A 16th century sitcom
Those wild and crazy guys, The Two Gentlemen of Verona; also, the limits of comedy
I’m reading through Shakespeare’s plays, considering what they might say to our current world. Today’s play is “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”. I’m (mostly) following the timeline established by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Last week finished up the trilogy of Henry VI plays, and next week I’ll write a post on Titus Andronicus. If you see trigger warnings as a blinking ‘Welcome’ sign, that play’s for you.
Shakespeare literally sets the stage for his plays in first scenes. The ghost of Hamlet’s dad startling the night watchmen. The three witches of Macbeth. ‘If music be the food of love, play on!’ kicking off Twelfth Night. Richard, Duke of York, perching on the usurped throne of Henry VI.
Here, he starts with the two ‘gentlemen’ of the title parrying barbs both sophomoric and naughty. They’re kids; what can you expect?
The scene introduces the title characters: Proteus will prove foolish and inconstant; Valentine will remain honorable. And yes, Proteus will attempt to cuckold Valentine despite being his best friend, as he insinuates in his lines in this scene.
The play is a trifle. Performed by gifted comedic actors, the banter flowing through the scenes would provide the momentum to stitch together the bits between the plot surprises. Not so different from a sitcom, if you lived in Elizabethan England and didn’t have a telly.
I considered giving this play a pass as I write about Shakespeare’s canon, but then I focused on the weave, not the design. There’s a relevance here, if brought into relief.
Summary
Proteus and Valentine are young men, in love for the first time. Their names almost tell us everything we need to know. Proteus, like the shape shifting mythic god and the source of the English adjective ‘protean’, is inconstant in his affections and loyalties. Valentine stands for enduring love, with unshakeable loyalties to those he loves.
Valentine takes leave of Proteus in the first scene: he’s off to see something of the world and make his name in it, leaving Verona for Milan. Proteus is laying about in Verona, pining for his beloved Julia, when his father sends him off to Milan, to follow the good example of young Valentine.
While Proteus is dithering in Verona, Valentine in Milan has fallen in love with the Duke’s daughter, Silvia. Proteus arrives in Milan and immediately falls in love with Sivia too. Entranced with this new shiny object, he betrays his friend by informing the Duke of Valentine’s plans to elope with Silvia. Proteus manipulates the Duke to sabotage the elopement, banish Valentine, and raise himself in the Duke’s esteem.
Secretly, Julia follows Proteus to Milan, disguising herself as a boy. She witnesses Proteus’ dual betrayal, of herself and his best friend. Strangely, this doesn’t put her off Proteus.
The elopement plot is foiled and Valentine is banished. As he leaves Milan, he comes upon a gang of outlaws and he falls in with them.
In the end, all of the principals are exposed for their deceptions. And yet, with one surprise after another, the two pairs of lovers are reunited, Valentine forgives Proteus for his disloyalty to him, and the Duke restores the outlaws to civil society.
Thoughts
The plot is entirely contrived and ridiculous, and it heightens my appreciation for the eventual mastery Shakespeare would demonstrate with later comedies. He will return many times to the gimmicks used here—young women dressed in men’s clothes and passing for young men; the wise fools who disclose the weaknesses of the higher-ups with whom they parry; the weaving together of tragic and comedic elements to provide depth—but he’ll use them with greater success in later plays.
The play would be catnip to those modern-day book banners who are asserting themselves over schools and libraries today. Apart from the cross-dressing and bawdy language (which is unmistakable and scattered throughout the play), the play seems outright feminist. Female characters display wisdom and fortitude while the male characters are malleable and easily fooled. And although the play ends up with two heterosexual matches, the love between the two gentlemen might ruffle a few petticoats.
And then there’s the dog….
It would be hard to write about this play without mentioning the dog in the play. Crab is the only dog named in any Shakespearean Dramatis Personae. Although dogs (or, ‘curs’) appear liberally in the texts of Shakespepare’s plays, it’s unique for a play to have one with an onstage presence. Crab travels with his human, a fool named Lance, and appears in several scenes. Their intermittent set pieces provide some of the most effective lines in the play.
When they enter the play, they’ve taken leave of Lance’s family and are set to join Proteus on his journey to Milan. Lance’s monologue could be the precursor to Steve Martin’s “The Jerk” (1979), but you be the judge. The lines below pick up after a lugubrious lament on the tearful send-off his family has given Lance.
