H4 and is made by the knight himself, not prince Hal. Indeed, Falstaff creates the metaphor in the very tavern, and perhaps the very room, in which the so-significant apple-johns presently sit:

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph. FALSTAFF. Bardolph, am I not fall’n away vilely since this last action?5 Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown! I am withered like an old apple-john. (1H4 3.3.1-3) Thus, not only would fans of Shakespeare witness the two drawers entertaining a dynamic of semiotic reference, recognition and analysis, they would also recognize the story the second drawer links to the apple-johns to be different than the one they know.

How compelling, then, that in identifying such difference, audience members perform precisely the kind of critical operation that occurs on stage: the recognition of a signifier and a consideration of possible referents. Here then it appears Shakespeare not only has his characters demonstrate that such phenomena might warrant critical attention, we also find the poet apparently “teaching the audience to hunt” by manipulating them into

5 Falstaff speaks presumably of his fatigue from the robbery on Gad’s Hill. 96 performing the operation itself. In other words, in engaging his audience with the apple- johns, their history and significance, Shakespeare takes his contemporary audience on a kind of critical “practice run” in preparation for coming semiotic phenomena. As with earlier preparatory constructions, we are never told explicitly what it is we should now be auditing. However, immediately after the apple-john discussion, the second drawer announces that he must fetch “Sneak’s noise” i.e. his band, for “Mistress Tearsheet would fain have some music.” Thus, as with the preparatory tactics of Twelfth Night and

Ophelia’s lute, it appears we are provided a strong hint that the elements we are being taught to watch out for might be musical.

This suspicion appears correct. Eleven lines after the apple-johns, Doll Tearsheet and Hostess Quickly enter the room in preparation for Falstaff’s arrival. Almost immediately the prostitute delivers a reference that links to a ballad entitled “Hem Boys

Hem.” The passage reads:

HOSTESS QUICKLY. I’faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality: your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose. But you have drunk too much canaries, and that’s a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere we can say “What’s this?” How do you now? DOLL TEARSHEET. Better than I was. Hem! HOSTESS QUICKLY. Why that was well said. A good heart’s worth gold. Look, here comes Sir John. (2.4.14-20) At first, it seems that Doll Tearsheet’s “Hem” exclamation is ambiguous at best; it could be she just clears her throat after, it appears, overindulging in “canaries” 97 which the editors identify as “wine from the canary islands.”6 Indeed, the same identify “Hem!” as “probably a hiccup.”7 Nevertheless, Hostess Quickly’s response appears to link to lyrics of an “old song” found in Richard Bröme’s A

Jovial Crew (ca. 1641), which reads:

There was an old fellow at Waltham Cross, Who merrily sung when he liv’d by the Loss. He never was heard to sigh with Hey-ho: But sent it out with a Haigh trolly lo. He chear’d up his Heart, when his Goods went to wrack, With a heghm boy, heghm, and a Cup of old Sack.8 Of this link, and a similar one occurring later in the play courtesy of Justice Shallow,

Duffin adds:

That same year [of A Jovial Crew’s performance], the words formed part of A Catch within a Catch as printed by John Hilton in Catch That Catch Can and included (with some variants) in an autograph manuscript (BL 11608) by Hilton of about the same date. In the round, the words given by Brome are interspersed with choruses of “hy trolly lolly, lolly, lo,” etc. It seems to have gone unnoticed before now, however, that the round above can be extracted from the composite piece given by Hilton, though we cannot know for certain if this is the version that Shakespeare might have used.9 Regardless of whether Shakespeare refers to a ballad incorporated by Bröme or

6 TN 983 note 17. 7 TN 983 note 19. 8 Richard Bröme. A Joviall Crew, or, The Merry Beggars Presented in a Comedie at Drury-Lane, in the Yeer 1641 / Written by Richard Brome. London: J.Y., 1652. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 6 Mar. 2009: Document image 24. 9 Duffin 193. 98

Hilton’s source round, Hostess Quickly’s comment “Why that’s well said. A good heart’s worth gold” (2.4.20) suggests that she, and thus Shakespeare, is aware of the spirit advertised by the song, thus suggesting an earlier version; for “Hem

Boys, Hem” celebrates an “old fellow” who remains cheerful regardless of circumstance and associates this steady constitution with the drinking of sack.

