Tag: Shakespeare

Post 8: “As You Like It,” and Golden Age Imagery (Shakespearean Woods, Part I)

In As You Like It we learn that the banished Duke is living in a state which is linked with the ancient Golden Age, rooted in Paganism.

Charles, the wrestler tells Oliver, Orlando’s brother:

They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England. They say many young gentlemen flock tto him every day, and fleet the time carelessly as the did in the golden world. (I.1, 113-119) [1]

“Golden world” is the key word, though no less interesting is the reference of Robin Hood, the virtuous outlaw living merrily as an exile in a forest himself. [2]

Focussing on the Golden Age imagery, we turn to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where arguably inherited from Hesiod, we read about this first, and best of the four ages of mankind as follows:

Golden was that first age, which, with no one to compel, without a law, of its own will, kept faith and did the right. There was no fear of punishment, no threatening words were to be read on brazen tablets; no suppliant throng gazed fearfully upon its judge’s face; but without judges lived secure. […] There was non need at all for armed men, for nations, secure from war’s alarms, passed the years in gentle ease. The earth herself, without compulsion, untouched by hoe or plowshare, of herself gave all things needful. And men, content with food which came with no one’s seeking, gathered arbute fruit, strawberries from the mountain-sides, cornel-cherries, berries hanging thick upon the prickly bramble, and acorns fallen from the spreading tree of Jove. Then spring was everlasting, and gentle zephyrs with warm breath played with the flowers that sprang unplanted … (I, 89-112) [3] [4]

Notice the apparently pre-cultural society, the eternal spring, and the general content with what nature produces by herself.

But the Golden-Age-like state in which Shakespeare’s Duke is supposed to live differs quite from its ancient model.

Specifying his conditions of living in II.1, the banished Duke himself tells us:

Now my co-mates and borthers in exile,/ Hath not old custom made this life more sweet/ Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods/ More free from peril than the envious court?/ Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,/ The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang/ And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,/ Which when it bites and blows upon my body/ Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say/ ‘This is no flattery. These are counsellors/ That feelingly persuade me what I am’. (II.1, 1-11)

Most importantly, this clearly contrasts with Ovid’s claim that there was “everlasting spring” in the Golden Age; moreover, Shakespeare’s imagery is influenced by Christian imagery in the context of Eden. “Adam’s penalty” has happened, even though the Duke imagines that “he does not feel it” as a happy exile in the Forest of Arden.

Again, the vegetarianism implied in Ovid’s above description is re-inforced when Pythagoras cites the Golden Age in defence of his diet excluding meat. In Metamorphoses XV, we read:

But that pristine age, which we have named the golden age, was blessed with the fruit of the trees and the herbs which the ground sens forth, nor did men defile their lips with blood. […] All things were free from treacherous snares, fearing no guile and full of peace. … (XV, 96-103)

This echoes not only the Duke’s commending that in the Forest of Arden there is “no flattery” as in the court, but it also coheres with a resentment against hunting, a typical courtly occupation. In II.1, we read:

Duke Sen. Come, shall we go and kill us venison?/ And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,/ Being native burghers of this desert city,/ Should in their own confines with forked heads/ Have their round haunches gor’d. First Lord. Indeed my lord,/ The melancholy Jacques grieves at that,/ And in that kind swears you do more usurp/ Than doth your borther that hath banish’d you. (21-28)

This certainly renders more ambiguous the happy state of the Duke and his fellows, and it should be noted that Jacques, a melancholy man, is inhabiting this place together with the Duke and his merry company. [5]

In general, I should like to suggest that, in difference to the ancient motif, which was much concerned with survival, Shakespeare’s Golden Age is primarily about moral issues. Having abandoned the “envious court” and the “public haunt” for the Forest, it seems that the Duke imagines that he can remedy the “stubbornness of fortune” (II.1, 19), or “adversity,”

… Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,/ Wears yet a precious jewel in his head […] (12-14)

Thus, the Duke thinks himself in security of Fortune’s blows, at the price, of course, of Fortune’s gifts also. In Christian terms, he flees the “penalty of Adam” (whatever this means exactly) which is not felt, but which is certainly not out of effect.

