And therefore do intreat you that whatsoever they rehearse,
May not fare a whit the worse, for the false pace of the verse. [17]
If you wonder at this, you will wonder more ere we pass,
For know, here [18] is inclosed the soul of Pythagoras, [19]
That juggler divine, as hereafter shall follow;
Which soul, fast and loose, sir, came first from Apollo.
It is explained how that soul afterwards transmigrated into 'the
goldy-locked Euphorbus who was killed, in good fashion, at the siege
of old Troy, by the cuckold of Sparta;' how it then passed into
Hermotimus, 'where no sooner it was missing, but with one Pyrrhus
of Delos [20] it learned to go a-fishing;' [21] how thence it did
enter the Sophist of Greece, Pythagoras. After having been changed
into whom,
she became a philosopher,
Crates the cynick, as itself doth relate it: [22]
Since kings, knights and beggars, knaves, lords, and fools get it,
Besides ox and ass, camel, mule, goat, and brock, [23]
In all which it has spoke, as in the cobbler's cock. [24]
Nano's present intention, however, is not to refer to such things:--
But I come not here to discourse of that matter,
Or his one, two, or three, or his great oath, BY QUATER, [25]
His musics,[26] his trigon, his golden thigh, [27]
Or his telling how elements [28] shift: but I
Would ask, how of late thou hast suffered translation
And shifted thy coat in these days of Reformation.
_Androgyno_. Like one of the reformed, a fool, as you see,
COUNTING ALL OLD DOCTRINE HERESIE.
_Nano_. But not on thine own forbid meats hast thou ventured.
_Androgyno_. On fish, when first a Carthusian I entered.[29]
_Nano_. Why, then thy dogmatical silence hath left thee?
_Androgyno_. Of that an _obstreperous_ lawyer bereft me.
_Nano_. O wonderful change, when sir lawyer forsook thee!
For Pythagore's sake, what body then took thee?
_Androgyno_. A good dull mule.
_Nano_. And how! by that means Thou wert brought to allow of
the eating of beans?
_Androgyno_. Yes.
_Nano_. But from the mule into whom didst thou pass?
_Androgyno_. Into a very strange beast, by some writers called
an ass;
By others, a precise, pure, _illuminate brother_,
Of those devour flesh, and sometimes one another;
And will drop you forth a libel, or a sanctified lie,
Betwixt every spoonful of a Nativity [30] pie.
Nano then admonishes Androgyno to quit that profane nation. Androgyno
answers that he gladly remains in the shape of a fool and a hermaphrodite.
To the question of Nano, as to whether he likes remaining a hermaphrodite
in order to 'vary the delight of each sex,' Androgyno replies:--
Alas, those pleasures be stale and forsaken;
No 't is your fool wherewith I am so taken,
The only one creature that I can called blessed;
For all other forms I have proved most distressed.
_Nano_. Spoke true, as thou wert in Pythagoras still.
This learned opinion we celebrate will,...
With a song, praising fools, the Interlude closes.
In act ii. sc. 2, after Mosca and Volpone have erected a stage upon
the stage, Volpone enters, disguised as a mountebank, and abuses those
'ground ciarlatani' (charlatans, impostors) 'who come in lamely, with
their mouldy tales out of Boccaccio.' Then there is a most clear
allusion to Hamlet (act iv. sc. 6), where he informs his friend Horatio,
by letter, of his voyage to England when he was made prisoner by
pirates, who dealt with him 'like thieves of mercy.' A further remark
of Volpone on 'base pilferies,' and 'wholesome penance done for it,'
may be taken as a hit against Hamlet's 'fingering' the packet to 'unseal
their grand commission;' for which, in Jonson's view, he would be forced
by his father confessor, in a well-regulated Roman Catholic State, to
do penance.
