The Bill / Shakespeare Project [dot] com

Man, I love this...

bill-w — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:27:00 GMT

not the working too hard and too many hours to even think of picking up As You Like It... no, not THAT...

THIS:

Terminator the Second

Podcast 76: The Merry Wives of Windsor: Wrap it up... Wrap it ALL up for now...

bill-w — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 15:34:00 GMT

This week's podcast concludes our month-long discussion of The Merry Wives of Windsor with a little discussion of the play, a production concept, and a cast. And then some final words... well, maybe not FINAL final... but final for now...

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

The bumper music (Loop 90) and the segue music (Morning Show Segue) are courtesy of Royalty Free Music.com, which offers a comprehensive music library of production music for your various royalty free music needs including full albums, tracks and free music clips, loops, and beats available for download.

"Further On (Up the Road)," written and performed by Bruce Springsteen, from the album The Rising, released in 2002 by Columbia Records.

Blame it on the Bossa Nova... or maybe that's Boss Nuevo

bill-w — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:15:00 GMT

Haven't been blogging much lately. And I'm here to tell you why.

But first some history.

When I started this blog, I worked from home. No commute. A firm commitment to code only 8 hours a day. Lots of time to read then write.

Then last year, I lost my job. Even more time to read and write (and write a novel, too).

Back in December, a new job found me. The commute now sucked about an hour and a half total from my day, and I was able to squeak by with the reading and writing.

Now, however, my responsibilities at work have grown, my hours have grown, and my time (for reading, for writing, for family, for cooking, hell, for ANYthing) has shrunk.

Shrunk.

To.

Nothing.

And while I can rationalize and say that's OK this month, what with the seemingly disposable Merry Wives, I can't half-ass it next month, not with the classic and beloved As You Like It in the wings.

So what's a poor boy to do?

So, that's why I'm going on another hiatus.

Sorry, troops. Gotta make money (you know, the filthy lucre that pays the mortgage). And I don't want to do a mediocre job on the rest of the Canon.

I'll jot down some final thoughts about Merry Wives and do one more podcast (free-form and without script since I don't even have time to write that this week), and then I'll be only the occasional blogger for a while. Maybe I'll toss in a review or two. Maybe I'll review Shakespeare news on a podcast.

Not a maybe: I WILL be back. When this job-storm has been weathered, I WILL be back.

We will see you anon!

Apologies

bill-w — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 13:20:00 GMT

Sorry there's been a drought lately of entries.

I'll explain more later... nothing bad (except for the lack of time to write).

Podcast 75: The Merry Wives of Windsor: DVDs

bill-w — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 18:29:00 GMT

This week's podcast continues our month-long discussion of The Merry Wives of Windsor with reviews of two versions of the play available on DVD, as well as a related work. Then, we'll finish up with our usual recap of this week's blog entries.

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

"It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" performed by REM, written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe; from the album Document, released in 1987, by IRS Records.

Falstaff

bill-w — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:33:00 GMT

OK, a couple days back I made an oblique allusion to a really bad viewing experience. For podcast listeners, you'll hear more (but not much more) about it in this week's podcast. But today, I want to accentuate the positive. So, from one of the worst Shakespeare films I've ever seen, to one of the best. It's not The Merry Wives of Windsor, but it does contain a line or two from it. In 1965, Orson Welles finally released his labor of love, Chimes at Midnight, also known as Falstaff. Welles, the director, is while NOT at his height of artistry, is pretty damn near the height of his ingenuity. And as a writer, he's pretty freaking miraculous, culling together bits of The First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth, Henry the Fifth, and The Merry Wives, with some bits of Holinshed's Chronicles tossed in for good measure.

The film seems to be framed with the device of two old men, Falstaff and Shallow, reminicing at the end of their lives ("the days that we have seen!"). The opening shot of the two old men slowly making their way through a snowy winter field makes that connection for us. We hear them talk of the past, and then there we are, in those earlier days.

Thoughout the film, we see Welles as the master of composition, framing shots of the royals in cathedrals and castles, the low-lifes in the low-ceilinged bawdyhouses and taverns. But when the camera isn't taking in static vistas, Welles sends it careening, hand-held, in his rough and tumble scenes with Falstaff and Hal (played by Keith Baxter).

Of course, only a technical genius like Welles could make a masterpiece out of the cinematic equivalent of spare parts. Sections were filmed not only out of sequence (which is the norm for film), but filmed in fits and starts whenever he had the cash. And because of it, we get a lot of shots of the backs of actors (doubles standing in for the no longer available ones), and a horribly out of synch soundtrack. Suffice to say, that some of the scenes give the Bruce Lee chop-socky dubbed flicks of the 1970s a run for their money.

We can see why Welles was willing to go to such lengths to make the picture. He was born to play Falstaff, and he can say more with a single look or smile than most can with an entire Shakespearean speech. Plus the opportunity to roll around in bed with Jeane Moreau as Doll Tearsheet probably didn't hurt, either. On that note, let's just say that in Welles' universe, there is no doubt that the tavern Quickly runs is a bawdy-house, as the dozens of attractive, giggling, bouncy whores demonstrates.

Welles is a master (I'm a huge fan of Citizen Kane and The Trial), and this is a masterpiece, filled with great little choices: Hotspur doing a great John Geilgud imitation as the northern youth imitates Henry IV's "revolted Mortimer" (Geilgud plays Hal's dad). Hal turning his back on Falstaff to deliver his "I know you all" soliloquy... here, not so much a soliloquy, as Falstaff hears every word, and we can see the battling emotions in the old man's face: pride, hurt, love. A brutal battle of Shrewsbury, that certainly influenced Branagh's Agincourt in his Henry the Fifth, and Gibson in his Braveheart. Falstaff tripping and falling and not being able to get up in his armor, and that is the "dead" body Hal sees... though Hal knows he's alive, as he can see the breath rising in the cold air from Falstaff's helmet.

Remember how I said it seemed that the film was set within a framing device? Well, Welles has another trick up his sleeve. Instead, we learn that the scene we see is from just before Henry IV's death, and the fatique of age is alleviated by the news that his Hal is now king. The old fat knight is alive again. But when Hal turns him away, it's a crushing blow.

And here's where Welles gives us the coup de grace. Falstaff is taken away, convinced that the king will call on him. And where we've seen in The Second Part and Henry the Fifth, that this is a delusion, Welles makes the fairy tale ending come true. He gives us the Southhampton scene from Henry the Fifth, where the new king tells his chief justice to release the man who railed against him, excusing that it was excess of wine that set him on. Welles makes it explicit that this man is Falstaff. Falstaff was right all along. Of course, he dies. But he was right.

