by Luke Dixon
Paulina in The Winter’s Tale
The Hostess in Henry V
The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet
The Jailer’s Daughter in The Two Noble Kinsmen
• COMIC
Luciana in The Comedy of Errors
Phoebe in As You Like It
The Hostess in Henry V
The Nurse in Romeo and Juliet
The Comedies
The Tempest
WHO Miranda, a young girl.
WHERE Somewhere on Prospero’s island.
WHO ELSE IS THERE The magician Prospero, Miranda’s father.
WHAT IS HAPPENING A tempest has wrecked a ship on the coast of the island on which Miranda lives with her father. Having watched the ship go down, Miranda pleads with her father that, if he is responsible for the tempest, he must stop it.
WHAT TO THINK ABOUT
• Decide if Miranda has any fear of her father and how courageous she might have to be to stand up to him.
• Imagine the images of the sinking ship and their impact on Miranda.
• Decide how far from the sea Miranda has run to find her father and how out of breath she might be.
• The suffering she has seen will affect her speech and behaviour.
• Decide whether the storm she describes has abated or whether it is still visible or even raging around or close by.
WHERE ELSE TO LOOK Another daughter pleading with her father is Marina (Pericles).
Miranda
“If by your art, my dearest father, you have
Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to th’ welkin’s cheek,*
Dashes the fire out. O! I have suffer’d
With those that I saw suffer. A brave vessel
(Who had no doubt some noble creature in her)
Dash’d all to pieces. O! the cry did knock
Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d.
Had I been any god of power, I would
Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere*
It should the good ship so have swallow’d, and
The fraughting souls* within her.”
(Act 1, scene 2, lines 1–13)
GLOSSARY
welkin’s cheek – the edge of the sky
or ere – before
fraughting souls – passengers (fraughting means freight-ing rather than fright-ing)
Measure for Measure
WHO Isabella, a novice in a nunnery.
WHERE A room in the palace in Vienna.
WHO ELSE IS THERE Isabella is alone.
WHAT IS HAPPENING Angelo, who is ruling Vienna in the Duke’s absence, has told Isabella he will halt the execution of her brother if she will offer up her virginity to him. Alone on stage she realises no one will believe her if she tells what he has said.
WHAT TO THINK ABOUT
• Imagine how high the stakes are as Isabella has to choose between giving Angelo her virginity and saving her brother’s life.
• Think how lonely she must feel at the beginning of the speech.
• Decide why she trusts nobody and thinks no one will believe her story.
• Decide what it is about her relationship with her brother that makes her think he would have his head chopped off twenty times for her sake.
• Isabella remembers telling Angelo that her chastity is more important to her than her brother’s life and she paraphrases the words she said to him: ‘More than our brother is our chastity’. Decide why her chastity is so important to her.
• Her brother has been condemned to death for having sex outside of marriage; Angelo has demanded sex with Isabella to save him. Think how this might affect Isabella’s feelings about men and sex.
WHERE ELSE TO LOOK Another young woman desperate for help is Desdemona (Othello).
Isabella
“To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths
That bear in them one and the selfsame tongue,
Either of condemnation or approof;*
Bidding the law make curtsy to their will,
Hooking both right and wrong to th’appetite,
To follow as it draws! I’ll to my brother.
Though he hath fallen by prompture of the blood,*
Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour
That had he twenty heads to tender down
On twenty bloody blocks, he’d yield them up
Before his sister should her body stoop
To such abhorr’d pollution.
Then Isabel live chaste, and brother die:
‘More than our brother is our chastity.’
I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request,
And fit his mind to death, for his soul’s rest.”
(Act 2, scene 4, lines 171–87)
GLOSSARY
approof – approval
by prompture of the blood – because he gave in to his urges
The Comedy of Errors
WHO Luciana, sister-in-law of Antipholus of Ephesus.
WHERE Before the house of Antipholus of Ephesus.
