Shakespeare’s Lines

By Cornelius

INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE’S LINES
Condensed biography:
Born circa 23 April 1564, and died 23 April 1616, in Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire, England.
Son to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.
Brother to Gilbert, Joan, Anne, Richard and Edmund.
Husband to Mary Hathaway.
Father to Susanna, Hamnet and Judith (twins).
Grandfather to Susanna’s daughter Elizabeth.
Schooled at King’s New School
Career as writer, poet, dramatist and businessman.
Literary works: plays, sonnets and narrative poems.
Reputation as the world’s greatest playwright.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Aug 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543759877

Cornelius

Cornelius was born in 1937 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He married and has two children Melody and Mark. In 1960 they re-located to sub-tropical Durban on the Indian Ocean. He started his career as a Junior Draughtsman and worked for Consulting Engineers. By studying, he eventually qualified as a Structural Engineer and as a Professional Engineer was able to run his own private practice.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE’S LINES

Condensed biography:

Born circa 23 April 1564, and died 23 April 1616, in Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire, England.

Son to John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.

Brother to Gilbert, Joan, Anne, Richard and Edmund.

Husband to Mary Hathaway.

Father to Susanna, Hamnet and Judith (twins).

Grandfather to Susanna’s daughter Elizabeth.

Schooled at King’s New School

Career as writer, poet, dramatist and businessman.

Literary works: plays, sonnets and narrative poems.

Reputation as the world’s greatest playwright.

1.

THE TEMPEST

An island somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea.

Prospero, the usurped Duke of Milan, has by dedicated study gained magical powers. He and 15 year old daughter Miranda, an ethereal sprite called Ariel and a hybrid monster known as Caliban, live on the island. Prospero’s prescience has alerted him to the fact that a vessel bearing his usurping brother Antonio, Alonso king of Naples, his son Ferdinand, and courtiers are sailing close by their island. Prospero raises a tempest which drives the vessel ashore; no-one is drowned. Ferdinand stumbles toward Prospero’s cell. Ariel, invisible, sings:

"Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes;

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell;

Hark! now I hear them – Ding-dong bell."

Prospero has resurrected nature spirits (Juno, Ceres, Iris, Nymphs and Reapers) to display his powers to his daughter Miranda and her newly betrothed, Ferdinand.

Pro: "You do look, my son, in a mov’d sort,

As if you were dismay’d; be cheerful, sir.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air;

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep………………."

A little later Miranda, who had never seen a man other than her father, the hybrid monster Caliban and lately Ferdinand, is introduced to other men, previously shipwrecked:

Mira. "O wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world

That has such people in’t."

At last all are gathered at Prospero’s cell, mysteries are revealed and brothers Prospero and Antonio reconciled. Prospero abjures further magic and destroys his magic staff.

* * * * * *

2.

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

The Duke of Milan has a daughter, Silvia. A gentleman of Verona, Valentine, is visiting the Duke’s court in Milan. He is smitten by the beauty and elegance of the Duke’s daughter.

Another gentleman of Verona, Valentine’s dear friend Proteus, is enamoured of one Juliet in Verona, who reciprocates his love. As previously planned, Proteus also visits Milan, and at the sight of Silvia falls desperately in love with her. He has forgotten Juliet. Friendship turns into rivalry and rivalry into rancour. Proteus woos Silvia and is rejected by her. Valentine woos Silvia and is rejected by the angry Duke, her father. Valentine is exiled by the Duke and decamps to a forest on the Mantuan frontier. Proteus has given his servant, Launce, a puppy as gift for Silvia who rejects it as a cur. Launce offers his beloved dog Crab, a large mongrel, in its place to Proteus’s extreme annoyance. Launce consoles Crab thus:

