Tag: gender

The Changeling – Act One, Scenes 1-2: “There’s scarce a thing but is both lov’d and loath’d”


Scene One: Alsemero, a visitor to Alligant, has encountered Beatrice-Joanna in the temple. He decides to change his travel plans to stay and woo her, not knowing she is already betrothed to Alonzo. Alsemero’s companion, Jasperino, is surprised by his friend’s lovesick behavior but decides to pursue Beatrice-Joanna’s maid, Diaphanta. Alsemero learns of Beatrice-Joanna’s engagement but does not leave Alligant. Beatrice-Joanna is having second thoughts about her betrothal to Alonzo since meeting Alsemero. She explains to Alsemero that she finds her father’s servingman, DeFlores, repulsive.

Alsemero enters in a reverie, comparing his glimpses of Beatrice-Joanna to things sacred and holy. Both times she was in the temple, leading him to conclude that this “…admits comparison / With man’s first creation, the place blest” (1.1.7-8). Where an allusion to the Garden of Eden might also suggest the Fall of Man and its connection to sin and death, Alsemero uses it to describe pairing with
Beatrice-Joanna as “perfection” (1.1.11). His thoughts quickly move to holding their marriage ceremony in the temple, which would signify both “beginning and perfection too” (12). Starting the play with musings on perfection and holiness introduces its exploration of appearances and seeming, themes important to the plot. Can first impressions and external appearances be considered legitimate indications of character?

Jasperino arrives to let Alsemero know the seas are favorable for their departure but is surprised when his friend resists leaving. Jasperino praises the wind as “fair” for a “swift and pleasant passage” (13, 14) but Alsemero disagrees, saying, “I know ‘tis against me” (21). Jasperino is confused by his friend’s reticence, as in the past he has been a keen traveler. He asks if Alsemero is unwell, since “Lover I’m sure y’are none, the stoic / Was found in you long ago” (36-37). The ship’s crew is told they will not be setting out today; sensing Alsemero’s lovesickness, one seaman quips in an aside “We must not to sea today; this smoke will bring forth fire” (50-51). This throw-away remark anticipates the events of the final act.

Beatrice-Joanna and Diaphanta arrive and Alsemero’s manner further astonishes Jasperino: “Salute a woman? He kisses too: wonderful! Where learnt he this?” (58). An hint of things to come that might be overlooked is Beatrice-Joanna’s query to Alsemero: “Which of the sciences is this love you speak of?” (63). Alsemero’s interest in science or medicine becomes important later in the play, and this quick mention is its introduction and only mention. He then takes the opportunity to profess his love to Beatrice-Joanna, whose response is unexpected:

Be better advis’d sir:
Our eyes are sentinels unto our judgements
And should give certain judgement what they see;
But they are rash sometimes, and tell us wonders
Of common things, which when our judgements find,
They can then check the eyes, and call them blind. (69-74)

Her reply seems to warn Alsemero from his attraction to her. It also advises against making judgements based on appearance alone, an admonishment that aligns with the play’s motif of sight and seeing. Is her warning due to her engagement to Alonzo, or does she sense a darkness within that could prove ruinous? Again, the lines hint at things to come.

Soon after Beatrice-Joanna’s reply, Deflores makes his first appearance. This is surely by design, since Deflores’ looks and what is or is not wrong with his face are important aspects of the character. He announces that her father has arrived, but Beatrice-Joanna demands to know why he felt it necessary to come tell her. In an aside, Deflores explains he is drawn to Beatrice-Joanna even though she abhors him:

…Must I be enjoin’d
To follow still whilst she flies from me? Well,
Fates do your worst, I’ll please myself with sight
Of her, at all opportunities… (98-101)

In her book Occult Knowledge, Science, and Gender on the Shakespearean Stage, Mary Floyd-Wilson includes a chapter considering The Changeling in light of ‘sympathies and antipathies.’ To put it succinctly, Dr. Floyd-Wilson describes how early modern medicine and science believed certain materials and essences were drawn to each other. A ‘sympathy’ meant a strong attraction to some property the other possessed. ‘Antipathy’ was the opposite, meaning some things were by nature opposed. In The Changeling, for instance, sympathy would mean Beatrice-Joanna is subconsciously drawn to something inherent in Deflores’ nature despite feeling physical revulsion. Similarly, although Deflores is physically attracted to Beatrice-Joanna, without sympathy he might not be willing to endure her scorn and verbal abuse. Sympathies and antipathies go a long way to explain why Middleton might have taken such care to point out Deflores’ facial defect. Since he is portrayed as being scarred or disfigured, physical attraction can be ruled out as the basis for Beatrice-Joanna’s actions later in the play.  His being unattractive rather gives the audience pause; is she being coerced, or has she discovered something in his nature drawing her to him?    

Beatrice-Joanna and Alsemero touch on the concept of sympathies and antipathies in the next few lines. She tells him she is repulsed by Deflores, calls it “my infirmity” (106), but cannot explain the feeling. Alsemero replies that everyone has something they cannot tolerate and that “There’s scarce a thing but is both lov’d and loath’d / Myself (I must confess) have the same frailty” (122-23). His particular aversion, he tells her, is something she personally may like: “a cherry” (125).  While it is tempting to associate his remark with our modern slang reference to virginity (which would align nicely), the Oxford English Dictionary shows the earliest use of that meaning to be the late 19th century. Alsemero, then, is simply not a lover of fruit.  

Meanwhile, Jasperino and Diaphanta are engaging in flirty, bawdy conversation. In some ways, theirs is the healthiest relationship in the play. There seems to be no deception between them, and no hints of manipulation, possessiveness, or jealousy. They both seem to have no expectations other than enjoying each other’s company. Consequently, their relationship sets off the very different ones between Alsemero and Beatrice-Joanna, Deflores and Beatrice-Joanna, and Alibius and Isabella. Jasperino and Diaphanta’s relationship is also important to the plot.

Vermandero arrives and welcomes Alsemero, whose late father he knew in younger years. At Beatrice-Joanna’s behest, he invites Alsemero on a tour of his castle; he also urges him to stay for her wedding. Alsemero is shaken by Beatrice-Joanna’s impending wedding, and in an aside laments, “I must now part, and never meet again / With any joy on earth” (194-195). He then insists he cannot stay, even to see the castle. Vermandero, unaware of Alsemero’s love for his daughter, brushes this off as mere civility and begins to praise the virtues of his future son-in-law. Alsemero observes:

ALSEMERO: He’s much
Bound to you, sir.
VERMANDERO: He shall be bound to me,
As fast as this tie can hold him; I’ll want
My will else.
BEATRICE [Aside]: I shall want mine if you do it.
VERMANDERO: But come, by the way I’ll tell you more of him.
ALSEMERO [Aside]: How shall I dare to venture in his castle,
When he discharges murderers at the gate? (213-219)

Much is packed into this short exchange. Alsemero notes that Alonzo has much to thank Vermandero for (“much bound to you”), to which Vermandero replies that he shall be “bound to [him]” (linked, connected) “[a]s fast as this tie can hold him” (as tightly as his marriage to Beatrice-Joanna can contract him). Vermandero will “want [his] will” (lack having his way) otherwise. To this, Beatrice-Joanna remarks in an aside that she “shall want [hers] if you do it” (lack having her own way if Vermandero binds Alonzo to her in marriage). Alsemero’s aside about “discharging murderers at the gate” not only reflects his emotional wounding in hearing of Beatrice-Joanna’s engagement, but also points to the action in Act Three.

As Beatrice-Joanna turns to leave, she drops her glove. If purposeful, this action is both invitation and challenge to a potential lover. It recalls Bel-Imperia’s dropping of her own glove in Thomas Kyd’s earlier The Spanish Tragedy. In their essay, “Fetishizing the Glove in Renaissance Europe” (available with a free JSTOR account), Peter Stallybrass and Ann Rosalind Jones discuss the meaning of gloves and the actions associated with them. A glove, at times perfumed, would be associated intimately with the hand of the beloved. It was a token that could be worn, cherished, or kissed by a devout lover. If this was Beatrice-Joanna’s intent, however, her move backfires. Her father sees the glove and calls for Deflores to pick it up and return it. Does Vermandero sense her possible flirtation?

Beatrice-Joanna is horrified. She refuses the glove and scorns Deflores’ attempt at service: “Mischief on your officious forwardness! / Who bade you stoop? They touch my hand no more: / There, for tother’s sake I part with this,” / [Takes off the other glove and throws it down.] (223-225, sd. 225). Deflores, however, cannot believe his luck:

Here’s a favour come, with a mischief! Now I know
She had rather wear my pelt tann’d in a pair
Of dancing pumps, than I should thrust my fingers
Into her sockets here; I know she hates me,
Yet cannot choose but love her:
No matter, if but to vex her, I’ll haunt her still;
Though I get nothing else, I’ll have my will. (227-233)

Alone on the stage after Beatrice-Joanna has stormed off, Deflores expresses his sexual attraction to her as well as his refusal to stay away. The phrase “thrust my fingers / Into her sockets here” is blatantly erotic, and in some productions made obviously so. He also declares he cannot help being drawn to her, an inversion of Beatrice-Joanna’s professed aversion: his sympathy to her antipathy. Deflores plans to continue being in her presence regardless of how she feels about it, because if he gets “nothing else” (materially/psychologically/ sexually), he’ll “have [his] will.” This not only echoes the previous exchange between Vermandero, Beatrice-Joanna, and Alsemero, but also gives a glimpse into Deflores’ character. No matter how Beatrice-Joanna feels about seeing him, he will do as he pleases for his own gratification. In modern terms, Deflores might be called a stalker.

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Scene Two: Alibius, an older physician in charge of the local asylum, fears his young wife Isabella will be unfaithful. He confides this to his man, Lollio, who agrees to keep an eye on her. Pedro arrives with Antonio/Tony, claiming Tony is his mad cousin and asking he be admitted for care. Lollio quizzes Antonio to get a feel for his wit, deems him a “scholar,” and escorts him into the ward.