WHO ELSE IS THERE The Antipholus who comes from Syracuse, but who Luciana believes to be her sister’s husband.
WHAT IS HAPPENING There is confusion between identical twin brothers, both named Antipholus. Luciana mistakenly believes that the Antipholus she is haranguing has been unfaithful to his wife, her sister Adriana, and here urges him to be a more careful adulterer.
WHAT TO THINK ABOUT
• She begins by being cross with Antipholus but then her tone changes and she gives him advice on how to misbehave without getting caught.
• Decide where Luciana has learnt the tricks of successful sexual deceit.
• Perhaps her sister is close by and within hearing.
• Decide how attractive Antipholus might be to Luciana.
• Luciana starts by calling Antipholus ‘you’ but then changes to the more familiar and intimate ‘thy’ and through the speech vacillates between the two.
• The speech is written in alternating rhymes. Think about how the formal quality affects the tone of what Luciana has to say.
WHERE ELSE TO LOOK Women despairing in their different ways of their husbands’ behaviour are Emilia (Othello) and the Duchess of Gloucester (Henry VI, Part Two).
Luciana
“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 managèd;
Ill deeds are 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 conque
rs strife.”
(Act 3, scene 2, lines 1–28)
GLOSSARY
in building – while being constructed
apparel vice like virtue’s harbinger – dress up vice like the herald of virtue
board – mealtimes
compact of credit – credulous, easily deceived
Love’s Labour’s Lost
WHO The Princess of France.
WHERE Navarre, now in north-east Spain, then an independent kingdom.
WHO ELSE IS THERE The King of Navarre, Lords and Ladies, a clown and others.
WHAT IS HAPPENING Ferdinand, the King of Navarre, asks for the heart and hand of the Princess, but having earlier been deceived by him she will not give it straight away. She tells him that if he comes back after going away and living in a monastery for a year, then she will marry him.
WHAT TO THINK ABOUT
• The Princess has just been told of the death of her father and that she is now Queen of France. She is grieving as Ferdinand asks her to marry him.
• Decide when and why she comes up with the idea of sending him away for a year.
• This is a very public scene and the Princess has just become Queen, two things which might affect her conduct.
• She touches Ferdinand’s palm with her palm (‘by this virgin palm, now kissing thine’) and holds it there as she waits for his response, a moment both public and intimate.
WHERE ELSE TO LOOK Other young women caught between grief for their fathers and new found loves include Helena (All’s Well That Ends Well) and Jessica (The Merchant of Venice).
Princess
“No, no, my lord, your grace is perjur’d much,
Full of dear guiltiness, and therefore this:
If for my love (as there is no such cause)
You will do aught, this shall you do for me.
Your oath I will not trust. But go with speed
To some forlorn and naked hermitage,*
Remote from all the pleasures of the world.
There stay, until the twelve celestial signs*
Have brought about the annual reckoning.
If this austere insociable life
Change not your offer made in heat of blood;
If frosts, and fasts, hard lodging, and thin weeds*
Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
But that it bear this trial, and last love;
Then at the expiration of the year,
Come challenge me, challenge me by these deserts,
And, by this virgin palm, now kissing thine,
I will be thine. And till that instant shut
My woeful self up in a mourning house,
Raining the tears of lamentation
For the remembrance of my father’s death.
If this thou do deny, let our hands part,
Neither entitled in the other’s heart.”
(Act 5, scene 2, lines 783–805)
GLOSSARY
naked hermitage – austere monastery
twelve celestial signs – twelve signs of the zodiac, i.e. a whole year
thin weeds – flimsy clothes
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
WHO Helena, a young Athenian woman.
WHERE The court in Athens.
WHO ELSE IS THERE Helena is alone.
WHAT IS HAPPENING Helena loves Demetrius, who in turn loves her best friend Hermia. Left alone by her friends, Helena bemoans the injustices of love.
