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shire (1686), tells that it was the custom among the freemasons "when any are admitted [into membership], they call
a meeting& which must consist at least of 5 or 6 of the Antients of the Order, whom the candidates present with
gloves, and so likewise to their wives& "35 At Canterbury College, Oxford, in 1376-7, the Warden recorded in the
accounts the "even twenty pence given" for "glove money" ("pro cirotecis") to all the masons engaged in rebuilding
the College.36 This points to an old tradition with the masons of providing gloves. George Weckherlin, poet and
under-secretary of state at Whitehall, sent gloves to Lewis Ziegler, agent to Lord Craven, in February 1634. In
December 1637 Weckherlin drew the sign of the Rosicrucians 5 above Ziegler's name.37 Perhaps the freemasons
were being imitated. The glove giving habit was already actually codified in the Schaw statutes38 of December
1599, approved at Lodge Kilwinning in Scotland, which laid down that all fellows of the craft, at their admissions,
were to pay the lodge £10 Scots with ten shillings worth of "gluiffis".
Love's Labour's Lost has kept Shakespeare buffs rhapsodically frustrated for several generations. It is perhaps the
most teasing of his plays, constantly hinting at hidden meanings. Even worse, it appears to be the only one of his
plays whose plot he thought up himself! It provoked Frances Yates to write an entire book about it, a book which
remains, after half a century, still the best thing on the subject. The basic situation of the play is made clear in the
very first speech that Ferdinand, King of Navarre, intones:
"Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.
You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here:
Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down
That violates the smallest branch herein:-"
(I. i. 11-21).
Despite the "votaries" of the acaademe pledging themselves to three years celibacy, the visiting ladies, led by the
Princess of France, finally subvert their resolution by winning their hearts. The allusions flash by in a constantly
jesting manner. But I wish to single out one allusion in particular, which to my knowledge has never been unbottled
before.
The glove makes it appearance in the final scene (V. ii.) - twice. The Princess says, "But, Katherine, what was sent
to you from fair Dumain?" Katherine replies, "Madame, this glove". The Princess retorts, "Did he not send you
twain?" to which Katherine answers, "Yes, Madam; and moreover,/ Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;" (47-
50). All this, at least, is plain sailing: the suitor Dumain has sent a pair of gloves, which Katharine has accepted.
Rather more complex is the case of the love-stricken Berowne, who proclaims:
"and I here protest,
By this white glove (how white the hand, God knows),
Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
In russet yeas and honest kersey noes."
(410-13)
Berowne's white glove has not materialized in the play before. And it probably would have been totally improper or
unthinkable for a lady to have sent him a pair. So what was the function of the glove? He proceeds in the very next
line to swear to Rosaline, "My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw", and the joke, I believe, lies in his swearing
an oath of love on a white glove that the courtly audience would have assumed to have been received within the
circle of his fraternity. They would have automatically related it to an initiation. In saying, "how white the hand,
God knows", Berowne is confessing that he has put in jeopardy his virtue by breaking his oath of initiation. But
there is a double irony - for what is the value, or sincerity, of a love pledge made upon such a glove?
For an authority on the relationship of hands to oaths, I would turn to Thomas Dekker. In his play Satiro-Mastix& of
1602 he has Sir Walter Terill exclaim,
"An oath! why 'tis the traffic of the soul,
'Tis law within a man; the seal of faith,
The lord of every conscience; unto whom
We set our thoughts like hands:& "
(V.i.)
Berowne's glove problem, I suggest, hints at Navarre's "little academe" being a utopianistic masonic lodge, and this
raises fascinating possibilities. Ferdinand King of Navarre puts one in mind of Ferdinando Lord Strange, patron of a
theatrical company with which Shakespeare was closely associated up to at least the Autumn of 1592. As Professor
Honigmann, among others, has pointed out, Love's Labour's Lost is replete with allusions to Shakespeare's patron.39
The name Ferdinand attached to the King was most likely a conceit chosen to humour him, as well as possibly
relating to the origins of the play in a private entertainment for Lord Strange's coterie of friends. Ferdinando was
unquestionably keen about theatre. Oddly, Navarre is never actually called Ferdinand in performance, although he is
so named in the stage directions and speech prefixes of the first Quarto. Presumably it was thought in bad taste to
draw the groundlings' attention in the public theatres to the resemblance between Navarre and Lord Strange.
