3.The Shakespeare-in-Essence Series
Seven Comedies About Love

City-State Press

The Shakespeare-in-Essence series

Shakespeare is simply too difficult for most people to truly understand and enjoy. Yet a whole world of love and learning is lost to those who do not know Shakespeare well.

And so, I have written this series to bring genuine Shakespeare (essential, condensed and carefully-selected dialogue) to the general public, inserting at intervals normally quick comments which seek to illuminate Shakespeare’s deeper meanings. No wordy, obscure essays to read before or after the play. You comprehend Shakespeare’s meanings while you are reading him.

The idea is to provide an unusually understandable and pleasurable reading experience. You tell me if I have or have not succeeded. You must come away feeling greatly rewarded – I will not settle for less than this – or I have failed.

I am betting that Shakespeare-in-Essence tragedies such as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra . . . will leave you deeply touched, perhaps numb, and never forgetting what you have read.

I am also betting that comedies such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, the male chauvinist Taming of the Shrew and the female chauvinist Merry Wives of Windsor . . . will leave you amused and delighted -- forever.

That’s what Shakespeare can do for you.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

a Fairy-Tale comedy
of Lovers and Lunatics

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This comedy was composed for an aristocratic wedding, and more than likely Queen Elizabeth attended the initial performance. Full of love and madness, mischievous but benevolent fairies, and droll simpletons, A Midsummer Night’s Dream brings rare enchantment to the stage in William Shakespeare’s own incomparable manner.

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Hermia vehemently refuses to marry Demetrius, and the Duke gives her two choices if she will not change her mind: death, or the cloister. She has until his own wedding day to decide, 4 days.

Lysander speaks up, denouncing his rival:

You have her father’s love, Demetrius;
Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him.
Demetrius, I’ll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

All depart, save Hermia and Lysander.

Lysander. How now, my love? Why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

Hermia. Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

Lysander. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.

An advantage of reading a play as opposed to watching it is the opportunity to repeat and to ponder a beautiful verse such as the last one.

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THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
a wild tale of male chauvinism

Katharina enters, and remains alone with Petruchio.

Petruchio. Good morrow, Kate; for that’s your name, I hear.

Katharina. Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katharina that do talk of me.

Petruchio. Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs—
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

Katharina. Let him that moved you hither
Remove you hence.

Something of a wrestling match ensues. He embraces her, she strikes him, he threatens to hit her in return, they struggle and he finally releases her.

Petruchio. Thou must be married to no man but me;
For I am born to tame you, Kate.

Baptista comes into the room. Katharina complains to him,

Call you me daughter? now, I promise you,
You have show’d a tender fatherly regard,
To wish me wed to one half lunatic,
A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oats to face the matter out.

Petruchio. Father, ‘tis thus: – yourself and all the world,
That talkt of her, have talkt amiss of her.
If she be curst, it is for policy,
For she’s not froward, but modest as the dove.
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn.
And to conclude, we have ‘greed so well together,
That upon Sunday is the wedding day.

Katharina. I’ll see thee hang’d on Sunday first.

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THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

Falstaff in love and farce

Shakespeare composed The Merry Wives of Windsor around the great round rogue, victimizing the blustering braggart and thwarting his every licentious and pecuniary desire. Critics unsympathetically find poor corpulent Falstaff a slender shadow of his former self. But the comedy is merry and brisk, and I consider Falstaff greater than ever for his grace in defeat. Besides, did not the man say of himself,

I am not only witty in myself,
but the cause that wit is in other men.
[and women, as we shall see]

 

Falstaff. O, she did so course o’er my exteriors with
such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her
eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass!
Here’s another letter to her; she bears the purse
too; she is a region in Guiana, all gold and
bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and
they shall be exchequers to me.

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AS YOU LIKE IT

Love and Melancholy
In an Enchanted Forest

Appropriate in view of its title, AS YOU LIKE IT is one of Shakespeare’s finest and most popular comedies. We may thank, principally, a clever and bewitching heroine (Rosalind), a splendid Clown (Touchstone), and an enchanting forest (Arden).

Jaques. A fool, a fool! I met a fool i’th’ forest.
A motley fool – a miserable world! –
[he probably means, how wonderful to chance
upon such an eccentric phenomenon in this
miserable “working–day world”]

As I do live by food, I met a fool,
Who laid down and basked him in the sun,
And railed on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.