It's a beautiful if possibly even more tragic ending to the film. A perfect capper to a great film. Highly recommended. Even more so than the versions of Merry Wives...

Quickly Changes

bill-w — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:22:00 GMT

Mistress Quickly of The Merry Wives of Windsor is not the same Mistress Quick-LAY of the Henriad. While she is still unintentionally bawdy ("up early and down late" [I.iv.94]), the context is completely different. In the Henriad, the tavern is often mistaken as a bawdy house (or IS that a mistake), so her bawdiness there makes sense. Here, as the "dry nurse" (I.ii.3) to Doctor Caius, it feels out of place.

Or is it just that here it is more intentional?

Could she be the Elizabethan forerunner of Mrs. Roper???

Sometimes...

bill-w — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 12:56:00 GMT

a production is SO bad you can't finish watching it...

This ever happen to you?

The Prince

bill-w — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:49:00 GMT

Remember how last week, we said that The Merry Wives of Windsor appears to have been produced between the two parts of Henry the Fourth.

Chronologically, it SORT OF makes sense as well.

Page denounces Fenton as a possible suitor for Anne because "he kept company with the wild prince and Poins" (III.ii.64-65). Poins had been Prince Hal's boon companion in both Parts. And I can see how Page would what any companion of the dissolute Hal to be a son-in-law (even if Hal is the crown prince).

There is, however, a problem with the chronology. This play opens with Justice Shallow feuding with Falstaff... and the two former classmates are not reunited until midway through The Second Part.

And, of course, there is the matter of the contemporaneous events of the play's composition and production: the installation of Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg, into the Order (referenced obliquely in Act Four).

Is this just a matter of references being shoehorned into the play to make it SEEM like there are connections?

Podcast 74: The Merry Wives of Windsor: Plot and Legend

bill-w — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 13:06:00 GMT

This week's podcast continues our month-long discussion of The Merry Wives of Windsor with the last two acts worth of plot. We'll discuss some legends then, we'll finish up with our usual recap of this week's blog entries.

CAUTION: This week's podcast contains explicit language (one F-bomb)... Download (or not) accordingly.

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

Opera

bill-w — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:34:00 GMT

The Merry Wives of Windsor is not a critical success. And yet it's widely produced.

And not just as Shakespearean comedy.

It's been the source for at least four operas. The most famous is Verdi's Falstaff (1893), but German and British composers have taken a crack at it as well--Nicolai in 1849 and Williams in 1924, respectively. Interestingly, the first operatic version was written in 1799 with a libretto by Defranchesi and music by Antonio Salieri. Yep, the guy who nearly two hundred years later would be turned into a villain who tormented Mozart in the play Amadeus by Peter Shaffer.

What this all means, I'm not sure. Save for the fact that while the ivory tower critics may hate the play, there's something in there that bring theater companies (and audiences) back to it, time after time....

Of Prose and Poetry

bill-w — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:32:00 GMT

At 88 percent, The Merry Wives of Windsor has more prose than any other play we've read thus far in the Canon. And it's not even close: second place was just two months ago with The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, and that one had just over a half of its lines in prose.

Just as that play took place mostly in the lower classes of Falstaff's crew, this play, too, follows Falstaff. Only here, he has jettisoned (for the most part) his low followers, and he aims to work (or screw) his way into the upper class.

For the most part, the verse comes in short batches, out of blue, mostly blank verse, then broken up at times by bits of songs--or faked songs, as when Pistol practically sings of his plan for Falstaff:

And I to Ford shall eke unfold

How Falstaff, varlet vile,

His dove will prove, his gold will hold,

And his soft couch defile.

-- I.iii.93-96

In fact, when the preponderance of the play's rhymes come, it's in the final scene, as the fake fairies torment Falstaff in their sing-songy lines:

Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,

You moonshine revellers and shades of night,

You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,

Attend your office and your quality.

-- V.v.36-39

Not exactly the height of Shakespearean verse... it's just plain clunky. Of course, that very well may be the point. They can't sing the fairy-speak of A Midsummer Night's Dream because they aren't real fairies; they're just common folk playing roles of their own composition.

The only scene where the verse is neither ironically poetic or sing-songy is in Act Four, Scene Four, when the two married couples have reconciled and speak as equals to one another. Not only is the poetry a strong blank verse, but it's also filled with better imagery and use of sound: "Disguised as Herne, with huge horns on his head" (IV.iv.41). The characters complete each other's lines in antilabes:

FORD

...

As firm as faith.

PAGE

'Tis well, 'tis well; no more:

-- IV.iv.10

The truly married pairs speak in verse to each other (both them and with Anne and Fenton), while Falstaff is almost completely verse.

Falstaff's not a romantic figure, but rather a purely physical, prosaic figure. There's nothing heightened about him (at least not in this play).

Critical Opinion

bill-w — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:38:00 GMT

The Merry Wives of Windsor doesn't appear in (m)any Top Ten lists of Shakespeare. Most critics find it a weaker play.

There's not a great deal of deeper meaning in the play, its plot or its characters.

What seems to be the greatest sin in the eyes of most critics, however, is in the character of Falstaff. While the fat knight is seen as a comic creation of genius in The First Part of Henry the Fourth, one with wit and ironic wisdom, the Falstaff of The Merry Wives is seen as a bad copy of that earlier character.

So why is it (and he) so weak?

Well, yesterday we discussed the idea of the "Garter Theory," in which the play was presented at the Garter Feast in 1597. Many scholars place the premiere of The First Part in the same year. If the "Garter Theory" is true, then Shakespeare would have been working under a very VERY tight deadline... according to some versions of the legend, in as little as a fortnight.

Fourteen days.

Even a genius can't create a work of genius under that kind of time constraint.

A Legend

bill-w — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:37:00 GMT

According to theatrical legend--which, because it's legend cannot be validated--The Merry Wives of Windsor exists because Shakespeare had been told by his patron, Queen Elizabeth, that she wanted to see "Falstaff in love."

It's a great story. The only problem is that the first time we hear this legend, it's a hundred years later and the legend is brought forth by English dramatist John Dennis.

Let's say it's true, though... what are our clues?

The repeated references to the Order of the Garter (and the Garter Inn) would seem to point a performance around April 23, 1597, when Elizabeth attended the Garter Feast. This "Garter Theory" ties the arrival of the German duke (referenced in Act Four) to the contemporary arrival of Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg, who became a member of the Order of the Garter in 1597.

This would put The Merry Wives between The First and Second Parts of Henry the Fourth.

This makes sense to me: The lovable Falstaff of The First Part would most certainly create the desire to see his further adventures (especially in a decidedly NON-historical setting); the not-so-lovable version from The Second Part... well, I'd be hard-pressed to want to see THAT guy in love.

