Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 Part 12

ACT V. SCENE IV.

_Enter_ BEADLES _dragging in Hostess_ QUICKLY _and_ DOLL TEARSHEET.

HOST. No, thou arrant knave; I would to G.o.d that I might have thee hanged: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint.

FIRST BEAD. The constables have delivered her over to me: and she shall have whipping-cheer enough I warrant her: there hath been a man or two lately killed about her.

DOL. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou d.a.m.ned tripe-visaged rascal, and the child I now go with miscarry, thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain.

HOST. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! he would make this a b.l.o.o.d.y day to somebody. But I pray G.o.d the fruit of her womb miscarry.

The natural sequel to the conditions so plainly indicated in the pa.s.sages quoted from the lately revised _Love's Labour's Lost_, regarding Jaquenetta and Armado, and from the recently written _Henry IV._ in reference to Doll Tearsheet and Falstaff, is reported in due time in a postscript to a letter written by Elizabeth Vernon, now Lady Southampton, on 8th July 1599, to her husband, who was in Ireland with Ess.e.x. She writes from Chartley:

"All the nues I can send you that I thinke will make you mery is that I reade in a letter from London that Sir John Falstaff is by his Mistress Dame Pintpot made father of a G.o.dly millers thum a boye thats all heade and very litel body: but this is a secret."

Here we have record that Shakespeare's patron, and his patron's wife, knew that Falstaff had a living prototype who was numbered among their acquaintances. That the birth of this child was not in wedlock is suggested by the concluding words of the Countess's letter "but this is a secret."

The identification of Florio as the original caricatured as Parolles and Falstaff has never been antic.i.p.ated, though some critics have noticed the basic resemblances between these two characters of Shakespeare's.

Parolles has been called by Schlegel, "the little appendix to the great Falstaff."

A few slight links in the names of characters have led some commentators to date a revision of _All's Well that Ends Well_ at about the same time as that of the composition of _Measure for Measure_ and _Hamlet_. While the links of subjective evidence I have adduced for one revision in, or about, the autumn of 1598, and at the same period as that of the composition of the _Second Part of Henry IV._, of the final revision of _Love's Labour's Lost_, and shortly after the production of _Troilus and Cressida_, in 1598, are fairly conclusive, a consideration of the characterisation of Falstaff in the _First Part of Henry IV._ and of the evidence usually advanced for the date of the composition of this play will elucidate this idea.

The _First Part of Henry IV._ in its present form belongs to a period shortly preceding the date of its entry in the Stationers' Registers, in February 1598. I am convinced that it was published at this time with Shakespeare's cognizance, and that he revised it with this intention in mind. All inference and evidence a.s.sign the composition of the _Second Part of Henry IV._ to some part of the year 1598. It is unlikely, however, that it was included in Meres' mention of _Henry IV._ in his _Palladis Tamia_, which was entered on the Stationers' Registers in September of that year. If the link between Doll Tearsheet's condition and the similar affair reported in Lady Southampton's letter in July 1599 be connected in intention with the same conditions reflected in the case of Armado and Jaquenetta, its date of production is palpably indicated, as is also the final revision of _Love's Labour's Lost_ in about December 1598. Both of these plays were probably presented--the _Second Part of Henry IV._ for the first time, and _Love's Labour's Lost_ for the first time in its final form--for the Christmas festivities at Court, in 1598. While the Quarto of _Love's Labours Lost_ is dated as published in 1598, there is no record of its intended publication in the Stationers' Registers. It must be remembered, however, that all publications issued previous to the 25th of March 1599 would be dated 1598.

A comparison of the two parts of _Henry IV._ under the metrical test, while clearly showing _Part I._ as an earlier composition, yet approximates their dates so closely in time as to suggest a comparatively recent and thorough revision of the earlier portion of the play in 1597 or 1598. It is plain, however, that Shakespeare's _Henry IV., Part I._, held the boards in some form for several years before this date. The numerous contemporary references, under the name of Sir John Oldcastle, to the character now known as Falstaff, evidences on the part of the public such a settled familiarity with this same character, under the old name, as to suggest frequent presentations of Shakespeare's play in the earlier form. The Oldcastle of _The Famous Victories of Henry V._ has no connection whatever with the characterisation of Falstaff.

Though the metrical evidences of so early a date are now obscured by the drastic revision of the autumn of 1597, or spring of 1598, I am of the opinion that _Henry IV., Part I._, as it was originally written, belongs to a period antedating the publication of _Willobie his Avisa_ in 1594, and that it was composed late in 1593, or early in 1594. I am led to this conclusion by the underlying thread of subjective evidence linking the plays of this period with the affairs of Southampton and his connections. It is unlikely that Shakespeare would introduce that "sweet wench" my "Young Mistress of the Tavern" into a play after the publication of the scandal intended by Roydon in 1594, and probable that he altered the characterisation of the hostess to the old and widowed Mistress Quickly in the _Second Part of Henry IV._ for this reason.

Believing that _Love's Labour's Won_--i.e. _All's Well that Ends Well_ in its earlier form--reflects Southampton in the person of Bertram, and Florio as Parolles, I have suggested that the military capacity of the latter character infers a temporary military experience of Florio's in the year 1592. It is evident that most of the matter in this play following Act IV. Scene iii. belongs to the period of revision in 1598.

