Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

by Isaac Asimov

… a calf's head and a capon …

  Quietly Benedick challenges Claudio to a duel, out of the hearing of Don Pedro. Claudio, however, can scarcely take his old, bantering friend seriously. He insists on thinking it is some sort of joke and says to Don Pedro (who has overheard the conversation imperfectly and asks if Claudio is being invited to dinner):

  … he hath bid me to a calf's head and a capon;

  the which if I do not carve most curiously,

  say my knife's naught.

  Shall I not find a woodcock, too?

  —Act V, scene i, lines 153-56

  They are all items of food; but calves, capons, and woodcocks are all common symbols of stupidity too. Claudio is still wondering if Benedick is advancing some stupid joke. But Benedick insists on being grim, and stalks off after insulting Claudio unmistakably and formally leaving the service of Don Pedro.

  The plot is breaking down, however. Not only does Benedick inform Don Pedro that his brother, Don John, has fled Messina (a suspicious act made necessary, presumably, by the arrest of Conrade and Borachio), but the foolish Dogberry has managed to extract a confession from the villains.

  When the truth is out, Don Pedro and Claudio are prostrate with remorse and guilt. Leonato demands a simple recompense; that Claudio marry a niece of his that looks very much like the supposedly dead Hero. In deep contrition, Claudio agrees at once, and, of course, the "niece" turns out to be Hero herself. All are reconciled, right down to Claudio and Benedick.

  … all Europa. ..

  Now it is Benedick's turn. He will marry soon and subject himself to the dangers of the horns of cuckoldry after all. Claudio laughingly says:

  Tush, fear not, man! We'll tip thy horns with gold,

  And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,

  As once Europa did at lusty Jove

  When he would play the noble beast in love.

  —Act V, scene iv, lines 44-47

  There is a play on words here between Europa, meaning the continent of Europe, and Europa, the princess whom Jove loved in the shape of a bull (see page I-44).

  .. .in a consumption

  It comes out now that both Beatrice and Benedick had fallen in love because each had been told the other was lovesick, but it no longer matters. Benedick saves face by saying:

  Come, I will have thee; but, by this light,

  I take thee for pity.

  —Act V, scene iv, lines 92-93

  And Beatrice answers (as usual) with interest:

  … by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion,

  and partly to save your life, for

  I was told you were in a consumption.

  —Act V, scene iv, lines 94-96

  With that, they kiss and are clearly blissfully happy. And we may presume that the marriage will stay happy too. No doubt the "merry war" between them will continue and Beatrice' sharp tongue will continue to have the better of it, but what of that?

  After all, "Beatrice" means "she who makes happy" and "Benedick" means "blessed," and Shakespeare could not have chosen those names accidentally. Beatrice will make Benedick happy and he will be blessed in her.

  The play ends with the news that Don John has been caught, but punishment is deferred for the next day. Nothing will interfere with the gaiety of the end.

  20. As You Like It

  As you like it seems to have been written about 1599, a little after Much Ado About Nothing, and is therefore the second of the cluster of Shakespeare's three joyous comedies.

  In this second comedy, much of the action takes place in an idealized pastoral setting, something very popular in the period. The plot Shakespeare obtained from a pastoral romance, Rosalynd, published in 1590 by the English poet Thomas Lodge, and unproved it beyond measure.

  … eat husks with them. ..

  The story opens with Orlando and the old servant, Adam, onstage. Orlando is the youngest of three sons. His dead father has left him but a small sum for himself and has placed his bringing up in charge of the oldest brother, Oliver.

  Though Oliver supports the middle brother in school, he is (for some reason Shakespeare does not bother to explain) a jealous tyrant to his youngest brother, keeping him deliberately in idleness and penury. When Oliver comes onstage, young Orlando says to him bitterly:

  Shall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them?

  What prodi gal portion have I spent that

  I should come to such penury?

  —Act I, scene i, lines 36-38

  This is a reference to the famous parable of the prodigal son in the Gospel of St. Luke (see page II-368).

  … the old Duke…

  The two brothers nearly come to blows and Orlando demands the small sum coming to him so that he might leave. Oliver agrees, with ill grace, but it is in his mind to be rid of Orlando forever and without paying him any money either.

  Charles, a wrestler at the court of the Duke, is there to speak to Oliver, and it is this wrestler who is to be the means whereby Oliver will carry out his plan. Charles, asked after court news, says:

  There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news.

  That is, the old Duke is banished by his younger brother,

  the new Duke …

  —Act I, scene i, lines 96-98

  Who these dukes might be, and over what region they might rule, Shakespeare does not say and, certainly, does not care. In Lodge's pastoral romance, the dead father of the young hero was called Sir John of Bordeaux. That would make the scene the southwestern section of France. And indeed, the wrestler (here called Charles) is, in the source romance, serving at the court of Torismund, King of France. There was once a Toris-mund, who ruled the Germanic tribe of the Visigoths in 451, and that tribe did, indeed, control at that time southwestern France.