Sources

bill-w — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:35:00 GMT

No one is sure about the source materials for The Merry Wives of Windsor, but it's fairly certain that it's not Shakespeare's original work.

Some possible influences include.

Il Pecorone, a collection of stories by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino; the second of these tales bares a resemblance to the Falstaff/Mistress Ford affair.
"Of Two Brethren and Their Wives" by Barnaby Riche, which includes a jealous husband forcing the escape of an illicit lover.
"The Tale of the Two Lovers of Pisa" from Tarlton's Newes Out of Purgatorie,. another plot that parallels Falstaff’s affair with Mistress Ford and its repercussions.

Act Five: Hi-jinx and Humiliation

bill-w — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:48:00 GMT

The fifth and final act of The Merry Wives of Windsor begins in the Garter Inn, where Falstaff has been convinced by Quickly to meet the two wives in the woods. Master Brook (Ford in disguise) arrives again, and Falstaff proclaims that he will tell Brook

strange things of this knave Ford, on whom to-night (Falstaff) will be revenged, and (Falstaff) will deliver his wife into (Brook's) hand.

-- V.i.26-28

In the next two very short scenes, Page and Slender prepare their plan to have Slender steal away Anne, who will be dressed "in white" (V.ii.5); meanwhile, Mistresses Page and Ford confer with Doctor Caius and remind him that he will steal away Anne, who will be dressed "in green" (V.iii.1).

In the even shorter Scene Four (just four lines), Hugh Evans, dressed as a Satyr, leads his band of children, dressed as fairies into the woods for the night's festivities.

And so begins the fifth and final scene of the Act Five. In the woods, Falstaff arrives dressed as Herne the Hunter, with huge stag horns on his head. He is joined by Mistresses Ford and Page, and the thought of having them both at once brings him great stag-like joy: "Divide me like a bribe buck, each a haunch" (V.v.23). But before the "cool rut time" (V.v.13) can begin, there is a ruckus, and enter the Satyr (Evans), the fairies (the children including Anne Page), and even a Hobgoblin (Pistol in disguise), all carrying burning tapers.

The wives run off, and Falstaff--unable to escape--decides it's safer to "wink and crouch" (V.v.47), and he lays face-down in the dirt. The actors circle him, chanting, until Quickly sings:

With trial-fire touch me his finger-end:

If he be chaste, the flame will back descend

And turn him to no pain; but if he start,

It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

-- V.v.83-86

And at that point, they burn and pinch Falstaff. Now, with the confusion, Caius takes his girl in green and leaves, Slender takes his girl in white and leaves, and Fenton leaves with Anne. The fairies then depart and the two couples enter.

Mistress Page asks Falstaff, "Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?" (V.v.105), and Ford reveals himself to be Master Brook. Falstaff can only say, "I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass" (V.v.117). An ox, too, according to Ford, as the horns on Falstaff's head can attest. The two couples, along with Evans, continue to tease Falstaff, and by the end he is a "dejected" (V.v.158) man. But Page has good news: Falstaff can have a good meal tonight at Page's house and have a laugh at Mistress Page's expense as "Master Slender hath married her daughter" (V.v.169). But then Slender arrives to complain to Page that his fairy wasn't Anne, but a "great lubberly boy" (V.v.179). Mistress Page then tells of her plan, gloating on her success, only to be interrupted by the entrance of Caius, who complains that his fairy turned out to be a boy, too. Anne and Fenton then arrive to reveal their marriage.

Fenton states his case:

You would have married her most shamefully,

Where there was no proportion held in love.

The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,

Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.

The offence is holy that she hath committed;

And this deceit loses the name of craft,

Of disobedience, or unduteous title,

Since therein she doth evitate and shun

A thousand irreligious cursed hours,

Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.

-- V.v.213-222

True love reigns and Ford--Mr. Jealousy--agrees, saying, "Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate" (V.v.225).

Falstaff can take little comfort in the Pages' slight humiliation, as Ford gloats in the play's final couplet:

To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word

For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.

-- V.v.236-237

Podcast 73: The Merry Wives of Windsor: Introduction and Plot

bill-w — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 12:02:00 GMT

This week's podcast begins our month-long discussion of The Merry Wives of Windsor with a few opening words, and three acts worth of plot. Then, we'll finish up with our usual recap of this week's blog entries.

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

Act Four: Farce is a Drag

bill-w — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:46:00 GMT

Act Four of The Merry Wives of Windsor begins with Mistress Quickly asking Mistress Page to go to the Ford house where Falstaff is heading, and Mistress Ford waits to meet him. First, though, Mistress Page needs to take her son William, at Parson Hugh Evans' to his Latin lesson. We get to hear the Latin lesson and its unintentionally bawdy undertones (vocative becomes "focative" [IV.i.45] [and thus fuck-ative], etc.... more on this later in the month, but suffice to say, while the scene does have bawdy elements, to a modern audience [who don't have a classical education] it's not quite as funny).

Act Four, Scene Five takes us to the Ford house, where Falstaff has arrived for his rendezvous with Mistress Ford. It's obvious that Mistress Ford has explained away the earlier incident. When Mistress Page arrives, Mistress Ford sends him into her chamber; and the two merry wives carry on a play-acted dialogue for the benefit of Falstaff. Again, the story is that Ford is coming home and he is NOT happy, or as Mistress Page says, "Any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility and patience" (IV.ii.22-23). Mistress Ford admits that the "fat knight" (IV.ii.24) is there and wonders aloud if they should "put him into the basket again" (40). Falstaff re-enters the scene, proclaiming that he won't go into the basket again; once in the Thames was enough. They try to think of a place to store him--chimney, oven--but nothing will work.

Instead, they decide to disguise him. Mistress Ford's aunt, "the fat woman of Brainford" (67), has left a gown upstairs in the house, and they decide to use that. Falstaff leaves to disguise himself, and Mistress Ford cannot be happier:

I would my husband would meet him in this shape: he cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch; forbade her my house and hath threatened to beat her.

-- IV.ii.76-79

And here she may get her wish as Mistress Page tells her that he husband really is on his way, and "talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence" (IV.ii.83-84). And to toy with him, too, Mistress Ford orders her servants to take up the basket again when her husband arrives. The wives then head upstairs to finish dressing Falstaff.

Accompanied by more of the men of Windsor, Ford comes home in a rage and calls for his wife. When he sees the basket, he begins to pull clothing out of it, but that's all he finds. Shallow and Evans are stunned by the outburst, and the parson calls for Ford to "pray, and not follow the imaginations of (his) own heart" (IV.ii.143-144). If matters could get worse for Ford, they do, as he learns that his wife's aunt is in his house. He goes off on a tirade, and when Falstaff appears in drag as the old woman, Ford beats him/her until Falstaff can escape and run off.