More specifically, the line “He chear’d up his Heart, when his goods went to wrack,” is especially resonant with Quickly’s remark in that it seems to weigh a cheered or “good heart” against material loss or “gold,” as if the one works to mitigate the other. With this in mind, we can then understand Hostess Quickly as interpreting Doll Tearsheet’s “Hem,” combined with her apparently tipsy state, to be an indication that the prostitute has taken a large amount of alcohol to cheer her heart in the face of some anxiety.

The source of her anxiety appears signified in the next lines as Falstaff enters and sings “‘When Arthur first in court / And was a worthy king’” while at the same time barking to the first drawer, “Empty the jordan” (2.4.22-4). Upon his subsequent greeting of “Mistress Doll,” one cannot help but suspect, at this point in the scene, that the anxiety driving the tavern whore to drink is the notion that she will soon be having sex with the enormous, recently-excreting John Falstaff.

Supporting this notion is the subsequent argument between the two in which

Tearsheet exclaims to Hostess Quickly, “Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogshead?” (41) thus conveying the unpleasant image of a slight woman underneath her obese, “boar-ish” patron. 99

The passage becomes still more interesting with knowledge of the link between Falstaff’s song and a ballad attributed to Thomas Deloney entitled “The

Noble Acts Newly Found of Arthur and the Table Round,” (1620). The first stanza reads:

When Arthur had in court began and was approved King By force of Armes great Victories won and conquest home did bring Then into Brittain straight he came, where fifty good and able Knights, then repaired unto him, which were of the Round Table.10 Further reading finds a Spenser-esque tale of Sir Lancelot, complete with vanquished giants and rescued knights. Of note is Falstaff’s apparent misquoting of the ballad; he perhaps unconsciously replaces the word “approved” with the word “worthy,” recalling

Iago’s chilling substitution of “King Henry” with “King Stephen” analysed earlier.11

When we add these considerations to Falstaff’s “Empty the jordan” remark and the previous ballad reference by Doll Tearsheet and its implications, it seems apple-johns and ballad references are operating in concert to instil in audience members the notion that

Falstaff is no Lancelot, no fit companion for a legendary king such as Arthur or, notably, the future Henry V. The notion is followed shortly by proof as the disguised prince Hal

10 Thomas Deloney. “The Noble Acts Newly Found, of Arthur of the Table Round to the Tune of Flying Fame.” London: W.I., 1620. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 9 May 2009: Document image 1. 11 5-8. 100 finds Falstaff “bestown in his true colours,”12 i.e., disparaging him at the slightest prompting:

Enter the Prince and Poins, disguised DOLL TEARSHEET. Sirrah, what humour is the Prince of? FALSTAFF. A good shallow young fellow: He would have made a good pantler; he would ha’ chipped bread well. DOLL TEARSHEET. They say Poins hath a good wit. FALSTAFF. He a good wit? Hang him, baboon! His wit is as thick as Tewksbury mustard. There’s no more conceit in him than is in a mallet. DOLL TEARSHEET. Why doth the Prince love him so, then? FALSTAFF. Because their legs are both of a bigness, and he plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon joint stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet stories, and such other gambol faculties he hath, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the Prince admits him; for the Prince himself is such another; the weight of an hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois. (2.4.172-86). Here, then, between apples, songs and slander, I believe we find another preparation/song dynamic devoted to the underscoring of an issue the author believes to be of central importance. This time it is the shunning and eventual destruction of Falstaff.

If the epilogue of 2H4 is any indication, it appears Shakespeare finds negotiating the

12 2H4 2.2.118. 101 necessary departure of Falstaff from the orbit of Henry V a large contributor to the

“displeasure” the he fears his play will cause, for the fat knight’s popularity with contemporary audiences is legendary (2H4.5.5.100-116). Through knowledge of ballad references and the preparatory devices augmenting them we find Shakespeare designing act 2, scene 4 from beginning to end to mitigate the dismay of those “not too much cloyed with fat meat” (5.5.111) by suggesting–and then demonstrating–that while perhaps a colourful, fun companion for a noble yet rebellious young man, the obese, bombastic, ignoble, backstabbing Falstaff is, ultimately, as his misquoted, post- defecatory song suggests: un-”worthy” of an “approved” king.