Touchstone would have presented quite a sight. Imagine his multi-colored garb (“motley”) – one pant– leg different from the other — the bells on his sleeves and the coxcomb or ass’ ears on his head. Here was the costume of the intelligent analytical wisecracking Clown (not the doltish buffoon of the other type). And imagine chancing upon such a one in a forest!

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TWELFTH NIGHT

A sharp comedy of male impersonation
to woo a Countess for
a Duke the impersonator loves

Act I, scene 1. Illyria. A room in the Duke’s palace. Orsino begins Twelfth Night with Shakespeare’s most famous opening line:

If music be the food of love, play on.

Orsino has fallen in love with Olivia, although he may be even more “in love with love”.

Viola departs, and a smitten Olivia says to herself,

Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes.

Shakespeare frequently observes, in his amused way, that “love” is usually a matter of eyesight. Othello and Desdemona were a rare breed.

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MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

a comedy about
the Battle of the Sexes
and a Wedding-day Scandal

“ You shall also make no noise in the streets;
for for the watch to babble and talk is most
tolerable and not to be endured.”

Dogberry

Don Pedro. Officers, what offence have these men done?

Dogberry. Marry, sir, they have committed false
report; moreover, they have spoken untruths;
secondarily, they are slanderers; sixth and
lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they
have verified unjust things; and, to conclude,
they are lying knaves.

Don Pedro. First, I ask thee what they have done;
thirdly, I ask thee what’s their offence;
sixth and lastly, why they are committed;
and, to conclude, what you lay to their charge.

That was put in jolly good Dogberry style. Don Pedro has a lively spirit and a fine sense of humor.

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THE WINTER’S TALE

a tragicomedy of
jealousy, living death,
penitence and forgiveness

One of my favorite plays, an evocation of Greek culture from long, long ago, The Winter’s Tale turns on a kingly jealousy and its tragic consequences. The tragicomedy relates a course of violence, living damnation, and repentance.

That was a tale of the Court. Balancing it we have the Cottage, the beauty and naturalness of Arcadia, the pastoral utopia of ancient Greece which Shakespeare locates in Bohemia.

Court versus Cottage was an important theme in Renaissance literature. One betokened sophistication, deceit, conflict and crisis, wrongdoing and injustice. The other represented a blessed relief of countryside, shepherds and shepherdesses not to mention sheep, the spontaneity and good will of Nature itself. We witness all of this blended into one of Shakespeare’s last plays, the wonderful Winter’s Tale.

Leontes. Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? Horsing foot on foot?

The King’s suspicious imagination – which has settled into conviction – continues to carry him away, exaggerating and projecting.

Leontes. Is this nothing?
Why then the world, and all that’s in’t, is nothing,
The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,
My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.

Camillo. Good my lord, be cured
Of this diseased opinion, and betimes,
For ‘tis most dangerous.

Leontes. Say it be, ‘tis true.

Camillo. No, no, my lord.

Leontes. It is; you lie, you lie.
I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,
Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,
Or else a hovering temporizer, that
Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
Inclining to them both. Were my wife’s liver
Infected as her life, she would not live
The running of one glass.

Camillo. Who does infect her?

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Leontes. How!
Away with that audacious lady. Antigonus,
I charged thee that she should not come about me,
I knew she would.

Antigonus. I told her so, my lord.

Leontes. What! Canst not rule her?
[to anyone and everyone] Force her hence.

Paulina. Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
First hand me. On mine own accord, I’ll off,
But first I’ll do my errand. The good queen –
For she is good – hath brought you forth a daughter.
Here ‘tis: [she lays the child before him] commends
It to your blessing.

Leontes. Out!
A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o’ door.
A most intelligencing bawd!

Paulina seeks to convince the furious King of the Queen’s innocence and of the scandal he is causing.

Leontes. A callet [prostitute]
Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,
And now baits me!
This brat is none of mine.
It is the issue of Polixenes—
Hence with it, and together with the dam
Commit them to the fire!

Paulina. It is yours.

She persists, pointing out the facial similarities between the little girl and the King.

Leontes. A gross hag!
And, lozel [fool, to Antigonus], thou art worthy to be hanged,
That wilt not stay her tongue.

Antigonus. Hang all the husbands
That cannot do that feat, you’ll leave yourself hardly one subject.

Leontes (to Paulina). I’ll ha’ thee burnt.

Paulina. I care not.
It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in’t. I’ll not call you tyrant;
But this most cruel usage of your queen
Something savours of tyranny, and will ignoble
make you,
Yea, scandalous to the world.

Leontes. On your allegiance,
Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,
Where were her life? She durst not call me so,
If she did know me one. Away with her!