William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (367 page)

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Authors: William Shakespeare

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BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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Epitaph on Himself
 
Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.
SIR THOMAS MORE
 
BY ANTHONY MUNDAY AND HENRY CHETTLE, WITH REVISIONS AND ADDITIONS BY THOMAS DEKKER, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND THOMAS HEY WOOD
THE text that follows is entirely different from any other in this volume. All the other plays derive from printed editions; this comes from what is probably the untidiest, most heavily revised dramatic manuscript of the period, giving us unique insights into its playwrights’ working conditions. It represents a troubled and ultimately abandoned attempt on the part of various authors to create a script, interrupted by the censorial intervention of the Master of the Revels, Edmund Tilney. The working manuscript preserved in the British Library is described on its first leaf as ‘The Booke’—that is, the theatre manuscript—‘of Sir Thomas Moore.’ The basic manuscript is a fair copy made by the dramatist Anthony Munday (1560-1633) of a text in which he may have collaborated with Henry Chettle (c. 1560-c. 1607). Alterations and additions were made by Chettle, Thomas Dekker (c. 15 72-1632), very probably William Shakespeare, and probably Thomas Heywood (c. 1573-1641). A theatre scribe annotated parts of the manuscript, and some of the revisions exist in transcripts he wrote out. In this edition each section is preceded and concluded with an identification of the hand.
It seems likely that the original play was written during the early 1590s and submitted in the usual way to the Master of the Revels for a licence. Tilney called for substantial alterations. Though the play’s favourable portrait of a man sometimes seen as a Catholic martyr was provocative, Tilney’s attention was concentrated mostly on the insurrection scenes. In our view the original play was laid aside until soon after Queen Elizabeth died, in 1603, when the political objections would have carried less weight, and the revisions—which do not meet Tilney’s requirements—were made then. Shakespeare’s authorship of the majority of Sc.6, first proposed in 1871, has been accepted by most scholars on the basis of handwriting and of the evidence of dramatic and linguistic style. His contribution shows him as a thoroughgoing professional sharing with colleagues whose work he respected in an essentially collaborative enterprise.
Sir Thomas More is based on Holinshed’s Chronicles and Nicholas Harpsfield’s biography of More. Sheriff More peacefully quells the riots of Londoners against resident foreigners on the ‘Ill May Day’ of 1517, and is appointed Lord Chancellor as a reward. In the Shakespearian Sc. 6, More persuades the rebels to surrender to the King, arguing for obedience to authority and challenging the rebels to consider their own plight if, like the strangers, they were to live in exile. A passage less securely attributed to Shakespeare is More’s bemused and wary soliloquy at the beginning of Sc. 8. The play elsewhere presents a series of serio-comic episodes dramatizing his wit in attempting to reform minor offenders, his credentials as a humanist, his practical joking, and his love of plays. More’s downfall and passage to the scaffold begin when he refuses the King’s demand that he sign unspecified articles. Later scenes, though sombre in tone, depict his almost light-hearted resolution to pursue death rather than yield to the King’s demands.
The play has been performed most notably by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2005.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
 
Thomas MORE, a sheriff of London, later Sir Thomas More and
Lord Chancellor
 
 
The Earl of SHREWSBURY
The Earl of SURREY
 
John LINCOLN, a broker
DOLL Williamson
WILLIAMSON, her husband, a carpenter
GEORGE BETTS
CLOWN BETTS, his brother, called Ralph
SHERWIN, a goldsmith
 
Francis de BARDE, a Lombard
CAVELIER, a Lombard or Frenchman
 
The LORD MAYOR of London
The LADY MAYORESS
Justice SURESBY
LIFTER, a cutpurse
SMART, the plaintiff against him
The RECORDER of London
 
Sir Thomas PALMER
Sir Roger CHOLMLEY
Sir John MUNDAY
A SERGEANT-at-arms
CROFTS, a messenger from the King
 
RANDALL, More’s manservant
Jack FALKNER, a ruffian
ERASMUS, a learned clerk of Rotterdam
MORRIS, secretary to the Bishop of Winchester
The Lord Cardinal’s PLAYERS, performing the roles of:
INCLINATION
PROLOGUE
WIT
A boy player of LADY VANITY
LUGGINS, player of Good Counsel
 
William ROPER, More’s son-in-law
LADY MORE, his wife
ROPER’S WIFE, one of More’s daughters
More’s OTHER DAUGHTER
CATESBY, More’s steward
GOUGH, More’s secretary
 
Doctor Fisher, Bishop of ROCHESTER
DOWNES, another sergeant-at-arms
LIEUTENANT of the Tower
A GENTLEMAN PORTER of the Tower
The HANGMAN
 
A poor WOMAN, a client of More
 
Other SHERIFFS
MESSENGERS
CLERK of the Council
OFFICERS
 
Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, Aldermen, Citizens, Prentices, Servingmen, Warders of the Tower, and Attendants
NOTE ON SPECIAL FEATURES OF PRESENTATION
 
Complexities in the manuscript have led to the following modifications of standard Oxford Shakespeare presentation.
 
Rules across the column show where the text switches from the Original Text to a revision and back, or from one revision to another. Notes in the right margin above and below these rules specify the section of the manuscript and the hand.
 