Alibius is riddled with jealousy and fears his younger, beautiful wife Isabella is not content in their marriage. Lollio remarks that young plants are protected by older trees, but Alibius is not convinced. He responds, “I would wear my ring on my own finger; / Whilst it is borrowed it is none of mine, / But his that useth it” (27-29). Alibius’ concern about wearing his “ring” (early modern slang for vagina) ushers in other bawdy jokes and quips about sex and the female anatomy: “if it but lie by, one or other will be thrusting into’t” (30-31), “Thou conceiv’st me” (32), “you must look out, ‘tis every man’s case” (36, ‘case’ being another slang term for vagina), and “Supply my place” (39, in the sexual act).

This exchange is the first of many references to and jokes about cuckoldry in the asylum scenes. Cuckoldry, or wives cheating on husbands, would have resonated with Middleton’s audience and been a sure laugh. It appears or is mentioned in most of the plays of the period and serves as the foundation for many a poke at jealous, older, or hen-pecked husbands. Scholars such as Cristina León Alfar and Sara F. Matthews-Grieco have written books on the topic, and a quick Google search uncovers numerous other papers, dissertations, and theses on cuckoldry and early modern society.

Alibius’ concern is “The daily visitants that come to see / My brainsick patients” (50-1). As stated in my introductory post for this series, going to asylums to get a glimpse of the mentally ill was indeed a pastime in the early modern period. Alibius is anxious that “gallants… / Of quick enticing eyes, rich in habits, / Of stature and proportion very comely” (53-55) might be “most shrewd temptations” (56) for Isabella. He instructs Lollio to ensure these visitors do not see her, then remembers a new patient should be arriving that day. On cue, Pedro and Antonio enter, leading Alibius to state “I think my expectation is come home” (78). This is an apt choice of phrase, since Antonio is smitten with Isabella and pretending madness to gain admittance to the asylum. Hence, the expectation of a new client has been fulfilled and (unbeknownst to Alibius) he happens to be a gallant trying to get close to Isabella. 

Pedro introduces Antonio as “Tony” and asks that he receive the best care, emphasizing that “He is a gentleman” (108). Before leaving, he pays Alibius and gives Lollio a little on the side, since he is to “keep [Tony] sweet and read to him” (91). Lollio quizzes Tony with several riddles and puns to ascertain his wit, a lengthy bit of business meant to provide laughs for the audience. He approves of Tony’s abilities, and as the scene closes, all exit to their various “charge[s]” (189). For Alibius, this means the patients’ ward; for Lollio, it means feeding the patients, getting Tony settled, and keeping tabs on Isabella.

The asylum subplot scenes can be difficult, and audiences may wonder why Middleton felt the need to include them. The obvious reason is that the main plot can be intense with few comedic elements, so the asylum scenes serve as a break. They contain quite a bit of humor, albeit often at the expense of the asylum patients (and therefore likely distasteful to modern audiences). Another reason is that these scenes address similar issues as the main plot and show them in another light. Themes of infidelity, the madness of love/passion, mistrust in relationships, and (to use that anachronistic term once more) stalking are present.

The characters in the asylum scenes also offer a form of oblique commentary on those of the main plot. Isabella, for instance, can be seen as an alternate Beatrice-Joanna. A strong female character with her own mind and a desire for agency, Isabella asserts her choice, station, and identity in a very different fashion than Beatrice-Joanna. Is Lollio Isabella’s Deflores? Antonio and Franciscus her Alsemero and Alonso? This is left for the audience to decide.  

Thomas Middleton and The Changeling: Introduction and Overview

Fair warning: Thomas Middleton’s The Changeling can be difficult to read or watch. Most of the characters are a blend of the attractive and the disagreeable; they’re not individuals you’d want to meet or have a relationship with. The plot involves manipulation, sexual assault, scheming, and murder, and there’s a subplot that includes the use of the mentally ill as entertainment or comic relief. (Evidence suggests this unsavory practice was common in the early modern period.) As if that’s not enough, it’s misogynistic, like most early modern plays. To counter that aspect with a feminist discussion, I highly recommend the Changeling episode of “Not Another Shakespeare Podcast!.”   

If The Changeling is stuffed with difficult subject matter and the characters are so awful, why is it so popular? Why does anyone bother? These are good questions, and the short response to both is that the play is extremely well-written. In performance it’s tense and exciting, and despite the unpleasant stuff can be an enjoyable two and a half hours. It’s not a morality play, but more of an exploration of things going terribly wrong due to…selfishness? An inability to see past one’s own desires? It’s hard to pinpoint. There are people in the play doing bad things, but are they bad people, or merely self-engrossed? Or something else entirely? At the close of the final act, rather than a feeling of moral superiority, there’s a sense of instability and confusion. Some characters do come to bad ends, but were they truly bad or just victims of circumstance? Did they simply make bad choices, or was the darkness in them all along? Could this be the meaning of the title?

In legend, a changeling was a being left in place of a human child stolen by fairies, a definition that doesn’t necessarily align with the play (we hear nothing of the characters’ childhoods). The inherent behavior of these beings was believed “monstrous,” however, which does fit with Middleton’s choice of title. As noted below, Antonio is called “the changeling,” but he’s not a child, and nearly every other character also enacts some sort of deception, bad behavior, or life shift. There are changes in relationships and loyalties, deaths and marriages, and attempts to be something or someone different. All these existential movements are destabilizing, creating a sense of dread or emotional vertigo.

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Thomas Middleton was born in 1580 in London. His father was a laborer/bricklayer who did well financially, which allowed Thomas to spend some time at Oxford University. He returned to London and became a prolific playwright, authoring several well-received plays. During Middleton’s lifetime, the most famous was A Game of Chess, a work that got him in quite a bit of trouble for its unflattering take on several prominent royal and court figures. Middleton died in 1627 and is buried in a now unmarked grave in London.

The Changeling is believed to have had its first performance in 1622, although it was not entered into the Stationer’s Register until 1652. The setting is Alligant (or Alicante), Spain, and the plot centers on Beatrice-Joanna, daughter of Vermandero, a wealthy nobleman. Beatrice-Joanna is betrothed to Alonzo de Piracquo, but when she meets Alsemero, she regrets her impending marriage. She enlists one of her father’s servingmen, Deflores, to kill Alonzo, but Deflores’ idea of recompense is offensive: he wants to be repaid sexually, and when she refuses, he rapes her. For whatever reason, their trysts continue, despite Beatrice-Joanna’s new betrothal to Alsemero. Because of Deflores she is no longer a virgin, so she orchestrates a bed-trick on her wedding night, sending her maid Diaphanta to Alsemero in her place. The deed complete, Diaphanta becomes a liability and is also killed by Deflores. Alsemero later witnesses a tryst between Beatrice-Joanna and Deflores and learns of the two murders. Deflores kills both Beatrice-Joanna and himself when confronted.

Now for the subplot: Alibius, a doctor who oversees the local asylum, is married to Isabella, who is much younger and very beautiful. Alibius, as expected, fears for her chastity if young gallants visit (see “use of the mentally ill as entertainment,” above). As if on cue, two of Vermandero’s servants, Antonio and Franciscus, pretend to be mad and are admitted as residents. Isabella’s subsequent discovery of their ruse and her response plays off the Beatrice-Joanna plot, countering the actions of one strong female character with another.

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Before delving into themes and what to watch for when reading/watching, here are the main characters and a short explanation of who they are:

BEATRICE-JOANNA: Vermandero’s daughter. When the play begins, she is betrothed to Alonzo; by the play’s end she is married to Alsemero. Beatrice-Joanna has strong feelings about Deflores (to say the least).

VERMANDERO: Beatrice-Joanna’s father, Spanish nobleman, and resident of Alligant/Alicante.

DEFLORES: A servingman to Vermandero. Some sort of facial scarring or skin condition renders him unattractive. He is besotted with Beatrice-Joanna.

ALONZO DE PIRACQUO: Beatrice-Joanna’s first betrothed. It doesn’t go well for him.

TOMAZO DE PIRACQUO: Alonzo’s brother. He attempts to warn Alonzo of Beatrice-Joanna’s apparent lack of affection, but is rebuffed. After his brother’s death, he arrives looking for answers.

ALSEMERO: A nobleman visiting Alligant. He meets Beatrice-Joanna at a religious service and is instantly smitten. He also dabbles in medicine/science.

JASPERINO: Alsemero’s companion. He joins the fun by wooing Diaphanta.

DIAPHANTA: Beatrice-Joanna’s ill-starred servingwoman and recipient of Jasperino’s amorous attentions.

ALIBIUS: A doctor in charge of the local asylum. He has trust issues due to his having a younger and very beautiful wife.

ISABELLA: Young, beautiful, and married to Alibius. She gives him no cause for jealousy, but he goes there just the same. Probably the most likeable character in the entire play.  

LOLLIO: The play’s clown figure. Lollio is Alibius’ saucy, bawdy, and (in his mind) witty assistant.

ANTONIO: The dramatis personae lists Antonio as “the changeling,” but as will become clear, Antonio has no right to single ownership of this description. He has the hots for Isabella and pretends to be mad so he can be committed to the asylum and be near her.

FRANCISCUS: The dramatis personae lists him as “the counterfeit madman” although this description fits Antonio as well. Like Antonio, Franciscus feigns madness so he can be locked up in the asylum and attempt to woo Isabella.

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There’s a lot to watch for in The Changeling. Pay attention to how many times sight, seeing, or eyes are mentioned or alluded to in the play. This is a central theme pointing to another very important aspect of the play: seeming or appearances. When Alsemero meets Beatrice-Joanna, he believes her to be associated with the holy (1.1.1-12); Jasperino urges Alsemero to his ship, but his friend tells him the wind only seems in their favor (15-16); Deflores appears to be merely a servingman but claims to have been born a gentleman (2.1.49). Was/is his physical appearance in some way associated with his downfall? Beatrice-Joanna seems to feel visceral disgust for Deflores, but by the end of the play is praising him; did her initial revulsion mask a subconscious attraction, or is the change due to something psychological? This handful of examples from the first two acts gestures to situations ripe with the potential for change, and makes the idea that one particular character is “the” changeling either disingenuous or an attempt to distract from other possibilities — perhaps to make their discovery more satisfying.