Laun. When a man’s servant shall play the cur with him, look you, it goes hard – one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I sav’d from drowning when three or four of his blind brothers and sister went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say precisely ‘Thus I would teach a dog’. I was sent to deliver him as a present to Mistress Sylvia from my master, and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher and steals her capon’s leg. O, ’tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself in all companies! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I think verily he had been hang’d for’t; sure as I live, he had suffer’d for’t. You shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the company of three or four gentlemen-like dogs under the Duke’s table; he had not been there, bless the mark, a pissing while but all the chamber smelt him. ‘Out with the dog’ says one; ‘What cur is that?’ says another; ‘Whip him out ‘says the third; ‘Hang him up’ says the Duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs. ‘Friend’ quoth I ‘you mean to whip the dog’. ‘Ay, marry do I’ quoth he. ‘You do him the more wrong’ quoth I ’t’was I that did the thing you wot of. He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant? Nay, I’ll be sworn I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stol’n, otherwise he had been executed; I have stood on the pillory for geese he hath kill’d, otherwise he had suffer’d for ’t. Thou think’st not of this now. Nay, I remember the trick you serv’d me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia. Did not I bid thee still mark me and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman’s farthingale? Didst thou ever see me do such a trick?

Silvia with the aid of Eglamour, a servant of the court, sets out to find Valentine somewhere in the forest. Proteus follows as does the Duke with search party. Valentine has fallen in with thieves in the forest and due to his bearing is elected chief of the gang. His leadership placates the thieves when the followers arrive. Among the followers is Juliet, disguised as a youth. She makes herself known and Proteus is suitably shamed. The Duke forgives Valentine and accepts him as a suitor to Silvia.

* * * * * *

3.

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

Sir John Falstaff, feeling frisky, tried to separately seduce two married ladies, Mistresses Ford and Page, resident in the village of Windsor. He propositioned each of them with identical letters, changing only their names, and requested they be kept private. Like good neighbours, and being astute women, they discovered to each other Sir John’s ‘plot’. They decide to have a little fun with Sir John. A rendezvous with Mrs. Ford is arranged, with the intention that her husband will be summoned at a crucial moment. Hearing the husband’s approach, Sir John creeps into a strategically placed laundry basket, in which he will be carried to the Thames and tipped in. Back at his lodgings at the Garter Inn, Sir John Falstaff feels humiliated by his experience.

Fal: Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in’t. Have I liv’d to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be serv’d such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out and butter’d, and give them to a dog for a new-year’s gift. The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse as they would have drown’d a blind bitch’s puppies, fifteen i’ th’ litter; and you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell I should down. I had been drown’d but that the shore was shelvy and shallow – a death that I abhor; for the water swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when I had been swell’d? I should have been a mountain of mummy.

Thrilled by the success of the trick, Mistresses Ford and Page plot another. They request Mistress Quickly, a serving maid, to deliver a message to Sir John.

Quick: Marry sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.

Fal: Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.

Quick: Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault! She does so take on with her men; they mistook their erection.

Fal: So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.

Quick: Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine; I must carry her word quickly. She’ll make you amends, I warrant you.

Fal: Well, I will visit her. Tell her so; and bid her think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty, and then judge of my merit.

Mistresses Ford and Page contrive another rendezvous. Mrs. Page enters the house and asks ‘innocently’ whether Mrs. Ford is alone. Of course she is not. Advised that Mr. Ford accompanied by various villagers is due home, Sir John panics and requests a disguise from Mrs. Ford. He escapes, dressed as a witch, once again thoroughly humiliated. But the ladies are not finished with him yet. After leading him on, ever hopeful of a conquest, they decided to teach him a lesson. They invite Sir John to meet Mrs. Ford at a certain oak tree in Windsor Forest at midnight, with the intention of further humiliating him. Neighbours’ children, disguised as fairies, elves and hobgoblins appear with lanterns to frighten and pinch Sir John, while singing and dancing round about.

The Song:

"Fie on sinful fantasy!

Fie on lust and luxury!

Lust is but a bloody fire,

Kindled with unchaste desire,

Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.

Pinch him, fairies, mutually;

Pinch him for his villainy;

Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,

Till candles and star-light and moonshine be out."

* * * * * *

4.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

The action takes place in Vienna. A sanctimonious counsellor, Angelo, has been deputed to act in the Duke’s stead to ‘resurrect’ laws previously unenforced. A great emphasis was placed on social morality and although the councillor later falls into the pit of hypocritical lust himself, he condemns to death one Claudio, guilty of impregnating his lover, Juliet, prior to their intended marriage. Angelo justifies his sentence to Escalus, a noble courtier.