Ford tells the townsmen to follow him as he continues to hunt for Falstaff in his home. Meanwhile, the wives decide to let their husbands in on the joke, and perhaps the four of them can now "publicly shame" (IV.ii.204-205) Falstaff.

In the super-short Act Four, Scene Three, Bardolph tells the Host of the Garter that visiting Germans need to rent horses, and we learn that the Host will overcharge them.

In Act Four, Scene Four, we move from the prose that had predominated the prior portions of the play and move into verse for the private conversations of the two couple and Hugh Evans. The women have revealed their schemes against Falstaff and (after Ford apologizes) find their husbands willing accomplices in the further humiliation of the fat knight. The men worry that Falstaff won't be lured into the trap again (after all he's been through), but the women disagree. Mistress Ford tells them, "Devise but how you'll use him when he comes, // And let us two devise to bring him thither" (IV.iv.24-25). The two plan to send a message to the knight that if he comes into the woods at midnight, dress as Herne the Hunter--complete with "huge horns on his head" (IV.iv.41)--then he can have them both. That will be enough to lure him into the woods. There, they plan to use the children of the town (including Page's daughter, Anne) to act as fairies, who will fright the wives away, and then to "pinch the unclean knight" (IV.iv.56).

Page reveals to Ford in an aside that he plans to use the confusion of the night's plan to have "Master Slender steal my (daughter) Nan away // And marry her at Eton" (IV.iv.72-73). But when left alone onstage, Mistress Page reveals to us that she plans to make sure that only Doctor Caius marries Anne... could she be thinking of a similar plan?

Act Four, Scene Five takes us to the Garter Inn, where Simple asks to see Falstaff. When the Host points to Falstaff's room, Simple hesitates, as he has seen "an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber" (IV.v.10-11), and would rather wait until she comes out. The Host calls out Falstaff, who says that while "an old fat woman (was) even now with (him, now) she's gone" (IV.v.21-22). What follows is a scene of low living by low-lifes, as we hear of cheats done on multiple folk, from Evans to the visiting Germans. At the end of the scene, Quickly arrives to convince Falstaff to meet the two wives. At first, Falstaff declines, but Quickly appeals to his sympathy by saying that Mistress Ford has been "beaten black and blue" (IV.v.103), and then says that she will reveal more to him a letter from them in private. It works and Falstaff leaves with Quickly.

In Act Four, Scene Six, Fenton asks the Host for assistance in this night's revels, and for the help, Fenton will pay "a hundred pound" (IV.vi.5). Fenton has learned that both Mister and Mistress Page have planned to use the confusion of the night to have their matrimonial candidate steal Anne away. Anne has agreed to both individually. However, she really plans to "go along" (IV.vi.46) with Fenton to be married. What Fenton needs is for the Host to "procure the vicar" (IV.vi.47) so that they can be married quickly. The Host agrees and we're set for the wackiness of the final act.

Act Three: What the Buck Basket?

bill-w — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:45:00 GMT

With the beginnings of Act Three of The Merry Wives of Windsor, we find Hugh Evans and Simple (Slender's servant). Evans is ready to duel with Caius, when the trio of Page, Shallow and Slender arrive. They talk to him about the upcoming duel... not that the lover Slender has much to say, save his repeated asides of "Ah sweet Anne Page" (III.i.38, 64, and 105). Later, Caius arrives with the Host of the Garter, and it quickly becomes obvious to both combatants that they've fallen victim to the Host's machinations, and he has "deceived (them) both" (III.i.98). He leaves them, with the trio of Windsor men in tow, and they--like just about every other character in the play--vows revenge.

Act Three, Scene Two takes us to a street in Windsor, where Mistress Page and Falstaff's young page Robin are heading to see her friend Mistress Ford, and are accosted by her friend's jealous husband. Ford immediately (and suspiciously) asks who the boy's master is, and when he learns it's Falstaff, he is dumbfounded. As she leaves with the boy, Ford tells us his plan for Falstaff:

Well, I will take him, then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty from the so seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself for a secure and willful Actaeon

-- III.ii.35-38

He's quickly joined on-stage by the ever-growing band of Windsor men (Page, Shallow, Slender, Host, Evans and Caius), as they head for dinner with Anne. We learn from Page that "Master Slender, I stand wholly for you. But my wife, Master Doctor, is for you altogether" (III.ii.55-56). When the Host asks about Fenton, Page is quick to dismiss him because he has "kept company with the wild prince and Poins" (III.ii.64-65). Prince Hal? Must be. Regardless, Page announces that if she picks Fenton, she'll wed without a dowry.

Act Three, Scene Three is set at the Ford home, where Mistresses Ford and Page await the arrival of the fat knight Falstaff. Mistress Ford prepares her servants to do something with a large laundry basket:

when I suddenly call you, come forth, and without any pause or staggering take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters in Datchet-mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side.

-- III.iii.9-13

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of slapstick knows where this is going.

What's worse, for Falstaff at least, is that his page Robin knows about the joke but is in on it as well. Mistress Ford then bids Mistress Page to prepare for her role n all this.

Falstaff arrives and begins to make verbal love to Ford's wife. She teases, leads him on, but never quite consents to anything. In the midst of their duet, in comes Robin, announcing the arrival of Mistress Page, "looking wildly" (III.iii.79). Falstaff, realizing that if he is found with Mistress Ford, any shot at having Mistress Page goes out the window, hides behind the curtain.

Mistress Page then comes in and announces that Ford is coming home

with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house by your consent

-- III.iii.95-97

Mistress Ford admits to having a man there, and says that she fears for his safety. What are they to do? Mistress Page comes up with an idea: they could put him in the laundry basket and send it out with servants. There's only one problem according to Ford's wife: "He's too big to go in there" (III.iii.120). Falstaff pops out from behind the curtain and decides that's the best course of action. When Page's wife, in a staged aside, accuses him of sending her the same letter as Ford's wife, Falstaff says to her in an aside, "I love thee. Help me away" (III.iii.126). Even in the midst of all this, Falstaff is still trying to work the angles.

They put him in the basket and the servants take him away, just as the jealous Ford arrives, and starts a search of the home. Despite the possibility that this could put her in trouble, Mistress Ford is not upset: "I know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or Sir John" (III.iii.158-159). When the search is done, Ford begs the pardon of his wife and friends.

