At
the close of the year I read Shakespeare’s slapstick comedy—yes, Shakespeare
wrote slapstick too—The Comedy of Errors. It’s a lot of fun. Shakespeare was as great a comedic writer as
a tragedian. The Comedy of Errors is a very early play, perhaps his very first
comedy. There’s a really great scene in the
play, sometimes titled, “The Kitchen Wench” scene of Act III, Scene 2, and I’m
going to present it here for you.
Let
me explain it. The play hinges on two
sets of twins, both separated at birth, meet up and the mistaken identity fun
that happens as a result of the confusion.
The play is set in the city of Ephesus.
One set of twins, the aristocratic pair, are both called Antipholus, one
from Ephesus and just arrived from the city of Syracuse. To each belongs a slave, the other set of
twins, both called Dromio, identified as Dromio of Ephesus and Dromio of
Syracuse. Antipholus of Ephesus is
married to a lovely lady, Adriana, and while in town Antipholus of Syracuse
falls in love and woos Adriana’s sister Luciana. Of course no one realizes who is who or that
there are twins in play, and you can see the fun as Luciana thinks that her
brother-in-law is trying to seduce her.
Now the Dromio of Ephesus is engaged to be married, to the family cook
named Nell. Nell is not attractive, as
you will see. Nell confuses Dromio of
Syracuse as her husband, and she chases after him, love sick. Confused?
It’s not that complicated. Here
you can understand the play in minute explanation in this video.
Here
is the “The Kitchen Wench” scene. The
scene divides into two parts. In the
first Dromio describes her physical appearance, which is not pretty: fat,
greasy, prone to sweat, and dirty. The
second part goes off on a word play where Nell is compared to a globe and
different countries are identified as parts of her body. What I
want to highlight is the wit and cleverness of Shakespeare, even here as a
young writer. One didn’t need this scene
to be so elaborate to the unity of the play, but Shakespeare provides it for a
sense of fun, for a sense of play in the most common sense of the word “play.” Now just before this scene Antipholus of
Syracuse has been wooing Luciana, and she has run off shocked thinking her
brother-in-law is making a “play” on her.
In contrast, enter Dromio of Syracuse who has been running away from
Nell. So we have high comedy contrasted
with low comedy. Here’s the low comedy,
the numbers refer to line numbers.
[Enter
DROMIO of Syracuse]
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Why, how now,
Dromio! where runn'st thou so fast?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Do you know
me, sir? am I Dromio? am I your man?
am I myself?840
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Thou art
Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.
- Dromio
of Syracuse. I am an ass,
I am a woman's man and besides myself.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. What woman's
man? and how besides thyself? besides thyself?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Marry, sir,
besides myself, I am due to a woman; one
that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have me.845
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. What claim
lays she to thee?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Marry sir,
such claim as you would lay to your
horse; and she would have me as a beast: not that, I
being a beast, she would have me; but that she,
being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.850
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. What is she?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. A very
reverent body; ay, such a one as a man may
not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.' I have
but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a
wondrous fat marriage.855
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. How dost thou
mean a fat marriage?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Marry, sir,
she's the kitchen wench and all grease;
and I know not what use to put her to but to make a
lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I
warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn a 860
Poland winter: if she lives till doomsday,
she'll burn a week longer than the whole world.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. What
complexion is she of?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Swart, like
my shoe, but her face nothing half so
clean kept: for why, she sweats; a man may go over 865
shoes in the grime of it.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. That's a
fault that water will mend.
- Dromio
of Syracuse. No, sir, 'tis
in grain; Noah's flood could not do it.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. What's her
name?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Nell, sir;
but her name and three quarters, that's 870
an ell and three quarters, will not measure her from
hip to hip.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Then she
bears some breadth?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. No longer
from head to foot than from hip to hip:
she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out 875
countries in her.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. In what part
of her body stands Ireland?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Marry, in her
buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Where
Scotland?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. I found it by
the barrenness; hard in the palm of the hand.880
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Where France?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. In her
forehead; armed and reverted, making war
against her heir.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Where
England?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. I looked for
the chalky cliffs, but I could find no 885
whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her chin,
by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Where Spain?
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Faith, I saw
it not; but I felt it hot in her breath.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Where
America, the Indies?890
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Oh, sir, upon
her nose all o'er embellished with
rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich
aspect to the hot breath of Spain; who sent whole
armadoes of caracks to be ballast at her nose.
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Where stood
Belgia, the Netherlands?895
- Dromio
of Syracuse. Oh, sir, I
did not look so low. To conclude, this
drudge, or diviner, laid claim to me, call'd me
Dromio; swore I was assured to her; told me what
privy marks I had about me, as, the mark of my
shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my 900
left arm, that I amazed ran from her as a witch:
And, I think, if my breast had not been made of
faith and my heart of steel,
She had transform'd me to a curtal dog and made
me turn i' the wheel.905
- Antipholus
of Syracuse. Go hie thee
presently, post to the road:
An if the wind blow any way from shore,
I will not harbour in this town to-night:
If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
Where I will walk till thou return to me. 910
If every one knows us and we know none,
'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.
- Dromio
of Syracuse. As from a
bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife.
The
text is copied from OpenSource Shakespeare, here, where you can read the entire play.
Now
you can watch the scene acted out in this clip.
It’s wonderfully done from of all places, Bob Jones University. Interestingly two lines are omitted from this
rendition, the one about Ireland being Nell’s hip and Belgium and Netherlands being
her lower unmentionables. The only
reason I can think of redacting those out is that Bob Jones University is a
religious institution and wanted to remove any sexual overtones. It doesn’t seem so sexual to me. It’s very well done though.
The Comedy of Errors
is a short play and a lot of fun. Read
it or watch it somewhere. It’s better
than television.
That's the thing I don't like about Shakespeare. He has too many characters in his plays and they all have confusing names like Dolmio, Antipasti and J'accuse. One can never follow the plot as to who is supposed to have done what and to whom. And there's always a choir singing and a fat man shouting Nessun Dorma. And people dancing on tiptoe, (why can't they hire taller dancers?) And at the end someone dies either by being stabbed or poisoned. And as he dies, instead of the cast calling for an ambulance they continue singing for at least ten minutes. And every one in the audience applauds.
ReplyDeleteWhat's all that about?
I prefer Tom and Jerry. Much simpler.
God bless.