ShakespeareADMSavage7 December1992If We Shadows Have Offended:Thematic Foolery in Two Plays“Is there no play to ease the anguish of a torturing hour?” (MND,V.i.36-37). Comic release from the tensions and complexities ofAthenian life pleases Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; his lifelikely is filled with various stern-minded individuals who are themselvestoo tense and too complex to offer him any kind of unofficial, relaxedview of the world around him. It is both a historic and dramatictradition that the presenter of such a view be the “fool,” a man whooffers a unique, witty, and often metaphoric picture of his master’ssituation. But in addition to serving his master, he must serve as akind of living literary device, a fleshed-out archetype who relates thelarger themes and the particular details to his audience, whether thataudience is in the text or in the theater. The fool is a passivecharacter in that he reflects and exaggerates the plot, maybe embodiesit, but he does not — and seemingly cannot — change it. The amateurtroupe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream , for example, figures fairlyprominently in the play, but actors do not affect its course. Somethingof an expanded epilogue, their presentation merely retells and recaststhe previous four acts.It is Falstaff, the fool of 2 Henry IV, who weaves a running commentaryand a running symbolism into the play, but neither does he significantlyalter plot direction. Although he is an interesting character, full ofwit and gruff charm, and a superb thematic device, his necessity to theplot engine and to other characters’ development is questionable. Likethe troupe in Midsummer’s Night, Falstaff is a subjective secondarynarrator, a character who carries considerable literary meaning butlittle dramatic weight. Interestingly, the dramatic weight of the foolsseems proportional to their necessity to their respective masters. Theiraudiences under-appreciate their worth. Theseus repeatedly expresses adesire to be entertained, but he engages the activity with aloofdisinterest as soon as the actual presentation begins. Likewise a princeonce enamored of Falstaff, Henry V spurns his old friend Falstaff onceHenry assumes his new role as king. Despite the fools’ cleverness,insight, and entertainment value, their masters dismiss them as non-essential elements of their world. It may be some solace to these fools,however, that Shakespeare recognizes their value to the thematic unity ofhis dramatic enterprise.One apparent motif in 2 Henry IV is the tension between the new and old.Hastings, the Archbishop, and others seek to overthrow the old ways ofthe old King, Henry IV. At the same time, young Prince Harry who “haststol’n that [crown] which after some few hours / Were thine withoutoffense” (2 Henry IV, IV.v.101-102) is eager to take the power andprivileges that were his father’s. It is an issue of the old kingdom andthe younger, perhaps more vital, rebels who yearn to control the Englishnation. This struggle is embodied in the heft of Falstaff, PrinceHarry’s aging but rabble-rousing friend who cannot resist hyperbole,punnery, or conflict. His first words in the play reflect hisdilapidation as well as that of his king and his country. “Sirrah, yougiant, what says the doctor to my water?” (2HIV, I.ii.1-2), he asks his

page, requesting a diagnosis of his urine that would reveal interior,unseen difficulties. His response is equally indicative for an aging manand a kingdom soon to be faced with revolt: “The water itself was a goodhealthy water, but for the party that ow’d it, he might have moe diseasesthan he knew for.” (2HIV, I.ii.3-5) England may still appear to operatesmoothly, but the sickness of rebellion is in the process of eating awaythe kingdom’s stability. Falstaff becomes with his first lines abreathing, ailing incarnation of England’s body politic, a body “blastedwith antiquity” (2HIV, I.ii.184). The same could be said of the King, butit is more convenient and less overt for Shakespeare to draw parallelsbetween the King and a fool than to have a character directly berate theKing’s condition. The King-as-State truism applies as well in drama asit does in history, but the former allows for the manipulation of aliterary device (Falstaff) to craft a more eloquent, more intriguingmetaphor.Falstaff mirrors the King, who wants to believe his kingdom is healthyand energetic, despite the presence of rebels who know otherwise.Falstaff, too, wants to possess at once the better traits of the old andthe young. He speaks at length of his facial hair as a symbol of age andaccomplishment, and gibes the prince because Falstaff “will sooner have abeard grow in the palm of [his] hand than [Harry] shall get one of hischeek” (2HIV, I.ii.20-22). But Falstaff later insists that “you that areold consider not the capacities of us that are young” (2HIV, I.ii.173-175) and that he is “only old in judgment and understanding” (2HIV,I.ii.192). The Chief Justice assails this blind self-assessment,demanding