  In Shakespeare's version, the father of Oliver and Orlando is Rowland de Boys. "Rowland" is a form of "Roland" and that name is best known as that of a Frankish warrior who died at the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778, which was fought in the Pyrenees about 130 miles south of Bordeaux. This is reminiscent of the time and place of Torismund.

  That, however, is as far as it goes. The King of France is changed by Shakespeare into a Duke who is not further characterized or even named. (He is called Duke Senior in the play.) The usurping younger brother is named Frederick.

  … the Forest of Arden …

  Charles goes on to say of the exiled Duke:

  They say he is already in the Forest of Arden,

  and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England.

  They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day,

  and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world.

  —Act I, scene i, lines 111-15

  If we imagine a French setting, the Forest of Arden would be the wooded region of Ardennes, straddling the modern boundary between France and southern Belgium. There is, however, an actual Forest of Arden just north of Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon, and the dramatist must surely have had this at least partly in mind.

  In the Forest of Arden, Duke Senior and his men are living the life of happy outlaws, in the midst of nature, eating the game they capture and not having a care in the world. This is the bucolic bliss that is conventional in pastorals, for it is common for people trapped in the hurly-burly of the crowded haunts of men to imagine (wrongly) that there is some special delight in a simple life that existed in the "good old days."

  This vain imagining even made its way into many mythologies. The early Greek poet Hesiod pictured the human race as having degenerated through successive ages, each worse than the one before. The first period was the "golden age," in which men lived without care, eating acorns, honey, and milk, free of hunger and pain; to these men death was only a falling asleep. It is to this that Charles refers as "the golden world."

  To the English audience, the best-known example of happy outlaws in the forest was that of Robin Hood and his band of merry men. He was originally a peas
ant outlaw fighting against the Norman overlords, but with time he was polished up and made more acceptable to the aristocracy. By Shakespeare's time he had been transmuted into a Norman nobleman, Robert, Earl of Huntingdon, who was unjustly dispossessed and outlawed. The resemblance between this version of Robin Hood and the case of Duke Senior makes Charles's reference a natural one.

  … the little wit. ..

  Charles has come to warn Oliver that it is rumored his youngest brother, Orlando, will try to wrestle him. Charles gives troubled warning that he will be forced to hurt Orlando. Oliver, however, callously urges Charles to kill Orlando rather than merely hurt him.

  The scene then shifts to the court, where we find the two charming young cousins, Rosalind and Celia. Rosalind is the daughter of the exiled Duke, and Celia the daughter of the usurping one. Rosalind is kept at court, despite her father's exile, because Celia loves her so.

  Celia endeavors to keep her cousin cheerful and in this is helped by the court fool, who is named Touchstone. This is a particularly significant name, for a touchstone is a hard, flinty rock upon which a soft metal like gold will leave a rubbed-off mark if drawn across it. Pure gold and gold alloyed with varying amounts of copper can be used to make reference marks of different shades of yellow, orange, and red. If an unknown gold alloy is then rubbed across the touchstone, the mark it leaves, when compared with the standards, will reveal the amount of the copper content. As a result, "touchstone" has come to mean any criterion or standard against which the qualities of something may be tested.

  To have a fool named Touchstone, then, is to indicate that it is by the encounter with the wit of a fool that the wisdom of a man may be judged.

  Thus, when cautioned about the too great freedom of his remarks, Touchstone says to the girls:

  The more pity that fools may not speak

  wisely what wise men do foolishly.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 83-84

  To this, Celia responds:

  By my troth, thou sayest true, for since the little wit

  that fools have was silenced, the little foolery

  that wise men have makes a great show.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 85-87

  This remark has nothing to do with anything in the play and it would seem that Shakespeare was seizing the opportunity to make a cutting reference to some contemporary event. The satiric writing of Elizabethan times had grown more and more scurrilous until those jabbed at by it managed to push the government into banning such satires on June 1, 1599. Censorship, nevertheless, is almost invariably a greater evil than those it tries to cure, and Shakespeare expresses his disapproval of it here.

  … is humorous

  The young ladies learn of the wrestling matches and of the apparent invincibility of Charles. Orlando is now there to take his turn at the wrestling, and both girls, but especially Rosalind, are greatly taken with his youth and good looks.

  All try to persuade Orlando not to wrestle, but he insists, and to everyone's surprise throws Charles and badly hurts him. Duke Frederick wants to know the young victor's name and is put out to find he is a son of Sir Rowland de Boys, an old enemy of his.

  Later a courtier comes back to warn Orlando to leave quickly:

  … such is now the Duke's condition

  That he misconsters [misconstrues] all that you have done.

  The Duke is humorous.