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[1] Cited after William Shakespeare, As you like it, Arden Shakespeare, edited by A. Lantham (Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1975).

[2] Another instance of virtuous, but banished gentlemen occurs in Two Gentlemen of Verona, where Valentine, having been banished due to his amorous pursuit of Silvia, joins a group of honest gentlemen living in the woods, and even reference to Robin Hood is made also. The parallels between the two plays are even more significant considering that both Silvia and Julia end up following Valentine into the woods, just like Celia and Rosalinde do.

[3] Cited after Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by F. Justus Miller, vol. I of II (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann LTD, 1971).

[4] That Shakespeare surely referred back to the Pagan Golden Age Imagery is strongly suggested by the fact that, as “Jupiter’s tree” is invovked by Ovid, so it is referrd to in III.2 (232), though as an image for Orlando who is “found under a tree like a dropped acorn” (230-231). Moreover, Jove’s presence is tangible as Rosalind in disguise famously calls herself “Jove’s own page” (120), “Ganymede” (I.3, 121).

[5] Importantly, in one of Shakespeare’s major sources, Thomas Lodge’s Rosalinde, there was no figure corresponding to melancholy Jacques such that the banished Duke’s dwelling place in Lodge’s play is much more straightforwardly happy than is the case in Shakespeare.

First published on Juli 14 2026 on Ko-fi

07/14/2026

Post 6: Hotspur’s “double death” in 1 Henry IV [updated 31.08.2025]

This text is a comment on Hotspur’s death in 1 Henry IV and its significance for the entire Lancasterian tetralogy. It peculiar because, having been killed by Prince Hal, he is once again killed (as it were) by Falstaff, and his death is thus linked with both figures in the play.

To begin with, let me note what on my interpretation all three figures (Prince Hal, Falstaff, and Hotspur) at least partly represent.

Firstly, Hotspur very much denotes chivalric virtues. Firstly, King Henry wishes that his loose son Hal should be like Hotspur (81 ff.), whom he calls “the Theame of Honors tongue” (84), and “sweet Fortunes Minion, and her Pride” (86). (See also 1914 ff.) Secondly, Prince Hal himself gives testimony of his reputation calling him “This gallant Hotspur, this all-praysed Knight,” (1960) notes that “euery Honor sitting on his Helme,” (1962) and speaks of his “glorious Deedes” (1966 and 1968).

Secondly, Falstaff, of course, together with his companions, is linked with loose behaviour of every kind including thievery, whoring, drinking, and gluttony, and this coheres well with the fact that scholars have observed that he owes something to the Vice from the Morality Plays. [1]

Thirdly, given his soliloquy toward the beginning of the play with the incipit “I know you all …” (296 ff.), it must be assumed that Prince Hal has all along been standing for the contrary of what Falstaff represents; in other words, his denunciations of Falstaff, while having been inseparable from jest and merry-making in the beginning, have always incorporated a serious core, which eventually comes to the fore at the end of 2 Henry IV when Hal, now crowned King Henry V, banishes Falstaff and his fellows.

Moving on to Hotspur’s death, it is clear that Prince Hal kills Hotspur in a battle one against the other, right after he has saved the King his father from being killed by Douglas (2984 ff.). Moreover, Hotspur is killed by Hal, right after Falstaff himself has been “killed” by Douglas, though Falstaff, of course, is “resurrected” in a moment’s time, as he was only counterfeiting. In fact, Hal’s farewell to Falstaff ensues directly after his final words to Hotspur, and we learn that Falstaff and Hotspur must be laying close by, as, promising to return, Hal says to Falstaff “Till then, in blood, by Noble Percie lye” (3075).

In other words, I suggest that Shakespeare’s setting these “deaths” (one real, the other apparent) one next to the other may be reinforcing a presumed association of Hotspur and Falstaff, who have been argued to be linked also in terms of their speech behaviour. [2]

Now, conspicously, having just risen from the dead (as it were) after Hal left, Falstaff, being afraid that Hotspur “should counterfeit too, and rise” (3088) says:

therefore Ile make him sure:/ yea, and Ile sweare I kill’d him. Why may not hee rise as/ well as I: Nothing confutes me but eyes, and no-bodie/ sees me. Therefore sirra, with a new wound in your thigh/ come you along me. (3089-3093)

Having wounded Hotspur’s dead body, Falstaff even claims to have killed Hotspur himself (3104 ff.), and Prince Hal does him the favour to cover up his lie, saying:

“For my part, if a lye may do thee grace,/ Ile gil’d it with the happiest tearmes I haue.” (1 H IV, 3122-3123)

Thus, notwithstanding that things are reported correctly by Morton, messenger to Northumberland, in 2 Henry IV (see 167-171), the idea that Falstaff killed Hotspur has been put out there.