In the third scene, Fenton attempts to woo Anne, who does nothing to discourage him, even telling him to "seek (her) father's love" (III.iv.19). Mistress Quickly brings Shallow and Slender in, hoping to allow Slender to woo. Uncle and nephew attempt to engage her, but their attempts are clumsy (when she asks Slender what's his will, he misinterprets the question as to pertaining to his last will and testament). Page and wife arrive, and while he is happy to see Slender, they are both displeased to see Fenton there. Page leaves to discuss the wooing with Shallow and Slender. Fenton attempts to win the approval of Mistress Page (who, remember, supports Caius), and he is successful enough to have Mistress Ford announce that she "will not be (his) friend, nor enemy" (III.iv.87). Instead, she will ask Anne who she loves. By the time the scene's over, even Quickly is beginning to see Fenton as a good choice for Anne.

In Act Three, Scene Five, Falstaff drinks in the Garter Inn. Quickly arrives from Mistress Ford, and at first Falstaff wants nothing to do with her:

MISTRESS QUICKLY

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

FALSTAFF

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

MISTRESS QUICKLY

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

FALSTAFF

So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's promise.

-- III.v.31-39

Nothing like a little "ford" / "water" humor mixed in with a little bawdy "erection" pun. Quickly tells Falstaff that Mistress Ford wants to meet him the next morning. After he agrees and she leaves, Master Brook (Ford in disguise) comes in to see how Falstaff is progressing with Mistress Ford. Falstaff tells Brook that he had "embraced (and) kissed" (III.v.68) Mistress Ford before her jealous husband came in. Falstaff then tells Brook of his escape by "buck basket" (III.v.80). Brook implores Falstaff to continue his attempts, and the fat knight tells Brook of his next appointment with Mistress Ford... and the scene is set for the next act's next wacky farcical situation.

Act Two: The Plot Thickens Around Falstaff's Waist

bill-w — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:45:00 GMT

Act Two of The Merry Wives of Windsor begins with Mistress Page entering with Falstaff's letter:

Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him not for his counselor. You are not young, no more am I; go to then, there's sympathy: you are merry, so am I; ha, ha! then there's more sympathy: you love sack, and so do I; would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page,--at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice,--that I love thee. I will not say, pity me; 'tis not a soldier-like phrase: but I say, love me. By me,

Thine own true knight,

By day or night,

Or any kind of light,

With all his might

For thee to fight,

JOHN FALSTAFF

-- II.i.4-18

She vows "revenge" (II.i.28), and she wants to share this with her BFF Mistress Ford, but before Page can tell of Ford of her letter, Ford tells of her own need to be "revenged on (Falstaff)" (II.i.60). The reason is simple according to Mistress Page:

Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and Ford differs! ... I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for different names

-- II.i.64-65, 67-69

They trade bawdy fears of Falstaff ("boarding" and "com[ing] below [her] hatches" [II.i.81 and 84]), vow revenge (again), and then Mistress Ford reveals the one positive to Falstaff's lascivious letter: "It would give eternal food to (Ford's) jealousy" (II.i.91-92).

Meanwhile, Ford and Page enter with Pistol and Nym, who tell the husbands individually of Falstaff's amorous intentions toward their wives. While Page "never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue" (II.i.130-131), Ford (he of the jealousy) immediately wants to "seek out Falstaff" (II.i.129)... so much so that Ford will take on "a disguise to sound Falstaff" (II.i.215).

In Act Two, Scene Two, Falstaff is visited by Quickly who was last seen in the last scene talking to the merry wives. She tells him that Mistress Ford, who has been with "knights and lords and gentlemen" (II.ii.60), now wants Falstaff to know that "her husband will be absent between his house between ten and eleven" (II.ii.78-79). And if that news isn't titillating enough for the old knight, Quickly informs him that "Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to (him) too" (II.ii.89-90). Falstaff's ego is stroked, but he's still surprised since "setting the attraction of (his) good parts aside, (he has) no other charms" (II.ii.98-99).

[cue bad 70s porn wah-wah guitar...]

Before Falstaff can run off to ready himself for his elicit rendezvous with Mistress Ford, he receives a visitor, Master Brook. Actually Ford in disguise, "Brook" asks Falstaff for his help in wooing the Mistress Ford, and he is willing to pay a "bag of money" (II.ii.161) for it. Falstaff takes on the job, telling Brook that he will "enjoy Ford's wife" (II.ii.241) because he himself will be "with her between ten and eleven" (II.ii.249). Falstaff even brags that he will use her as the "key of the cuckoldy rogue's coffers" (II.ii.258). After Falstaff exits, Ford fumes, and he vows revenge on the old knight.

The short third and final scene of Act Two takes us to a field near Windsor where Caius readies himself for the duel with Hugh Evans. Page, Shallow, Slender and the Host of the Garter Inn arrive, and we hear outrageous insults from the Frenchman, while the newcomers (save for the Host) watch in bemused amazement. The Host sends the three men ahead to get Evans from town and bring him back to the field, and then eggs on Caius more, even convincing the Frenchman that the Host will bring him to "where Mistress Anne Page is... and thou shalt woo her" (II.iii.77-78).

Act One: Lust is In the Air

bill-w — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 12:58:00 GMT

The Merry Wives of Windsor begins not with wives, but with the wife-less: A visiting Justice of the Peace named Shallow (and if that name sounds familiar, you must have been here two months ago when Falstaff and Shallow were reunited in The Second Part of Henry the Fourth), and his cousin Slender, and a Welsh parson, Hugh Evans (who over the course of the play speaks in the same kind of rambling, mispronounced dialogue as last month’s Welshman, Fluellen.

[which was a rough draft of the other, I'll leave up to you all to discuss and decide.]

Shallow is upset, and announces that "Sir John Falstaff... shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire" (I.i.2-3). And if you were here two months ago, you might remember that play ended with Falstaff owing the justice a thousand pound. But that doesn't seem to be the issue at this point. Instead, it appears that there's been a certain level of disrespect and "disparagements" (I.i.28) taking place, and the man of the cloth Evans is willing to mediate and "make atonements and compromises between" (I.i.30) the men. Shallow isn't all that willing, saying that if he "were young again, the sword should end it" (I.i.37).

This talk of sword (and its bawdy and phallic undertone) brings the conversation around to "Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas Page, which is pretty virginity" (I.i.42). The young Anne (she has yet to "overtake seventeen" [I.i.49]) is very popular, mainly for her "good gifts" (I.i.58), "seven hundred pounds" (I.i.57) of dowry.

This just-bordering-on-bawdy talk of dowries is interrupted by the arrival of Page who also promises to mediate the conflict, but when Falstaff enters with his trio of cronies, Pistol, Bardolph, and Nym, Falstaff taunts Shallow, who laundry-lists the insults he's endured under the old fat man: "Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge" (I.i.104-105). Falstaff admits to nothing.

