Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

  … The sixth age shifts

  Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

  With spectacles on nose…

  —Act II, scene vii, lines 157-59

  In Shakespeare's time there had arisen the custom in Italy of having traveling bands of actors give plays in different towns. These bands developed stock characters in standard masks and costumes, and one of the most popular of the stock characters was called Pantaleone.

  The name means "all lion," signifying great bravery (and is Pantaloon in its English version). Naturally it would seem funny to have "all lion," a lecherous, miserly coward, always being outwitted by the young lovers. His characteristic appearance was sufficiently well known to make it unnecessary for Jaques to do more than mention the name.

  Pantaloon was always dressed in baggy trousers, by the way, which came to be called pantaloons in their turn, or, for short, "pants."

  Atalanta's better part

  The pastoral life in the Forest of Arden now engulfs our various characters. Touchstone matches wits with the shepherd, Corin, and easily wins. Orlando, with time now to think of the love he has conceived for Rosalind on the occasion of his wrestling match, writes verses concerning her and hangs them on the trees in approved pastoral fashion.

  Rosalind in her disguise as Ganymede finds them. Celia finds them too and is reading one which describes Rosalind as made up of:

  Helen's cheek, but not her heart,

  Cleopatra's majesty, A talanta's better part,

  Sad Lucretia's modesty.

  —Act III, scene ii, lines 145-48

  Three of these four ladies are subjects of Shakespearean plays or poems: Helen in Troilus and Cressida, Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra and Lucretia in The Rape of Lucrece.

  As for Atalanta, she was a beautiful girl whose hand was sought by many but who had vowed to live a virgin. She therefore insisted that no one marry her unless he beat her in a foot race and that if he was himself beaten his head was to be chopped off. This frightened many, and the few who risked the race were beaten by the fleet-footed Atalanta and were killed.

  Finally, a youth named Hippomenes prayed to Aphrodite and was given three golden apples. He raced Atalanta and each time she began to forge ahead he threw one of the golden apples before her. Being a woman, each time she paused to pick it up and, thanks to the time she lost, Hippomenes won.

  The reference in the poem, then, is that Rosalind has Atalanta's "better part," the beauty which drew so many to court her, but not the cruelty which killed those who wooed and failed to beat her. Atalanta was a byword for fleetness. Thus, later on Jaques speaks scornfully of Orlando's retorts to his own ill-natured remarks, saying:

  You have a nimble wit. I think

  'twas made of Atalanta''s heels.

  —Act HI, scene ii, lines 273-74

  … an Irish rat …

  Rosalind is very pleased at all this, but affects indifference, saying:

  I was never so berhymed since

  Pythagoras' time that I was an Irish rat. ..

  —Act III, scene ii, lines 175-76

  It was Pythagoras' doctrine of the transmigration of souls (see page I-535) that is here being referred to. By it, Rosalind's soul might once have inhabited the body of an Irish rat.

  But what has that to do with rhyming? Well, the Celtic bards of Wales and Ireland were past masters at weaving curses into their improvised poetry. They could use such deadly verses to kill rats and other vermin. Therefore an Irish rat would be most "berhymed."

  … Gargantua's mouth…

  But Celia knows who has written the verses and finally reveals that it is none other than Orlando. The excited Rosalind instantly demands to know everything about it and him and wants all the answers immediately. To which Celia, laughing, says:

  You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first.. .

  —Act III, scene ii, line 223

  Gargantua was a giant of folklore, who was apparently first famous for his enormous appetite, since the name comes from garganta, which is Spanish for gullet. He became best known as a character in a famous satire named for him by the French humorist Frangois Rabelais. That book was first published in 1535.

  … Jove's tree …

  Celia says she saw Orlando under an oak tree and Rosalind says:

  It may well be called Jove's tree

  when it drops forth such fruit.

  —Act III, scene ii, lines 234-35

  The oak tree is sacred to Jupiter. Indeed, the most ancient oracle in Greece was an oak tree in Dodona, in Epirus, two hundred miles northwest of Athens. Plates and other objects of brass were suspended from the branches and these struck together when the wind blew. The sounds were then interpreted by the priests of the shrine and were delivered as oracles.

  Rosalind, in her boy's disguise, manages to find Orlando and cleverly persuades him that if he is to be a truly good lover, he must practice. She offers to play Rosalind and allow nun to woo her in that fashion. (It may possibly have given Shakespeare pleasure to present scenes that were so vividly homosexual and yet done in such a way as to be inoffensive.)

  … honest Ovid…

  Touchstone also has fallen in love, and with a goat-herding girl named Audrey. He says to her:

  / am here with thee and thy goats,

  as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid,

  was among the Goths.

  —Act III, scene iii, lines 6-8

  Ovid had fallen into disgrace with the Emperor Augustus (see page I-389) perhaps because his erotic books spoiled Augustus' efforts to improve the morals of Rome, or because the poet assisted Augustus' dissolute granddaughter, Julia, in some particularly disgraceful intrigue.