In this context, note also that “thigh wounds” do have a special literary significance in epic poetry, and given that Shakespeare’s “Henriad” has been argued to be written at least partially with the Aeneid in mind, it may be not too far fetched to take a glance to Virgil’s epos. [3] There, the death of at least two figures unambiguously involves thigh wounds [4], and one of them is Turnus who has already been likened to Hotspur by M. Mueller in other respects. [5]

Thus, as D. Felton argues that the thigh wound symbolises loss of fertility or even impotence in Classical epic poetry, I suggest that, given Hotspur’s fiery character, Shakespeare links dead, thigh wounded Hotspur with vigour extinguished. Recall as part of his last words the phrase, “Oh Harry, thou hast rob’d me of my youth” (3042). [6] Again, that with Hotspur is also the “fire” (2 H IV, 173) extinguished is said by Morton, the messenger to Northumberland, in 2 Henry IV.

Thus, on this interpretation, if Falstaff is linked with the death of Hotspur, then the pretention is that Hotspur-like vigour has been killed by Falstaffian merry-making, even though it has been really killed by Hal-like abstinent virtue.

Also, by the way in which the characters are supposedly linked it is implied that Hotspur’s vigour is linked with Falstaff’s merry-making. With Hotspur being dead, consider Falstaff’s deterioration in 2 Henry IV, where he is closely linked with malady, old age, and sinfulness.

More generally speaking, in contrast with the merry business in 1 Henry IV, this coheres with the more somber mood in 2 Henry IV, which is fraught with the theme of sickness, and loss of vigour aptly glosses much of its going ons. For example, notice Hal’s melancholy, including his desire after “small Beere” (2 H IV, 797), which contends with his grief for his suffering father. Also consider how Falstaff indulges in nostalgia together with Shallow.

In conclusion, I suggest that Falstaff and Hotspur are linked, and that, for better or worse, Prince Hal’s killing of Hotspur in 1 Henry IV is the first step of Hal’s reformation, which is complete only in Henry V, and that the second is his rejection of Falstaff. Finally, as both characters are symbolically linked, I think that Hotspur’s death in 1 Henry IV at least partly accounts for Falstaff’s adapted characterisation in 2 Henry IV.

As an afterthought [added 31/08/2025], recall that in Taming of the Shrew Shakespeare parodies chivalry when he has Sly, the drunkard, declare to the Hostess, when he is thrown out of the tavern:

Y’are a baggage, the Slies are no/ Rogues. Looke in the Chronicles, we came/ in with Richard Conqueror: therefore Pau-/cas pallabris, let the world slide: Sessa. (6-9)

Against this background, and not to mention Sir Toby Belch from Twelth Night, it comes as less as a surprise that Shakespeare should have also somehow linked Falstaff, the debaucher, with the heroic Hotspur in his Henriad.

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[1] See B. Spivack, “Falstaff and the Psychomachia,” Shakespeare Quarterly 8, no. 4 (1957): 449-459.

[2] See S. A. Small, “Hotspur and Falstaff,” The Shakespeare Association Bulletin 16, no. 4 (1941): 243-248.

[3] A. Woodmansee, The influence of Vergil’s Aeneid on Shakespeare’s Henriad, Diss. (Stanislaus: California State University, 2014).

[4] D. Felton, “Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil: Cultural reality and literary metaphor,” Resemblance and Reality in Greek Thought, edited by A. Park (London: Routledge, 2016), 255-274.

[5] M. Mueller, “Turnus and Hotspur: The Political Adversary in the ‘Aeneid’ and ‘Henry IV,’” Phoenix 23, no. 3 (1969): 278–90.