  —Act I, scene ii, lines 254-56

  The word "humorous" refers to the humors (or body fluids) of the old Greek physicians (see page I-582), which were supposed to control the temperament. To say the Duke is "humorous" is to say that he is a creature of moods and his present mood, apparently, is a dangerous one.

  … call me Ganymede

  The Duke is moody indeed, for he turns against Rosalind also. Having kept her at court ever since her father was exiled, he now bids her leave at once on pain of death, and insists on it despite Celia's wild protests.

  After the Duke stalks offstage, Celia insists that she will flee with Rosalind and that together they will seek Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden. Rosalind is disturbed at the thought of two girls wandering through the wilderness and she suggests that she, at least, dress as a man (Shakespeare's favorite device in his romances).

  Rosalind even takes a name for herself in her guise as man, saying to Celia:

  7'J/ have no worse a name than Jove's own page,

  And therefore look you call me Ganymede.

  —Act I, scene iii, lines 122-23

  Ganymede, in the Greek myths, was a beautiful Trojan prince (see page I-67) with whom Jupiter (Zeus) fell in love. Since Ganymede was the object of homosexual love, the name is appropriate for a young man who, being really a young lady, is bound to look and behave like an effeminate.

  Celia also chooses a new name, saying to Rosalind that it will be

  Something that hath a reference to my state:

  No longer Celia, but Aliena.

  —Act I, scene iii, lines 125-26

  "Aliena" is Lathi and is a feminine form of the word meaning "stranger." Celia has become alienated from her father.

  The two girls decide to take Touchstone with them, and leave.

  … the penalty of Adam

  In the second act the scene shifts to the Forest of Arden, where Duke Senior is contentedly lecturing his followers on the advantages of the simple life:

  Here feel we not the penalty of Adam;

  —Act II, scene i, line 5

  For his sin in eating the forbidden fruit, Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden, where food was always at hand, and was condemned to work for his bread: "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" (Genesis 3:19). Here in the Forest of Arden, however, Duke Senior and his men are living on the bounty of the earth and the Garden of Eden (another version of Charles the wrestler's "golden world") is returned.

  … like the toad…

  Duke Senior finds that the cruel fate of exile has turned to good, and says:

  Sweet are the uses of adversity,

  Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

  Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

  —Act II, scene i, lines 12-14

  Toads are ugly indeed, though beneficial (rather than venomous) insofar as they eat insects and help keep the numbers of those creatures under control. There existed a legend, however, that there were stony concretions in toads' heads that could be used to warn against the presence of poison if set in a ring. They did so by changing color. Such a "toad-stone" was also thought to reduce the pain and decrease the swelling that followed the bite or sting of a poisonous animal. Needless to say, despite Shakespeare, there is no such thing as a toadstone.

  … caters for the sparrow

  But if Duke Senior is contented, poor Orlando certainly is not. Having been warned away from court, he arrives back home only to discover that his oldest brother, Oliver, plans to kill him outright. The warning is brought to Orlando by old Adam, who urges him to leave and offers him his own life savings of five hundred crowns. Adam (who, according to tradition, was played on the stage by Shakespeare himself) says:

  Take that, and he that doth the ravens feed,

  Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,

  Be comfort to my age.

  —Act II, scene iii, lines 43-45

  This is a reference to Jesus' statements "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?" (Luke 12:6) and "Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them" (Luke 12:24).

  But Orlando will not abandon old Adam and together they leave home and wander off toward the forest, as earlier Rosalind, Celia, and Touchstone had done.

  … the first-born of Egypt

  Not everyone in Arden is enamored of the life. One of the Duke Senior's entourage is Jaques, whose affectation it is to be melancholy and to be cynical about everything. He sneers at a beautiful song sung by his fellow courtier Amiens, then s
ays:

  I'll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot,

  I'll rail against all the first born of Egypt.

  —Act II, scene v, lines 54-55

  A possible meaning for Jaques' remark rests in the fact that the firstborn of Egypt were the victims of the tenth plague brought down upon them by God through Moses. "And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle" (Exodus 12:29).

  It was after this climactic visitation that the Hebrew slaves were finally allowed to leave the country and to make their way into the wilderness. It could be that Jaques is using the phrase "all the first-born of Egypt" to symbolize the events that led to the exile of Duke Senior, and it is this against which he intends to rail.

  … the lean and slippered pantaloon

  Orlando suddenly bursts in on Duke Senior, Jaques, and the others in wild desperation. Old Adam is too weak with hunger to go farther and Orlando demands food with sword drawn.

  Duke Senior speaks to him gently, and Orlando, realizing he is with friends, goes off to get Adam. When the Duke uses this event to show that there are more tragic scenes on earth than their own, Jaques falls to moralizing on the general uselessness of life and of man's pilgrimage in it. Life, he says, is in seven stages that end in nothing. By the sixth, man is well advanced in age: