All’s Well That Ends Well

Shakespeare: the funny bits

This is one of my favourite speeches from Shakespeare, although I didn’t know which play it was from, because Borges, smartypants that he is, cites it in an essay without giving the play’s title. Parolles is a knave who’s risen to the rank of captain by bluff and trickery: a more realistic version of Falstaff, who is eventually exposed and disgraced.

Parolles: Yet I am thankful. If my heart were great,
‘Twould burst at this. Captain I’ll be no more;
But I will eat, and drink, and sleep as soft
As captain shall. Simply the thing I am
Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,
Let him fear this: for it will come to pass
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
Rust, sword; cool, blushes; and, Parolles, live
Safest in shame. Being fool’d, by fool’ry thrive.
There’s place and means for every man alive.

I thought I hadn’t been able to find any unintentional humour or silliness in All’s Well That End’s Well, but then I noticed the rhyme, or near-rhyme, in the sixth and seventh lines of the foregoing.

Troilus and Cressida

Shakespeare: the funny bits

Act IV, scene IV. Troy. Pandarus’ house.

Enter PANDARUS and CRESSIDA

Pan. Be moderate, be moderate.

Cres. Why tell you me of moderation?
The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong
As that which causeth it: how can I moderate it?
If I could temporize with my affection,
Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
The like allayments could I give my grief.
My love admits no qualifying dross;
No more my grief, in such a precious loss.

Enter TROILUS

Pan. Here, here, here he comes. Ah, sweet ducks!

Cres. O Troilus! Troilus! [Embracing him

Pan. What a pair of spectacles is here!

Exhalations whizzing in the air

Life imitates art!

Hamlet

Shakespeare: the not especially funny bits

I’ve already made fun of Hamlet elsewhere in these pages, so here’s something else.

In a chamber at Elsinore

Byron! – he would be all forgotten to-day if he had lived to be a florid old gentleman with iron-grey whiskers, writing very long, very able letters to “The Times” about the Repeal of the Corn Laws. –Beerbohm, Zulieka Dobson

After all these years, I still miss Father.
My very bones are cold — another glass?
We old-timers have got to stick together.

The image of him is as clear as ever,
Although my memory’s not what it was.
After all these years, I still miss Father.

To think he died the same year as his brother,
The year I — yes, I know, the year I “lost”.
We old-timers have got to stick together.

Don’t fuss so. I’m your King, not some old duffer.
I have my funny turns; they always pass.
After all these years, I still miss Father.

And you were always there as Lord Protector.
That dream was horrible — I saw her face —
We old-timers have got to stick together.

Her face was blurred like something underwater.
What would I do without you, Fortinbras?
After all these years, I still miss Father.
We old-timers have got to stick together.

Twelfth Night

Shakespeare: the funny bits

I’ve never seen a production of Twelfth Night but in reading it I imagined Alan Rickman in the part of Malvolio and found this piece of casting to be impossible to dismiss from my mind.

Mal. By my life, this is my lady’s hand: these be her very C’s, her U’s, and her T’s; and thus makes she her great P’s.

Apart from its being the pretext for the stupidest and dirtiest joke I’ve yet come across in Shakespeare, I was surprised to find that the letter with which Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Maria trick Malvolio is the source of “some are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.”

Quite a few of the famous quotes are undercut when read in their proper context. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” and “To thine own self be true” are that old bore Polonius’ advice to his son, and “All the world’s a stage” comes from the amusingly emo Jaques in As You Like It, not long after the Duke and his pals have been gently guying him for his preposterous moralising over a wounded deer. I fancy that he could be the nearest thing Shakespeare gives us to a self-portrait, but, even if this is so, it’s a rather wry and self-mocking portrait.

Twelfth Night has one of the earliest examples of Lampshade Hanging:

Sir Toby. Is’t possible?

Fabian. If this were play’d upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.

As You Like It

Shakespeare: the funny bits

Scene: The Forest of Arden.

Enter Celia and Rosalind dressed as a boy. A hot boy.
Enter Oliver.

Oliver. If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
Then should I know you by description;
Such garments and such years: ‘The boy is fair,
Of female favour, and bestows himself
Like a ripe sister: the woman low
And browner than her brother.’ Are not you
The owner of the house I did inquire for?

Celia. It is no boast, being asked, to say we are.

Oli. Orlando doth commend him to you both,
And to that youth he calls his Rosalind
He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?

Kosky. Fantastic!

Julius Caesar

Shakespeare: the funny bits

Scene: Rome. Men all in flames do battle in the streets, and surly lions wander around the Capitol, glaring at onlookers. Graves open and give up their dead, ghosts shriek and gibber, owls perch in the market-place at midday and the skies are a tempest of fire and lightning.

Enter Brutus, with a letter.

Brut. The exhalations whizzing in the air
Give so much light that I may read by them.

Opens the letter and reads.

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Shakespeare: the unfunny bits

Evans. If there is one, I shall make two in the company.

Caius. If dere be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.

That is the funniest joke in the whole play. Honestly. Rather than deliver his scheduled lecture on it, Auden announced that the only thing to be said in its favour was that it was the occasion of Verdi’s opera Falstaff, and played them a recording of it. This annoyed his audience, and no wonder: many of them had probably tried to read the play, and reading The Merry Wives of Windsor is what I imagine reading any Shakespeare must be like for people who hate reading Shakespeare.

Much Ado About Nothing

Shakespeare: the funny bits

Messina. Enter Claudio and Don Pedro.

Claud. I ♥ Hero.

Don P. I’ll pretend to be you and woo her.

Claud. OK!

Enter Benedick and Beatrice

Bene. Bitch.

Beat. Prick.

Audience. AWWWWWWWW

Enter Don John and Borachio.

Don J. Mwa-ha-ha-ha.

Bora. So. Margaret will pretend to be Hero, and I’ll pretend to be, well, some guy, only she’ll, I mean Margaret will think it’s Claudio -

Don J. You mean Don Pedro -

Bora. Yeah, whatever, talking to her at her window, and Claudio and Don Pedro will think Hero is a slut! And he won’t marry her!

Don J. Wait. Hero is a girl?

Enter Benedick and Beatrice, in love

Bene. I love you, slag. How’s about it then?

Beat. I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest, you wanker.

Aud. AWWWWWWWW [Throws rose petals.

[Exeunt.

Claud. Hey, guys? Guys? Where are you going? Turn those houselights off! We’ll have this wrapped up in three scenes, promise! …Damn!

Henry V

Shakespeare: the funny bits

Henry V is really quite odd. The two parts of Henry IV use the relationship between Hal and Falstaff to connect the historical action and the comic subplot, but now that Falstaff has gone, Henry’s wild youth is behind him and he’s soberly invading France and delivering stirring stuff like “Once more unto the breach, dear friends” and the St Crispin’s day speech. Meanwhile, in the place of a proper subplot, we have a series of characters who talk in amusing regional accents and rude French puns. It’s as if the form of the history play has distorted to the point where all that is left is a mass of rhetorical devices and Goon Show silly voices.

I felt I had to parody the whole thing in order to convey the play’s cumulative effect. The famous speeches are omitted, as they have become far too firmly associated with the idea that the English are plucky, scrappy, reluctant soldiers, even when they are embarking upon a war of conquest on the flimsiest of pretexts. In their stead I’ve included Henry’s fine address to the good citizens of Harfleur, which deserves to be better known.

Because we all know that Henry V is about inspiring people to go off to war. Isn’t it?