It’s not difficult to find performances of The Changeling online; there are videos, radio plays, discussions, and audio books. One of the most promising of the filmed productions is this 1974 BBC offering starring Helen Mirren. As of yet I haven’t watched it, but since you can’t go wrong with Helen Mirren I plan to remedy that as soon as possible. The complete text of the play is available (for free!) on the Folger’s extremely useful Early Modern English Drama website. For my blog posts, unless otherwise stated, all references are from the 1988 Penguin Classics Five Plays: Thomas Middleton, edited by Bryan Loughrey and Neil Taylor.

Let’s dig into this unsettling, sometimes offensive, but exceptionally well-written and enjoyable play…    

The Spanish Tragedy – Act Two, Scenes 1-3: “Her favor must be won by his remove”

Scene One: Lorenzo tells Baltazar he will deal with Bel-Imperia, as he knows how to wear down her resolve. From Pedringano, one of her serving men, Lorenzo learns that Bel-Imperia loves Horatio. Lorenzo and Baltazar begin to devise a plan to remove this obstacle.

Act Two Scene One begins with Lorenzo attempting to assuage Baltazar’s hurt feelings. He tells him all steadfast creatures and solid things can eventually  be worn down (“In time the savage bull sustains the yoke,” “In time small wedges cleave the hardest oak” [3, 5]) and that Bel-Imperia is no exception. Baltazar, however, is not convinced. He protests, “No, she is wilder and more hard withal, / Then beast, or bird, or tree, or stony wall” (9-10), but then true to form changes course, saying, “It is my fault, not she that merits blame” (12). Again, Baltazar’s lack of confidence and wavering are on display. He goes on to denigrate his appearance, letter writing skills, and gifts, stating they are so lacking that Bel-Imperia is right to reject him (13-18).

During this exchange, both Baltazar and Lorenzo show their agitation and state of mind through literary devices, most notably the use of rhyme. Lorenzo has only four instances (“coy”/”joy” [1, 2], “disdain”/“pain” [7, 8], “me”/”see” [37, 38] and “about”/”out” [39, 40]), which suggests a certain calm and decisiveness. Baltazar’s word choice, however, belies an anxious frenzy. Nearly every line is a rhyming couplet, and he uses anaphora in successive alternating lines:
Yet might she love me for my valiancy–
Ay, but that’s slandered by captivity.
Yet might she love me to content her sire–
Ay, but her reason masters his desire.
Yet might she love me as her brother’s friend–
Ay, but her hopes aim at some other end.
Yet might she love me to uprear her state–
Ay, but perhaps she hopes some nobler mate.
Yet might she love me as her beauty’s thrall–
Ay, but I fear she cannot love me at all.   (19-28)
The prince’s pattern of speech reveals his unsettled mind and lack of confidence. His lines turn on each other through the anaphora that both links and drives them apart; rhyme suggests a desire for stability and closure. The contrast between Baltazar and Lorenzo (and, for that matter, Bel-Imperia) is unmistakably clear.

Lorenzo counsels Baltazar to “leave these ecstasies” (29) and reassures him that any obstacles to Bel-Imperia’s love will be “be known and then removed” (32). He hints of a plan if Baltazar will be complicit (“I have already found a stratagem / …My lord, for once you shall be ruled by me: / Hinder me not whate’er you hear or see. / By force or fair means will I cast about” [35, 37-39]). In this exchange, Lorenzo employs rhyme, but it is not as easy or nicely coupled as in Baltazar’s lines 19-28. Where the prince matched the likes of “friend”/”end,” “state”/”mate,” and “thrall”/”all,” Lorenzo’s pairs are more forced: “loved”/”removed” (31, 32), “stratagem”/”theme” (35, 36), suggesting a determined, crafty mind. A shared homophone serves to indicate growing agreement:
Lorenzo: What if my sister love some other knight?
Baltazar: My summer’s day will turn to winter’s night.  (33-34, italics mine)
Even Baltazar’s implied harmony with Lorenzo depends on contrast (summer/winter), keeping the focus on his uncertainty.

Lorenzo calls for Bel-Imperia’s servant, Pedringano, and presses him for information. Lorenzo reminds Pedringano that when Andrea and Bel-Imperia’s liaison was discovered, he protected him (“…I did shield thee from my father’s wrath / For thy conveyance in Andrea’s love” [46-47]). He offers Pedrigano money and friendship for the name of Bel-Imperia’s current lover, and when the servant demurs, threatens him with death. Pedringano begs his life, so again, Lorenzo vows to “guerdon thee,” (72), “shield thee,” (73), and “conceal what’er proceeds from thee” (74). Taking Lorenzo at his word, Pedringano reveals that Horatio is Bel-Imperia’s lover. He is then dismissed with instructions to watch and advise Lorenzo of the couple’s next meeting.

Baltazar, in usual fashion, tells Lorenzo that his plan to spy on the pair is “Both well and ill: it makes me glad and sad–” (111). Rhymes and anaphora fill the following twenty or so lines as Baltazar laments learning of Bel-Imperia and Horatio’s love. He expresses happiness that he “know[s] on whom to be reveng’d” (114) but fears he will lose her if he acts. He calls Horatio his “destined plague” (118); not only did he capture Baltazar in battle, he has (in essence) captured Baltazar’s intended wife. The prince concludes Horatio has “ta’en my body by his force, / And now by sleight would captivate my soul” (130-131) and pledges that he will, therefore, “tempt the destinies, / And either lose my life, or win my love” (132-133). Lorenzo replies, “Do you but follow me and gain your love: / Her favor must be won by his remove” (135-136). In other words, Horatio must die so Baltazar can possess Bel-Imperia.

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Scene Two: Horatio and Bel-Imperia meet. Pedringano directs Baltazar and Lorenzo to a concealed location where they can observe their rendezvous.

Horatio’s opening line (“Now madam, since by favor of your love” [2.2.1, italics mine]) pulls from Lorenzo’s 2.1 closing (“Do you but follow me and gain your love: / Her favor must be won by his remove” [135-136, italics mine]). These shared words link the machinations of Lorenzo and Baltazar to Horatio and Bel-Imperia’s newly declared affection. As couple meets and proclaims their love, Pedringano conducts Lorenzo and Baltazar to a hiding place “above” (2.2.6 SD) where they can see and hear the exchange.

Once more repetition is key, this time in contrasting Baltazar and Lorenzo’s reactions. The men use similar words, but their context is not the same:
Baltazar [above]: O sleep, mine eyes, see not my love profaned;
Be deaf my ears, hear not my discontent;
Die heart, another joys what thou deserv’st.
Lorenzo: [above] Watch still mine eyes, to see this love disjoined;
Hear still mine ears, to hear them both lament;
Live heart, to joy at fond Horatio’s fall.  (18-23)
The difference is stark. Baltazar is prepared to give up, close his eyes, and perish at the sight of Bel-Imperia with another man. Lorenzo, however, feels heightened anger and violent rage. The one instance of rhyme, “discontent” / “lament,” links the two disparate responses, serving as a reminder that the two men are in league to destroy the lovers’ happiness.

In the next lines, the lovers themselves are linked through the sharing of a word. More intimate than a rhyme, in this case the passing of a word from one mouth to another gestures to growing connection and warmth:
Horatio: The less I speak, the more I meditate.
Bel-Imperia: But whereon dost thou chiefly meditate?  (25-26)
Hidden above, Lorenzo and Baltazar copy this act of spoken intimacy, repeating words and phrases used by the lovers — but shading them with malice:
Horatio: On dangers past, and pleasures to ensue.
Baltazar [above]: On pleasures past, and dangers to ensue.
Bel-Imperia: What dangers, and what pleasures dost thou mean?
Horatio: Dangers of war, and pleasures of our love.
Lorenzo [above]: Dangers of death, but pleasures none at all.  (27-31)
The four characters’ lines interact and mesh. The structure of the dialogue, along with the location of the men above, virtually surrounds the lovers with menace and growing danger — yet they remain unaware of the threat.

The scene also makes Bel-Imperia’s agency and strong will unmistakably clear. She speaks more than twice as often as Horatio, 32 lines to his 14, and it is she who drives the relationship. She re-introduces the idea of love as war (“Let dangers go, thy war shall be with me… / Give me a kiss, I’ll countercheck thy kiss: / Be this our warring peace, or peaceful war” [32, 37-38]), further indication of her strength and determination. The trope also brings to mind Rhadamanth’s warning, quoted by Andrea at the start of the play: “it were not well, / With loving souls to place a martialist” (1.1.45-46).

Horatio tells Bel-Imperia to “appoint the field / Where trial of this war shall first be made” (2.2.39-40), and she suggests his father Hieronimo’s bower. This is where they “first…vowed a mutual amity,” and while “the court were dangerous, that place were safe” (42-43); they acknowledge their trysts must be kept secret. The scene closes with a pair of rhyming couplets, but not from Horatio and Bel-Imperia. Horatio’s “Return we now into your father’s sight: / Dangerous suspicion waits on our delight” (54-55) matches with Lorenzo’s “Ay, danger mixed with jealious despite / Shall send thy soul into eternal night” (56-57), spoken from his place of concealment. Lorenzo’s rhyming of Horatio’s “delight” with “despite” and “sight” with “night” is an additional gesture to the lovers’ peril.

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Scene Three: The King, the Duke, and the Ambassador to Portugal draw up the contract that will unite Bel-Imperia and Baltazar in marriage. The Ambassador prepares to return to his country to obtain the consent of the Viceroy.