Ang: "’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

Another thing to fall. I not deny

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,

May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice,

That justice seizes. What knows the laws

That thieves do pass on thieves? ’Tis very pregnant,

The jewel that we find, we stoop and take’t,

Because we see it; but what we do not see

We tread upon, and never think of it.

You may not so extenuate his offence

For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,

When I, that censure him, do so offend,

Let mine own judgement pattern out my death,

And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die."

Claudio’s sister, Isabella, a noviciate nun, is exhorted by a friend of Claudio, one Lucio, to intervene and plead for mercy for her condemned brother.

Isab: Yet show some pity.

Ang: "I show it most of all when I show justice;

For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismiss’d offence would after gall,

And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

Your brother dies tomorrow; be content."

Isab: "So you must be the first that gives this sentence,

And he that suffers. O, it is excellent

To have a giant’s strength! But it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.

Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,

For every pelting petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder,

Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven,

Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,

Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak

Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,

Dress’d in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,

Would all themselves laugh mortal.

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.

Great men may jest with saints; ’tis wit in them;

But in the less foul profanation.

That in the captain’s but a choleric word

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy."

Ang: Why do you put these sayings upon me?

Isab: "Because authority, though it errs like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself

That skins the vice o’ th’ top. Go to your bosom,

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know

That’s like my brother’s fault. If it confess

A natural guiltiness such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

Against my brother’s life."

Angelo is moved, not to pity, but to lust; for this maid who is articulate, pure, sagacious and physically attractive. He informs her that his mercy lies in her willingness to lie with him. She refuses. Later, Isabella visits Claudio in prison to console him and advises him of the condition by which his life may be saved.

Claud: Death is a fearful thing.

Isab: And shamed life a hateful.

Claud: "Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods or to reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent world; or to be worse than worst

Of that lawless and incertain thought

Imagine howling – ’tis too horrible.

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment,

Can lay on nature is a paradise

To what we fear of death."

Isabella regrets Claudio’s response in weighing his life above her chastity. The Duke has secretly returned and is now incognito as a friar. Using his disguise he is apprised of events. He is aware of one Mariana, formerly betrothed of Angelo, and contrives her to take Isabella’s place after Isabella agrees to Angelo’s lusty demands. However, Claudio’s death sentence is not revoked; rather it is brought forward for execution.

The Duke, now himself again, returns and calls for a convocation of the towns-folk to hear evidence from affected parties, including Angelo’s deception. Claudio is yet alive and is re-united with Juliet, who has delivered their baby. Guilty Angelo, pleading for death, is ‘sentenced’ to marry Mariana. Isabella, yet a maid, faces the Duke who says:"……..and for your lovely sake, give me your hand and say you will be mine."

* * * * * *

5.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

Identical twins Antipholus (Syrecusian: Anti S) and Antipholus (Ephesian: Anti E) each with an identical twin as servant (both Dromio) are in Ephesus, unaware of each other’s presence there. Adriana, wife to Anti E, confronts Anti S in the street, but he does not recognise her.

Adr: "Ay, ay, look strange Antipholus, and frown,

Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects,

I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.

The time was once when thou unurg’d wouldst vow

That never words were music to thine ear,

That never object pleasing in thine eye,

That never touch well welcome to thy hand,

That never meat sweet-savour’d in thy taste,

Unless I spake, or look’d, or touch’d, or carv’d to thee.

How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,

That thou art then estranged from thyself?

Thyself I call it, being strange to me,

That undividable, incorporate,

Am better than thy dear self’s better part.

Ah, do not tear thyself away from me;

For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall

A drop of water in the breaking gulf,

And take unmingled thence that drop again

Without addition or diminishing,

As take from me thyself, and not me too.

How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,

Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious,

And that this body, consecrate to thee,

By ruffian lust should be contaminate?

Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me,

And hurl the name of husband in my face,

And tear the stain’d skin off my harlot-brow,

And from my false hand cut the wedding ring,

And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?