4.2 Bad Apples II

Curiously, act 2, scene 4 is hardly the end of apple-johns. Indeed, they surface twice more in act 5, scene 3 and appear to operate in much the same fashion as before.

Moreover, the new apple-johns launch a scene in which we find many techniques and constructions surrounding ballad references that recall those illuminated in other plays examined so far. The scene turns away from momentous events to find Falstaff in the company of his chosen marks, Shallow and Silence, as all relax in Shallow’s home after supper. At this point, the audience has come to understand that both Shallow and Falstaff seek advantage in their association. Shallow is looking to cultivate “a friend i’th’court”

(5.1.18) whilst Falstaff seeks to make the old justice “a philosopher’s two stones to me,” i.e.: a target for a lucrative swindle (4.1.232-3). 102

For those paying attention, it seems from the moment the scene opens that something is up, for Shallow’s first lines are an invitation for Falstaff to move to the orchard and sample “last year’s pippin.” The OED defines pippins as “Formerly: a kind of sweet apple, typically late-ripening, fine-flavoured, and having good keeping qualities.”13 The editors of the Norton edition of 2H4 move one step further defining pippins as apples “traditionally kept for a year before eating.” This, of course, sounds a great deal like the apple-johns in act 2, scene 3 and thus, perhaps, represents another direction from Shakespeare for the audience to pay attention to future semiotic references. Sadly, while Silence, recalling Sir Toby in Twelfth Night, erupts in drunken song a mere six lines following the “apple-john” appearance, we have yet to establish a link between his first two ballad references and extant works. The frustration is shortly forgotten when at line 31, Davy returns and sets “a dish of leather-coats” directly before

Falstaff. Yet the knight seems to take no notice of them. One can not help but hearken back to the anxieties of the first drawer in act 2, scene 4 and imagine his terror if his helper had not just placed a bowl of apple-johns in the vicinity of the Falstaff but approached the knight and offered him the symbolic fruit directly. One must assume then that the significance of Davy’s gesture would not go unnoticed by the contemporary audience. Hence, we can understand Shakespeare appropriating the same message of

“pay attention” from his earlier scene and delivering it here for a third time complete with a dramatic exclamation point.

So, again, one expects that soon to follow will be semiotic song references perhaps

13 Def. 3a. OED Online. Ed. John Simpson. Oxford UP, 2009. Web. 30 Mar. 2009.

103 again serving to underline a salient issue. As with act 2, scene 4, this appears to be the case. Two ballad references, beginning “A cup of wine” and “Fill the cup” respectively

(5.3.34, 40) appear almost immediately following the third apple-john reference. While we again are as yet essentially ignorant of the significance of these song fragments, as the scene continues, we encounter ballad references for which we have enough evidence to designate them as clearly of the second and third semiotic classes. This leads to a further consideration of Shakespeare’s use of apple-johns as preparatory tools. Consider that the first incident of apple-johns in scene 5.3 seems congruent with the content: a wealthy retiree with a green thumb with what he believes to be an “influential” guest in his clutches. His offer to Falstaff to peruse the orchard and sample its produce seems natural of any host seeking to entertain a guest. However, the second apple-john reference is strangely superfluous, for the party has neither retired to the orchard as Shallow suggested nor has anyone requested that the fruit be brought. Instead, Davy seems to have taken it upon himself to place the apples directly in front of Falstaff and thus conspicuously before the audience. This suggests that, after the first apple-john reference and the ballads that follow, Shakespeare inserts them a second time as a subtle hint that the semiotic game has not yet finished. Moreover, considering the often elaborately semiotic nature of the references that soon follow, I am suspicious that the second apple- john sign, along with its function as a preparatory “booster shot,” may expose Silence’s initial ballad references, understood or not, to be merely of the first-class variety. In other words, they function simply as comedic illustrations augmenting the irony that, when intoxicated, “Silence,” seems an insufferable blatherer. In short, it is as if, through Davy’s 104 placing the apple-johns directly before Falstaff, Shakespeare says to his audience, “Pay attention to ballads, but especially those occurring beyond this point.” Further, if we follow Fitzpatrick’s argument noted earlier, the apple-johns may act simultaneously as a hint that what we should now seek links to Falstaff’s mortality.