Bel-Imperia and Horatio’s rendezvous is followed in this scene by the finalizing of a marriage contract between Bel-Imperia and Baltazar. The Duke of Castile (Bel-Imperia’s father) states “Although she coy it as becomes her kind… / …she will stoop in time” (3,5; italics mine). His remark echoes Lorenzo’s earlier attempt to placate Baltazar (“My lord, though Bel-Imperia seem thus coy, / …In time all haggard hawks will stoop to lure” [2.1.1, 4; italics mine]). The Duke also maintains that Bel-Imperia will love Baltazar or “forgo my love” (2.3.8), which pleases the King. Once more, value and commerce are the focus; the king’s offer of a “large and liberal” (13) dowry to sweeten the contract ushers in words such as “gift” (17), “tribute” (19), “reward” (35), “price” (37), and “estate” (46). Bel-Imperia is merely a rich token to cement a political alliance.

The marriage agreement is drawn up and ratified, but the King once more admonishes the Duke about Bel-Imperia’s strong personality (“Now, brother, you must take some little pains / To win fair Bel-Imperia from her will” [41-42]). The scene closes with the King stressing that the marriage is of the utmost importance:
“If she neglect [Baltazar] and forgo his love,
She both will wrong her own estate and ours….
Endeavour you to win your daughter’s thought–
If she give back, all this will come to naught”  (45-46, 49-50).

All in all, the men’s concern seems to be more about exerting control over a strong-willed female than about forging an alliance with a previously defeated political rival. Failing to curb her agency is not an option.

Galatea – Act Five: “What is to love or the mistress of love unpossible?”

Scene One: Rafe, his brothers, and Peter the Alchemist’s boy meet in the forest and discuss how they’ve fared in their search for new masters.

The beginning of Act Five links to Phillida’s “let me call thee mistress” (4.4.18) through Rafe’s opening words, “No more masters now, but a mistress” (5.1.1). His latest master, The Astronomer, proved to be as deceptive as The Alchemist, so Rafe saw fit to leave him as well. He meets up with his brother Robin and tells him a bawdy tale about The Alchemist impregnating a “pretty wench”: “he made her of one, two” (5.1.20-21, 24). Robin has served a fortune teller, an occupation consistent with the play’s themes of deception and cozenage. Another connection to these themes is made when Peter arrives and tells Rafe and Robin their brother Dick has a master that will “teach him to make [them] both his younger brothers”; in other words, Dick’s master will “teach him to cozen [them] both” (73-74, 77). Rafe replies with a promise to meet cozenage with cozenage, saying “Nay, if he be both our cozens I will be his great grand-father, and Robin shall be his uncle” (79-80). In other words, if Dick schemes them both, Rafe will return the favor. His next line, “I am great-bellied with conceit” (81) until he sees Dick, brings the dialogue full circle, linking to both his earlier tale of the “pretty wench” and his opening wish for a mistress.

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Scene Two: Hebe, selected as the sacrificial virgin, is bound to the tree and left for the sea monster Agar, who does not arrive.

Hebe (in Greek mythology, the name of the goddess of youth) is brought out and bound to the tree. Her long monologue laments the destruction of her youth, and she says goodbye to her family and life in general. Her monologue is interesting in that contemporary theatregoers and readers surely see it as over the top and melodramatic, but there is no record from early modern performances as to whether audiences found it farcical or affecting. Hebe begins her lament with “Miserable and accursed Hebe, that being neither fair nor fortunate thou shouldst be thought most happy and beautiful!” (5.2.8-10). The words “fair” and “fortunate” point back to Tityrus’s words to Galatea in 1.1, “I would thou hadst been less fair or more fortunate” (1.1.65). Hebe also declares “Curse thy birth, thy life, thy death…having lived, to die by deceit” (5.2.10-11). Not only does this underscore Hebe’s awareness that she is not the fairest, but for the audience or reader, it doubles as a swipe at the disguised Galatea and Phillida.

Although Hebe acknowledges she is not the most beautiful, at the end of her lengthy monologue she calls on the Agar, saying “I am fair, I am a virgin” and taunts it to glut itself on her and “let [her] life end [its life]” (58, 55). The monster’s looks have not previously been described, but Hebe contrasts her “tender joints” with its “greedy jaws,” her “yellow locks” with its “black feet,” and her “fair face” with its “foul teeth” (55-57). She ends with “Come Agar, thou horrible monster; and farewell world, thou viler monster” (59-60). This reiterates the first part of her goodbye, which excoriates the sacrifice’s requirement of killing fresh, budding beauty.

The villagers wait, but the Agar does not come. “Take in this virgin, whose want of beauty hath saved her own life and destroyed all yours” (63-64) says the Augur. Hebe now turns her earlier laments on their head. She sighs that she will live in infamy since she was not accepted by the Agar, but “Destiny would not have it so; destiny could not, for it asketh the beautifullest” (73-74). It is useful to consider this remark in light of Neptune’s earlier comments that fathers with fair daughters may try, but “deceive me they cannot” (4.4.6-7). Hebe’s remark states destiny has a specific desire and (like Neptune) cannot be fooled. Tellingly, though, she does not say it is Neptune or the Agar that “asketh the beautifullest” — the demand is destiny’s, even though the sacrifice was required by Neptune. Destiny, Neptune, and the Agar are not conflated in her mind, but remain separate entities.

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Scene Three: Neptune was not pleased with Hebe as the sacrificial virgin, and vows to destroy Diana’s nymphs — and all virgins — in retribution. Venus arrives looking for Cupid and confronts Diana. Cupid is returned to Venus, and Neptune relents in his anger toward the village to please both goddesses. Tityrus and Melibeus show up and confess their deception. Galatea and Phillida join the group and find they are both girls, but declare their love remains strong. Venus approves and says one will become a boy so they can marry. Rafe and his brothers stumble onto the scene and become the entertainment for Galatea and Phillida’s wedding.

The final scene brings all the characters together and knits the three plot lines into one. It begins as Phillida muses that Hebe’s reprieve means “either the custom is pardoned, or she not thought fairest” (5.3.2-3). The custom being pardoned was not considered in the last scene, so once more Galatea and Phillida appear more insightful and circumspect than their elders and peers. Over the previous scenes, as their love has become more apparent, their lines have become noticeably more twisting and riddling. This steady change mirrors their skating around the answer to something they seemingly don’t want to know: if they are indeed both maidens. In 5.2, the meaning of the girls’ short exchange is nearly impenetrable, called “coded” and “almost impossible” by the editors of the Revel Series (98, n.6-8). Their expressions of fear (“I fear the event,” “Why should you fear?” “Then should I have no fear,” “I should also have cause to fear” [4,5,6,7]) interlock in created confusion, revealing the pair’s growing intimacy, care for one another, and desire to understand their situation.

Galatea and Phillida withdraw as Neptune comes on stage. He is upset by the deception of the villagers and vows to revenge himself on Diana’s nymphs. His phrases “destiny cannot be prevented by craft” (15) and “there shall be nothing more vile than to be a virgin” (18-19) recall Tityrus’s words “to prevent, if it be possible, thy constellation by craft” (1.1.71-72) and gesture to Hebe’s melodramatic “And what was honored in fruits and flowers as a virtue, to violate in a virgin as a vice” (5.2.24-25). The similarities in word and alliteration indicate the god’s nearness to the realm of the villagers (literally and figuratively), and, paired with the device of having Galatea and Phillida witness his rant, help define the forest as a threshold or liminal space.

While Neptune rages, Diana and her nymphs enter hoping to reverse his decision. As Diana speaks the line “Shall virtue suffer both pain and shame, which always deserveth praise and honor?” (5.3.24-26), Venus enters, searching for Cupid. She immediately picks up on Diana’s words, exclaiming “Praise and honor, Neptune” (27), which suggests how easily love/affection intertwines with chastity. Wordplay is also evident here; the phrase both mocks Diana and greets Neptune. Notably, as she speaks of Diana, Venus has the last use of “wanton” in the play (“This is she that hateth sweet delights, envieth loving desires, masketh wanton eyes…” [31-33]). “Wanton,” as pointed out previously, was first used by Phillida in 1.3 to protest her male attire (“be thought more wanton than becometh me” [1.3.20-21]). Phillida is indeed masked (her true identity is effaced by her disguise), connecting the first use of the word to the last.

As their chiding progresses, Diana insults Venus by saying, “Diana cannot chatter, Venus cannot choose” (5.3.61). In 4.2, when Cupid is forced to untie love-knots, he complains he cannot work faster because “I cannot choose. It goeth against my mind to make them loose” (31-32). For the audience or reader, in addition to contrasting Venus’ easiness with Diana’s own perceived virtue, the insult expands on Cupid’s earlier line and suggests that love, like destiny, cannot be controlled. Cupid and Venus, symbols of love and desire, cannot choose to be other than what they are. Like Hebe’s remark at the end of 5.2, the implication is that destiny is separate from and larger than the gods. They cannot escape it, and like the villagers, are subject to it.

Venus appeals to Neptune for his aid, saying, “show thyself the same Neptune that I knew thee to be when thou wast a shepherd” (5.3.66-67). Has Neptune been dallying with Venus in the forest all this time? In 2.2 Neptune told himself, “be not coy to use the shape of a shepherd to show thyself a god” (23-24). The line, of course, is for the benefit of the audience or reader; it confirms the god is aware that Melibeus and Tityrus, two shepherds, are daring to act like gods by attempting to change their daughters’ presumed destinies. There could be more to the story, apparently.

References to lines and phrases in earlier scenes continue through this final act. Neptune, trying to calm the argument between Venus and Diana, says to them “If therefore you [Diana] love your nymphs as she [Venus] doth her son [Cupid], or prefer not a private grudge before a common grief, answer what you will do” (5.3.75-78). “Prefer not a private grudge before a common grief” is nearly identical to Tityrus’ words to Melibeus: “preferring a common inconvenience before a private mischief” (4.1.44-45). Diana subsequently agrees to return Cupid to Diana, and Venus promises to keep a better eye on him. When Venus sees Cupid, she exclaims “Alas, poor boy, thy wings clipped, thy brands quenched, thy bow burnt, and thy arrows broke!” (5.3.100-101). Cupid, in effect, was sacrificed, much like the villagers’ virgin daughters.

