Shakespeare and Visual Culture: A Dictionary 9781472568052, 9781472568083, 9781472568069

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Shakespeare and Visual Culture

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ARDEN SHAKESPEARE DICTIONARY SERIES SERIES EDITOR Sandra Clark (Birkbeck College, University of London) Class and Society in Shakespeare Paul Innes Military Language in Shakespeare Charles Edelman Shakespeare’s Books Stuart Gillespie Shakespeare’s Demonology Marion Gibson Shakespeare’s Insults Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin Shakespeare and the Language of Food Joan Fitzpatrick Shakespeare’s Legal Language B. J. Sokol and Mary Sokol Shakespeare’s Medical Language Sujata Iyengar Shakespeare’s Musical Language Christopher R. Wilson Shakespeare’s Non-Standard English N. F. Blake Shakespeare’s Political and Economic Language Vivian Thomas Shakespeare’s Theatre Hugh Macrae Richmond Shakespeare and Visual Culture Armelle Sabatier Women in Shakespeare Alison Findlay FORTHCOMING: Shakespeare and Animals Karen Raber Shakespeare and Domestic Life Sandra Clark Shakespeare and London Sarah Dustagheer Shakespeare and National Identity Christopher Ivic

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Shakespeare and Visual Culture A Dictionary

ARMELLE SABATIER

Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

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Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as Arden Shakespeare 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 © Armelle Sabatier, 2017 Armelle Sabatier has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

HB: ePDF: ePub:

978-1-4725-6805-2 978-1-4725-6806-9 978-1-4725-6807-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: Arden Shakespeare Dictionaries Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

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To my daughter, Ophélie, to my son Maxence, and to Sébastien. To my parents.

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Contents

List of Figures

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Acknowledgements

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Series Editor’s Preface

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List of Abbreviations

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List of Headwords Introduction A-Z

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Bibliography

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Index

283

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List of Figures

1 Chimney-piece in the Van Dyck Room, Hatfield House, Maximilian Colt, c. 1610 2 The Unton Portrait, anonymous,1596, National Portrait Gallery 3 Tomb of the first Earl of Salisbury, 1612, by Maximilian Colt Hatfield House 4 Young Man Among Roses by Nicholas Hilliard, Victoria and Albert Museum 5 The Rainbow Portrait, by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger or Isaac Oliver?, c. 1600, Hatfield House

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5 29 144 200 249

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank those who have helped and supported me with the writing of this book. My first thanks must be to Professor Sandra Clark, General Editor of the Shakespeare Dictionary Series, for her patience, guidance and encouragement. I received excellent editorial advice in response to my draft entries and queries. I also thank Margaret Bartley who has given warm support to this project right from the beginning. I am also indebted to Emily Hockley who helped me with seeking permission for the illustrations included in this book and was supportive in the last weeks of completion. I am especially indebted to Professor Ladan Niayesh who patiently read the entries and the introduction, always encouraging me in this project. Her invaluable knowledge, expertise and critical scrutiny have done much to improve clarity and precision of expression. The work itself was made possible by the provision of a six-month sabbatical from my university by Paris Assas and I am very grateful to Professor Catherine Resche for her support in this and this project. I also want to thank my friend Bertrand Van Ruymbeke for his enthusiasm and his encouragement for my research and this particular project for all these years. Our long professional collaboration and discussions have improved my understanding of Protestantism, which, I hope, is reflected in this book. My attendance at many seminars and conferences has also opened up new perspectives for this book. Professor Raphaëlle Costa de Beauregard’s invaluable expertise in Hilliard and English painting, Camilla Caporicci’s innovative readings on colours as well as exchanges with other Shakespearean academics have helped me in my research. This book has been a massive undertaking that would have not been possible without the support of my immediate family. I thank my parents, Annie and Bernard, for their support and encouragement. I thank my partner Sébastien and my daughter Ophélie for their patience as I was completing the manuscript. I also want to thank my son Maxence who encouraged me with his baby kicks through the last stages of this project.