The first song reference following the second apple-john marker appears to be of the second class: an augmentation of the obvious with an allusion to an outside text. In response to his conversation with Bardolf, Falstaff exclaims “Why, now, you have done me right,” to which Silence responds, “Do me right, / And dub me knight. / Samingo”

(5.3.54-7). This reference appears to derive “not from a ballad but rather from an English text written to the chanson Un jour vis un foulon by Orlando di Lasso” and was clearly popular with the playwrights of the period, being featured in works by Jonson, Chapman,

Marston and Nashe “all written between 1592 and 1604, so the English translation was clearly in wide circulation by then.”14 The song showcases a legendary drinker who can drink anyone under the table. Of course, through this understanding, one accesses the joke–for Silence clearly cannot hold his liquor.

From here, we move to a tantalizingly familiar aesthetic beginning at line 61 with

Pistol’s arrival and ending with the announcement that Henry IV is dead and his son

Harry has been crowned. I include here the entire passage in the interest of clarity, for there are several operations occurring simultaneously that concern us:

DAVY. If it please your worship, there’s one Pistol come from the court with news.

14 Duffin 265. 105

FALSTAFF. From the court? Let him come in. Enter PISTOL How now, Pistol? PISTOL. Sir John, save you, sir! FALSTAFF. What wind blew you hither, Pistol? PISTOL. Not the ill wind which blows none to good, sweet knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in the realm. SILENCE. Indeed, I think he be, but Goodman Puff of Barson. PISTOL. Puff? Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base! Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend, Helter-skelter have I rode to thee, And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys And golden times, and happy news of price. FALSTAFF. I prithee now, deliver them like a man of this world. PISTOL. A foutre for the world and worldlings base! I speak of Africa and golden joys. FALSTAFF. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news? Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof. SILENCE. And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John. Sings PISTOL. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons? And shall good news be baffled? Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies’ lap. SHALLOW. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding. PISTOL. Why, then, lament therefore. SHALLOW. Give me pardon, sir. If, sir, you come with news from the court, I take it there is but two ways, either to utter them or to conceal them. I am, sir, under the king, in some authority. PISTOL. Under which king, Bezonian? Speak, or die. SHALLOW. Under King Harry. PISTOL. Harry the Fourth or Fifth? 106

SHALLOW. Harry the Fourth. PISTOL. A foutre for thine office! Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is King; (5.3.61-93) As with Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew, and the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, we find here a character repeatedly asked for “news” yet, curiously, taking his time (thirty-two lines) in delivering it. As with the older plays, this phenomenon suggests that the audience is being goaded into paying close attention to what characters are about to say.

Consider next that, with his initial announcement that Falstaff is now “one of the greatest men in the realm” (65-66), it is abundantly clear to the audience that Pistol’s news is the death of Henry IV resulting in Falstaff’s assumed elevation in practical power and influence through his friendship with prince Harry, now Henry V.

What is decidedly unclear is whether Falstaff is, in fact, already aware of the news

Pistol brings, for, like Sir Toby in Twelfth Night, and Hamlet, Falstaff quotes a ballad reference suggesting that indeed he may. When he calls Pistol an “Assyrian knight” and implores him to “let king Cophetua know the truth thereof” (5.3.77-8) he refers to a ballad the earliest extant version of which is contained in Richard Johnson’s A Crovvne

Garland of Goulden Roses (1612) and entitled “A Song of a Beggar and a King.”15 Also known as “King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid,” the premise of the story has captured the imagination of artists and writers into the twentieth century.16 Evidently, the

15 For the full text of the song, see Richard Johnson. A Crovvne Garland of Goulden Roses. n.p., 1612. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 7 Mar. 2009. 16 Edward Burne-Jones’ painting “King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid” (1884) and Lord Alfred Tennyson's poem "The Beggar Maid" (1833) are two well-known examples. The Burn- Jones painting is also mentioned in Ezra Pound’s Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920). For these examples, see Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones. King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid. 1884. Oil on 107 metaphor was also a favourite of Shakespeare’s. Utilized clearly in both Love’s Labours

Lost (4.1.61-78) and Romeo and Juliet (2.1.16), it seems likely that the reference, and its significance, would have been easily recognized by many in the audience, for both plays were written approximately five or six years before 2H4 with Romeo and Juliet being popular enough to warrant reprinting in 1597 and 1599.