Annotations in a second hand are preserved and printed in a special typeface. Passages in the manuscript explicitly or implicitly deleted are underlined in this edition, except where the final text as edited duplicates the deleted text (see Appendix B). Identifiable interventions by second hands are as follows:
 
Tilney:
in Sc. 1, Sc. 3, Sc. 10.
Playhouse
book-keeper:
in Sc. 4, Sc. 6 (Addition II and 1. 234), Sc. 9.
Dekker:
phrase at 8.232-3.
Heywood
(?): addition of Clown’s part in Sc. 6 and Sc. 7.
 
Angle brackets 〈 〉 indicate gaps in the text due to damage to the manuscript.
 
Stage directions reflect the wording of the manuscript unless enclosed in special brackets ⌈ ⌉.
The Book of Sir Thomas More
 
[
Original Text
(
monday
)]
[
Tilney
]
Leave out the insurrection wholly and the cause thereof, and begin with Sir Thomos More at the Mayor’s sessions, with a report afterwards of his good service done being Sheriff of London upon a mutiny against the Lombards
—
only by a short report, and not otherwise, at your own perils. E. Tilney.
Sc. 1
Enter at one end John Lincoln with George Betts and Clown Betts together. At the other end enters Francis de Barde and Doll, a lusty woman, he hauling her by the arm
 
DOLL Whither wilt thou haul me?
BARDE Whither I please. Thou art my prize, and I plead purchase of thee.
DOLL Purchase of me? Away, ye rascal! I am an honest, plain carpenter’s wife, and, though I have no beauty to like a husband, yet whatsoever is mine scorns to stoop to a stranger. Hand off then when I bid theel
BARDE Go with me quietly, or I’ll compel thee.
DOLL Compel me, ye dog’s face? Thou think‘st thou hast the goldsmith’s wife in hand, whom thou enticed’st from her husband with all his plate, and when thou turned‘st her home to him again mad’st him, like an ass, pay for his wife’s board.
BARDE So will I make thy husband too, if please me.
Enter Cavelier, with a pair of doves, Williamson the carpenter and Sherwin following him
DOLL Here he comes himself. Tell him so if thou dar’st.
CAVELIER [to
Williamson
] Follow me no further. I say thou shalt not have them.
WILLIAMSON I bought them in Cheapside, and paid my money for them.
SHERWIN He did, sir, indeed, and you offer him wrong, both to take them from him and not restore him his money neither.
CAVELIER If he paid for them, let it suffice that I possess them. Beefs and brewis may serve such hinds. Are pigeons meat for a coarse carpenter?
LINCOLN [
aside to George Betts
] It is hard when Englishmen’s patience must be thus jetted on by strangers, and they not dare to revenge their own wrongs.
GEORGE BETTS [
aside to Lincoln
] Lincoln, let’s beat them down, and bear no more of these abuses.
LINCOLN [
aside to George Betts
] We may not, Betts. Be patient and hear more.
DOLL How now, husband? What, one stranger take thy food from thee, and another thy wife? By’r Lady, flesh and blood, I think, can hardly brook that.
LINCOLN Will this gear never be otherwise? Must these wrongs be thus endured?
GEORGE BETTS Let us step in, and help to revenge their injury.
BARDE What art thou that talkest of revenge? My Lord Ambassador shall once more make your Mayor have a check if he punish thee not for this saucy presumption.
WILLIAMSON Indeed my Lord Mayor on the Ambassador’s complaint sent me to Newgate one day because, against my will, I took the wall of a stranger. You may do anything. The goldsmith’s wife, and mine now, must be at your commandment.
GEORGE BETTS The more patient fools are ye both to suffer it.
BARDE Suffer it? Mend it thou or he if ye can or dare. I tell thee, fellow, an she were the Mayor of London’s wife, had I her once in my possession I would keep her in spite of him that durst say nay.
GEORGE BETTS I tell thee, Lombard, these words should cost thy best cap, were I not curbed by duty and obedience. The Mayor of London’s wife? O God, shall it be thus?
DOLL Why, Betts, am not I as dear to my husband as my Lord Mayor’s wife to him, [
to Williamson
] and wilt thou so neglectly suffer thine own shame? [
To
de
Barde
] Hands off, proud stranger, or, by
Him that bought me, if men’s milky hearts dare not strike a stranger, yet women will beat them down ere they bear these abuses. BARDE Mistress, I say you shall along with me.
DOLL Touch not Doll Williamson, lest she lay thee along on God’s dear earth. (To
Cavelier
) And you, sir, that allow such coarse cates to carpenters, whilst pigeons which they pay for must serve your dainty appetite: deliver them back to my husband again, or I’ll call so many women to mine assistance as we’ll not leave one inch untorn of thee. If our husbands must be bridled by law, and forced to bear your wrongs, their wives will be a little lawless, and soundly beat ye.
CAVELIER Come away, de Barde, and let us go complain to my Lord Ambassador. Exeunt both
DOLL Ay, go, and send him among us, and we’ll give him his welcome too. I am ashamed that free-born Englishmen, having beaten strangers within their own bounds, should thus be braved and abused by them at home.
SHERWIN It is not our lack of courage in the cause, but the strict obedience that we are bound to. I am the goldsmith whose wrongs you talked of; but how to redress yours or mine own is a matter beyond all our abilities.

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