  Ovid was therefore exiled to the Black Sea town of Tomi (the present-day port of Constanta in Romania). It was far in the backwoods, among a rustic and backward peasantry, eight hundred miles from Rome. Ovid spent the last nine years of his life there, sending a stream of weepy, self-pitying letters to his family at Rome hoping they would persuade the Emperor to remit the punishment. He never did.

  The inhabitants of Tomi were not Goths, but two centuries later the Goths (a Germanic tribe from the Baltic) had reached the Danube River. Tomi was therefore "among the Goths" in anticipation.

  Not only does Touchstone pun on "goats" and "Goths," but he also calls Ovid capricious, a word which is derived from the Lathi caper, meaning goat.

  Dead shepherd.. .

  Still another set of lovers is Silvius and Phebe, the conventional shepherd and shepherdess of pastoral tales. In this case, Silvius is desperately in love with Phebe, but Phebe answers only with scorn.

  Rosalind (as Ganymede) undertakes to right matters by scolding Phebe for being so cruel. She only makes matters worse, however, for to Rosalind's horror, Phebe is attracted to her at once in her boy's disguise. When Rosalind leaves, Phebe sighs:

  Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,

  "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"

  —Act III, scene v, lines 81-82

  The line is a quotation from the poem Hero and Leander written by Christopher Marlowe. The poem was published in 1598, a year or so before As You Like It was written, but Marlowe himself had been killed in a tavern brawl in 1593 at the age of twenty-nine. Hence the reference to the "dead shepherd."

  … his brains dashed out. ..

  Orlando, as agreed, courts Rosalind in her disguise of Ganymede, pretending (and he thinks it is only pretense) that she is Rosalind. Rosalind deliberately eggs him on to avowals of love by pretending great cynicism in the matter. She scouts the notion that lovers would die if refused, saying:

  Troilus had his brains dashed out

  with a Grecian club;

  yet he did what he could to die before,

  —Act IV, scene i, lines 92-94

  Troilus, having been betrayed by his love (see page I-119), had ample reason to die of that, if men could. Yet he managed to live long enough to be killed in battle. Actually, though, he
was killed by Achilles' spear and not by anyone's club.

  Rosalind also sneers at the Hero and Leander tale (see page I-466), saying of Leander:

  … he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont,

  and being taken with the cramp, was drowned;

  and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it

  was "Hero of Sestos."

  —Act IV, scene i, lines 97-100

  … Caesar's thrasonical brag…

  Now Orlando's older brother, Oliver, enters the picture again. Duke Frederick, suspecting that his daughter and her cousin had run off with Orlando, orders Oliver to find his brother on pain of his own death.

  In the forest, Oliver, sleeping, is threatened by a lioness. Orlando comes upon his brother and the beast and is tempted to leave Oliver to his fate. He cannot bring himself to do this, however, so he attacks the lioness and Oliver, awaking, witnesses the rescue. The older brother repents his earlier wickedness and is a changed character from this moment.

  He meets Celia and Ganymede and tells his story. He and Celia immediately fall in love. Rosalind/Ganymede later tells this to Orlando, saying:

  There was never anything so sudden

  but the fight of two rams and Caesar's thrasonical brag

  of "I came, saw, and overcame."

  —Act V, scene ii, lines 29-31

  Caesar's deliberately brief report of his battle in Asia Minor in 47 B.C. (see page II-64) was intended to display a soldierly character, since military men were supposed to be men of action and not of words. There is nevertheless a certain affectation in the way in which Caesar sought the fewest syllables.

  Rosalind's characterization of it as a "thrasonical brag" makes use of too many syllables, on the other hand. "Thrasonical" means "bragging." The word comes from Thraso, a bragging soldier in The Eunuch, a play by the Roman dramatist Terence. That in turn comes from a Greek word meaning "overbold," which we may be sure Thraso pretended to be but was not.

  Hymen from heaven…

  Now Rosalind begins to arrange everything. She makes Phebe promise to marry Silvius if it turns out she really cannot have "Ganymede." She then retires and returns in her natural woman's guise, led by none other than Hymen, the god of marriage (see page I-55), who says:

  Good Duke, receive thy daughter;

  Hymen from heaven brought her,

  —Act V, scene iv, lines 111-12

  The characters now pair off: Orlando with Rosalind, Oliver with Celia, Silvius with Phebe, and Touchstone with Audrey.

  Only one thing is left to make everything right and that is supplied by the sudden appearance of Orlando's remaining brother, the one in the middle. He brings the news that Duke Frederick, leading a large army against Duke Senior, has met an old hermit and has been converted to the religious life. Duke Senior may thus consider himself restored to his title, and all ends happily.

  21. Twelfth Night, or, What You Will

  Twelfth night is the twelfth day after Christmas-January 6. This is the traditional anniversary of the day on which the infant Jesus was viewed by the Magi and therefore the first manifestation of Jesus to the Gentiles. The day is also called Epiphany, from a Greek word meaning "manifestation."