The implications of the King Cophetua reference are compelling, for the ballad recounts a king, sworn off engagement with women, falling in love with a maid of lowly birth and, subsequently making her his queen. Of course, the prevailing theme is elevation despite social class. It is significant then that we hear reference to the story coming from the mouth of Falstaff, whom Pistol (and likely Falstaff himself) believes will be “elevated” to the rank of “one of the greatest men in the realm” through nothing but the “love” he feels he has from the new King. Moreover, after Falstaff is elevated, it seems natural to assume he might play “King Cophetua” to Pistol and elevate his status also. The only difficulty here is that, when Falstaff makes the Cophetua reference, he has not yet “heard the news.” It is perhaps arguable that the fat knight has guessed it in light of Pistol’s insinuations. Yet, it is impossible to be sure, for Pistol, if anything, has proven himself a fountain of hyperbole; his comments could mean anything. Couple this with the fact that, before Falstaff’s reference, he does not guess the news but continues to request that Pistol tell it. Hence, it seems more likely that Falstaff, at this point is still unaware of

canvas. Tate Gallery, London; Alfred Tennyson. “The Beggar Maid.” Passions in Poetry. Ed. Ron Carnell. Passions in Poetry, 1998-2006. Web. 10 Feb 2009; Ezra Pound. Hugh Selwyn Mauberley. London: The Ovid Press, 1920. Internet Archive. The Presidio of San Francisco. 2006. Web. 10 Feb. 2009.

108 what has happened and thus unmindful of the implications.

The puzzle is compounded by the next ballad reference, which immediately follows

Falstaff’s mention of King Cophetua. At line 79, it is suggested that “Robin Hood,

Scarlet and John” be added to the list of people deserving of the news. Duffin links this reference to a very late Robin Hood ballad entitled “The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield, with

Robin Hood, Scarlet, and Iohn” of which the earliest extant copy dated around 1632.17

The song recounts a pinder18 who fights with Robin et al. and, through his display of courage and prowess, is inducted into the band–complete with a salary.19 Again, such a story seems to speak to Falstaff’s impending situation, for he is just about to learn that

Harry (who has, arguably, been acting like Robin Hood, through his adventures with

Falstaff and his “merry” band of “outlaws”) has just become king. Now, it seems Falstaff, like the pinder is about to be promoted. Of course, this reference contains another level of irony, for the pinder proves himself to be truly brave, strong and skilful, and clearly deserves his promotion, whereas Falstaff, who has been riding on a fabricated reputation all this time, seems hardly akin.

It is also interesting to note that this ballad reference is not made by the tipsy yet often perspicacious and insightful Falstaff, but by the blathering, naïve Silence who seems one step away from incoherence. Surely he does not “understand” the implication of the ballad he quotes. It makes far more sense to understand his reference, and likely

17 Duffin 340. 18 Pinder. “A person in charge of impounding stray animals.” Def. 1. OED Online. Ed. John Simpson. Oxford UP, 2009. Web. 10 Apr. 2009. 19 For the entire ballad, see Thomas Deloney. “The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield, with Robin Hood, Scarlet, and Iohn.” London: np., 1663-74. EEBO. 2003-9. Web. 7 Mar. 2009

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Falstaff’s, as further examples of metadramatic signals to the contemporary audience of the news, the implications of which Falstaff and Pistol will shortly engage

However, this seems to confuse the issue further, for it does not seem logical for