In Act IV. Scene iii. we have what was apparently Parolles' final appearance in the old play of 1592; here he has been exposed, and his purpose in the play ended.

FIRST SOLDIER. You are undone, Captain, all but your scarf; that has a knot on't yet.

PAROLLES. Who cannot be crushed with a plot?

FIRST SOLDIER. If you could find out a country where women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent nation. Fare ye well, Sir; I am for France too; we shall speak of you there.

[_Exit Soldiers._

PAROLLES. Yet am I thankful: if my heart were great, 'Twould burst at this. Captain, I'll be no more; But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft As captain shall: simply the thing I am Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart, Let him fear this, for it will come to pa.s.s That every braggart shall be found an a.s.s.

Rust sword! cool blushes! and, Parolles, live Safest in shame, being fool'd, by foolery thrive.

There's place and means for every man alive.

I'll after them.

[_Exit._

The resolution he here forms augurs for the future a still greater moral deterioration. He resolves to seek safety in shame; to thrive by foolery; and, though fallen from his captaincy, to

"eat and drink, and sleep as soft as captain shall."

When Shakespeare resumed his plan of reflecting Florio's a.s.sociation with Southampton, in the _First Part of Henry IV._ he recalled the state of mind and morals in which he had left him as Parolles in _Love's Labour's Won_, and allowing for a short lapse of time, and the effects of the life he had resolved to live, introduces him in _Henry IV._, Part I. Act 1. Scene ii., as follows:

FAL. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

PRINCE. Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack and unb.u.t.toning thee after supper and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou would'st truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day?

Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou should'st be so superfluous to demand the time of day.

In Parolles and Falstaff we have displayed the same lack of moral consciousness, the same grossly sensuous materialism, and withal, the same unquenchable optimism and colossal impudence.

When we remember that though Shakespeare based his play upon the old _Famous Victories of Henry V._ and took from it the name Oldcastle, that the actual characterisation of his Oldcastle--Falstaff--has no prototype in the original, the abrupt first entry upon the scene of this tavern-lounger and afternoon sleeper-upon-benches, as familiarly addressing the heir apparent as "Hal" and "lad," supplies a good instance of Shakespeare's method--noticed by Maurice Morgann--of making a character _act and speak from those parts of the composition which are inferred only and not distinctly shown_; but to the initiated, including Southampton and his friends, who knew the b.u.mptious self-sufficiency of Shakespeare's living model, and who followed the developing characterisation from play to play, the effect of such bold dramatic strokes must have been irresistibly diverting.

It is difficult now to realise the avidity with which such publications as Florio's _First_ and _Second Fruites_ were welcomed from the press and read by the cultured, or culture-seeking, public of his day. Italy being then regarded as the centre of culture and fas.h.i.+on a colloquial knowledge of Italian was a fas.h.i.+onable necessity. A reference in a current play to an aphorism of Florio's or to a characteristic pa.s.sage from the proverbial philosophy of which he constructs his Italian-English conversations, which would pa.s.s unnoticed now, would be readily recognised by a fas.h.i.+onable Elizabethan audience.

When Shakespeare, through the utterances of the prince, characterises Falstaff by suggestion upon his first appearance in the play in the following lines:

"Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack and unb.u.t.toning thee after supper and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou would'st truly know,"

for the benefit of his initiated friends he links up and continues Florio's characterisation as Parolles and Falstaff, and in the remainder of the pa.s.sage,

"What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours are cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta,"

suggests Florio's character from his own utterances in the _Second Fruites_, where one of the characters holds forth as follows:

"As for me, I never will be able, nor am I able, to be willing but to love whatsoever pleaseth women, to whom I dedicate, yield, and consecrate what mortal thing soever I possess, and I say, that a salad, a woman and a capon, as yet was never out of season."

A consideration of certain of the divergences between the _dramatis personae_ of the _First Part of Henry IV._ and the _Second Part of Henry IV._, made in the light of the thread of subjective evidence in the plays of the Sonnet period, may give us some new clues in determining the relative periods of their original composition.

In the _First Part of Henry IV._ the hostess of the tavern is referred to as a young and beautiful woman in Act I. Scene ii., as follows:

FALSTAFF.... And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

PRINCE. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

FAL. How now, how now, mad wag! what, in thy quips and quiddities?

What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?

PRINCE. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

FAL. Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft.

PRINCE. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?

FAL. No, I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there. */

PRINCE. Yes, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and where it would not, I have used my credit.

FAL. Yea, and so used it that, were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent--but, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? And resolution thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.

Falstaff's impertinent and suggestive reference to the prince's intimacy with the hostess, not being taken well, he quickly gives the conversation a turn to cover up the mistake he finds he has made. It is palpable that the characterisation of the hostess in the _First Part of Henry IV._, in its original form, was not the same as that presented in the _Second Part_ of this play in which she is represented as Mistress Quickly, an old, unattractive, and garrulous widow. In the _First Part of Henry IV._ she is mentioned only once as Mistress Quickly. In Act III. Scene iii. the prince addresses her under this name and inquires about her husband.