“And so ’tis, while Feste sings a sad love song, I casteth my eye about, certain for to find other likenesses from the King’s court. And straightaway my far-seeing orb discerns among the crowd of ducal courtiers one with the mannerisms and style of hair-dressing of Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk and another with those of Sir Robert Cecil himself—wearing clothing I could swear had once been Sir Robert’s. And so it becomes a game with me, to catch out the likenesses, and guess at those the recognition of which come not at once to my slow, feeble brain.
“Such cunning doings! Surely I cannot be the only one watching who has taken the joke. The players would not have put such a game forward, as they fear the King’s custom of clapping playwrights and players into gaol when annoyed by a report of public mockery. Methinks it can be only the Countess of Bedford’s doings. She hath the power to protect the lot of them, and the wherewithal to deflect the King’s anger (if anger there chances to be). And being the most clever person in all three royal courts, and the one who has arranged the play for the Queen’s amusement, my doubts are none at all.”
The Fool takes a moment to note the pleasure to the audience of watching “Cesario” speak his love to the Duke in cryptic language: “And how many seated in this hall do not know the pleasure of speaking unpolitic truths under cover of a mask? Or the like pleasure of telling one’s love, without surrendering oneself?” And then she swings back to her unpicking of all the threads of the subtext: “But this is rich! As the steward, Malvolio, enters, ever pompous and fussy and self-important, the scales fall from my amber, attentive eye, and I see that spot of grease on the sleeve, just above the lacy cuff, where Sir George Carew, omitting to see me standing so low beside him, jostled me as I held out to him a gold plate of sweetmeats and pastries for his delectation, at which he brushed against the pastries, making a fair mess of his sleeve, a general smearing of raspberry and cream and butter into the cloth, for that the gentleman cursed me as a devil’s spawn of a dwarf. And though the laundresses worked over it, ’twas never the same, and eventually was gi’en up for another. The Queen could not bear him as her Lord Chamberlain, and would not have him (though she must needs bow to the King’s command and allow him to stand her Vice Chamberlain). How this player doth take Sir George’s tapping of the foot and his exaggerated angle of the chin to the life! The Queen’s Majesty must know this Malvolio—even if Sir George himself doth not! How choice a delight, to hear this puffed up steward take up a letter neither signed nor addressed, well tangled in his own insolent assumption that in his vast astuteness ’tis in his power to grasp its portent as if ’twere a riddle put to him by the Sphinx herself. Vanity alone driveth him, that cutteth the text’s cloth to his own puny measure. How like a man, I say. A letter, found on the ground, must be meant for him! A letter left unsigned must be from his mistress! It cannot be else, but that she be in love with him, though anyone with eyes open must see that she is mad for Cesario! Hark! When a man knoweth not how to read a woman’s text, it behooveth him to acknowledge himself mistressed! And that that true mistress, in this case—as she be the true author of the text o’er which he labors so mightily—be Maria, glorious, clever, puissant, is naught that any gentlemen in this audience will think to notice.
“But what pleasure doth this clever mask render this insufferable character’s humiliation! Saith he, puffing out his chest: ‘Daylight and champaign discovers not more! This is open. I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very man. I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me …’ ’Tis sweet, so sweet for a joke. ’Twill be e’en sweeter if neither Sir George nor the King discover it, so to consider how fleeting sweetness can be when swiftly followed by the bitter. Ah, and enters Maria now, to collect her ’gratulation from the gentlemen—and I see, at once, what I did not before. In faith, this Maria stands straight and slim, wearing an ash-blonde wig. Earlier, I cavilled that they named her Penthiselea. But ’tis all clear now, the cunning of that designation. For who is Maria but our very Countess herself! And after Feste, the fool, is not Maria the cleverest creature in the play?”
At this point the text breaks off. The next fragment begins with the revelation that Lady Olivia’s costume once belonged to the Queen, and that the actor portraying her is recognizably imitating the Queen’s gestures and demeanor. The Fool, certain that the men in the audience aren’t getting it, is triumphant at her own superior penetration: “The gentlemen admire the boys beneath the gowns and scorn the Lady who cannot attract the love of one already taken by the Duke. ’Tis a dangerous game, and yet safe enough. For unless the King’s Majesty catches out the joke this night, tomorrow ’twill be too late, since his pride and vainglory will have the head of anyone who dares suggest he’s been made a fool however royal without himself noticing ’t. The Countess has that right and knows her business, as fully as Maria, making sport of Malvolio, knows hers.”