This is what Volpone says:--
'No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see
the rabble of these ground ciarlatani, that ... come in lamely, with
their mouldy tales out of Boccaccio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist;
some of them discoursing their travels; and of their tedious captivity
[31] in the Turks' galleys, when, indeed, were the truth known, they
were the Christians' gallies, where very temperately they eat bread
and drunk water, as a wholesome penance, [32] enjoined them by their
confessors for base pilferies.'
Shakspere, as we have already explained, got a 'pill' in 'The Poetaster,'
whereupon 'our fellow Shakespeare,' as is maintained in the 'Return from
Parnassus,' 'has given him' (Jonson) 'a purge that made him bewray his
credit' Now Ben, clearly enough, calls this answer of the great
adversary--a 'finely wrapt-up antimony,' whereby minds 'stopped with
earthy oppilations,' are purged into another world.
Volpone says:--'These turdy-facy, nasty-paty, lousy-fartical rogues,
with one poor groat's worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapt up in
several scartoccios (covers), [33] are able, very well, to kill their
twenty a week, and play; yet these meagre, starved spirits, who have
stopt the organs of their minds with earthy oppilations, want not their
favourers among your shrivelled sallad-eating artizans, [34] who are
overjoyed that they may have their half-pe'rth of physic; though it
purge them into another world, it makes no matter.'
Jonson then continues his satire against 'Hamlet' by making Volpone,
disguised as a mountebank, sell medicine which is to render that 'purge'
('Hamlet') perfectly innocuous. He calls his medicine 'Oglio del Scoto:'
[35] good for strengthening the nerves; a sovereign remedy against all
kinds of illnesses; and, 'it stops a dysenteria, immediately.'
Nano praises its miraculous effects in a song:--
Had old Hippocrates, or Galen,
That to their books put med'cines all in,
But known this secret, they had never
(Of which they will be guilty ever)
Been murderers of so much paper,
Or wasted many a hurtless taper;
No Indian drug had e'er been famed,
Tobacco, sassafras not named;
Ne yet of guacum one small stick, sir,
Nor Raymund Lully's great elixir.
Ne had been known the _Danish Gonswart_,
Or Paracelsus, with his long sword.
Is not HAMLET here as good as indicated by name?
The Danish Prince appears on the stage in his 'inky cloak.' No doubt,
Jonson picked up the word 'Gonswart' (_gansch-zwart_, in Flemish)
among his Flemish, Dutch, and other Nether-German comrades of war in
the Low Countries. Surely, the Danish Prince 'All-Black' is none else
but Hamlet clad in black.
In the same scene, the connection between Hamlet and Ophelia also is
satirically pulled to pieces. In 'Eastward Hoe' (1605), Jonson and
his party do the same in the most indecent and most despicable manner.
Nano, praising the sublime virtues of the 'Oglio del Scoto,' sings:--
Would you live free from all diseases?
Do the act your mistress pleases,
Yet fright all aches from your bones?
Here's a medicine for the nones. [36]
The scene of the action in 'Volpone' is laid in Venice. During the
whole scene above-mentioned, Sir Politick Would-Be and a youthful
gentleman-traveller are present Others have already pointed out that,
by the former, Shakspere is meant. [37] The traveller, Peregrine, is
a youth whom the jealous Lady Politick once declares to be 'a female
devil in a male outside,'--again an allusion to Shakspere's 'two
loves' which he himself describes in Sonnet 144.
The words, also, with which Hamlet (act iii. sc. 3) praises his friend
Horatio (the Shaksperian ideal of a Horace) are ridiculed by Jonson in
this scene. Sir Politick Would-Be says to Peregrine:--
Well, if I could but find one man, one man,
To mine own heart, whom I durst trust, I would--
When the stage is raised on the theatre for Volpone, who is disguised
as a quacksalver, Sir Politick wishes to enlighten Peregrine as to the
fellows that 'mount the bank.' [38] We need not explain that this is
directed against the 'so-called stage-poets' and players. It will
easily be perceived that the meaning of the subsequent conversation
is the same as in the Preface of 'Volpone,' where Jonson says that
'wis and noble persons 'ought to' take heed how they be too credulous,
or give leave to these invading interpreters to be over-familiar with
their fames.'