Melibus and Tityrus enter and confess their deception to Neptune, and soon after, Galatea and Phillida emerge from the forest. They learn they are both maidens, and their love takes all by surprise. As they muse on how it could have happened, the text becomes an exploration of early modern ideas concerning gender: what it is, how it is defined, and if it matters. Both girls believed gendered attire was an adequate sign, although both were aware of its mutability — through personal experience, no less. Galatea states, “I had thought the habit agreeable with the sex” and Phillida concurs (“I had thought that in the attire of a boy there could not have lodged the body of a virgin” [127, 129-130]). Since the text is rife with characters involved in cozenage, deception and deceit, one wonders if perhaps the girls had a tacit agreement not to seek the truth.

Diana’s response to the girls’ confusion suggests she does not equate love with destiny: “Now things falling out as they do, you must leave these fond-found affections. Nature will have it so; necessity must” (132-134). The girls protest their loves undying, which Neptune calls “An idle choice, strange and foolish” (139). Venus, on the other hand, is there for love in all its forms, declaring “I like well and allow it” (143). She offers to turn one of the girls into a man so they may marry, but Diana questions her powers. Venus’ reply, “What is to love or the mistress of love unpossible?” (154) makes the case for love conquering all. This recalls Telusa and Cupid’s earlier exchange: “Diana cannot yield; she conquers affection.” “Diana shall yield; she cannot conquer destiny” (4.3.91-92). Love, the text seems to suggest, can conquer chastity, and love itself is indeed a form of destiny.

Melibeus’ and Tityrus’ jar over whose daughter should be made male, a humorous exchange on the not-so-funny topics of primogeniture (the right of the older son to inherit all) and early modern inheritance practices. If Phillida is made a man, does it mean she supplants Tityrus’ son/her younger brother? Contemporary audiences find the exchange amusing, but it held real meaning for Lyly’s audiences.

Rafe and his brothers enter during the final moments. When asked who they are, they reply “fortune tellers,” not because they can see the future, but because they can tell the stories of their search for fortune (192, 194-195). With the entrance of the brothers comes their signature twisting of words and punning, which moves the text to its conclusion. Venus asks if the brothers are “content” to sing at the girls’ wedding, and their reply turns on that word; they are happy, content, to do so as there will be excellent content in the foods served (208-210). On that bit of wordplay, the curtain falls.

It is not made clear if Venus follows through on her promise, and other questions remain: If one of the girls was made a boy, would it change how they relate to each other? Which one would Venus choose – Phillida, the bolder, or Galatea, the more circumspect? How would their families and the village respond? The change would be via a goddess’ command, so would the girls be considered sacred or liminal, or would they be incorporated into the citizenry as before? Did Neptune truly stop the virgin sacrifice and enjoy a better relationship with the village? Did the village even matter to him, or was this simply a show of power and strength? Did Rafe and his brothers ever find their fortune? These lingering questions are why Lyly’s Galatea invites multiple readings or viewings, and why it is worthy of discussion.

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Thanks for reading! Remember, please let me know ways I can improve this blog. Watch for the next analysis, Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, posted soon…or, I should say, as soon as destiny will allow.

Galatea – Act Four: “Nothing but that you love me not”

Scene One: The Augur announces it is time for the virgin sacrifice. Melibeus and Tityrus each accuse the other of attempting to deceive Neptune to the detriment of the village.

In contrast to the end of Act Three, where the nymphs mock Cupid and call him “a little god” (3.4.109), the Augur begins Act Four by reminding the villagers of the danger of not honoring a god – namely, Neptune. For the safety of the village, tradition holds that Neptune must be placated and honored, but Melibeus and Tityrus each accuse the other of having a “fair daughter” they are concealing from the sacrifice. Melibeus claims his daughter is dead, and Tityrus claims the girl Melibeus saw him with is his wife. Tityrus declares, “Oh Melibeus, dissemble you may with men; deceive the gods you cannot” 4.1.38-39). Both claim having their daughter selected as the sacrifice would be an honor and duty, but keep up their ruse just the same.

This is a fairly short scene (67 lines), but “cunning” or “cunningly” are used three times in the space of 20 lines. Melibeus accuses Tityrus of deception by saying to him, “It is…a simple father that can use no cunning” (46-47), and then observes “he must halt cunningly that will deceive a cripple” (53). This is unsettling for the audience or reader since Tityrus is guilty as charged, but Melibeus’s hypocrisy is blatant. Two villagers listening to the pair find their lack of concern for the city disturbing, and as they exit, one comments, “We must sift out their cunning and let them shift for themselves” (66-67). Separating the valid from the false, as with Rafe, the Alchemist, and the Astronomer, is a recurring theme in the play.

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Scene Two: As part of his punishment, Diana’s nymphs make Cupid untie love knots. He protests that what has been done cannot be undone.

The nymphs lead Cupid in as their prisoner and task him with untying love knots. As in the last scene, the dialogue deals with deception, verity, and the ability to separate the two. It also deals with the different types of love. Cupid protests, “If they be true love-knots, ‘tis unpossible to unknit them; if false, I never tied them” (4.2.23-24). Cupid identifies and explains the knots, which range from “the true love-knot of a woman’s heart, [which] therefore cannot be undone” (35-36); one that unties itself (“made of a man’s thought, which will never hang together” [38-39]); and a knot “knit by faith, and must only be unknit of death” (50-51). The “fairest and falsest” he chuckles, was knit by “a man’s tongue” (53, 57), while another is simply “a woman’s heart” (61).

His task completed, Cupid bemoans his state and muses on his mother Venus’s response to seeing him captive — whether she would rage or laugh. The nymphs tell him he must now use a needle to remove all the tales of love from Diana’s tapestries and replace them with scenes of chastity. When Cupid shrugs this off, he is told by Telusa that Diana “conquers affection” (91), to which he replies, “Diana shall yield; she cannot conquer destiny” (92). The idea of love as destiny is suggested, but remembering the preceding lines discussing the love-knots’ meanings, and the ease or difficulty of untying them, the claim gives one pause. Is only true love destiny, or are false claims of affection also fated? If true love only is destiny, is it possible without Cupid’s intercession? (There is still no indication that Cupid has had Galatea and Phillida in his sights.) Telusa accuses him of tying the knots, but Cupid does not claim ownership of any; speaking of the “true love-knots,” he merely states they are “unpossible to unknit.”

When speaking of the virgin sacrifice in 1.1, Galatea told her father “Destiny may be deferred, not prevented” (76-77). Now Cupid indicates that destiny is associated with love, something chastity cannot conquer. These statements beg the question “Is there such thing as human agency, or are attempts at control an illusion?”

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Scene Three: Neptune warns that it is perilous to attempt to deceive him.

This short scene (9 lines) consists entirely of Neptune stating that he knows fathers are attempting to deceive him, and if they do not act honestly, he will repay them with cruelty: “…well they shall know that Neptune should have been entreated, not cozened” (4.3.8-9). Here, the theme of “cozening,” or deception, is applied to those who are undutiful to the gods. Neptune makes clear that cozenage among men may succeed (which calls to mind the Alchemist and Astronomer), but gods and goddesses will not be fooled. They will punish those who attempt to deceive them.

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Scene Four: Galatea and Phillida discuss the coming sacrifice and acknowledge their love for each other.

Act Four Scene Four is a turning point in the relationship between Galatea and Phillida. They begin by discussing the virgin sacrifice, which quickly leads to commenting on how fair each one finds the other. Phillida tells Galatea not to love her as a brother (4.4.12-13), and Galatea responds that she will love her better than that, as she “cannot love as a brother” (14-15). Phillida’s reply, “Seeing we are both boys, and both lovers, that our affection may have some show and seem as it were love, let me call thee mistress” (16-18), again shows she is the bolder of the two. Shakespeare uses a similar destabilization of gender in his Sonnet 20: “A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted / Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion.” The sonnets are thought to have been written in the 1590s, the decade after Galatea was entered in the Stationers’ Register.

Galatea and Phillida express their concerns that the other is so fair they would be picked for the sacrifice. When Phillida asks Galatea what she fears, Galatea answers, “Nothing but that you love me not” (38) and exits. Alone on stage, Phillida states that she will love Galatea, but is afraid Galatea is also a girl whose father has disguised her. She expresses her desperation and confusion, and closes the scene declaring, “I will after him or her, and lead a melancholy life, that look for a miserable death” (46-47). Phillida knows no remedy for her situation other than being with Galatea, regardless of gender. If Galatea is a girl, there is no future for them; if a boy, he may be untrue. Either way, Phillida sees only melancholy and misery.

 

Galatea – Act Three: “You shall see Ramia hath also bitten on a love-leaf”

Scene One: Cupid has been among Diana’s nymphs, who are all now besotted with either Galatea/Tityrus or Phillida/Melibeus. The nymphs argue over their choice of the “fair boys.”

Mirroring the close of Act Two and Phillida’s bewilderment at her feelings for Galatea, Telusa opens Act Three with a soliloquy lamenting her own feelings of love. In the first lines, she rebukes herself by musing about “thy chaste thoughts turned to wanton looks, thy conquering modesty to a captive imagination” (3.1.3-4). Love, as Telusa describes it, is strong enough to overcome chastity and modesty, replacing them with confusion, unruliness, and distraction. In other words, Telusa’s experience of being in love reveals that Diana’s insistence on chastity’s triumph over love may be mistaken.

Eurota enters as Telusa muses, and the ensuing scene is very like 4.3 in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost (written 1594-95, approximately ten years after Galatea). In both plays, one character enters and laments that they are in love. When another begins to enter, the first character hides, and the second starts their own lament. A third enters, and the second also hides. When the third begins their lament, the two hidden characters come out of hiding to chide the third for being in love. The stage business and monologues advance the plot while entertaining the audience or reader.