Shakespeare, through both the planting of the apple-johns and the “waiting for the news” motif, to make such an effort to emphasise ballads that suggest news that the audience already knows and, to the characters, is quickly and succinctly revealed. I suggest that the reason for this kind of dramaturgical effort is, as I have suggested earlier, the mitigation of anxiety caused by the cessation of Falstaff as a character. Consider that the apple-johns here may serve a number of purposes to facilitate this effect. First, they serve to remind the audience that the dynamic before them in this scene is very similar to the one they first graced. In scene 5.3, Falstaff sits at dinner with Shallow and Silence just as he sat at

Boar’s head in Eastcheap where the audience witnessed Falstaff’s “true colours” revealed. In 5.3 we find Falstaff revealed again,20 but not only as he is, but what he will become. Yet through the prompting apple-johns, the audience is encouraged to consider more closely–to audit–the implications of the aesthetic before them, of which ballad references play an integral part. I argue that the total aesthetic is one highlighting

Falstaff’s unworthiness; the idea that while his affiliation with a prince might be possible, affiliation with a king is not.

At a concurrent level, we must consider the apple-johns as representing, as we have

20 Essentially the background text of this scene is Falstaff priming his marks to be conned at a later date. In this way we find Falstaff’s true nature again revealed, he is a false friend to these his betters and uses them as milk cows from which he may suckle a living. The implications of his future relationship with Henry V are obvious.

110 seen in both Henry IV plays, the negation of Falstaff’s power over prince Hal and, ultimately, the humiliation and rejection of this “dried up withered old knight.” In this way we can see the apple-johns in this 5.3 symbolizing a negation–or at least a caution towards–the symbolic ballads they simultaneously highlight. Thus, the apple-johns not only prepare us to analyse these ballad references, they also encourage the audience to criticize the “news” the references seem to presage.

In 2 Henry 4, then, we find Shakespeare again positioning semiotic song to focus audience attention upon a salient issue. Where in Hamlet the issue is madness, in Twelfth

Night, the gulling of Malvolio, the issue seems to be, as with Iago in Othello, the exposure of Falstaff’s true nature in the hopes of lessening the shock of the necessary disposal of an amusing, compelling, yet ultimately bad apple. So appropriately, then, do we find old withered apples simultaneously marking the following: audience members through their status as theatre-treats; areas where critical attention–especially to song–is most important; and lastly, the withered knight himself and, perhaps, his impending doom. Again the message to spectators is clear: Listen to the words qualifying the spectacle; within are messages concerning something–in this case, someone–important to you.

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Conclusion.

In any culture, in any era, songs are about engagement–engagement with historicity, emotion, opinion, ultimately with spirit. When such engagement occurs, we quite often make personal associations and investments; we identify with the message and thus connect it to ourselves. In perhaps the most competitive years of Elizabethan theatre, Shakespeare used song to simultaneously engage as many patrons as possible with his plays and, notably, with phenomena within the drama it seems he felt were primary in importance. In The Taming of the Shrew, this appears to have been the details of a clever ruse; in Hamlet, the nature of madness; in The Second Part of Henry the

Fourth, the worthiness of a favourite character and, indirectly, a king.

But to engage in song, and from there, issues such as these, one must first be convinced not simply to hear, but to listen. And herein, it appears, lay the challenge; for the prevailing opinion among writers of Shakespeare’s day was that, although a sizable portion of more educated members of society could be counted on, many more theatre patrons were fundamentally spectators, finding entertainment value firstly through their eyes rather than their ears. Hence we find, knitted with fragments of engaging, semiotic song, an audience called to attention: called by Hamlet to each ear, called by Ophelia to mark each song she sings; called through the apples in the audience’s very mouths and from the trick pictures framed around them. The analyses I offer here demonstrate that

Shakespeare may have indeed taken Jonson’s distinction between auditors and spectators to heart. Yet, Shakespeare’s choice of songs and preparatory dramaturgy also demonstrates a core faith in the critical faculties of even his lowliest patrons. Though he

112 referred to them exclusively as spectators after 1600,1 in Hamlet, Twelfth Night and The

Second Part of Henry the Fourth, we find Shakespeare treating his entire audience as auditors.