Sir Politick (describing the fellows, one of which is to mount the
bank) says:--
They are the only knowing men of Europe!
Great general scholars, excellent physicians, [39]
Most admired statesmen, profest favourites,
And Cabinet counsellors to the greatest princes;
The only languaged men of all the world!
_Peregrine_. And I have heard, they are most lewd [40] impostors
Made all of terms and shreds, no less beliers
Of great men's favours, than their own vile med'cines...
In act iv. sc. 1, Sir Politick gives counsels to the young Peregrine,
which are a manifest satire upon Polonius' fatherly farewell speech to
Laertes; and here again, let it be observed, religious tendencies are
made the subject of persiflage.
_Sir Politick_. First, for your garb, it must
be grave and serious
Very reserved and locked; not tell a secret
On any terms, not to your father; scarce
A fable, but with caution; make sure choice
Both of your company and your discourse; beware
You never speak a truth--....
And then, for your religion, profess none,
But wonder at the diversity of all;
And, for your part, protest, were there no other
But simply the laws o' th' land, you could content you.
Nic Machiavel and Monsieur Bodin, both
Were of this mind.
In act iii. sc. 2, it is openly said that English authors namely, such
as understand Italian, have stolen from Pastor Fido 'almost as much as
from MONTAIGNIÉ' (Montaigne). In vain we have looked for traces of
Montaigne's Essays in other dramas that have come down to us from that
epoch. That Shakspere must have been conversant with the Italian tongue,
Charles Armitage Brown has tried to prove, and according to our opinion
he has done so successfully. [41]
The talkative Lady Politick wishes to offer some distraction to the
apparently sick Volpone. She recommends him an Italian book in these
words:--
All our English writers,
I mean such as are happy in the Italian,
Will deign to steal out of this author mainly;
Almost as much as from _Montagnié_: [42]
He has so modern and facile a vein,
Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear! [43]
When Sir Politick (act v. sc. 2) is to be arrested (he is suspected of
having got up a conspiracy, and betrayed the Republic of Venice to the
Turks), he asserts his innocence; and when his papers are to be examined,
he exclaims:--
Alas, Sir! I have none but notes
Drawn out of play-books--
And some essays. [44]
Mosca (act i-v. sc. 2), spurring on his counsel, says:--
Mercury sit upon your thundering tongue,
Or the _French Hercules_ [45] and make your language
As conquering as his club, to beat along,
As with a tempest, flat, our adversaries.
Hamlet, when asked by the King how he 'calls the play, answers:--'_The
Mouse-trap_.' Mosca calls his own cunningness with which he thinks
he can overreach his master, the '_Fox-trap_.'
If our intention were not to restrict this treatise to desirable limits,
many more satirical passages might be pointed out in 'Volpone,' which are
manifestly directed against 'Hamlet' and Shakspere. Those who take a
deeper interest in the subject, will discover not a few passages of this
kind in 'Volpone.'
In 1605--we believe, a few months before 'Volpone' [46]--'Eastward Hoe'
came out, a comedy written by Ben Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, in which,
as already stated, the connection between Hamlet and Ophelia is derided
in a low, burlesque manner.
Shakspere, in order to flagellate Montaigne's mean views about womankind,
puts into the mouth of Ophelia, when she has no longer the control of her
tongue, the hideous words:--'Come, my coach!' and 'Oh, how the wheel
become it!' [47] This is a satirical hit, rapidly indicated, but only
understood by those who had carefully read Montaigne's book. Ben Jonson,
Chapman, and Marston try to make capital out of these expressions,
by deriding and denouncing them to the crowd, in order to defame
Shakspere.