In the mythology of the play one allusion has stood out beyond all others this century. In Act IV Scene iii the King
exclaims - thus launching a thousand academic foot-notes - "Black is the badge of hell,/ The hue of dungeons and
the school of night". To what or whom was he referring? Was it to Sir Walter Ralegh and his alleged "school of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl aikidobyd.xlx.pl
shire (1686), tells that it was the custom among the freemasons "when any are admitted [into membership], they call
a meeting& which must consist at least of 5 or 6 of the Antients of the Order, whom the candidates present with
gloves, and so likewise to their wives& "35 At Canterbury College, Oxford, in 1376-7, the Warden recorded in the
accounts the "even twenty pence given" for "glove money" ("pro cirotecis") to all the masons engaged in rebuilding
the College.36 This points to an old tradition with the masons of providing gloves. George Weckherlin, poet and
under-secretary of state at Whitehall, sent gloves to Lewis Ziegler, agent to Lord Craven, in February 1634. In
December 1637 Weckherlin drew the sign of the Rosicrucians 5 above Ziegler's name.37 Perhaps the freemasons
were being imitated. The glove giving habit was already actually codified in the Schaw statutes38 of December
1599, approved at Lodge Kilwinning in Scotland, which laid down that all fellows of the craft, at their admissions,
were to pay the lodge £10 Scots with ten shillings worth of "gluiffis".
Love's Labour's Lost has kept Shakespeare buffs rhapsodically frustrated for several generations. It is perhaps the
most teasing of his plays, constantly hinting at hidden meanings. Even worse, it appears to be the only one of his
plays whose plot he thought up himself! It provoked Frances Yates to write an entire book about it, a book which
remains, after half a century, still the best thing on the subject. The basic situation of the play is made clear in the
very first speech that Ferdinand, King of Navarre, intones:
"Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
Our court shall be a little academe,
Still and contemplative in living art.
You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,
Have sworn for three years' term to live with me,
My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
That are recorded in this schedule here:
Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
That his own hand may strike his honour down
That violates the smallest branch herein:-"
(I. i. 11-21).
Despite the "votaries" of the acaademe pledging themselves to three years celibacy, the visiting ladies, led by the
Princess of France, finally subvert their resolution by winning their hearts. The allusions flash by in a constantly
jesting manner. But I wish to single out one allusion in particular, which to my knowledge has never been unbottled
before.
The glove makes it appearance in the final scene (V. ii.) - twice. The Princess says, "But, Katherine, what was sent
to you from fair Dumain?" Katherine replies, "Madame, this glove". The Princess retorts, "Did he not send you
twain?" to which Katherine answers, "Yes, Madam; and moreover,/ Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;" (47-
50). All this, at least, is plain sailing: the suitor Dumain has sent a pair of gloves, which Katharine has accepted.
Rather more complex is the case of the love-stricken Berowne, who proclaims:
"and I here protest,
By this white glove (how white the hand, God knows),
Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
In russet yeas and honest kersey noes."
(410-13)
Berowne's white glove has not materialized in the play before. And it probably would have been totally improper or
unthinkable for a lady to have sent him a pair. So what was the function of the glove? He proceeds in the very next
line to swear to Rosaline, "My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw", and the joke, I believe, lies in his swearing
an oath of love on a white glove that the courtly audience would have assumed to have been received within the
circle of his fraternity. They would have automatically related it to an initiation. In saying, "how white the hand,
God knows", Berowne is confessing that he has put in jeopardy his virtue by breaking his oath of initiation. But
there is a double irony - for what is the value, or sincerity, of a love pledge made upon such a glove?
For an authority on the relationship of hands to oaths, I would turn to Thomas Dekker. In his play Satiro-Mastix& of
1602 he has Sir Walter Terill exclaim,
"An oath! why 'tis the traffic of the soul,
'Tis law within a man; the seal of faith,
The lord of every conscience; unto whom
We set our thoughts like hands:& "
(V.i.)
Berowne's glove problem, I suggest, hints at Navarre's "little academe" being a utopianistic masonic lodge, and this
raises fascinating possibilities. Ferdinand King of Navarre puts one in mind of Ferdinando Lord Strange, patron of a
theatrical company with which Shakespeare was closely associated up to at least the Autumn of 1592. As Professor
Honigmann, among others, has pointed out, Love's Labour's Lost is replete with allusions to Shakespeare's patron.39
The name Ferdinand attached to the King was most likely a conceit chosen to humour him, as well as possibly
relating to the origins of the play in a private entertainment for Lord Strange's coterie of friends. Ferdinando was
unquestionably keen about theatre. Oddly, Navarre is never actually called Ferdinand in performance, although he is
so named in the stage directions and speech prefixes of the first Quarto. Presumably it was thought in bad taste to
draw the groundlings' attention in the public theatres to the resemblance between Navarre and Lord Strange.
In the mythology of the play one allusion has stood out beyond all others this century. In Act IV Scene iii the King
exclaims - thus launching a thousand academic foot-notes - "Black is the badge of hell,/ The hue of dungeons and
the school of night". To what or whom was he referring? Was it to Sir Walter Ralegh and his alleged "school of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]