[6] Curiously, Hotspur is even linked with childishness proper, as he is called “Mars, in swathing Clothes, This Infant Warrior” (1932-1933), and, though more ambiguously, he is also called “Child of Honor and Renowne” (1959), and “Northerne Youth” (1965).

First published on May 18 2025 on Ko-fi

05/18/2025

Post 5: Love “metamorphised” in “Two Gentlemen” and “Midsummernight’s Dream”

Starting from Two Gentlemen, I argue in what follows that Midsummernight’s Dream uses a similar plot-device on which depends the resolution of the play, namely, that of a certain kind of “metamorphised,” ill-matched love. [1]

To begin with, consider briefly the case in Two Gentlemen, which is outlined in the play transparently, and which serves here as the model to be compared with Midsummernight’s Dream.

In Two Gentlemen, we witness how Proteus originally loved Julia; but when he is sent after Valentine to Milan to the court (on the behest of his father, Antonio, importantly), he forgets Julia over falling in love with Silvia, just as Valentine suddenly forgets his disdain for love, thus entailing rivalry for Silvia. In the end, part of the play’s resolution consists in rematching Julia and Proteus, even though Silvia simply drops out of the play.

Similarly, though perhaps less transparently set out, in Midsummernight’s Dream, we learn through Lysander that

Demetrius, Ile auouch it to his head,/ Made loue to Nedars daughter, Helena,/ And won her soule: and she (sweet Ladie) dotes,/ Deuoutly dotes, dotes in Idolatry,/ Vpon this spotted and inconstant man. (115-119)

However, Demetrius now loves Hermia who, however, is also loved by Lysander just like Proteus and Valentine became rivals in love of Silvia.

Notably, perhaps, the conflict seems linked with meddling of Egeus (Hermia’s father) who imagines a match between Demetrius and Hermia,[2] just like the conflict emerged in Two Gentlemen  when Protheus was sent by his father to Milan.[3]

In conclusion of the play, Demetrius and Helena are rematched just as Lysander and Hermia are.

Moreover, the parallelism between Helena and Julia implied by this interpretation is re-inforced as they share the treat of following their respective lovers who just abandoned them. Julia resolves to “vndertake/ A iourney to my louing Protheus” (981-982), while Helena is determined to “follow thee [Demetrius], and make a heauen of hell,/ To die vpon the hand I loue so well.” (622-623)

Yet again, notice Helena’s complaint that

ere Demetrius lookt on Hermias eyne,/ He hail’d downe oathes that he was onely mine./ And when this Haile some heat from Hermia felt,/ So he dissolu’d, and showres of oathes did melt […]. (256-259)

This may recall Julia who tells us about Protheus’ oathes of love (1044 and 1050). Again, the imagery involving Hermia’s heat may be recalled when Protheus, pondering over his metamorphised desire, notes that

[a]t first I did adore a twinkling Starre,/ But now I worship a celestiall Sunne […]. (938-939)

and how he notes about his former Julia:

  (That I did loue, for now my loue is thaw’d,/ Which like a waxen Image ‘gainst a fire/ Beares no impression of the thing it was.) (855-857)

One could add the blind-Cupid imagery on which both plays rely to gloss their plots, and a further hint at their connection could consist in the “beautfiul-eyes”-motif which seems concentrated consistently on Silvia in Two Gentlemen and Hermia, her parallel figure, in Midsummernight’s Dream, but I will pass over this.

In conclusion, it may be noted that in both cases some love “metamorphised,” which is ill-matched, poses the problem of the play. Accordingly, the resolution both of Two Gentlemen and Midsummernight’s Dream seems to consist at least partly in re-establishing the former love before its “metamorphosis.”

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[1] I used the Folio versions as reproduced on the Internet Shakespeare edition as for citations from Two Gentlemen and Midsummernight’s Dream.

[2] Again, Silvia’s rejection of Thurio, who is the Duke, her father’s favourite, may be recalled by Hermia’s refusal to like Demetrius who is imposed on her by her father Egeus.

[3] This could be read as intended match of Protheus with someone like Silvia; notably, Protheus kept his love for Julia secret before his father (see 380 ff.).

First published on May 2 2025 on Ko-fi

05/02/2025