COMEDIES***


E-text prepared bu Ted Garvin, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team



SHAKESPEARE STUDY PROGRAMS: THE COMEDIES

by

CHARLOTTE PORTER & HELEN A. CLARKE

Authors of _The Tragedies_
Editors of the _Pembroke Shakespeare_, the _First Folio Shakespeare_,
_Poet Lore_, etc.

Boston: Richard G. Badger
Toronto: The Copp Clark Co., Limited
The Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A.







[Illustration: ARTI et VERITATI]




INTRODUCTORY NOTE


The Shakespeare Study Programs appeared originally in _Poet Lore_.
They have met with marked favor, and have been reprinted as the back
numbers went out of print. The steady demand for these programs
prompts the present issue in book-form. Several new programs have been
added, and those reprinted have been revised.

The references in this volume are to the "First Folio Edition" of
Shakespeare, edited by Charlotte Porter.




"Criticism is the endeavour to find, to know, to love, to recommend
not only the best, but all the good that has been known and thought
and written in the world.... It shows how to grasp and how to
enjoy;... it helps the ear to listen when the horns of England blow."

--GEORGE SAINTSBURY, "History of Criticism."




CONTENTS

The Comedie of Errors

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Taming of the Shrew

Love's Labour's Lost

Much Adoe About Nothing

A Midsommer Nights Dreame

The Merchant of Venice

The Merry Wives of Windsor

As You Like It

Twelfe Night

The Tempest

The Winter's Tale





THE COMEDIE OF ERRORS


In the Summer of 1594 a translation of a Latin Farce by the Roman
Dramatist, Plautus, was made ready for publication in London. It may
even have been published then, for, although the title page date is
1595, then, as often now, the issue was made in advance of date.
Circulation in MS., moreover, now unusual, was then common.

This translation was registered, at any rate, for publication, June
16, 1594, as "A Booke entitled Menaechmi, being a pleasant and fine
conceited comedy taken out of the most wittie poet Plautus, chosen
purposely from out the rest as being the least harmful and most
delightful."

Six months later, Shakespeare had made an English Farce out of this
Latin one. He invented several new characters, arranged many new
situations, and put a good deal more life-likeness in the relations of
the characters, while yet it may be seen that, his new play, "The
Comedie of Errors," was directly drawn from the old one by Plautus.

The first record we have of Shakespeare as an actor before Queen
Elizabeth relates to the performance in Christmas week of this same
year of "twoe severall comedies." This record in the Accounts of the
Treasurer who paid out the money for the Plays acted before the Queen,
runs as follows:

"To William Kempe, William Shakespeare, and Richard Burbage, servaunts
to the Lord Chamberleyn upon the Councelles warrant dated at Whitehall
xv. die. Marcij 1594 [1595], for twoe severall comedies or enterludes,
shewed by them before her Majestie in Christmas tyme laste paste,
viz., upon St. Stephen daye, [Dec. 26,] and Innocente's day, [Dec.
28,] xiii^{li} vi^{s} viij^{d} and by way of her Majesties rewarde
vi^{li} xiij^{s} iv^{d} in all xx^{li}."

It is fair to infer that the "Comedie of Errors" was one of these two
comedies, for on the evening of the 28th of December, 1594, there
arose a sudden necessity to hire an entertainment to take the place at
Gray's Inn, one of the great Law Schools of London, of a Play by the
students which had gone to pieces. In lieu of this amateur play, for
which a great stage had been built in their Hall, it is recorded that
the great throng assembled were forced, first, to "content themselves
with ordinary dancing and revelling, and when that was over, with a
Comedy of Errors like to Plautus his Menoechmus, which was played by
the players." That these "players" were public players is shown in the
Gray's Inn account of these Christmas festivities by another reference
to this "company of base and common fellows" who were "foisted" in "to
make up our disorders with a play