  There is no biblical justification for this particular date or for any fixed number of days after the birth of Jesus for the appearance of the Magi. Nevertheless, it did afford the people in medieval times the chance of a twelve-day celebration following Christmas (hence the popular carol, "The Twelve Days of Christmas").

  Twelfth Night was in some ways the climax of the festive period. In connection with this, a lawyers' guild seems to have commissioned Shakespeare in 1600 to write them an amusing play for Twelfth Night 1601. He did so and the play was called Twelfth Night after the occasion and not because of anything in the play itself.

  It was the third of Shakespeare's joyous comedies, all written at the turning of the century, and he apparently viewed them as trifles designed for amusement only. His titles show it: Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It. Even this third play, usually called Twelfth Night, has a subtitle which perhaps more effectively describes Shakespeare's feeling- What You Will.

  This was the last warm comedy Shakespeare was to write for many years. The shadows closed in and for a decade he wrote somber tragedies and bitter non-tragedies (scarcely comedies). Why this should have been so, we can only speculate. One tempting thought is that it was the execution of Essex (see page I-120), which took place just after Twelfth Night was completed, that darkened the light for Shakespeare.

  … the food of love.. .

  The setting of the play is Illyria.

  In actual geography, Illyria is the coastal district of what we now call Yugoslavia and makes up the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea, just across from Italy. It never made up a prominent part of the civilized ancient world, though in the fourth century it contributed a series of great Roman emperors: Claudius II, Aurelian, Diocletian, and Constantine I.

  In the seventh century invading Slavs occupied Illyria and in the fourteenth century it fell into the grip of the Ottoman Turks. In Shakespeare's time what had once been Illyria and then became Serbia was still part of the Ottoman Empire. Parts of its coast, however, were controlled by Venice, and were Italian in culture.

  Still, we need not be overconcerned with actual geography. Shakespeare's Illyria, like his seacoast of Bohemia in The Winter's Tale and his Forest of Arden in As You Like It, really exists nowhere but in the play.

  It is the Duke of Illyria who speaks first. He is, apparently, lovesick, and says:

  // music be the food of love, play on,

  Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

  The appetite may sicken, and so die.

  —Act I, scene i, lines 1-3

  The Duke's name is Orsino, which is derived from the Latin word for "bear" and is therefore most inappropriate for the overcultivated, over-refined Duke of this play. However, at the time the play was being written, Queen Elizabeth I of England was expecting an Italian visitor, Don Virginio Orsino, Duke of Bracciano (a town twenty miles northwest of Rome). Perhaps Shakespeare was offering the name as a delicate compliment to the Italian guest.

  … fell and cruel hounds

  The Duke is apparently hopelessly in love with Olivia, a rich noblewoman of Illyria, and cannot be diverted from his sentimental melancholy. When it is suggested that he hunt the hart (that is, stag) he breaks into a self-pitying play upon the word, saying that when he saw Olivia:

  That instant was I turned into a hart,

  And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,

  E'er since pursue me.

  —Act I, scene i, lines 22-24

  This is a reference to the tale of Actaeon (see page I-406), who was turned into a stag by the angry Diana and was then killed by his own hounds.

  … like Anon. ..

  Meanwhile, on the Illyrian seacoast, Viola, a young lady, appears. With her are a ship's captain and his sailors. They have just survived a wreck in which the girl's twin brother has apparently been lost.

  Viola is heartsick over her brother's death, but the Captain says he saw her brother tie himself

  To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;

  Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,

  I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves

  So long as I could see.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 14-17

  Arion is a character out of Greek legend. He was a master musician at the court of Periander, tyrant of Corinth, about 600 b.c. He traveled to Sicily to compete in a musical contest, winning the prize and many rich gifts.

  On the ship back to Corinth, the sailors decided to kill Arion and appropriate those gifts. He asked permission only to play and sing one last time and, having done so, jumped into the sea and the ship sailed on.

  The music had, however, attracted a school of dolphins, and on the back of one of these, Arion was brought to Corinth faster than the ship could be rowed. At Corinth, Arion to
ld his story and when the ship arrived, Periander had the sailors executed.

  Be you his eunuch…

  Viola is heartened by the news, but there is still the problem of what she is to do next. As an unattended maiden, she would be in great danger, so once again Shakespeare uses the device of a girl dressed in a man's clothes. As a man, she decides to seek employment in Duke Orsino's service. The Captain approves and says:

  Be you his eunuch, and your mute I'll be;

  —Act I, scene ii, line 62

  This is a stab at realism. A girl dressed in men's clothing would, in real life, give herself away with her hairless cheeks, her shrill voice, and her mincing ways. All these would fit a eunuch.

  Eunuchs were common in the East, and even in the West were valued in Italy for their high singing voices. The use of eunuchs in the papal choir was continued well into the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, Viola as a eunuch would not be fitted for the romantic role she is to have in the play, and the device of eunuch and mute is dropped at once and there is no mention of either at any later point in the play.