For the rest of her account of the play, the Fool continually notes the real persons of the Court who she believes the Countess intends to be conflated with the play’s characters. The audience apparently ceases making vocal interruptions—with the exception of an incident involving the King. During one of Malvolio’s speeches, “the King’s Majesty’s voice raises a raucous howl for a chamberpot so thick on the royal tongue that e’en those of us well-practiced in grasping his speech are deprived of the exact, coarse words of his demand. Malvolio is halted in his nonsense, rooted to his place and struck dumb as a pebble lying passive in a field. I pray the King’s need be only to piss, which is all the use mine own eyes have ’til now seen put to the golden pot the boy called Matthew carries everywhere after the King. Short as I be, ’tis never been my privilege to hunt with their Majesties, but who has not heard of the King’s loosing his bowels off the back of his horse whilst the Queen and court wait on the royal pleasure?
“But ho, the audience becometh restless at this wait—and ’tis true, the King doth not always piss as freely as a royal body would claim its privilege to do—and ’round about do maketh whispers and rumblings, chuckles and titters. At such times methinks of the rumors whispered concerning the royal childhood in the wilds of Scotland, that his chamberlain carried him everywhere until he was five, though he be dressed in rags through the meanness of those Scots lords who called themselves his subjects. (Which whispers always bring another crop about the Queen’s Majesty, raised in the luxury of a wealthy court, to the effect that as a princess she was carried everywhere till she reached ten, a nonsense impossible for a sober soul to put credence in.)
“Of a sudden, shouting, the King bids the player to continue, testily saying he doth not know the reason the blockhead standeth there, not saying his lines, and can it be that he has forgot them, and if so, would not someone of the Company kindly prompt the dolt?
“The poor player looks plainly distressed and lost in the wave of titters that sweeps through the audience. But lo, my acutest ear picks up the soft-spoken cue, ‘I would not have him miscarry for the half of my dowry,’ and the player stands erect, thrusting a leg forward, puffing out his chest, the epitome of foolish vanity. Go to, methinks, all appreciation for the fellow’s fine aplomb. ‘O ho, do you come near me now? No worse a man than Sir Toby to look to me!’ he crows, all gleeful, vaunting pride.
“The sound of water trickling in the pot (albeit ’tis of metal, though fine, chased gold) carries clearly to every ear in the audience. ‘I discard you,’ saith Malvolio. ‘Let me enjoy my private.’ The whilst we all listen to the King’s business, a Tinkle, tinkle, as nurses say to their small charges. ‘Carry his water to the wisewoman,’ Fabian sayeth, just as the King’s golden pot be carried away. The scene is full riotous: who cannot but laugh? Even Mistress Lanyer, seated at my side, nigh as worldly and discreet as the Countess herself, shakes with laughter. The happy coincidence is more than anyone sober can bear!”11
As her account of the play advances, the Fool beco
mes more and more focused on what we (though not she) would call “gender differences.” She notes of the duel that puts “Cesario’s” “manhood” on the spot: “This tack the gentlemen all adore, for making so sharp the difference between a boy playing a woman masquerading as a man, and a true man (of the which, however, Sir Andrew might be less than a stellar exemplar).” And notes—“‘A very dishonest, paltry boy, and more a coward than a hare,’ saith Sir Toby. The gentlemen in the audience all roar and make jokes, that when a female goes in breeches, she’s always dishonest and paltry, and a poor imitation only.” When Sebastian comes along and plunges without question into fighting Sir Andrew, “The gentlemen all cheer, satisfied to see a man act as the one imitating him so failed to do.” The Fool’s dissatisfaction grows as the male audience’s satisfaction increases when Olivia wins Sebastian (“a full man” she mistakes for her beloved “Cesario”): “Sebastian is all delight at his strange fortune, as are the gentlemen in the audience, nudging one another and chuckling. The ladies, though, keep silent, seeing how ’tis that the Lady, heretofore so much her own mistress, is now to be made a pitiful, cheated fool of.”