The wives of the title, as well as young Anne, then come and go (with Falstaff giving Mistress Ford a kiss). Once they and Master Ford depart, Evans questions young Slender on his romantic intentions with Anne ("But can you affection the 'oman?" [I.i.209]). The youth is bold enough to say that he "will do a greater thing than (marriage)" (I.i.222), but when Anne re-enters to invite the men in to dinner, Slender is clumsily polite, waiting until after she enters to go back in. His kinsman Shallow, however, is a bit creepier on the dirty-ol-man scale: "Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne!" (I.i.238-239). Slender remains the polite subservient.

The short Act One, Scene Two brings with it the introduction of the idea of Mistress Quickly, not as the hostess of a tavern or bawdy-house, but rather as the maid or dry-nurse to a Doctor Caius. Hugh Evans gives Simple, the servant of Slender, a letter to Quickly, asking that she use her "acquaintance" (I.ii. 8) with Anne Page to advocate for Slender's suit to Anne.

Act One, Scene Three takes us to the Garter Inn, where Falstaff and his entourage are talking with the Host of the Garter. After Falstaff complains that he may need to turn away his comrades because they have become too expensive, the Host gives them jobs in the bar. Then, like a villain, Falstaff tells his followers of his intentions: "I do mean to make love to Ford's wife: I spy entertainment in her" (I.iii.41-42), and to make that happen he has written her a letter. But Falstaff being Falstaff, a man of immense appetites, Mistress Ford is not enough--he orders his followers to take "another to Page's wife" (I.iii.56). When the old fat man leaves, however, Pistol and Nym plan a practical joke (think Hal's joke on Falstaff in The First Part, only more dangerous). They are going to tell the husbands about the letters.

Let the wackiness ensue.

The last scene of Act One takes us the home of the French doctor Caius, with Mistress Quickly and manservant John Rugby. Simple arrives with the appeal to Quickly to back Slender's suit for Anne Page. When Caius arrives and learns of Simple's mission (and who sent him on it--Hugh Evans), he writes a challenge ("a shallenge" [I.iv.101]) to Evans... and why? Because as the Frenchman says, "By gar, I will myself have Anne Page" (I.iv.110-111). When Caius exits, we find yet another suitor: Fenton. Quickly tells him that "(Anne) loves (him)" (I.iv.135), but once he leaves, Quickly tells us, "Anne loves him not; for I know Anne's mind as well as another does," of course, she may not be trustworthy as the next words out of her mouth are: "Out upon't! what have I forgot?" (I.iv.152-154).

A New Month

bill-w — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:45:00 GMT

Time to get Merry in March...

Henry the Fifth: Wrap Up

bill-w — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 12:10:00 GMT

So we've reached the end of what many critics call the Henriad, the tale of Henry of Monmouth, Prince Hal, King Henry the Fifth. I find him as a character and the play itself FULL of contradictions. But unlike earlier plays that felt at odds with itself (read Love's Labor's Lost, Taming of the Shrew, and even to a certain extent, Merchant of Venice), this one I feel as if the contradictions are meant to deepen the play, and they don't weaken it.

Here we have a character who is not entirely likeable... but who is (in the vernacular of my nieces in NorCal) hella charming. He claims to think of himself as a soldier, but who, since his slaying of Hotspur in The First Part of Henry the Fourth, is NOT depicted as waging war... in this play, the closest he comes is urging his soldiers back into the breach. He threatens rape, but calls for God to help him. He sentences an old friend (actually multiple) to death, but gives money to a stranger who challenged him just the night before. Henry is a man of opposites, a character of the like we have not seen before (at least, not at this level of writing), so much so that I can't help but wonder if--in a sense--our Prince Hal is a rough draft for another acting prince whose name starts with an H, who'll be coming around next year... you know, our melancholic Dane.

Just thinking aloud here.

I didn't really like last month's Second Part of Henry the Fourth, after absolutely loving the previous month's First Part. In fact, at the end of last month, I was a little confused as to my feelings about Henry, and I was no longer looking forward this play as I had been before. So where do I stand on Henry the Fifth?

The character, I'm still torn on, for all those contradictions mentioned above. But the play? Well, I think the play deepens in resonance because of those contradictions. So I do love the play, Sam I am, just not quite as much as I do The First Part. So I'd have to slip it in as third of the histories, behind only Richard the Third and The First Part, and I'd certainly rank this in the top third of all the Canon thus far.

Podcast 72: Henry the Fifth: Wrap-Up, Production Concept, and Cast

bill-w — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:30:00 GMT

This week's podcast concludes our month-long discussion of Henry the Fifth with a few closing words, a production concept and a cast. Then, we'll finish up with our usual recap of this week's blog entries.

Podcast Credits

This podcast was recorded using a Blue Snowball microphone onto a Dell XPS 400 computer, using Adobe Soundbooth recording and editing software.

Midpoint: Debunking a Legend

bill-w — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 12:59:00 GMT

Using Professor Rodes' midpoint theory, let's take a look at Henry the Fifth.

There are 3228 lines in the play, so the midpoint takes place at line 1614, which occurs 46 lines into Act Three, Scene Seven. The scene takes place in the French camp the night before Agincourt. Our main (and titular) character is nowhere to be seen (or heard) in this scene. The exact center comes as the Dauphin discusses "the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress" (III.vii.45-46).

Only there's one thing off here.

The Dauphin is talking about his horse.

In fact, if you take twenty lines before and after the midpoint, as we've been doing for the sake of this experiment, then the entire section is about the Dauphin's horse and his disparaging remarks regarding the other nobles' mistresses.

The Dauphin goes on and on about his "prince of palfreys" (III.vii.26), about which he "once writ a sonnet in his praise" (III.vii.38). When Orleans notes that sonnets are usually written to one's mistress, the Dauphin explains, "(his) horse is (his) mistress" (III.vii.43).

The Constable begins to give the Dauphin some grief over this, saying that he saw this "mistress shrewdly shook (the Dauphin's) back" (III.vii.47-48), and when the Dauphin says he's seen the same thing (the Constable's horse throw him), the Constable responds, "Mine (mistress) was not bridled" (III.vii.50).

And this is the key. The horse (a male one, I might add) is the Dauphin's mistress. The Constable's mistress doesn't wear a bridle--she's a woman. If this seems a stretch to see this as a disparaging view of an effeminate homosexual, it's not. The Dauphin then lectures the nobles ("be warned by me" [III.vii.55]) on his "horsemanship" (read sexuality), concluding that "they that ride so (not like the Dauphin) and ride not warily, fall into foul bogs" (III.vii.55-56). As noted a few days back in our monthly trip to Bawdy-ville, the "foul bogs" phrase references the female genitalia. Be ruled by me, the Dauphin says, or you'll end up with women as your mistresses.

[Mon Dieu!]