Girtred (Gertrud, name of Hamlet's mother, the Queen,) is the figure
under which Ophelia is ridiculed in 'Eastward Hoe.' [48] The first is a
girl of loosest manners. Her ambition torments her to marry a nobleman,
in order to obtain a 'coach.' To her mother (Mrs. Touchstone) she
incessantly speaks words of most shameless indecency, which cannot be
repeated; more especially as regards her 'coach,' for which she asks
ever and anon. A lackey, called _Hamlet_, must procure it to her.
We will give some fragments of that scene. The remainder cannot be offered
to a modern circle of general readers.
_Enter_ Hamlet, _a Foote-man, in haste_.
_Hamlet_. What coachman--my ladye's coach! for shame!
Her ladiship's readie to come down.
_Enter_ Potkinne, _a Tankard-bearer_.
_Potkinne_. 'Sfoote! Hamlet, are you madde? Whither run
you nowe? You should brushe up my olde mistresse!
Thereupon neighbours come together, all impelled by the greatest
curiosity 'to see her take coach,' and wishing to congratulate her.
_Gertrud_. Thank you, good people! My coach for the love of
Heaven, my coach! In good truth, I shall swoune else.
_Hamlet_. Coach, coach, my ladye's coach! [_Exit_ Hamlet.
After a little conversation between mother and daughter, which we must
leave out, Hamlet enters again:
_Hamlet_. Your coach is coming, madam.
_Gertrud_. That's well said. Now Heaven! methinks I am eene up
to the knees in preferment....
But a little higher, but a little higher, but a little higher!
There, there, there lyes Cupid's fire!
_Mrs. Touchstone_. But must this young man (Hamlet), an't
please you, madam, run by your coach all the way a foote?
_Gertrud_. I by my faith, I warrant him; hee gives no other
milke, as I have another servant does.
_Mrs. Touchstone_. Ahlas! 'tis eene pittie meethinks; for God's
sake, madam, buy him but a hobbie horse; let the poore youth have
something betwixt his legges to ease 'hem. Alas! we must doe as we
would be done too.
That is all we dare to quote from this comedy; but it quite suffices
to characterise the meanness of the warfare which Jonson's clique
carried on against Shakspere.
However, the lofty ideas contained in 'Hamlet' could not be lowered by
such an attack; they became the common property of the best and noblest.
Those ideas were of too high a range, too abstract in their nature, to
be easily made a sport of before the multitude. A few pleasantries,
used by Shakespeare in a moment of easy-going style, were laid hold
of maliciously, and caricatured most indecently, by his antagonists,
in order to entertain the common crowd there with. Innocent children,
moreover, were made to act such satires: 'little eyases, that cry
out on the top of the question, and are most tyrannically clapped
for't: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages.'
Not less than in 'Volpone,' the tendency of 'Hamlet' as regards religious
questions is, in the most evident manner, ridiculed in John Marston's
'Malcontent.' Although this satire (so the play is called in the
preface 'To the Reader') appeared before 'Volpone,' we yet thought
it more useful first to speak of Jonson's comedy being the work of
Shakspere's most formidable adversary.
'The Malcontent' was printed in 1604; and soon afterwards (in the same
year) a second edition appeared, augmented by the author, as well as
enriched by a few additions from the pen of John Webster. [49] The
play is preceded by a Latin Dedication to Ben Jonson, which sufficiently
shows that a close friendship must have existed, at that time, between
the two. [50] The satire is replete with phrases taken from 'Hamlet'
for the purpose of mockery; and they are introduced in the loosest,
most disconnected manner, thus doubly showing the intention
and purpose. Marston's style is pointedly described in 'The Return
from Parnassus;' and we do not hesitate to say that the following
criticism was written in consequence of his 'Malcontent:'--
Methinks he is a ruffian in his style,
Withouten bands or garters' ornament:
He quaffs a cup of Frenchman's [51] Helicon,
Then roister doister in his oily terms,
Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoever he meets...
Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch'd terms,
Cleanly to gird our looser libertines?...