Significantly, her description of the play’s ending indicates the trajectory of the next day’s adventure. “[A]ll [is] discovered and wrapped into a parcel for carrying away in the neatest, most seemly fashion. The Lady Olivia’s love is seen to be improper and foolish, Viola’s to be proper and wise. Like the late Queen, the Lady Olivia was surrounded by men of inferior standing, refusing all offers of marriage from suitors of her rank. Unlike her royal counterpart, tho’, this lady ends worsted (if not bested). Who with eyes cannot see how her gaze travels to and fro’ ’tween Sebastian and her whom the lady thought was called “Cesario,” and how her expression changes from one of puzzlement, astonishment, and doubt, to that of disappointment and disillusion, e’en as Sebastian taketh her arm and doth stand at her side, her revealed lord and master? The very sight puts a sadness in my belly, though the players do not mean us to pity the lady. Maria, most excellent and marvellous dea ex machina, too, is rendered silent and harmless, as a proper woman must be in the face of true authority and mastery—such as neither the upstart Malvolio nor the debauched Sir Toby could be said to possess. Aye, Sebastian and the Duke stand exalted, the which being men of rank soon to be wed they must be, while Antonio, standing on t’other side of Sebastian, seemeth securely assured of his beloved’s protection and affection—though now in the place of the subordinate rather than the master of the one he loves, as befits their respective ranks, which heretofore hath been concealed. Malvolio, that climbing, prating puritan, is banished, no more to threaten decent order with his moralizing self-importance. But joy of joys, the fool is given the last word, and that in jolly song, that the audience may be recalled to a full consciousness of how much it has its entertainers to thank for the evening’s pleasures: But that’s all one, our play is done, And we’ll strive to please you every day. With a hey-ho, aye, I say, and a tra-la-la, tra-la-la. For a good piper is worth his pay—and so every actor, musician, and wit!”
However differently the early and late discourses about women and the family manage femininity, both depend on the powers of representation, whether it be the spectacle of the punished female body or the demure depiction of a right marital relation.
—Karen Newman, Fashioning Femininity and English Renaissance Drama
The audience’s applause woke the King. Except to make way for persons of royal rank, the members of the audience left the Hall without ceremony, nearly stampeding the Fool, who describes herself as vulnerable to being knocked in the head by (sheathed) swords and the skirts of ladies’ gowns “so starched and wired and farthingal’d that e’en as they knock into my face they conceal my small person from everyone around me.” Rushing to supper, people in the crowd gossip rather than talk about the play, trading rumors of expectations for how badly scarred the Princess Arbella will be from small pox, of the Privy Council’s latest plan to send an army of loyal administrators to put Ireland and the colonies into strict order, and—perhaps the most eagerly discussed tidbit, the goodheartedness of Prince Henry for having declared himself unwilling to use the saddle James had given him for a New Years’ gift until the woman who embroidered it was paid for her labor.
Much later, after the Queen had ceremoniously retired for the night, a group of courtiers congregated in Cecily Bulstrode’s room with the intention of playing a round of “Newes.”12The Fool says that while pens and ink and paper were set out, the company speculated on the King’s reasons for attending the play. Lady Mary Wroth’s theory was that the Favorite was infatuated with Robin, the actor who played Viola/Cesario. But Sir Thomas Overbury13scoffed at the suggestion: “’Twould be a folly, and though he himself would never claim to be the equal in wit to any in this chamber, ’tis not a folly like any he’d likely make himself liable to.” The Fool notes that since “the gentleman’s ordinary demeanor maketh his mouth and eyes to be a sneer, ’tis impossible to take his tone with any surety.”
Because of all those present only Overbury’s status allowed him to speak so frankly, “the titters his speech draws run wildly, as does the fox from spaniels, ragged with the haste and fervor of one that holds dear his life.”