The Constable ends this discussion (as the subject changes at line 68, just after our 40-line "sweet spot" closes), stating that the Dauphin's discussion amounts to "such proverb so little kin to the purpose" (III.vii.67).

The entire midsection has no relevance to "the purpose."

So why is it there if the midpoint is so important (as I've been positing these past years)?

I would argue that by seeing the enemy for what they are, we're debunking the legend of Agincourt. Henry is no hero because he led the victory there... and we certainly do not see him fighting (as we did in The First Part of Henry the Fourth). Any leader could have pulled off the victory against THESE fools. "This Star of England" (V.Epilogue.6) is no star, but a caretaker of the monarchy, one who inherited the throne from a usurper and will beget a worse caretaker who will just as easily lose France. The line of marginal monarchs and villains will go on until the War of the Roses ends, with the ascension of the Tudor line, a true line of monarchs, of which the playwright's Elizabeth is the current.

Henry the Fifth: Numbers overall

bill-w — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:43:00 GMT

Henry the Fifth

3228 total lines; longer than average (average play: 2777; average history: 3009)
At 35 and 14 lines, the Act Three chorus and Epilogue are the shortest of their kind in the Canon
At 170, 53, 124, and 45 lines, Act Three, Scene Six, Act Four Chorus, Act Four, Scene Eight, and Act Five chorus, respectively, are the longest of their kinds in the Canon
Act One: 443 lines; shorter than average (average play: 590, average history: 612)
Act Two: 563 lines; slightly shorter than the average, much shorter than average history (average play: 568, average history: 621)
Act Three: 717 lines; MUCH longer than average (average play: 576, average history: 632)
Act Four: 991 lines; MUCH longer than average (average play: 563, average history: 651)
Act Five: 514 lines; longer than average (average play: 480, average history: 493)
1320 lines of prose (40.89% of total lines [as opposed to The Comedy of Errors: 13.31%, Titus Andronicus: 1.39%, The Taming of the Shrew: 20.82%, 1HenryVI: 0.37%, 2HenryVI: 16.64%, 3HenryVI: 0.14%, Richard III: 2.89%, Love's Labor's Lost: 35.08%, The Two Gentlemen of Verona: 26.81%, A Midsummer Night's Dream: 19.75%, Romeo and Juliet: 14.18%, King John: 0.0%, The Merchant of Venice: 21.79%, Richard II: 0%, 1HenryIV: 44.7%, and 2HenryIV: 51.31%])
74 rhyming lines (2.29% of total lines [as opposed to Comedy: 20.10%, Titus: 2.42%, Taming: 3.93%, 1HenryVI: 9.79%, 2HenryVI: 3.16%, 3HenryVI: 5.37%, Richard III: 7.55%, LLL: 40.86%, 2Gents: 35.08%, Midsummer: 43.5%, Romeo: 16.61%, King John: 6.19%, Merchant: 5.16%, Richard II: 18.95%, 1HenryIV: 1.04%, and 2HenryIV: 2.32%])
29 scenes; more than average (average play: 21; average history: 24)
46 characters; more than average, about average for a history (average play: 36, average history: 47)

Bawdy: Parental Guidance Advised

bill-w — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:47:00 GMT

[EXPLICIT CONTENT AHEAD... SKIP IF EASILY OFFENDED]

OK, according to Eric Partridge's Shakespeare's Bawdy, Henry the Fifth, is seen as a dirtier play than The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, which in turn is seen as dirtier than the first part. In fact, Partidge calls this "the obscenest of the Histories" (Partridge, Eric. Shakespeare's Bawdy. New York: Routledge, 2008; page 57).

Let's see...

It starts off "innocently" enough, with the Dauphin's gift of tennis balls to Henry. "Balls" ... get it? Only there's a little more to it than that. When the ambassador refers to the Dauphin "send(ing Henry), meeter for (his) spirit, // This tun of treasure" (I.ii.255-256), Shakespeare's audience was used to using "spirit" euphemistically as semen or cum, so that the statement is an insult amounting to "since your balls are filled with lousy cum, we have a barrel (tun) of potent semen (treasure) for you."

When we get to the tavern, that scene is--not surprisingly--filled with bawdy allusions. "Host Pistol" (II.i.27) is a way of calling him a bawd or pimp, and this sets Mistress Quickly (Quick-LAY) off on another of her wild accidental double-entendre-fests: "prick" (II.i.32) and "adultery" (II.i.35). When Pistol wants it known that he is primed and ready to fight, he says that "Pistol's cock is up" (II.i.50), but the entendre there is more single than double, no?

When we go back to the tavern after Falstaff's death, even Quickly's recount of his passing is (unintentionally?) bawdy:

A' made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child; a' parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. 'How now, sir John!' quoth I 'what, man! be o' good cheer.' So a' cried out 'God, God, God!' three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a' should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and they were as cold as any stone, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

-- II.iii.10-25

Discussions of "stones" (or testicles) aside, Paula Kiernan in her salacious study of the Bard, Shakespeare's Filthy (and only now am I seeing that "apostrophe S" not as a possessive, but as a contraction for "is"... as in "Shakespeare IS filthy"), reads the passage as Falstaff dying in the midst of a masturbatory orgasm, coming and going at the same time, if you will (Kiernan, Pauline. Filthy Shakespeare. New York: Gotham, 2008; page 128).

[as usual, with Kiernan, I think this is a stretch, but the "fumble with the sheets" and "smile upon his fingers' ends" and crying out "God, God, God" DOES make one--or at least me--pause...]

Earlier in the week, we talked about the rape imagery in Henry's threat to the governor of Harfleur, as well as the bawdy "fuck" and "cunt" English lesson between Princess Katherine and her lady servant, Anne. But Katherine is not the only French filth-mouth (or -mind). When the sad-sacks are bemoaning their fate to the king, the Dauphin's words are filled with sex. He refers to them all as "the emptying of our fathers' luxury" (III.v.6) or lust; in other words, they're all just "sprays" (III.v.5) of their forefathers' cum. Later, he mopes,

Our madams mock at us, and plainly say

Our mettle is bred out and they will give

Their bodies to the lust of English youth

To new-store France with bastard warriors.

-- III.v.28-31

The French ladies (like Katherine?) are sure that the vigor (mettle) or spirit (see above) is worn out of the Frenchmen, and they want real men, Englishmen, to bed them (in "lust").

And it's no wonder why the French women would think such thoughts, not when we see into the French men's heads the night before the battle. In a long, extended (one might even say rigid) metaphor, the Dauphin proclaims that "(his) horse is (his) mistress" (III.vii.43), going so far as to "writ(e) a sonnet in HIS praise" (III.vii.38, emphasis MINE).

[Nothing like mixing your French-bashing bestiality with a little homosexuality, right?]