As mentioned in the introduction, the greatest challenge in dealing with songs and early modern drama is the current deficiency of empirical evidence. As much as I believe this thesis offers a legitimate illumination of the colour and depth Shakespeare infused into his works through his use of song, portions of this thesis are necessarily speculative and, as with any study, would benefit from any and all future relevant discoveries. To that end, I believe the next step in this area of scholarship is a perusal of song as utilized by

Shakespeare’s contemporaries. As demonstrated in the earlier analysis of “Where is the

Life,” used in both The Taming of the Shrew and Henry IV, Part 2, and numerous other examples in other plays,2 Shakespeare utilized the same songs in multiple works seemingly as he saw fit. The “Three Merry Men Be We” link found in Bröme’s Jovial

Crew, also mentioned earlier, suggests further that the same songs were not only utilized in multiple plays, but also appropriated by writers from the plays of others. This notion resonates with current understanding of the climate of collaboration among playwrights that marks the period. At present, research into songs in the works of Shakespeare’s contemporaries is miniscule and thus it is exciting to consider what may lie waiting in this substantial body of works when it is examined the above thoughts in mind.

1 Gurr 111. 2 Ross Duffin in his Shakespeare’s Songbook (2006) mentioned earlier, offers numerous examples of Shakespeare referring to the same popular songs in multiple plays. See pages 168, 173, 197 and 205 for examples.

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Of course, there are further benefits to this line of inquiry; currently, we have no legitimate idea as to Shakespeare or any other playwright’s role in the evolution of song in Elizabethan/Jacobean drama. Was Shakespeare an innovator or simply employing traditional convention? Was there a convention at all and if so, what was the nature of its evolution? Study of his contemporaries will fill in many such blanks.

Nevertheless, there is much that can be gained from this study as it stands.

Through it we find in Shakespeare’s use of song, at this pivotal point in the evolution of the Elizabethan theatre, a demonstration of the author’s clear, shrewd, and arguably inclusive perception of the socio-political and cultural spheres occupied by his various patrons. We find clear evidence of direct, pointed efforts to encourage audience attention at key moments and thereby augment Lopez’s notions of a hyperactive, attention- promoting dramatic language inherent in the art form3 with the argument that such hyperactivity appears to have been consciously recognised and played upon, at least by

Shakespeare, in sophisticated, premeditated ways.

Beyond this, understanding the role song played in promoting key issues and/or particular nuances–as demonstrated particularly in my analysis of songs in Hamlet–is, of course, helpful to all of us seeking a better appreciation of the Shakespearean aesthetic and the operation of his dramaturgy. Moreover, I argue that this study may be particularly helpful to actors, directors and editors dedicated to bringing Shakespeare’s art to us, for it brings us a little closer to understanding Shakespeare’s conception of his characters and thus further empowers thespians by providing a more solid place from which to launch

3 Lopez 55.

114 their own interpretations. This point seems especially relevant in light of our growing understanding of the acting craft in Shakespeare’s day. It may well be that the prompts and references noted in this thesis provided clues to contemporary players who in rehearsal, as Tiffany Stern points out, possessed only the fragments of the full play containing their parts.4

After 1602, instances in Shakespearean drama of the elaborate semiotic song references and orbiting preparatory constructions highlighted in this thesis diminish substantially. The number of song references in plays written after 1604 is, on average, approximately half the number of references of those written before. Further, The

Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, and Two Noble Kinsman contain approximately eighty percent of song references included in plays written between 1604 and 1616. While these three plays do contain substantial musical content, much of it appears unrelated to outside compositions; and no play written after 1604 contains the kind of interwoven, preparatory constructions indentified in this thesis. Perhaps the movement away from such dramaturgical efforts is indicative of Shakespeare’s company, now the King’s Men, gaining a portion of the market share substantial enough to render obsolete such pointed attempts to please all. Perhaps it is indicative of a shift in the cultural perception of popular song. Perhaps we simply witness here the playwright’s stylistic evolution. Likely the answer involves a combination of such factors. Fortunately for us what appears to be something of a spike in competitive fervour around 1600 has afforded a glimpse into a

4 Tiffany Stern. Making Shakespeare. London: Routledge, 2004. Print: passim.

115 compelling facet of Shakespeare’s drama and the culture surrounding it, a glimpse that shall almost certainly broaden with further inquiry.

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