Ay, there is one, that backs a paper steed,
And manageth a penknife gallantly,
Strikes his poinardo at a button's breadth,
Brings the great battering-ram of terms to towns;
And, at first volley of his cannon-shot,
Batters the walls of the old fusty world.
Who else can be indicated by the 'One' but Shakspere? To Marston's
hollow creations, which drag the loftiest ideas through the mire to
amuse the vulgar, the sublime and serious discourses of Shakspere are
opposed, which are destined to afford profoundest instruction. Is not
the whole tendency of 'Hamlet' described in the last two lines just
quoted, in which it is stated that under this poet's attack the
walls of the _old fusty world_ are battered down? [52]
The chief character in 'The Malcontent' is a Duke of Genoa. Marston,
in his preface 'To the Reader,' lays stress on the fact of this Duke
being, not an historical personage, but a creation of fiction, so 'that
even strangers, in whose State I laid my scene, should not from
thence draw any disgrace to any, dead or living.' After having
complained that, in spite of this endeavour of his, there are some
who have been 'most unadvisedly over-cunning in misinterpreting' him,
and, 'with subtletie, have maliciously spread ill rumours,' he goes
on declaring that he desires 'to satisfie every firme spirit, who in
all his actions proposeth to himself no more ends then God and vertue
do, whose intentions are alwaies simple.' Those only he means to
combat 'whose unquiet studies labor innovation, contempt of holy
policie, reverent comely superioritie and establisht unity.' He fears
not for the rest of his 'supposed tartnesse; but unto every worthy
minde it will be approved so generall and honest as may modestly passe
with the freedome of a satyre.'
That this satire could only be directed against 'Hamlet,' every one
will be convinced who spends a short hour in reading Marston's
'Malcontent.' Here, too, we must confine ourselves to pointing out
only the most important allusions; especially such as refer to
religion. Indeed, we would have to copy the whole play, in order
to make it fully clear how much Marston, with his undoubted talent
for travesty, has succeeded in grotesquely deriding the lofty,
noble tone of Shakspere's drama.
The chief character in 'The Malcontent' is Malevole, the Duke of
Genoa before-mentioned, who has been wrongfully deprived of the
crown. With subtle dissimulation, disguised and unknown, he
hangs about the Court. Against the ladies especially, whom he
all holds to be adulteresses, he entertains the greatest mistrust.
He watches every one; but most closely women. He is the image of
mental distemper; and Pietro, the ruling Duke, describes him in
act i. sc. 2 by saying that 'the elements struggle within him; his
own soule is at variance within her selfe;' he is 'more discontent
than Lucifer.' In short, he confers upon him all the qualities
of a 'Hamlet' character.
Whenever religious questions are addressed to Malevole, we have to
look upon him as the very type of Shakspere himself, whom Marston
takes to task for his spirit of 'innovation' and his 'contempt of
holy policie and establisht unity.' Shakspere, it ought to be
remembered, had scourged Ben Jonson under the figure of Malvolio.
Marston, who dedicates 'The Malcontent' to Jonson, no doubt wished
to please Jonson by calling the chief character, which represents
Shakspere, Malevole.
The play opens with an abominable charivari. ('The vilest out-of-time
musicke being heard.') This is partly a hit against the Globe Theatre
where--as we see from Shakspere's dramas--music was often introduced
in a play; partly it is to indicate the disharmony of Malevole's
mind.
Only a few travesties may be mentioned here, before we quote the
treatment of religious questions.
In act i. sc. 7 (here the scene is ridiculed in which Hamlet, with
drawn sword, stands behind the King), Pietro enters, 'his sword drawne.'
_Pietro_. A mischiefe fill thy throate, thou fowle-jaw'd slave!
Say thy praiers!
_Mendozo_. I ha forgot um.
_Pietro_. Thou shall die.
_Mendozo_. So shall Ihou. I am heart-mad.
_Pietro_. I am horne-mad.