In fact, the Dauphin warns his comrades that if they do not heed his words, they will "fall into foul bogs" (III.vii.56), an Elizabethan euphemism for the female genitalia.

This is not to leave King Henry out of the bawdy mix. Beyond his threat of rape at Harfleur, he even drops a few bawdy bon mots in his wooing of Katherine, speaking of being able to "leap into a wife" (V.ii.141), and saying that he "shall die" (V.ii.152). Remember that for the Elizabethans, dying meant not only the expiring of life, but the expelling of the life spirit or fluid--ejaculating. Of course, this makes Henry, our king of contradictions, sound like too much fun; and to put a stop to that he tells her that he loves her "cruelly" (V.ii.201) so that she can be a "soldier-breeder" (V.ii.204).

The obscenest of the histories?

Maybe...

Rape and Romance

bill-w — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:49:00 GMT

In Act Three, Scene Three of Henry the Fifth, Henry threatens Harfleur with the rape of their virgins:

And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
...
What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
...
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
-- III.iii.11-14, 19-21, 33-35

Sure, it's only a threat (as Henry immediately tells Exeter to "use mercy to them all" [III.iii.54]), but a horrible threat filled with grotesque imagery ("mowing like grass"..."hot and forcing violation"..."defile").

King Charles VI of France offers Henry "Katherine his daughter" (III.Chorus.30), and when we meet her IN THE SCENE IMMEDIATELY AFTER HENRY'S THREAT OF RAPE, she is preoccupied with learning the language of the man who will--most likely--become her lord and master. She asks for an English lesson as she says, "Je ne doute point d'apprendre, par la grace de Dieu, et en peu de temps" (III.iv.36-37), meaning "I trust to learn, by the grace of God, and in short time." There is very little time, if she is to learn how to communicate with her future husband. It's interesting, too, that she wants to know how to say parts of the body; it's as if she knows what will interest a husband--the carnal. Of course, it's even funnier when the scene ends with a bawdy punchline, a she learns the English words "foot" and "gown"--homonyms for the French "foutre" (to fuck), and "count" (remove that second letter and you get the picture). Her English lesson ends with the two words that most perfectly describe the bodily and bawdily relationship she anticipates.

Even when we get to the post-war, final-scene, romantic comedy close to this history, we get less than purely romantic imagery from Henry: "I love thee cruelly... and thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder" (V.ii.201, 203-204). Cruel love, breeding (not romance): this is the charm of our warrior king.

[Maybe Pennington's purely political wooing of Katherine in Bogdanov's The War of the Roses IS the right approach...]

Say Goodbye to the Tavern Life

bill-w — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:23:00 GMT

Yesterday, we talked some about the boy in Henry the Fifth being, for Hal, the last link to the tavern-life. Just to be clear:

Falstaff dies, of a "heart...fracted and corroborate" (II.ii.119)
Bardolph is hanged "for robbing a church" (III.vi.98)
Nym, too, has been "hanged" (IV.iv.72)
The boy is killed (IV.vii.1) by the French
Word from England comes that Pistol's "Doll" (V.i.77) is dead of venereal disease ("malady of France" [V.i.78])

Only Pistol is left alive, intending to turn "bawd... (and to) steal" (V.i.81, 83), but during Henry's time in the tavern, never was Pistol one of Hal's mates: he doesn't appear in The First Part, and in The Second Part, the "swaggering rascal" (2HIV, II.iv.66) exits the tavern before Hal's entrance, and he never speaks to the newly crowned king in the final scene... when the two meet--when Hal is in disguise the night before Agincourt--Hal has never met Pistol (which makes one wonder why Pistol is so fond of the King).

Pistol's "Doll" is, by most critics, assumed to be a mistake for "Nell," Mistress Quickly's nickname. Doll, remember, is the whore Tearsheet from The Second Part. It would make sense for HER to die of an STD. The implication was always that Mistress Quickly (quick LAY) ran--despite her protestations--a bawdyhouse... but then why would Pistol NOW "turn" (V.i.81) bawd? What if it's no mistake, and Pistol is referencing Tearsheet? Was he two-timing Quickly?

Is this just another reason why the entire milieu of the tavern as to be rejected by Hal?

Hal, the Boy

bill-w — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:20:00 GMT

King Henry the Fifth "was not angry since (he) came to France // Until th(e) instant" (IV.vii.54-55) he discovers that the boy has been killed by the French. The king's been insulted, has faced military losses, and has had to allow a childhood friend to be hanged, but only NOW is he angry. Why? What is it in the character of the boy that elicits such a response?

When we first meet the boy in this play (we saw him three times in The Second Part of Henry the Fourth), he is in the tavern, calling forth the trio of Bardolph, Nym and Pistol to come to his "master" (II.i.79) Falstaff, as he dies. But his importuning comes with an insult "Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan" (II.i.81-82). This is reminiscent to our early observations of Hal in the tavern life back in The First Part of Henry the Fourth: "Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack" (1HIV, I.ii.2). The boy, hired by Hal to be the old knight's page, is very similar to the boy prince.

Later, when the soldiers get to France, the boy wishes he was back in the tavern: "Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety" (III.ii.11-12). This wish for drink sounds very much like Hal's first appearance in The Second Part, when the prince tells Poins that he "desire(s) small beer" (2HIV, II.ii.6).

In the very same scene, once the men have been forced back to the front, the boy reveals to us what he thinks of his tavern-mates:

As young as I am, I have observed these three swashers. I am boy to them all three: but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man to me... They will steal any thing... They would have me as familiar with men's pockets as their gloves or their handkerchers... I must leave them, and seek some better service

-- III.ii.27-29, 40, 46-47, 50

He's a young man who realizes his companions are not fit; in this, he sounds like young Prince Hal, who in The First Part tells us that he "will awhile uphold // The unyoked humor of (the tavern's) idleness" (1HIV, I.ii.188-189). He's played with them, but knows he must leave.

The boy understands and speaks French (as he translates for Pistol to the older man's prisoner of war); Henry, too, "entendre (French) better que" (V.ii.264) than some French themselves do. And this deeper knowledge is a double-edged sword: insight brings a foreboding knowledge of what will come:

the French might have a good prey of us, if he knew of it; for there is none to guard (the luggage) but boys

-- IV.74-76

He can see, sadly, what will come; so did Hal, as he foresaw that he himself would not "hang a thief...(but Bardolph) shalt" (1HIV, I.ii.61-62). In both cases, the prediction comes to pass, with deadly results. Bardolph steals a cross and must be hanged, and the French do attack the luggage and the boy is killed.

And we are full-circle with the now suddenly angry Henry.

Why is he so angry?

Because he sees his last link to his childhood happy times cut. He sees, in the death of the boy, the death of his own childhood.