The nymphs’ distress at being in love mirrors Phillida’s and Galatea’s own distress at being attracted to each other. Lyly makes the realization of love a state of confusion and imbalance, where control is lost and fate (or something larger than the self), takes charge of the mind and emotions. The text, however, does not indicate that Phillida and Galatea are victims of Cupid’s arrows; his plans for sport mentioned only Diana’s nymphs. The nymphs’ and the girls’ symptoms are the same, though, gesturing toward an intertwining of love, fate, agency, and fortune.

Early modern belief was that love entered through the eyes and imprinted itself on the mind, and in Telusa’s lament, she states her eyes led her to love Phillida/Melibeus. (In 2.1.46 she calls Galatea either “wanton or a fool” – was she attracted to Phillida/Melibeus prior to Cupid’s arrows?) Eurota tells Telusa that love for Galatea/Titryus took her “By the ears” (66). When Ramia enters soon after, Eurota remarks to Telusa, “You shall see Ramia hath also bitten on a love-leaf” (72-73). Sight, sound, and taste are therefore all subject to the influence of love.

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Scene Two: Galatea and Phillida begin to subtly question each other, as each is becoming suspicious that the other is also a girl.

Galatea and Phillida are both concerned that the other might be a disguised maiden, and they begin to gently and playfully ask questions to find out if this is true. Their remarks and retorts are witty and often cryptic; in response to Phillida’s complimenting Galatea on her looks and behavior, Galatea says “There is a tree in Tylos, whose nuts have shells like fire, and being cracked, the kernel is but water” (3.2.4-5). Her response suggests that the exterior does not always define the interior, but Phillida is not amused: “What a toy is it to tell me of that tree, being nothing to the purpose?” (6-7). In 3.1, Telusa made a similar allusion, stating, “Virgins’ hearts I perceive are not unlike cotton trees, whose fruit is so hard in the bud that it soundeth like steel, and being ripe, poureth forth nothing but wool” [20-22]. Both lines make the case for not judging a book by its cover, but also suggest that even the hardest heart can be cracked to reveal the softness, or liquidity, of love.

The girls’ sharp wit, male attire, and the resulting confusion of gender brings to mind Rosalind from Shakespeare’s As You Like It (1599), written about fifteen years after Galatea was entered into the Stationers’ Register. Viola in Twelfth Night (1601-1602) is a similar figure. Much like Rosalind and her admirer Phoebe, Viola is clad in boy’s clothing and loved by Olivia, who thinks Viola truly is a boy. Some of Phillida’s lines in 3.2 are echoed in Viola’s words to Oliva: Phillida tells Galatea, “For I have sworn never to love a woman” (3.2.11); compare Viola’s response to Olivia, “I have one heart, one bosom and one truth, / And that no woman has nor never none / Shall mistress be of it save I alone” (Twelfth 3.1.156-158). When Galatea asks several lines later if Phillida has a sister, Phillida replies “My father had but one daughter, and therefore I could have no sister” (3.2.42-43); compare Viola’s “I am all the daughters of my father’s house” (Twelfth 2.4.120).

As Galatea and Phillida realize they may both be girls, their words and phrases become more alike. Phillida’s aside, “What doubtful speeches be these! I fear me he is as I am, a maiden” (3.2.31-21) is followed by Galatea’s aside “What dread riseth in my mind! I fear the boy to be as I am, a maiden” (33-34). Their lines mirror and interlock through word choice and rhyme as the two grow in certainty that they are both maidens:
Galatea [aside]: “Tush, it cannot be. His voice shows the contrary.”
Phillida [aside]: “Yet I do not think it, for he would then have blushed” (35-38, italics mine)
Their conversation and asides share and trade words and phrases, rhyme, and syntax. Not only does this suggest their strong attraction to each other, it shows they are growing closer. Phillida, still the bolder of the two, ends the scene with “Come, let us into the grove, and make much of one another, that cannot tell what to think of one another” (62-63).

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Scene Three: Rafe runs away from his new master the Alchemist and takes up with the Astronomer.

Rafe has figured out that the Alchemist is not all he claims to be. Act Three Scene Three, like 2.3, is full of the process of alchemy; the convoluted, complicated language helps the Alchemist to deceive, but as far as cunning and cozenage, he might have met his match in Rafe.

After leaving the Alchemist, Rafe takes up with the Astronomer. Both the Alchemist and the Astronomer are engaged in crafts that purport to advance fortune or control fate: alchemy through gain, astronomy by prediction. Where the Alchemist can make “nothing infinite” (2.3.103), the Astronomer claims “Nothing can happen which I forsee not; nothing shall” (3.3.49-50). Like the Alchemist’s words, these have a double meaning, proclaiming the Astronomer sees all, yet “nothing” shall happen. The Astronomer, like the Alchemist, speaks in a way meant to impress and bamboozle. His words turn Rafe’s head, and he becomes the Astronomer’s apprentice.

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Scene Four: Diana is furious that her nymphs are all in love. She discovers Cupid in their midst and vows retribution.

Diana’s anger at her besotted nymphs puts the theme of love versus chastity front and center. She tells her nymphs to seek a stranger nymph she has seen in the forest, suspecting it is Medea, Calypso, or Cupid. In a lengthy monologue, Diana rails about love, her virgins’ lack of power to overcome their feelings of love, and demands to know if they are now “Venus’ wantons” (3.4.2). Her lines are filed with references to myth and the gods, and she condemns love while exhorting the virtues of chastity. Diana’s rant also includes several mentions of birds and feathers: “Eagles cast their evil feathers in the sun” (38), “The birds ibes” (39), “doves” (48), “owls” (49), and “The eagle’s feathers consume the feathers of all others” (51). She closes with the admonition, “Foolish girls, how willing you are to follow that which you should fly” (68-69). Birds do not have a place of note anywhere else in the play, so her references to them all build to this closing remark.

When Cupid is found and brought to Diana, she harangues him for his sport in the forest. She promises to punish him: “I will break thy bow and burn thine arrows, bind thy hands, clip thy wings, and fetter thy feet” (85-86). She also tells him “Venus’s rods are made of roses, Diana’s of briars” (89-90). This is a telling comparison of love and chastity, since both roses and briars have thorns: love and chastity, then, can both cause pain. Cupid responds by telling Diana “what I have done cannot be undone, but what you mean to do shall….Cupid shall have all” (98-100). In other words, he promises love will win the day.

At the close of the scene, Eurota tells Cupid “We will plague ye for a little god” (109), echoing the words of the unnamed nymph in 1.2 (“And so farewell, little god” [32]). Was this unnamed nymph Eurota? Either way, the phrase “little god” not only mocks Cupid’s powers (especially against Diana), it also plays on his usual representation as a toddler or small boy.

Galatea – Act Two: “it is no second thing to be a woman”

Scene One: In the forest, Galatea, dressed as a boy, meets Phillida, who is also dressed as a boy. They are immediately smitten with each other, each thinking the other truly is a boy. They encounter Diana and her nymphs, who are hunting, and join them for a short time.

Rafe and his brothers closed Act One with lines about being “well manned,” and the opening of Act Two picks up the thread with Galatea venting her frustration at having to dress and act like a boy. This is the first of many soliloquies in the play, a device used for characters to express their thoughts and frustrations. Galatea still has concerns about her father putting her in male attire, and her remark “But why does thou blame him, or blab what thou art” (2.1.10-11) echoes a line spoken by Phillida in 1.4, “and so unwarily blab out something by blushing at everything” (22-23). The girls’ shared concerns and their obedience to their fathers pairs them for the audience, as do their similar feelings of discomfort in having to counterfeit what and who they are. As the scene unfolds, a pertinent question is “how does this play define gender?” Is it seen as state of mind, a biological state, or directed by one’s attire? In the early modern period, gender was considered mutable. It was thought too much theatre could make men feminine, for example, and there was a legend of a girl who physically become a boy after a vigorous jump (the tale of Marie Germain, recounted by Michel de Montagne).

After Galatea’s lament, Phillida enters and voices her own distress, calling her appropriated gait “untoward” (2.1.14), her new garments “unfit” (15), and taking on the appearance of the other gender “unseemly” (15). She notices Galatea, and in a series of asides the girls muse on the other to themselves or the audience (the first use of asides in the play). Through their remarks, it is made clear that each thinks the other is indeed a boy and that each senses the other’s discomfort — much to their relief (“I [Galatea] perceive that boys are in as great disliking of themselves as maids” [2.1.18-19]). Their asides also allow the audience to follow the progression of the girls’ attraction to one another.

In Act One the girls’ individual responses to their father’s commands appeared to give an idea of their personalities, but Phillida, the more submissive to her father, proves to be the bolder of the two. She first remarks that she would speak to Galatea if she was more confident, because “say what they will of a man’s wit, it is no second thing to be a woman” (2.1.28-30), but then gathers her courage: “Why stand I still? Boys should be bold” (34). Before she can approach Galatea, however, Diana’s train interrupts them. The pair are saucy and vague in their answers to Diana, with much wordplay (often a signal of physical attraction): “Saw you not the deer come this way?… / Whose deer was it, lady? / Diana’s deer. / I saw none but my own dear” (41-45). Telusa, one of the nymphs, remarks of Galatea, “This wag is wanton or a fool” (46). This is the first of her numerous uses of “wanton,” and for the audience, recalls Phillida’s earlier protest about wearing improperly gendered clothing (“…and be thought more wanton than becometh me” [1.3.20-21]). As the girls interact with Diana’s group, the dialogue makes clear the two are more and more attracted to each other. Diana orders the pair to accompany her, and Phillida is happy to comply to be with Galatea. Phillida comments in an aside that she is pleased “not for these ladies’ company, because myself am a virgin, but for that fair boy’s favor, who I think be a god” (2.1.64-66). “But for that fair boy’s favor, who I think to be a god” plays not only on Galatea’s attractiveness, but also hints at the goodwill of Cupid, god of love.

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Scene Two: Cupid has disguised himself as a nymph in order to create chaos in Diana’s train. Neptune also decides to disguise himself to keep an eye on the goings-on.