Lady Anne Southwell, casting an arch look at the Countess of Bedford, said, “But it came to my ears after the play, whilst I was caught up in the crush to supper, that ’twas expected by many of the King’s gentlemen that something unseemly might tonight be acted. I heard one gentleman say to another, in his disappointment, did not everybody know the Queen’s taste for comedies not to the King’s Majesty’s liking, and what was planned was a dessert, as ’twere, to the late Masque, which as this gentleman would have it, so displeased the King’s Majesty that he’s determined never again to let the Queen and the Countess direct another’s making. The gentlemen both expressed themselves of the opinion that faced with the King’s presence, the Countess directed the players to act another play than the one originally intended for tonight.”
“Pish, posh, mere stuff and nonsense,” replied the Countess. “The King was all graciousness in applauding our efforts in making the Masque. The Queen, I’ll warrant, is well satisfied o’er that.”
The Fool notes that the Countess dared not speak of the Queen’s taste for seeing the King and his Scots mocked on the stage, and that the Queen’s preference, like Sir Thomas’s open disrespect for the Favorite, was her privilege.
“So there was no other play to be performed tonight?” said Overbury, his lips curling into a sly smile he couldn’t quite manage to conceal.
“Nay, sir, there was not,” said the Countess coldly, as though she couldn’t have cared less whether he believed her—adding, “And ’twas no disappointment for the Queen, for certain, except in its ending, which I’ll confess left her somewhat annoyed.”
“Somewhat annoyed!” said John Donne, whom the Fool describes as “all astonishment.” “A harmonious ending for all but the puritan, whose expulsion was necessary for the general happiness, and marriages all ’round? How could such an ending annoy any woman, when women, aye, even those of the highest rank, are always mad for love matches, the which generally bring the greatest fiasco when made amongst families of rank? For surely the Queen, who knoweth the difference between sober duty and fantasy, could not construe such fantasy to imply sanction to the disorder of lovematches in our own society?”
The Countess replied tartly: “Nay, the Queen, sir, is not of such weak discernment as it pleases thou to think.”
Donne flushed in face and neck. Of no great rank or standing, he was allowed to join the company to entertain them, not because he was “a true member of the circle.” “A misstep,” the Fool writes, “comes easily to the feet of such as we, and cannot help but bring mortification, as never happens with the others, who can laugh off any clumsiness in the sure confidence that they have the right.” Swiftly Donne rose to his feet and bowed gravely to the Countess. No one, the Fool
says, was surprised at the formality of his gesture, since the poet relied on the Countess as his chief patron, who he hoped would either support his art or secure a commission for him as Secretary in the Virginia Company. “My pardon, My Lady,” said he, his tone a match to his manner, “I meant no slight to the Queen’s understanding. My question was more general than particular, for that it was my discernment that was too weak to imagine any other cause for annoyance.”
Said Overbury, seizing a liberty none of the others would dare: “So please to tell us, Lucy, lest we expire of curiosity, how the Queen could be annoyed at the ending?”
The Countess thrust back her head and stared haughtily down her nose at the company. “Did no one of you here feel a dissatisfaction, then?” she said, as though posing the obvious.
When no one else replied, the Fool herself spoke: “Most decidedly, My Lady. The gentlemen were all made happy, and the ladies in a way to becoming most unhappy. But do not comedies always end so? All the reason being, I believe, that men maketh them, and care naught for the woman’s part, or else assume that making men happy is all that women do care for.”
The Fool’s answer drew a furor of scorn and ridicule down on her head. “And so,” she writes, “foreseeing my sure defeat in their common opinion, I cry surrender without hesitation.” Said she: “I being but a fool, I cannot help but speak foolishness.”
The Countess, however, smiled and nodded her approbation for the Fool. “Cristiana speaks the Queen’s mind. As the Queen’s Majesty herself saith, ‘’Tis impossible to think the Lady Olivia could be happy with the poor substitute, a mere seeming in appearance, of the one she loves, who is nothing like the one the Author, at the end, resigns her to. She, who has lived without a master, which a husband must always be, suddenly to be subject to such a one after having chosen quite another—’tis a tragic ending indeed, and no comedy as far as I can see. And yet the play itself doth not so much as take note of the tragedy, but celebrates it as a happy conjunction! And so the Lady is rendered dumb, to allow the play’s supposed joyful ending.”
Lightspeed Magazine Issue 37 Page 3