I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it.

I am possess’d with an adulterate blot;

My blood is mingled with the crime of lust;

For if we two be one, and thou play false,

I do digest the poison of thy flesh,

Being strumpeted by thy contagion.

Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;

I live dis-stain’d, thou undishonoured."

Anti S: "Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not;

In Ephesus I am but two hours old,

As strange unto your town as to your talk,

Who, every word by all my wit being scann’d,

Wants wit in all one word to understand."

Adriana coerces, a not entirely unwilling Anti S to go upstairs to dinner.

Anti E returns home to find his door locked and is refused entry by his wife. He is restrained from breaking open the door by Balthazar, a passing merchant.

Anti E: "You have prevailed. I will depart in quiet,

And in despite of mirth mean to be merry.

I know a wench of excellent discourse,

Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle;

There we will dine. This woman that I mean,

My wife – but, I protest without desert –

Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal;

To her we will to dinner. [To Angelo, the goldsmith] Get you home

And fetch the chain; by this I know ’tis made.

Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine;

For there’s the house. That chain will I bestow –

Be it for nothing but to spite my wife –

Upon mine hostess there; good sir, make haste.

Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,

I’ll knock elsewhere to see if they’ll disdain me."

Anti S is to dine with Adriana yet believing S to be E, together with Adriana’s unwed sister Luciana. Adriana is momentarily absent from the room, and Anti S falls in love with Luciana, who believes him to be her sister’s husband, Anti E.

Luc: "And may it be that you have quite forgot

A husband’s office? Shall Antipholus,

Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?

Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?

If you did wed my sister for her wealth,

Then for her wealth’s sake use her with more kindness;

Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;

Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;

Let not my sister read it in your eye;

Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator;

Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;

Apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger;

Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;

Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;

Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?

What simple thief brags of his own attaint?

’Tis double wrong to truant with your bed

And let her read it in thy looks at board;

Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;

Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.

Alas, poor women! Make us but believe,

Being compact of credit, that you love us;

Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;

We in your motion turn, and you may move us.

Then, gentle brother, get you in again;

Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.

’Tis holy sport to be a little vain

When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife."

Anti S: "Sweet mistress — what your name is else, I know not,

Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine –

Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not

Than in our earth’s wonder – more than earth, divine.

Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;

Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit;

Smoth’red in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,

The folded meaning of your words’ deceit.

Against my soul’s pure truth why labour you

To make it wander in an unknown field?

Are you a god? Would you create me new?

Transform me, then, and to your pow’r I’ll yield.

But if that I am I, then well I know

Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,

Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;

Far more, far more, to you do I decline.

O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,

To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears.

Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;

Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,

And as a bed I’ll take them, and there lie;

And in that glorious supposition think

He gains by death that hath such means to die.

Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink."

Luc: What, are you mad, that you do reason so?

Adriana, hearing of these exchanges is shocked and mystified. Further confusion arises when Anti E, having ordered a gold chain from Angelo, a goldsmith, is unaware that it was delivered in error to Anti S. Anti E refuses to pay for a chain he never received and is summarily arrested. The identical servants Dromio are caught up in the mayhem, each believing the other Antipholus to be his master. The Duke of Ephesus ultimately sets all to rights.

* * * * * *

6.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Messina, Italy.

Don Pedro, the prince of Arragon, is returning from the wars with his men. They are visiting Leonato, the governor of Messina. With the party is one Benedick, a Paduan lord and inveterate bachelor. His close companion is Claudio.

The Governor’s niece, Beatrice, known to Benedick, is also known for her sharp tongue. She and Benedick enjoy a battle of their wits and wills, one against the other. Beatrice’s cousin, Hero and Claudio have mixed eyes and fallen in love with each other.

Beatrice and Benedick encounter:

Beat: I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick; nobody marks you.

Bene: What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?

Beat: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain if you come in her presence.

Bene: Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for, truly, I love none.

Beat: "A dear happiness to women. They would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God, and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that;

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me."

Bene: God keep your ladyship still in that mind! So some gentleman or other shall scape a predestinate scratch’d face.