_Mendozo_. Extreme mad.
_Pietro. Monstrously mad.
_Mendozo_. Why?
_Pietro_. Why? thou, thou hast dishonoured my bed.
Hamlet's words: [53]--'O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity
to incestuous sheets!' are so often ridiculed because Shakspere, instead
of the word 'bed,' uses the more unusual 'sheets.'
Aurelia [54] speaks of 'chaste sheets,' Malevole [55] prophesies that
'the Dutches (Duke, Doge) sheets will smoke for't ere it be long.'
Mendozo [56] 'hates all women, waxe-lightes, antique bed-postes,' &c.;
'also sweete sheetes.' Aurelia, parodying the words Hamlet addresses
to his mother, asks herself: 'O, judgement, where have been my eyes?
What bewitched election made me dote on thee? what sorcery made me love
thee?'
The counsel which Hamlet gives to his mother 'to throw away the worser
part of her cleft heart,' Pietro ridicules in act i. sc. 7:--
My bosome and my heart,
When nothing helps, cut off the rotten part.
The splendid speech of Hamlet: 'What a piece of work is man!' sounds
from Mendozo's [57] lips thus:--'In body how delicate; in soule how
wittie; in discourse how pregnant; in life how warie; in favours how
juditious; in day how sociable; in night how!--O pleasure unutterable!'
Hamlet's little monologue: [58] 'Tis now the very witching time of night,'
runs thus with Mendozo:--[59]
'Tis now about the immodest waste of night;
The mother of moist dew with pallide light
Spreads gloomie shades about the mummed earth.
Sleepe, sleepe, whilst we contrive our mischiefes birth.
Then, parodying Hamlet as he draws forth the dead Polonius from behind
the arras, Mendozo says:--
This man Ile (I'll) get inhumde.
Thus, all kinds of Shaksperian incidents and locutions are brought
forward, wherever they are apt to produce the most comic effect. Several
times, from the beginning, the 'weasel' is mentioned with which Hamlet
rallies Polonius. We also hear of the 'sponge which sucks'--a simile
used by Hamlet (act iv. sc. 3) in regard to Rosencrantz. Nor is the
'true-penny' forgotten--a word used by Hamlet [60] to designate his
father's ghost as a true and genuine one; nor the 'Hillo, ho, ho.'
In all these allusions, of which an attentive reader might easily find
scores, there is no systematic order of thoughts. Only in the religious
questions we meet with a clear system: they are all addressed to Malevole,
who is represented as a kind of freethinker, similar to the one whom
Marston, in his preface, wishes to be outlawed, and of whom he says
that he fully merits the 'tartness' and freedom of his satire. In the
very beginning of 'The Malcontent,' Pietro asks Malevole:
I wonder what religion thou art of?
_Malevole_. Of a souldiers religion. [61]
_Pietro_. And what doost thinke makes most infidells now?
_Malevole_. Sects. Sects! I have seene seeming Pietie change
her roabe so oft, that sure none but some arch-divell can shape her
pitticoate.
_Pietro_. O! a religious pllicie.
_Malevole_. But damnation on a politique religion!
In act ii. sc. 5 we find the following:--
_Malevole_. I meane turne pure Rochelchurchman. [62]
I--
_Mendozo_. Thou Churchman! Why? Why?
_Malevole_. Because He live lazily, raile upon authoritie,
deny Kings supremacy in things indifferent, and be a pope in mine owne
parish.
_Mendozo_. Wherefore doost thou thinke churches were made?
_Malevole_. To scowre plow-shares. I have seene oxen plow
uppe altares: _Et nunc seges ubi Sion fuit_.
Then there is again what appears to be an allusion to Hamlet, act i.
sc. 4, resembling that in 'Volpone':--
I have seen the stoned coffins of long-flead Christians burst up
and made hogs troughs.
In act iv. sc. 4, Mendozo says to Malevole, whom he wishes to use for
the murder of a hermit:--