of Falstaff, “Is not your voice broken, your wind short,...yourwit single...and will you yet call yourself young?” (2HIV, I.ii.183-185).King Henry is in no better condition than Falstaff. His words lose theirimpact, he hasn’t the energy needed to maintain strong leadership, andhis intelligence is not what it was once. Even Prince Harry admits, “Myfather is sick” (2HIV, II.ii.40).The rebels continue the metaphor of man as state, as if they could gainpower through a rebellion of words. “I think we are so a body strongenough,/ Even as we are, to equal with the King,” (2HIV, 1.3.66-67)Hastings concludes. He continues noteworthy synecdoche of “King” for“King’s army” as he draws a picture of the sickly King: “So is theunfirm King/ In three divided.” The King saps his own strength infighting the French, Glendower, and Hastings. The rebels expect hisresources to drain until “his coffers sound/ With hollow poverty andemptiness” (2HIV, I.iii.74-75), a crisis which Falstaff must deal with as“consumption of the purse” (2HIV, I.ii.235). Matter financial as wellas political are incorporated into the metaphor.Falstaff progresses to a dramatic representation of the King’s armies inAct II, Scene i, in which the hostess demands Falstaff be charged for herlosses. With the conviction of insurrectionists, appropriately dubbedFang and Snare decide to arrest Falstaff despite the possibility that “itmay chance cost some of us our lives” (2HIV, II.i.11). For his part,Fang is brave enough to resolve, “If I can close with him, I care not forhis thrust” (2HIV, II.i.18). That same kind of resolve is evident inthe scene immediately prior in which the Hastings confides, “That heshould draw his several strengths together and come against us...need notto be dreaded” (2HIV, I.iii.76-77), thus cementing another parallelbetween Falstaff and the King. The attempt to seize Falstaff is madejust before Gower deliver’s the news of the recent battle (2HIV,

II.ii.132). Falstaff embodies the forces of the King even until hecaptures Colevile in Act IV. After Prince John identifies Colevile as “afamous rebel,” and the reader could assume an exemplary one, Falstaffboasts “a famous true subject took him” (2HIV, IV.iii.63-64). The twoare paired as symbolic representatives of the opposing forces, the loyaland the rebel, the old and new.Despite his image of himself as “Fortune’s steward” (2HIV, V.iii.130),Falstaff does not obtain the dramatic importance he expects. To thecontrary, the new King Henry V rejects old Falstaff and his “ill whitehairs” (2HIV, V.v.48) and advises that Falstaff “presume not that I amthe thing I was” (2HIV, V.v.56), emphasizing the continued tensionbetween Falstaff, a symbol of the old, and Prince Harry, recent King, asymbol of the new. Harry awakes from his youth and breaks away from hisvision of “a kind of man,...so old, and so profane,” and he “despises”this dream (2HIV, V.v.50-61) so much, he banishes it. The King deemsinsignificant aged Falstaff, who although perhaps the strongest thematicdevice of the play, ceased to please. Forsaken, Falstaff can respondonly with the utterance of another theme, Christ-like, “My lord, my lord —”•••Puck would have his audience believe that the acting troupe, thecollective fool of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is as easy to dismiss as adream. Because their subject is far less serious that Falstaff’s in 2Henry IV, the troupe worries it will be laughable and offend itsaudience. Puck addresses the living audience of Midsummer Night, but hisfinal soliloquy could be as easily addressed to Theseus and Hippolyta,who were in danger of being insulted.If we shadows have offendedThink but this and all is mended,That you have but slumb’red hereWhile these visions did appear.And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream,Gentles, do not reprehend.(MND, V.i.423-429)The actors retell their story with a devoted lightheartedness deservingof their “most lamentable comedy.” Quince the carpenter and Bottom theweaver build and weave a narrative of their own, almost as if they werein the audience for the first four acts. Commingling the old tale ofPyramus and Thisby with the (for them) contemporary adaptation of Helenand Lysander, the troupe fits exactly the role of the fool: they add acurious, creative perspective to a familiar, though complex, situation.The blundering of “Limander” and “Helen” for “Leander” and “Hero” (MND,V.i.195-196 & note), reveals both the troupe’s and Shakespeare’s pointedintention in presenting Pyramus and Thisby. To further back the parallelstructurally, Thisby’s inquiring, “Asleep, my love?/ What, dead, mydove?” matches Helen’s “Dead or asleep? I see no blood, no wound”(II.ii.100) to sleeping Lysander.Especially for this setting, Theseus offers a perfect definition ofthe fool. “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet/ Are of imagination allcompact” (MND, V.i.7-8). All three of these, the actors impress upontheir audience a story that is both comic and tragic, and present it in a