Beat: Scratching could not make it worse, an ’twere such a face as yours were.

Bene: Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

Beat: A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

Bene: I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way a God’s name, I have done.

Beat: You always end with a jade’s trick; I know you of old.

Later, Benedick, hearing that Beatrice supposes that she has been wronged by him during a masque, replies:

Bene: O, she misus’d me past the endurance of a block; an oak with but one green leaf on it would have answered her; my very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I had been myself, that I was the Prince’s jester, that I was duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every word stabs; if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the North star. I would not marry her though she were endowed with all that Adam had left before he transgress’d; she would have made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure her; for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose because they would go thither; so, indeed, all disquiet, horror, and perturbation, follows her.

D.Pedro: Look, here she comes.

Bene: Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prestor John’s foot; fetch you a hair off the great Cham’s beard; do you any embassage to the Pigmies –- rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?

Benedick and Beatrice’s rivalry sets up a challenge to their several companions, who now act as panders to bring the couple romantically together. Benedick’s assertion that he would die a bachelor is at last smitten by Beatrice’s feelings for him and he confesses:

Bene: ……………….They say the lady is fair; ’tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; ’tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me. By my troth, it is no addition to her wit; nor to great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage; but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No; the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she’s a fair lady; I do spy some marks of love in her.

Claudio and Hero are to be married. Don Pedro’s malicious brother has plotted to frustrate their plans. False revelations brought against Hero at the wedding ceremony cause her to swoon, as if dead. It is given out that she is in fact dead and her suspicious betrothed, Claudio, is penitent. He is urged to place an epitaph on her tomb.

Epitaph

Done to death by slanderous tongues

Was the Hero that here lies;

Death in guerdon of her wrongs,

Gives her fame which never dies,

So the life that died with shame

Lives in death with glorious fame.

Hang thou there upon the tomb,

Praising her when I am dumb.

By a well-meaning deceit, Hero is ‘resurrected’ as her uncle’s child and given in marriage to Claudio. Benedick who had asserted that he would die a bachelor, will marry Beatrice.

* * * * * *

7.

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

Ferdinand, king of Navarre, has invited three of his lords, Berowne, Longaville and Dumain, as well as a Spanish visitor Don Adriano de Armado, to accompany him in a study-project intended to raise their knowledge, improve their character and enhance their courtly refinement.

King: "Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,

Live regist’red upon our brazen tombs,

And then grace us in the disgrace of death;

When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,

Th’ endeavour of this present breath may buy

That honour which shall bate his scythe’s keen edge,

And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors – for so you are

That war against your own affections

And the huge army of the world’s desires –

Our late edict shall strongly stand in force;

Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;

Our court shall be a little Academe.

Still and contemplative in living art.

You three Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,

Have sworn for three years’ term to live with me

My fellow-scholars and to keep those statutes

That are recorded in this schedule here.

Your oaths are pass’d and now subscribe your names,

That his own hand may strike his honour down

That violates the smallest branch herein.

If you are arm’d to do as you are sworn to do,

Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too."

The lords swear to keep their oaths, but Berowne has concerns.…not to see a woman in that term?…to fast one day a week?…one meal only, on alternate days?…sleep but three hours in the night? The king and lords eventually prevail on Berowne to accept the conditions.

However a forgotten appointment made by the king concerned an impending visit by the French princess accompanied by three young ladies-in-waiting, Rosaline, Maria and Katharine. This development is too much for the lords’ oaths, soon broken as each secretly pens a love letter to his chosen. This is revealed by Berowne, hypocritically, who accuses each of betraying his oath, until his own letter to Rosalind is exposed. His accusations:

Ber: "Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy.

Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.

Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove

These worms for loving, that are most in love?

Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears

There is no certain princess that appears;

You’ll not be perjur’d; ’tis a hateful thing;

Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.

But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,

All three of you, to be thus much o’ershot?

You found the mote; the King your mote did see;

But I a beam do find in each of three.

O, what a scene of fool’ry have I seen,

Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!

O me, with what strict patience have I sat,

To see a king transformed to a gnat!