Phillida’s line “But for that fair boy’s favor…” closes Scene One, and its connection to Cupid is underscored by the god’s entrance at the start of Scene Two. He, too, is disguised (as a nymph), and determines “under the shape of a silly girl [to] show the power of a mighty god” (2.2.1-2). His “shafts,” he states, “can make wavering, weak, and wanton” (5-6), a line filled with sexual innuendo and once more, the word “wanton.” He promises to make Diana’s nymphs so unsettled it will “confound their loves in their own sex” (7-8), something that appears to be happening to Galatea and Phillida, but seemingly without Cupid’s involvement. What this might suggest about love and fate is another detail to keep in mind.

In this scene, Cupid makes a direct address to the audience. This is not an aside – it differs from the lines in 2.1 that share Galatea’s and Phillida’s working through their discomfort and attraction to each other. Here, Cupid actually breaks the fourth wall, saying: “and then, ladies, if you see these dainty dames entrapped in love, say softly to yourselves, we may all love” (15-16). This is an interesting choice by Lyly, as there is no dramatic need and it could easily have been left out.

Cupid exits and Neptune enters, disguised as a shepherd. Neptune uses similar words and phrases to those of Cupid, but to different effect: Cupid speaks of “under the shape of a silly girl show[ing] the power of a mighty god” (1-2); Neptune complains of “silly shepherds go[ing] about to deceive [him] by putting on man’s attire upon women” (17-18). Cupid sneers at “Diana and all her coy nymphs” (2), and Neptune tells himself to “be not coy to use the shape of a shepherd to show thyself a god” (23-24). Four characters are now disguised, and physical attraction between some is growing. From this point on, the text reflects these developments by an increase in wordplay and a twisting and turning of phrases in nearly all the characters’ lines.

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Scene Three: In his search for a new master, Rafe meets Peter, the Alchemist’s apprentice. Peter heaps praise on his master until Rafe decides to join them; relieved that he can now run away, Peter leaves.

In the forest, Rafe meets Peter, an alchemist’s boy bemoaning the intricacies and demands of his master’s craft. Peter’s rant about serving his master is similar to the comedy in Ben Jonson’s later play The Alchemist (c.1610), making use of terminology and inside jokes.

The humor in this scene is dense with allusions to alchemy, but also employs Rafe’s penchant for double-meanings and “points” jokes. Rafe expresses his desire to work for the Alchemist and “learn his cunning” (52), which suggests not only specialized knowledge but also the chicanery to pull it off. Peter, for instance, tells Rafe that the Alchemist “is able to make nothing infinite” (103), a phrase implying either multitudes of something from nothing or an inconceivable amount of nothing. This phrase is a good example of the twisting syntax in this scene and shows the ongoing importance of wordplay. The confusion all this generates makes the Alchemist sound successful and powerful, confounding and charming Rafe. In response to Rafe’s observation that the Alchemist is clothed in tatters, Rafe is told “If thou knewest the secret of this science, the cunning would make thee so proud that thou wouldst disdain the outward pomp” (122-125), which brings the focus back to cunning and cozenage. These actions are, after all, other ways to disguise and cover one’s true self. Just as the Alchemist covers his cunning as a con artist and fraud with dense, specialized language that confuses and impresses, Peter cozens Rafe into believing things impossible or unreal and convinces him that working for the Alchemist will make his fortune. This scene expands the idea of disguise and makes clear not all disguise is tangible. It also questions whether success is subjective or objective, and, like the wearing of gendered clothing, if appearance defines the individual and creates their worth.

A quick observation regarding Rafe and his brothers: at first glance, their subplot seems to have no real connection to the main storyline. It could easily be cut if time or personnel were issues for a director. A little digging, however, shows how Rafe and his brothers’ story aligns with the central plot and augments themes of disguise and fortune that are important to a rich understanding of the play.

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Scene Four: Galatea bewails her love for Melibeus (Phillida).

This is a very short scene. In a soliloquy, Galatea reveals she is falling in love with Phillida, whom she knows as Melibeus. Not only are the girls in masculine attire, they have taken their father’s names to further efface their feminine identity (and, for the audience, heighten the confusion). This confounds just as completely as the alchemic terminology used in the previous scene; the play is now chock full of disguise and deception. In her complaint, Galatea states she “having put on the apparel of a boy…canst not also put on the mind” (2.4.1-3). This may hint at an answer to questions about how the play defines gender: although Galatea is dressed as a boy, her mind is still feminine.  At the close of the scene, she determines to remain with Phillida/Melibeus and let Venus direct her actions. As she did in 1.1, she remains steadfast in her belief that fate is in charge and cannot be altered.

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Scene Five: Phillida bewails her love for Tityrus (Galatea).

In another short scene, Phillida also has a soliloquy. She expresses her love for Galatea, known to her as Tityrus. Phillida does not leave her love to fate, however, and decides to take matters into her own hands. “Go into the woods, watch the good times, his best moods, and transgress in love a little of thy modesty” (2.5.6-8) she tells herself. She struggles with her choice, but decides she has no other option, stating “And so I go, resolute either to bewray my love or suffer shame” (12-13). This scene makes plain that although Phillida was quickly submissive to her father (1.3.26-27) and concerned with unseemliness (2.1.15), she has the agency and confidence to assert her feelings of love.

 

 

Galatea – Act One: “since my father will have it so, and fortune must”

Scene One: Galatea’s father explains to her why he’s dressed her as a boy; he’s attempting to keep her from being selected as Neptune’s sacrificial virgin. He recounts to her the history of the virgin sacrifice. Galatea is uncomfortable being disguised as a boy and protests that destiny cannot be changed or avoided.  

The 1.1 plot exposition not only provides the backstory for the virgin sacrifice and consequently, why Galatea is dressed as a boy, it situates the play in its forest setting. Galatea and her father Tityrus rest and talk under the same tree where every five years a virgin is bound and left for the sea monster Agar. Galatea protests being garbed as a boy and against attempts to avoid her destiny (“Destiny may be deferred, not prevented” 1.1.76-77), but the location is just as important as her disapproval. Galatea, although protesting her disguise, possesses an agency the virgins tied to the sacrificial tree did not/will not have: she can walk away from the tree at will.  As the plot unfolds, Galatea realizes this agency and proves more philosophical, and wiser, than her father (as does Phillida). This realization gives the girls’ eventual relationship a gravitas and solidity it might not have had if they been less thoughtful or mature.

The 1.2 exposition from The Tempest, written much later in 1610-11, is similar in many respects to Lyly’s opening scene. In Shakespeare’s play, Prospero (like Tityrus) tells his tale to his daughter Miranda, who (like Galatea) listens intently and exclaims in wonder as it unfolds. Prospero and Tityrus both employ forms of deception in their attempts to direct their daughters’ destinies, and both stories involve danger from the sea (Tempest has the titular storm; Galatea has a flood legend and a sea monster).

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Scene Two: Cupid encounters one of Diana’s nymphs in the wood. She is less than impressed by him, and by love in general, which angers him and leads him to begin his mischief.

At the end of Scene One, Tityrus and Galatea remark on the gods “hav[ing] taken shapes of beasts” (1.1.97) in their quest for love. Five lines later, Cupid makes his entrance at the start of Scene Two. He encounters one of Diana’s nymphs, who has no interest in him or love. She brushes his hints and suggestions aside and exits the stage, calling him a “little god” (1.2.32). The antagonized and offended Cupid then vows to cause trouble among the nymphs so they will know he is a “great god” (34).

With the introduction of Cupid and the nymph, Lyly introduces puns and wordplay. In the previous scene, the discussion between Galatea and Tityrus was straightforward, reflecting their simple pastoral (read: non-courtly) life. The nymph’s first lines in Scene Two launch the wordplay (“There is none of Diana’s train that any can train” [1.2.6-7]) and it picks up twenty lines later (“I will follow Diana in the chase, whose virgins are all chaste, delighting in the bow that wounds the swift hart in the forest, not fearing the bow that strikes the soft heart in the chamber” 25-28). This punning, twisting, and turning of words will be a staple of the text from this point on. Note that wordplay enters the text with Cupid, and therefore with the idea of love and physical attraction. It also implies that the appearance of a god signals a portal or threshold between the rustic and the courtly (or, the simple and the wittily deceptive).

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Scene Three: Phillida’s father Melibeus explains to her that he’s dressed her as a boy to protect her from Neptune’s sacrifice. She, like Galatea, is not comfortable with the disguise.

The difference in the girls’ responses to their fathers’ disguising them is worthy of note. In Scene One, Galatea’s protestations were premised on her belief that destiny cannot be avoided or delayed. In Scene Three, Phillida’s argument is that it is not becoming, or virtuous, for her to wear male clothing. She argues that she “must keep company with boys and commit follies unseemly for my sex…and be thought more wanton than becometh me” (1.3.18-21). Phillida is the first character to use the word “wanton,” which as mentioned before, is used frequently throughout the play. Does this connect to the wearing of gendered clothing and its perceived effect on behavior and virtue? The recurrence of “wanton” is an interesting detail to keep in mind.

It is also helpful to consider the manner of the girls’ responses. Both are obedient to their fathers’ wishes, but it can be argued that Galatea pushes back more forcefully against her father’s directive. Her stance on destiny and virtue relies on reason, and her appeal is longer in length and more direct than that of Phillida. Phillida’s response is more submissive, her few lines of argument based on others’ perception of her honor, behavior, and appearance. Galatea’s reply to her father is three times longer than Phillida’s (fifteen lines vs five), and Scene One closes without a clear resolution to Galatea and Tityrus’s disagreement. Phillida, by contrast, states “I agree, since my father will have it so, and fortune must” (26-27), and the scene ends almost immediately. The glimpse into their personalities situates them for growth and change as the plot unfolds.

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Scene Four: Three brothers, Rafe, Robin, and Dick, are cast ashore after being shipwrecked. They begin quests to find employment or new masters.

