The Shakespeare Code

(It’s best to read Parts ONE and TWO first)

In writing A Midsummer Night’s Dream William Shakespeare takes on the rôle of a Catholic Priest…..

……but, like Bottom in the play who wants to act all the parts himself…….

 

……he can’t help taking on the rôle of Best Man as well….

A Best Man needs, above all things, to be diplomatic. Shakespeare knew that half of his audience at Copt Hall would be Roman Catholic and half would be Protestant. Catholics had had their hopes dashed only seven years before with the execution of Mary Queen of Scots….

……..followed swiftly by the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Heneage had played a large part in both….

Shakespeare deals with this problem by acknowledging it….

Aristocrats, in Elizabethan times, often acted at university and in private entertainments. It is my belief that Thomas Heneage – described as …

……a man for his elegancy of life and pleasantness of discourse, born, as it were, for the court

…..took the part of the conqueror Theseus……

……and Countess Mary Southampton – who had fought so much for the Catholic faith – the conquered Amazon, Hippolyta……

Theseus says….

Hippolyta, I wooed the with my sword

And won thy love doing thee injuries

But I will wed thee in another key

With pomp, with triumph and with revelling…..

Heneage was Queen Elizabeth’s old lover to whom she had sent the famous Armada jewel…….

She hated weddings, but was bound to see the play at some time…

….so Shakespeare had to work in a compliment to her….

Officially, at least, she was still the Virgin Queen – so Shakespeare has Oberon, the King of the Fairies……..

……say to his henchman, Puck….

That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,

Flying between the cold moon and the earth,

Cupid all arm’d: a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal throned by the west, And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,

As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;

But I might see young Cupid’s fiery shaft

Quench’d in the chaste beams of the watery moon,

And the imperial votaress passed on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.

Shakespeare knew this would upset the Catholics…….

…..especially as Mary Queen of Scots had been imprisoned for a time at Copped Hall itself….

So Shakespeare has Oberon slip in a coded compliment to her as well…

She was often depicted as a Mermaid, bare breasted with he hair cascading over her shoulders….

Thou rememberest

Since once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back…..

The…..

……dolphin…..

……is Dauphin Francis of France……

Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath

That the rude sea grew civil at her song……

The ‘rude sea’ is rebellious Scotland..

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,

To hear the sea-maid’s music……

The……

 …..stars……

….are the late Lord Montague……

……. and the Second Earl of Southampton…….

…….who plotted to put her on the throne of England and so……

 ……shot madly from their spheres….

The Best Man is also expected to send everyone up – and Shakespeare is happy to oblige.

The very opening speech of the play is a satire on Queen Elizabeth herself – who, hitting sixty, her cheeks stuffed out with rags, loved to be compared to the moon….

Theseus says:

Now fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace; four happy days bring in

Another moon – but o methinks how slow this old moon wanes….

Shakespeare saves himself from the Tower by immediately shifting the attack to Mary Southampton herself ……

…..notorious for keeping son Harry short of money….

She lingers my desires

Like to a step-dame or a dowager

Long withering out a young man’s revenue….

Shakespeare has another dig at Elizabeth – this time at her sexuality – when he has the First Fairy say to Puck….

And I serve the Fairy Queen

To dew her orbs upon the green…..

(Elizabeth ALSO loved to be known as the Fairy Queen…)

The cowslips tall her pensioners be……

Now pensioners to us are old men who hang round Chelsea in red, wearing their medals….

But not to Elizabeth! They were her body-guard, a hand-picked corps of fifty tall, handsome young bucks on horseback – the flower of the gentry – dressed in gold lace and jewels.

One of the Pensioners – recruited personally by Elizabeth for his height and his staggering good looks – was only seventeen….

The First Fairy continues describing the red ‘spots’ in the yellow petals of the cowslips…..

…..and compares them to the ruby ‘favours’ Elizabeth would give to certain of her Guards….

In their gold coats spots you see;

Those be rubies, fairy favours,

In those freckles live their savours.

I must go seek some dew-drops here

And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear….

The particular ‘cowslip’ Shakespeare had in mind was the newly appointed Captain of the Pensioners…..

…..Sir Walter Raleigh, another of Elizabeth’s lovers……..

…..who was so proud of his pearl earring he had himself painted wearing it…….

A Best Man is also expected to make jokes about sex….

Nowadays, the Bride and Groom have probably been living together for years before the ceremony……

…… and often bop till they drop with the rest of the guests….

Not so in the old days!

Then there was a massive sexual charge in the air at a wedding……

……resolved only when the Bride and Groom left the feast for the honeymoon….

We have seen Theseus, at the beginning of the play, yearning for his wedding night, scarcely able to cope with the four days’ wait…

And Shakespeare shows how sex is on Lysander’s mind when he finds himself lost in the woods with his beloved Hermia….

 

– the Elizabethan equivalent of running out of petrol in your car…

Lysander:

Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;

And to speak troth, I have forgot our way:

We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,

And tarry for the comfort of the day.

Hermia (suspecting what’s up)

Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed;

For I upon this bank will rest my head.

Lysander: (trying it on)

One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;

One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.

Hermia: (warding him off – but trying not to offend him)

Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,

Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.

Lysander: (trying to suggest that all he wants is a spiritual union)

O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!

Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.

I mean, that my heart unto yours is knit

So that but one heart we can make of it;

Two bosoms interchained with an oath;

So then two bosoms and a single troth.

Then by your side no bed-room me deny;

For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.

Hermia: (not taken in for a second)

Lysander riddles very prettily:

Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,

If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.

But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy

Lie further off; in human modesty,

Such separation as may well be said

Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid…..

(Suddenly worried Lysander might walk off altogether…..)

So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:

Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!

 

Mary was hoping that some of this heterosexuality would rub off onto the gay Lord Harry….

…..so Shakespeare obliges by showing how perverse it is for Demetrius to flee from the charms of the beautiful Helena….

……just as it was for Harry to flee from Lord Burghley’s grand-daughter, the Lady Elizabeth…

Oberon, invisible, watches the whole episode….

Demetrius:

I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.

Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

Helena:

You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;

But yet you draw not iron, for my heart

Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,

And I shall have no power to follow you.

 

Demetrius:

Do I entice you? do I speak you fair?

Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth

Tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?

Helena:

And even for that do I love you the more.

I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,

The more you beat me, I will fawn on you:

Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,

Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,

Unworthy as I am, to follow you.

Demetrius:

Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;

For I am sick when I do look on thee.

Helena

And I am sick when I look not on you.

Demetrius:

I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,

And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

Helena:

The wildest hath not such a heart as you.

Run when you will, the story shall be changed:

Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;

The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind

Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,

When cowardice pursues and valour flies.

Demetrius:

I will not stay thy questions; let me go:

Or, if thou follow me, do not believe

But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.

Helena:

Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,

You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!

Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex:

We cannot fight for love, as men may do;

We should be wooed and were not made to woo.

(Demetrius runs off)

I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell

To die upon the hand I love so well.

(Helena runs after Demetrius)

 

Oberon then steps forward and says:

Fare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,

Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.

Oberon then orders Puck to put a ‘conversion’ spell on Demetrius….

……rather in the way that Countess Mary would like a conversion spell to be put on her son…..

Churl, upon thy eyes I throw

All the power this charm doth owe.

When thou wakest, let love forbid

Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:

So awake when I am gone;

For I must now to Oberon…..

Puck of course gets his Athenians mixed up….

……which just adds to the chaos….

But with this intrusion of the world of spirit into the world of mortals, Shakespeare abandons his Best Man role…….

…..and takes up that of Priest……

 

To read Part Four, please click: HERE!