To see great Hercules whipping a gig,

And profound Solomon to tune a jig,

And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,

And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!

Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?

And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?

And where my liege’s? All about the breast.

A caudle, ho!"

In the royal deer park are, in conversation, Holofernes a somewhat pedantic schoolmaster, Sir Nathaniel the curate, and an officer Antony Dull, discussing a deer. Dull mistakes Holofernes’s epithet ‘haud credo’ to mean a kind of deer, whereas in Dill’s mind it was a ’pricket’.

Hol: Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were, replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer.

Dull: I said the deer was not a haud credo; t’was a pricket.

Hol: Twice-sod simplicity, his coctus! O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

Nath: "Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts;

And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should be –

Which we of taste and feeling are – for those parts that do fructify in us more than he.

For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,

So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school.

But, omne bene, say I, being of an old father’s mind;

Many can brook the weather, but not the wind."

Still in the park, the lords decide to visit the princess and her ladies. They send particular gifts, or favours, to each of the ladies. When they realise that a jest is about to played on them by the lords, they exchange favours with each other to confuse their identities.

The princess instructs her fellows to mask their faces before the visitors arrive.

Kath: But, in this changing, what is your intent?

Prin: "The effect of my intent is to cross theirs.

They do it in mocking merriment,

And mock for mock is only my intent,

Their several counsels they unbosom shall

To loves mistook, and so be mock’d withal

Upon the next occasion that we meet

With visages display’d to talk and greet."

Ros: But shall we dance, if they desire us to’t?

Prin: "No, to the death, we will not move a foot,

Nor to their penned speech render we no grace."

The lords arrive in disguise, pretending to be ‘wisiting’ Muscovite Russians, and desire the ladies to dance, confused by the misplaced favours they had sent. The ladies refuse to dance. Afterwards the men shame-facedly admit that they were the ‘Muscovites’ and so mocked in turn by the ladies.

Don Armado is tasked with providing entertainment for the assembly. ‘The Nine Worthies’ is chosen and general merriment ensues until a courier arrives with the news that the King of France has died.

The meeting turns sombre as the princess announces her departure for France. The king of Navarre and his lords sense that this may be the last opportunity to make their feelings known. Troths are plighted, but the ladies specify that a waiting period of 12 months must elapse to test the sincerity of the suitors.

The finale of the show proceeds with the princess’s approval:

This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring – the one maintained by the Owl, th’other by the Cuckoo. Ver begin (sings):

Spring

When daisies pied and violets blue

And lady-smocks all silver-white

And cuckoo buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then on every tree

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

‘Cuckoo;

Cuckoo, cuckoo’—O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks;

When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks;

The cuckoo then on every tree

Mocks married men for thus sings he:

‘Cuckoo;

Cuckoo cuckoo’—O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear!

Winter

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail,

When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul,

Then nightly sings the staring owl:

‘Tu-who;

Tu-whit, Tu-who’ – A merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot,

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,

And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,

Then nightly sings the staring owl:

‘Tu-who;

Tu-whit Tu-who’— A merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Arm: The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that way: we this way.

* * * * * *

8.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

A wooded fairy land outside Athens is home to the king and queen of fairies, Oberon and Titania, and their retinues. Titania has adopted a young changeling boy who is sought by Oberon to be trained up as his henchman. She is not having any of it.

Tita: "Set your heart at rest;

The fairy land buys not the child of me.

His mother was a vot’ress of my order;

And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,

Full often hath she gossip’d by my side;

And sat with me on Neptune’s yellow sands,

Marking th’ embarked traders on the flood;

When we have laugh’d to see the sails conceive,

And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;

Which she, with pretty and swimming gait

Following – her womb then rich with my young squire –

Would imitate and sail upon the land,

To fetch me trifles, and return again,

As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.

But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;

And for her sake do I rear up her boy;

And for her sake I will not part with him."

Oberon, so defied, plans to torment Titania for this blatant disobedience.

Obe: "My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest

Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid upon a dolphin’s back

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath

That the rude sea grew civil at her song,

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres

To hear the sea-maid’s music."

Puck: "I