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The Shakespeare Book of Lists Companion Web Site Introduction “List, List, O List” |
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Shakespeare loved lists. In play after play we find a character who suddenly launches into an itemized inventory. Usually the action is put on hold, the audience sits up and takes notice, and the actor revels in the richness of language. The function of the lists can vary. Sometimes they intensify description, other times they just add details. Here are a few:
Prince. Let’s see what they be. Read them. Peto [Reads] Item, a capon……………………………….2s. 2d. Item, sauce…………………………………4d. Item, sack, two gallons……………………..5s. 8d. Item, anchovies and sack after supper…….. 2s. 6d. Item, bread………………………………….ob. Prince. O monstrous! But one half-penny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! · In a conversation with Launce in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Speed reads a list of the attributes of Lucetta, the milkmaid. [Reads] 'Imprimis: She can milk... Item: She brews good ale... Item: She can sew... Item: She can knit... Item: She can wash and scour... Item: She can spin... Item: She hath many nameless virtues... Here follow her vices... Item: She is not to be kissed fasting in respect of her breath... Item: She hath a sweet mouth... Item: She doth talk in her sleep... Item: She is slow in words... Item: She is proud... Item: She hath no teeth... Item: She is curst... Item: She will often praise her liquor... Item: She is too liberal... Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults... Item: She hath more hair than wit,--and more faults than hairs, --and more wealth than faults.'
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is.
They brought one Pinch, a hungry, lean-faced villain, A mere anatomy, a mountebank, A threadbare juggler and a fortune teller, A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch, A living dead man. (5.1.237-242)
I will tell you. The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie In her pavilion--cloth-of-gold of tissue-- O'er-picturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork nature: on each side her Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid did.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea Which serves it in the office of a wall Or a moat defensive to a house Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
· Sometimes Shakespeare practically numbered his lists. Here Jaques describes the Seven Ages of Man from As You Like It All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. 1. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.2. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. 3. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. 4. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. 5. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. 6. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. 7. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
I grant him: 1. Bloody 2. Luxurious 3. Avaricious, 4. False 5. Deceitful 6. Sudden 7. Malicious 8. Smacking of every sin that has a name.
Toil And Trouble Stew Round about the cauldron go, in the poisoned entrails throw. 1. Toad,
that under cold stone days and nights has thirty-one sweltered venom sleeping
got Boil
thou first I’ th’ charmed pot 2. Fillet of a fenny snake
In the cauldron boil and bake
3. Eye of newt 4. Toe of frog 5. Wool of bat 6. Tongue of dog 7. Adder’s fork 8. Blind-worm’s sting 9. Lizard’s leg 10. Howlet’s wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, like a hell-broth, boil and bubble. 11. Scale of dragon 12. Tooth of wolf 13. Witch’s mummy 14. Maw and gulf of the ravin’d salt-sea shark 15. Root of hemlock digg’d I’ th’ dark 16. Liver of blaspheming Jew 17. Gall of goat 18. Slips of yew sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse 19. Nose of Turk 20. Tartar’s lips 21. Finger of birth-stangled babe ditch-deliver’d by a drab Make
the gruel thick and slab. Add
therto 22. a tiger’s chawdron To
th’ ingredience of our cau’dron. Cool
it with a baboon’s blood. Then the charm is firm and good. So the idea of an entire book of Shakespeare-related lists seems fitting. Some lists might seem too subjective, some too arcane. But Shakespeare lovers everywhere now have a tidy compendium of information about the author that heads their own Top 10 Lists. |
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