Lance: “…. Why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father. No, this left shoe is my father. No, no, this left shoe is my mother. Nay, that cannot be so, neither. Yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser sole. This shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this is my father. A vengeance on’t, there ‘tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand. This hat is Nan our maid. I am the dog. No, the dog is himself, and I am the dog. O, the dog is me, and I am myself. Ay, so, so. Now come I to my father. ‘Father, your blessing.’ Now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping. Now should I kiss my father. Well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother. O that she could speak now, like a moved woman. Well. I kiss her. Why, there ‘tis. Here’s my mother’s breath up and down. Now come I to my sister. Mark the moan she makes. —No the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word. But see how I lay the dust with my tears.” - Act 2 Scene 3
Later, Proteus directs Lance to present a small dog (“a squirrel”, in Lance’s telling) to Silvia as a gesture of his love. Thieves steal the small dog in the marketplace, so Lance brings his own dog Crab to give to Silvia: being ten times the size of the gift dog, Crab will make the gift appear ten times greater.
Crab enters Silvia’s dining hall where he promptly steals a chicken leg from the table. He’s banished under table with the dogs of the other gentlemen, where he continues to act like a dog, pissing and stinking. The diners mark the smell and easily spot the culprit. Lance prevents them from hanging Crab by claiming that he had done the crime, for which they have him whipped.
Proteus neither acknowledges Lance’s generosity in offering his own dog to Silvia, nor appreciates his loyalty to Crab by taking blows for him. Proteus, a man oblivious to loyalty and honor, becomes enraged with Lance and orders him to find the small dog that was stolen. If he fails, Lance is to be banished forever. If your sympathies lie with Crab and Lance, you’re not alone.
On truth and anarchy
Roger Ebert wrote in his review of the Steve Martin movie: “’The Jerk’ is all gags and very little comedy.” Ebert made a distinction between two kinds of comedy: “Funny Hat” and “Funny Logic”. In the former, you laugh because the comedian puts on a funny hat; you laugh at the other kind because of the reason why the comedian is wearing a funny hat. Ebert admits he prefers ‘Funny Logic’ comedy, which is not “The Jerk”. Ebert notes, however, that this doesn’t mean it isn’t successful: plenty of people like Funny Hat comedies. Steve Martin founded a brilliant career on them.
“The Two Gentlemen of Verona” is a trifle played for funny hat laughs. Read within the context of current cultural norms, it’s not entirely a joke.
Within this world of the play, truth is entirely fungible, easily traded for falsehoods. The ring device—a dramatic trope in which a ring is used to disclose the truth of an infidelity—stutters in its use here, because the ring’s ownership is disputed. There is no substance to truth, it would seem.
Silvia is the only principal character who is truthful. She knows the truth of her love and remains faithful to that truth. For every other character, truth is malleable. Valentine, although true to Silvia, is nonetheless quick to make up an identity that allows him to fit in with the outlaws. Proteus, Julia, and the Duke manipulate and deceive. A series of betrayals and deception runs through the play. Dishonesty would seem the coin of the realm.
Out of that anarchy, the comedic tradition requires that the last act bring order to confusion and harmony to conflict. The sitcom must resolve conflicts and end with a smile. In this play, as in others, Shakespeare uses disclosure: place the characters in situations in which they’re forced to declare who they are and their true (and honorable) intentions.
It too is a gimmick, but it falls flat because there’s little logical sense to the reconciliations. Valentine, preposterously, offers his beloved Silvia to Proteus, who has just betrayed him. In what world does this make sense? Another of Silvia’s suitors, an older man and friend of the Duke, relinquishes his bid for Silvia’s hand with the logic that he wouldn’t want to be married to an unwilling woman…and yet, he’s been pursuing her through the whole play despite her unwillingness. The Duke accepts the outlaws simply on Valentine’s word that they’re honorable men. Technically, the chaos is brought into matrimonial and civil order, but logically it’s a dog’s breakfast.
That resonates with the current world more than would a resolution that’s more adeptly conjured. Deception inevitably tears apart people and societies. The wounds don’t heal; they seep. Betrayals harden enmity. Lies are weaponized.
A democratic society founded on the rule of law trusts that courts will reveal not only the truth of the alleged facts, but also of the character of the accused. In sentencing hearings last week for the convicted Proud Boys, they begged the court for mercy. They professed remorse and acknowledged the parts they played in the criminal acts on January 6. Was this the disclosure that heals, the truth and reconciliation for our times? As reported by Lucian Truscott:
After lying, dissembling, and crying during his hearing, when the judge passed sentence and he was being led from the courtroom, Pezzola threw his fist in the air defiantly, and with a smile on his face yelled out, “Trump won.”
The fool Lance, ever faithful to his dog, and his ever-truthful companion Crab are truly the best of the lot. To be a fool in dangerous times may be the most courageous role of all.
Ellie’s Corner
Ellie was a mess when we adopted her. She’d had a rough time of it. She didn’t know how to play. She didn’t know about belly rubs. She wore an anxious look. Dave wondered if she’d ever have that goofy smile that dogs use to pry treats and attention from humans.
Boy did she ever! Hope this brings a smile your way.
Thanks for reading,
