Painting the Green World Red: The Brothel in Shakespeare’s Plays
by David P. Gontar (October 2013)
PRINCE HARRY
(to Falstaff)
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 shouldst be so superfluous to demand the
time of the day.
(King Henry IV, Part One, I, ii, 5-12)
DEMETRIUS (to Theseus)
My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood,
And I in fury hither followed them,
Fair Helena in fancy following me.
Melted as the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
Which in my childhood I did dote upon,
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
Was I betrothed ere I see Hermia.
But, as in health come to my natural taste,
Now do I wish for it, love it, long for it,
And will evermore be true to it.
(IV, i, 159-175)
This Doll Tearsheet should be some road
POINTZ
I warrant you, as common as the way between
St. Albans and London.
In plain demonstration of their shared condescension, Hal and Pointz once again plot to embarrass Falstaff.
PRINCE HARRY
tonight in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?
POINTZ
Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait
upon him at his table like drawers.
PRINCE HARRY
the purpose must weight with the folly. Follow me, Ned.
(II, ii, 161-168)
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Did you ever hear the like?
SECOND GENTLEMAN
No, nor never shall do in such a place
as this, she being gone.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
did you ever dream of such a thing?
SECOND GENTLEMAN
No, no. Come, I am for no more
FIRST GENTLEMAN
but I am out of the road of rutting for ever. (Exeunt)
PANDER
Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her
she had never come here.
BAWD
Priapus and undo the whole of generation. We must
should do for clients her fitment and do me the kindness
of our profession, she has me her quirks, her reasons,
her master reasons, her prayers, her knees, that she
would make a puritan of the devil if he should cheapen
a kiss of her.
BOULT
all our cavalleria and make our swearers priests.
PANDER
Now, the pox upon her green-sickness for me.
BAWD
to the pox.
(Scene 19, 1-24)
MARINA
Let not authority, which teaches you
To govern others, be the means to make you
Misgovern much yourself.
If put upon you, make the judgement good
Your justice, who hath power over all,
To undo any? If you take from me
Into forbidden ground, whom after
Too many enter, and of all their evils
Then if your violence deface this building,
Abuse your justice, and impoverish me.
My yet good lord, if there be fire before me,
Must I straight fly and burn myself?
(Scene 19, 98-113)
A bit more of this and Lysimachus departs in haste, but with the memory of Marina etched in his brain.
LYSIMACHUS (moved)
Though I brought hither a corrupted mind,
Thy speech hath altered it,
I came here meaning but to pay the price,
Persever still in that clear way thou goest,
And may the gods strengthen thee.
(Scene 19, 127-135)
MISTRESS OVERDONE
Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat [disease],
what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-
shrunk.
(Enter Pompey, a tapster)
POMPEY
You have not heard of the proclamation, have
you?
MISTRESS OVERDONE
What proclamation, man?
POMPEY
All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be
plucked down.
MISTRESS OVERDONE
And what shall become of those in the city?
POMPEY
They shall stand for seed. They had gone down
too, but that a wise burgher put in for them.
MISTRESS OVERDONE
But shall all our houses of resort in
the suburbs be pulled down?
POMPEY
To the ground, mistress.
MISTRESS OVERDONE
Why, here is a change in the commonwealth.
What shall become of me?
POMPEY
Come, fear not you. Good counsellors lack no
clients. Though you change your place, you need not
there will be pity taken on you. You that have worn
your eyes almost out in the service, you will be
considered.
(I, ii, 80-103)
ANGELO
But, in the loss of question, that you his sister,
Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
Could fetch your brother from the manacles
Of the all-binding law, and that there were
No earthly mean to save him, but that either
You must lay down the treasures of your body
What would you do?
ISABELLA
As much for my poor brother as myself.
That is, were I under the terms of death,
And strip myself to death as to a bed
My body up to shame.
ANGELO
Then must your brother die.
ISABELLA
Better it were a brother died at once
Than a sister, by redeeming him,
Should die forever.
(II, iv, 88-109)
PROVOST
This is another prisoner that I saved,
Who should have died when Claudio lost his head,
As like almost to Claudio as himself.
(He unmuffles Claudio)
(V, i, 486-488)
Then, just as Isabella is trying to adjust to this momentous and sudden revelation, Friar Lodowick, now the Duke once more, speaks to Isabella.
DUKE
If he be like your brother, for his sake
Give me your hand, and say you will be mine.
He is my brother too. But fitter time for that.
Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.
Look that you love your wife, her worth worth yours.
I find an apt remission in myself . . . .
(V, i, 489-497)
CONCLUSION
WORKS CITED:
Northrop Frye, The Anatomy of Criticism, Princeton University Press, 2000.
David P. Gontar, Hamlet Made Simple and Other Essays, New English Review Press, 2013.
latest book is Hamlet Made Simple and Other Essays.
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