Bardisms (53 page)

*
Make
is in the plural (as opposed to
makes
) because its subject is “the voices of all the gods” in Berowne’s previous line. But wait a minute! He says “the
voice
of all the gods,” as though they all share only one larynx. This is one of Shakespeare’s syntactical quirks. He often omits the final
s
in the plural of words ending in
–ce
. Why? You’ll have to ask him. Meanwhile, it’s
voice make
, not
voices make
or
voice makes
.

* A special note: The pronouns
he
and
she
run through all my commentary on the excerpts in this section, a fact that may justifiably be construed to suggest that Shakespeare conceived of weddings as unions between
he
’s and
she
’s. Maybe he did. Doesn’t mean we do. Should you find yourself in need of some words of wisdom for a match between a he and a he or a she and a she, don’t rule the Bard out. Just juggle those pronouns as necessary, and you’ll have enough Shakespeare for the Occasion of a Same-Sex Wedding to tide you over.

*
Alternatively:
(We can easily determine the size of that vessel, but just by looking at it we can’t really figure out the value of its cargo.)
Whose
at the beginning of line 8 can be read to refer back either to
star
(as in the paraphrase above), or
bark
(as in the paraphrase here). The former is attractive because
his height be taken
at the end of line 8 refers to astronomy: “to take a star’s height” with a sextant is to navigate a ship by observing the constellations. But
worth
, in its sense of monetary value, seems to fit better with a ship’s cargo than with a celestial body. Scholars continue to argue for both interpretations.

* The superb adjective means “boastful” and derives from Thraso, the name of a ceaselessly bragging character in an ancient Roman comedy. It’s one of those Shakespeare words I’d love to see come back into current use.

* Van Doren chaired the committee that selected the list of titles the army would publish, and he managed to slip his own book onto it—an ethical lapse, if it is one, that pales in comparison to the one his son Charles committed by being the cheater in chief of the television quiz-show scandals of the 1950s.

*
Errants
is the same word as
errands
, but its
t
makes a happier rhyme with
warrants
.
They
in the final line refers, of course, not to
poor men
but to the hungry—and vengeful—Justices.

* Meaning, approximately, “capable of gathering honors.”

* Italics mine. Citations: Hamlet,
Hamlet
, 4.4.32; Hamlet,
Hamlet
, 1.2.186–87; Macduff,
Macbeth
, 4.3.217–20.

* On the contrary, be glad. The cannon that discharged in this scene ignited a fire at the Globe Theatre on June 29, 1613, that burned the structure to the ground. Had Cardinal Wolsey’s party been a bit more modest, theatrical history might well have taken a different course.

* If this collection of nutcases sounds suspiciously similar to the passengers shipwrecked on Gilligan’s Island, that’s no accident. The seven stranded castaways owe their identities to stock
commedia
characters.

* Actually, not so meritorious. Angelo is the bad guy of this play, and the Duke flatters him here in a ruse designed to prime him for his eventual comeuppance. You needn’t share this bit of dramatic context with your own meritorious colleague.

* The terms
quarto
and
folio
refer to page sizes. The process of printing books involved laying out multiple pages on one large sheet of paper called a
broadsheet
. Folded once, to make two pages with four sides, it was called a folio. Folded again, to make four pages with eight sides, it was called a quarto.

* Note that the latter play refers to “Heaven,” not “God.” Around the midpoint of Shakespeare’s career, the ascendant Puritan forces in Parliament managed to pass a law aimed at cleaning up what they regarded as the unholy excesses of the playhouses on the south bank of the Thames. A key provision: strict adherence to the Third Commandment, “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain.” With the arrival of this regulation, mentions of “God” on the English stage were out, and euphemistic references to “Heaven” or “Jove” were in. The First Folio reflects the far-reaching effect of this law: mentions of God in plays published in quarto before the legislation passed are hastily replaced with often clumsy abstract synonyms in the 1623 volume.