Forgiving the Gift: The Philosophy of Generosity in Shakespeare and Marlowe

Conclusion

185 Conclusion To the frustration of biographical criticism, Shakespeare writes almost entirely in the voices of characters. In response, James S. Shapiro turns away from Shakespeare’s psychology and personal views to “what can be known with greater certainty: the ‘form and pressure’ of the time that shaped Shakespeare’s writing.”1 Nevertheless, in his reconstruction of Shakespeare’s rivalry with the comic actor Will Kemp, Shapiro ascribes unprecedented importance to the one speech written in Shakespeare’s own voice, from the epilogue to the second part of Henry IV. Unfortunately, ironies and textual difficulties hedge and plague this epilogue. The New Variorum text ascribes to Frederick Gard Fleay, writing in 1891, the notion that the epilogue as printed in early texts conflates more than one speech.2 Fleay’s reading has attained wide acceptance. A. R. Humphreys’s 1967 Arden edition, for instance, declares, “Not all three paragraphs would be delivered at the same time,” separating the first paragraph, spoken by Shakespeare, from the last two, spoken by a dancer.3 René Weis follows him in this division and uses it as part of his argument on the dating of the play.4 Giorgio Melchiori not only accepts but compounds the division of the epilogue in his 1989 Cambridge edition, declaring that the epilogue “is divided into three sections written at different times and serving different purposes.”5 The layout of the first quarto seems to endorse Melchiori’s reading, because it inserts blank lines between each paragraph. The first paragraph, Shapiro 186 Forgiving the Gift argues, probably constitutes the epilogue delivered at court, because the quarto ends it with a prayer for the queen.6 The other paragraphs, spoken by a dancer and incorporating tasteless jokes on Falstaff’s “fat meat”7 would have been more appropriate to the public theater, where performances concluded with a jig.8 The first paragraph, on the other hand, significantly fails to contain any reference to the speaker dancing. Its speaker admits, “If you look for a good speech now, you undo me, for what I have to say is of mine own making.”9 This seems a confession of Shakespeare’s own authorship, especially as he proceeds to apologize for an earlier “displeasing play.” The fact that in the first performance the speaker and playwright would be identical, marks this speech as unique in Shakespeare’s canon. Shakespeare takes this opportunity to playfully compare his relationship to his audience with commercial exchange. He begins as he intends to continue, “and so to the venture.” Shakespeare presents himself as a deadbeat who owes the audience a play: “I meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies. Bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.”10 Shakespeare wrote Henry IV, Part 2 about two years after The Merchant of Venice, and he recalls the earlier play in his imagery, placing himself in Antonio’s situation, fearing the wreck of his “venture,” and subject to the mercy of his “creditors.” Shapiro remarks, “The analogy between a theatrical joint-stock company like the Chamberlain’s men and joint-stock mercantile enterprises is not far-fetched.” Moreover, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet within a year or two, thereby discharging even his most extravagant promise. Nevertheless, he clearly waxes ironic in his choice of imagery. The worst that the audience could reasonably deliver would be some sort of raspberry, not physical punishment or death. The Lord Chamberlain’s men was a commercial enterprise and indeed handsomely profitable, but its relationship to the playhouse audience Conclusion 187 was much more obviously commercial than its relationship to the court audience, to whom this epilogue was probably delivered.11 “And so I kneel down before you,” Shakespeare ends the speech, maintaining the pretense of addressing a body of creditors who wield power of life and death like Shylock’s knife, “but indeed,” he adds, “to pray for the Queen.”12 He abandons the facade of abjection to the audience, an abjection described as debt, in favor of a subservience that apparently requires no explanation and that finds expression not in the reciprocal obligations of debt but in the gratuity of prayer. Shakespeare dedicates...