Morose and His Tormentors

ALEXANDER LEGGATI Morose and His Tormentors In theoretical discussions of comedy, one of the situations most frequently noted is the casting out of a 'humour' figure who is crabbed and anti-social. In Shakespeare, figures as diverse as Shylock, Don John, Jaques, and Malvolio have been seen in this way. Though their fates are as diverse as their characters (and one may remark that Jaques and Malvolio deliberately exile themselves from a society that wishes to include them) they are all in some way out of tune with the figures who have joined hands in the traditional, festive comic ending - a celebration of marriage. Most comedies strive towards a cementing of social bonds, and in the process they mock those whose eccentricity or egotism makes them incapable of social intercourse. All this is familiar enough, and at first glance its application to Jonson's Epicoene may seem obvious: Morose is the 'humour' figure, the crabbed egotist who must be punished for his egotism, and then flung aside. In fact Jonson, with his more overt interest in the theoretical side of art, has made this aspect of Morose more explicit than it is in Shakespeare's corresponding figures. At his first appearance, Morose announces, 'all discourses, but mine owne, afflict mee, they seeme harsh, impertinent, and irksome' (II.i.4-5).1 His dislike of noise is in fact a rejection ofsocial life, a refusal to let other people have anything to do with him. When he attempts marriage - that basic image ofthe pleasures and pains ofthe social bondhe does so only on terms assuring his complete mastery, and the lady's submission. He does not mind the sound ofEpicoene's voice when she is expressing obedience to him: 'How lady? pray you, rise a note' (II.v .83). He takes a crude view of human relations - not unnaturally, since he allows himself so little practice in them. Having given a brace of angels to the Parson who, since he has a cold, has given him (literally) a quiet wedding, Morose is angered when the man starts to cough, and demands , 'let him giue me fiue shillings ofmy money backe. As it is bounty to reward benefits, so is it equity to mulct iniuries' (III.iv.15-17). Faced with an invasion of jabbering fops and ladies, he calls for his servants to bar the doors: 'where are all my eaters? my mouthes now?' (III.V;33-4). Like those tragic egotists, King Lear and Timon ofAthens, he weighs and measures human relations in material terms, drawing up a balance sheet of obligations and injuries. And just as, for Coriolanus, the people of UTQ, Volume XLV, Number 3, Spring 1976 222 ALEXANDER LEGGATT Rome are reduced to 'voices,' since it is only their voices he needs, in Morose's mind his servants are reduced to 'mouths' consuming his substance: he is aware only of their obligations to him, and then only in the crudest terms. Towards the end of the play, Morose reaches into his past for an explanation of this severe reduction in his social sense: My father, in my education, was wont to aduise mee, that I should alwayes collect, and contayne my mind, not suffring it to flow loosely; that I should looke to what things were necessary to the carriage of my life, and what not: embracing the one, and eschewing the other. [v.iii.48-52] At this point, we appear to have touched on the essence of his nature. If one takes, as Morose does, too narrow a view of what is 'necessary' to life, the result is an existence as crudely and exclusively material as that of a battery chicken. In such an existence other people, ifnot directly useful, are irritatingly irrelevant. The small graces of social intercourse are not 'necessary,' and Morose therefore rejects them: . Salute 'hem? I had rather doe any thing, then weare out time so vnfruitfully, sir. I wonder, how these common formes, as god saue you, and you are well-come, are come to be a habit in our liues! or, I am glad to see you! when I cannot see, what the profit can bee of these wordes...