With the entrance of Rafe, Robin, and Dick, Lyly introduces more blatant sexual innuendo and punning along with themes of cunning and cozenage. The brothers are clown figures, and revel in making saucy, sarcastic remarks. One of the recurring puns is on the word “points,” which were the “tag ends of the laces that held upper and lower garments together” (Hunter and Bevington 42, n.44-5). “For you see betwixt us three there is not two good points” (1.4.44-5); “Well, begin with your points, for I lack only points in this world” (53-54). As the scene ends, the three sing a song about shipwreck and fate that includes the verse “For being well manned / We can cry ‘Stand!’” (94-95). For the audience, these bawdy lines might gesture to Galatea and Phillida, dressed as boys but not “well-manned” in any sense of the word.

Once more, the sea is shown to be important to the action of the play. Here, rather than flooding the village, it casts the brothers and the Mariner ashore after a shipwreck. Traditionally, the sea and sea voyages were associated with fortune (the rise, fall, and ebb of tides corresponding with its fickleness) and the fact that the three brothers are shipwrecked hints that fortune is not on their side. Their first attempt at a new master is with the Mariner, but they cannot grasp the basics of navigation, so he leaves them to shift for themselves. Their inability to understand the secrets of navigating the sea also suggests their poor fortune: the Mariner has the knowledge and canniness to ply the sea (fortune), but the brothers do not. They must now scheme, cozen, and use cunning to get ahead.

Galatea and John Lyly: Introduction and Overview

In short (very short), John Lyly (c.1554-1606) was one of the star playwrights of the late 1500s. Nearly all his plays were written for the Children of Paul’s, perhaps the most important boy theatre company in early modern London. Many of his characters are women, nymphs, or fairies; at the time, these were roles for young men and boys. Lyly appealed to Queen Elizabeth for patronage for many years but was never rewarded. He died relatively poor and unknown. (More information on Lyly can be found here and here.)

Galatea was entered into the Stationers’ Register in 1585. Like Lyly’s other plays, it is heavily influenced by Greek mythology. Its forest setting is important, as it brings together humans and gods in a space often considered a threshold between two worlds. In many early modern plays, a pastoral or forest setting signals a place of transition or freedom, especially from the strictures and hierarchy of the Court — think of Rosalind and Celia in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, or the lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As with AYLI, Galatea’s setting is pastoral, but Lyly’s realm is more liminal than Shakespeare’s: not-quite-human, but not-quite-myth. Much like Dream, this brings the people who enter it face-to-face with gods/goddesses, nymphs, and fairies.

The main plot involves two girls disguised as boys by their fathers. In their fathers’ minds, the male attire will help their daughters escape being selected as a virgin sacrifice. The girls each hide in the forest, and when they meet, things get interesting. A subplot has Cupid dallying in the same wood and deciding to have some sport with Diana’s nymphs, who live and hunt in the forest. Another subplot is the story of three shipwrecked brothers who end up in the vicinity and attempt to find a way to easy fortune. All three plot lines converge in the final scene.

Here are the characters, with a short explanation of who (and what) they are:

  • AUGUR: An oracle who warns the citizens of their debt to Neptune and interprets the outcome of the sacrifice.
  • ALCHEMIST: The first of Rafe’s new masters.
  • ASTRONOMER: The second of Rafe’s new masters.
  • CUPID: Venus’s son. Likes to wander about in disguise and cause trouble with his arrows of love.
  • DIANA: Goddess of the hunt. She places a high value on chastity, both for herself and the retinue of nymphs who accompany her. Diana has no time for the silliness of love.
  • DICK: One of three shipwrecked brothers attempting to improve their situation either by finding a sympathetic master or by cunning and cozenage.
  • ERICTHINIS: Accompanies the sacrificial virgin to the fateful tree.
  • EUROTA: One of Diana’s nymphs, and a victim of Cupid’s tricks.
  • GALATEA: A fair maiden. Her father Tityrus disguises her as a boy so she will not be selected as the sacrificial virgin, causing confusion and unexpected results.
  • HEBE: The maiden selected to be the sacrificial virgin.
  • LARISSA: Another of Diana’s nymphs. She also gets caught up in Cupid’s mischief.
  • MARINER: Comes to shore with the three brothers but doesn’t put up with them for long.
  • MELIBEUS: Phillida’s father. He decides dressing her in boy’s clothes is a way to keep her safe from Neptune’s sacrifice.
  • NEPTUNE: The god of the sea. Requires a virgin be sacrificed to him every five years to make up for the citizens’ previous neglect of him and the destruction of his temple.
  • PETER: Apprentice to the Alchemist, and just as crafty.
  • PHILLIDA: Melibeus’s maiden daughter. Like Galatea, her father disguises her as a boy so she will not be sacrificed to Neptune (again, with unforeseen consequences).
  • RAFE: Another of the shipwrecked brothers. We follow him in his attempts to find a master that will improve his fortune.
  • RAMIA: Another of Diana’s nymphs who feels the effect of Cupid’s fun.
  • ROBIN: The last of the three shipwrecked brothers.
  • TELUSA: Another of Diana’s nymphs on the receiving end of Cupid’s sport.
  • TITYRUS: Galatea’s father. Like Melibeus, he decides dressing Galatea as a boy will save her from the virgin sacrifice.
  • VENUS: Goddess of love and Cupid’s mom.

Lyly’s afore-mentioned debt to myth is obvious from these characters, and the forest setting has been discussed. What else is notable? Cross-dressing, disguise, and mistaken identities are extremely important. These devices are the play’s lifeblood, and many characters are garbed as, or attempt to pass themselves off as, something they are not. “Cozenage” or “cheating, deception, fraud” (per the Oxford English Dictionary) is another type of disguise seen throughout. Who is being authentic? Is anyone? Are they doing it of their own accord, or do they have no choice? What is their agenda? How does disguise allow (or hinder) the idea of self? Finally, there’s the question of fate. Can it be controlled, directed, or avoided? Are you fated to love? To live a certain way?

Looking at the text from a literary standpoint, Galatea is filled with repetition and wordplay. There are the requisite dirty jokes and double entendres (mostly from the three brothers), but there are also words and phrases that appear frequently. “Wanton” is one example. “Wanton,” sometimes defined as “unchaste,” (or “undisciplined, ungoverned; unmanageable, rebellious” per the OED) is used no less than ten times, mostly by Telusa and Diana. It’s apparent Lyly found this word especially useful, or descriptive, for this particular tale. Other intriguing structural aspects of Galatea are its heavy use of asides and direct addresses to the audience. Lyly uses them to show interiority, but they also engage the audience and create dramatic impact. The soliloquies and lengthy monologues Lyly gives many of the characters are used to similar effect.

There aren’t a lot of clips of Galatea online, but Rider University posted their 2016 production on YouTube. Before Shakespeare did a wonderful blog on a workshopping of the play and is an excellent resource on early modern drama in general. There’s also a rather different Lego version available, if that’s your thing.

For this blog and my other work on the play, I relied on the excellent Revels series version edited by George K. Hunter and David Bevington (Manchester UP, 2000). For all Shakespeare references, I used the Arden editions (the Third Series when available). The text of Galatea can also be found (free) on The Folger’s Early Modern English Drama (EMED) website: https://earlymodernenglishdrama.folger.edu/gal

So, off we go into Lyly’s world of gods and goddesses, disguise, and realization…

What I’m reading: why, another Shakespeare book, of course! “The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare”

I just finished The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare (Margreta DeGrazia & Stanley Wells, eds.; Cambridge UP, 2010). This medium-sized companion is a good overview of the basics, and would definitely be useful for a school/uni library or on the shelf of any Shakespeare enthusiast. The chapters include a biography of the man by Stephen Greenblatt and a look at the theatres of early modern London by Tiffany Stern, as well as discussions of textual theories and other literary concerns such as Shakespeare’s writing process and how his works came to print. There are chapters on the various genres of the plays, including one on the comedies by Stanley Wells. Discussions of how race, religion, and gender resonate through Shakespeare’s plays are included, as are chapters on Shakespeare and the media, popular culture, global Shakespeare, and Shakespeare in performance. The final chapter is filled with suggestions for further reading and online exploration of Shakespeare in general.

By way of example, in Claire McEachern’s chapter, “Shakespeare, religion and politics,” one section addresses questions of interiority, transformation, and individual action (194-195). The entire chapter is interesting, but I found her short examination of these particular questions especially thought-provoking. When interiority differs from practice, how is this presented on stage? Does performance affect interiority? Do words? Her answers look at Hamlet, Prince Hal, boy actors in female roles, and the dynamic between Iago/Othello, Claudio/Hero, and Rosalind/Orlando. For me, these few paragraphs considering of depth of character as opposed to visual array stood out from the rest of the piece.

The following complete chapters were also standouts (in my humble opinion):

Anthony Dawson, “Shakespeare on the stage” – an interesting look at the physicality inherent in Shakespeare’s texts, such as directed movement, gesture, and stance. He also discusses staging and scenery and how they intersect with the actor and character, as well as how the architecture of the stage contributes to performance.

Jonathan Gil Harris, “Shakespeare and race” – Harris looks at the complexities of race in the texts, how “race” as a word has variable meanings, and its use. His chapter explores “race” in not just Othello, but also examines how it runs through Anthony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus, and The Merchant of Venice. (I highly recommend this chapter.)

Stephen Orgel, “Shakespeare, sexuality and gender” – Orgel examines sexuality as it pertains to maturity, gender identity, and marriage in early modern England and Shakespeare’s plays in particular. His findings are intriguing and surprising, and the chapter is an excellent read. Plays treated by Orgel include Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet; he also presents cultural and medical beliefs from the period, as well as historical anecdote and legend. (This is another I highly recommend.)

Last but not least, the final chapter on further reading is impressive. Page after page is filled with suggestions for further research on everything from the complete works to stage history to music, including books, journals, and online sources. This catalog of information, along with the bibliography provided at the end of each chapter, gives the student or Shakespeare enthusiast a plethora of ways to increase their knowledge (or just skim around for the enjoyment of it). This overall abundance of sources alone is worth the price of the volume.