WHAT TO THINK ABOUT
• Helena is deeply in love with Demetrius, but he loves her best friend Hermia. Decide how this might affect the ways in which she speaks both their names.
• She thinks about Cupid the God of Love and realises why he is always represented as being blind. Decide whether she has thought of this previously or whether this is a new thought.
• Decide whether Helena has ever been in love before.
• Think how the idea to tell Demetrius about Hermia running away comes to her.
• The speech is written in rhyming couplets, which usually result in strongly end-stopped lines. Decide whether these should be emphasised and when – and why – they should be run on.
WHERE ELSE TO LOOK Another Helena (All’s Well That Ends Well) is also spurned by the man she loves.
Helena
“How happy some o’er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so.
He will not know what all but he do know,
And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,*
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgement taste.
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.*
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil’d.
As waggish* boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjur’d everywhere.
For ere Demetrius look’d on Hermia’s eyne,*
He hail’d down oaths that he was only mine.
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolv’d, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:
Then to the wood will he tomorrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.”
(Act 1, scene 1, lines 226–51)
GLOSSARY
holding no quantity – with no intrinsic value
figure unheedy haste – symbolise reckless haste
waggish – mischievous
eyne – eyes
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
WHO Hermia, a young Athenian woman.
WHERE The woods outside Athens, early morning.
WHO ELSE IS THERE Hermia is alone.
WHAT IS HAPPENING Eloping into the woods with her lover Lysander, Hermia has fallen asleep. Wakened by a bad dream she realises that Lysander is nowhere to be found.
WHAT TO THINK ABOUT
• This is a whole scene. Hermia is asleep at the beginning, wakes dreaming, looks for her lover, realises he is gone, wonders what to do, and decides to look for him. Give it the time and space it needs.
• Decide at what point she is fully awake and how she feels when she realises she has been dreaming.
• Work out the geography of the scene. Decide where Lysander went to sleep and what the woods around Hermia are like.
• Imagine what it would be like to wake up in the woods if you have never slept in the open air before.
• Decide how loudly Hermia has to shout before she realises Lysander cannot hear her.
• Imagine how scary it could be to go off alone into the trees to find death or your lover.
• Think about how the rhyming couplets might affect the tone of the scene.
WHERE ELSE TO LOOK Imogen (Cymbeline) is also on her own in the open air a long way from home.
Hermia
Awaking.
“Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ay me, for pity; what a dream was here?
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
Lysander, what, remov’d? Lysander, lord,
What, out of hearing, gone? No sound, no word?
Alack, where are you? Speak, and if you hear,
Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.
Eit
her death or you I’ll find immediately.”
(Act 2, scene 2, lines 145–56)
The Merchant of Venice
WHO Jessica, daughter of Shylock a Jewish money-lender.
WHERE Her father’s house in Venice.
WHO ELSE IS THERE Launcelot, a clown, though he exits on the line ‘Farewell, good Launcelot’.
WHAT IS HAPPENING Launcelot is leaving the employ of Jessica’s father Shylock. Jessica herself is intending to elope that night with her lover Lorenzo. Here she says farewell to Launcelot and asks him secretly to take a letter to her lover.
WHAT TO THINK ABOUT
• Jessica might be within earshot of her father or others in the house. Decide how this might affect the way in which she talks to Launcelot.
• Launcelot brings some lightness to the house and she enjoys his company.
• She gives Launcelot some money and then gives him a secret letter for her lover. Think how these might be done and whether both are done in the same way.
• Decide how differently she would speak the last six lines once she is alone.
• Decide how strong the guilt is she feels at the thought of leaving her father and what her feelings are about renouncing her Judaism and becoming a Christian.
WHERE ELSE TO LOOK Also torn between duty to their fathers and desire for the men they love are Portia (The Merchant of Venice) and Helena (All’s Well That Ends Well).
Jessica
“I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so,
Our house is hell, and thou a merry devil
Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.
But fare thee well, there is a ducat for thee,
And Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see