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Series Editor’s Preface

The Arden Shakespeare Dictionaries aim to provide the student of Shakespeare with a series of authoritative guides to the principal subject areas covered by the plays and poems. They are produced by scholars who are experts both on Shakespeare and on the topic of the individual dictionary, based on the most recent scholarship, succinctly written and accessibly presented. They offer readers a self-contained body of information on the topic under discussion, its occurrence and significance in Shakespeare’s works, and its contemporary meanings. The topics are all vital ones for understanding the plays and poems; they have been selected for their importance in illuminating aspects of Shakespeare’s writings where an informed understanding of the range of Shakespeare’s usage, and of the contemporary literary, historical and cultural issues involved, will add to the reader’s appreciation of his work. Because of the diversity of the topics covered in the series, individual dictionaries may vary in emphasis and approach, but the aim and basic format of the entries remain the same from volume to volume. Sandra Clark Birkbeck College University of London

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List of Abbreviations

1. Shakespeare’s Works ADO ANT AWW AYL COR CYM ERR HAM 1H4 2H4 H5 1H6 2H6 3H6 H8 JC JN LC LLL LR LUC MAC MM MND MV OTH PER PHT PP R2 R3 ROM SHR SON TGV

Much Ado About Nothing Antony and Cleopatra All’s Well That Ends Well As You Like It Coriolanus Cymbeline The Comedy of Errors Hamlet King Henry IV, Part 1 King Henry IV, Part 2 King Henry V King Henry VI, Part 1 King Henry VI, Part 2 King Henry VI, Part 3 King Henry VIII, or All is True Julius Caesar King John A Lover’s Complaint Love’s Labour’s Lost King Lear The Rape of Lucrece Macbeth Measure for Measure Midsummer Night’s Dream The Merchant of Venice Othello Pericles The Phoenix and the Turtle The Passionate Pilgrim King Richard II King Richard III Romeo and Juliet The Taming of the Shrew Sonnets The Two Gentlemen of Verona xi

List of Abbreviations

TIM TIT TMP TN TNK TRO VEN WIV WT

Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus The Tempest Twelfth Night The Two Noble Kinsmen Troilus and Cressida Venus and Adonis The Merry Wives of Windsor The Winter’s Tale

2. Others F F2, F3, etc. OED Q Qq Q1, Q2

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The First Folio The Second, Third Folios, etc. Oxford English Dictionary Online A play in quarto edition Several quartos The first published quarto, the second published quarto, etc.

List of Headwords

Alabaster Anatomize (see painter) antics ape (see imitate) arras art artificial (see art) artist astonished auburn azure Basilisk basis (see statue) bed (see grave) begrime beguile behold black blanch, blench blazon bleach (see blanch_ blessing (see kneel) block blue blush brass brazen brazier breath brown Carnation carver casket ceremonies (see statue) chameleon

chapel cherry cherubin chimney-piece chisel clinquant cloth colly colour colossus complexion conceit conduit copy (see image) coral counterfeit creation (see breath) crimson curtain cut cutter Damask dark deceit deceive (see deceit) deface (see image) demigod (see breath, life) discolour dislimn (see limn) disrobe (see image) draw dumb dun dye Ebony xiii

List of Headwords

effigy emblem emerald engrave (see table) entombed (see tomb) entrap epitaph eternity (see creation) excel expressly eye Fair fame (see tomb) fancy (see imagination) figure fix fixure flatter flesh (see stone) flint (see stone) form fountain frame fretted Gallery gaze gild Giulio Romano glance gleam glister glitter gloss glow golden gorgon grain grave green grey gules xiv

Hangings hard-hearted (see stone) heraldry hue Idol idolatry (see idol) image imaginary (see imagination) imagination imitate incarnadine ink insculp insculpture interlace ivory Jet jewel Kneel Life lifeless (see life) light likeness lily limn lively look lustre Mar marble masonry master (see artist) medusa (see gorgon) miniature (see portrait) mock monument motion motley

List of Headwords

move (see motion) Nature (see art) nighted niobe numbness Oblivion ocular oily optic (see perspective) orient ornament outlive overpicture Paint painter painting pale patience pencil perform perspective peruse physiognomy picture piece pipe (see statue) plaster portrait portraiture presentment proportion purple pygmalion Rainbow raven red rose rosy (see rose) ruby

ruddy russet Sable saint (see image, statue) sanguine sapphire scarlet scratch sculpture see senseless shadow shape shield shop sight silence silver spider spout stare statua (see statue) statue stell still stone substance (see shadow) superstition (see kneel) surpass (see art) swart, swarthy Table tapestry tawny tear (see scratch) tinct/tincture tomb tongue-tied tutor (see art) Varnish vault xv

List of Headwords

veil (see curtain) vein vermillion view vision Wanton weave white

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wonder wondrous (see wonder) work (see piece) workmanship worship wrinkle (see statue) wrought Yellow

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to explore the different aspects of references to visual arts and vision interspersed in Shakespeare’s texts, both drama and poetry, and to bring to the fore the historical background and the social context as well as the artistic and literary debates related to these textual references. Examining the interrelation of visual culture and Shakespeare’s works is not a new subject. For more than a century, scholars have debated the meaning and staging of the statue of Hermione in WT, or Hamlet’s presentation of the portraits of his father and his uncle to Gertrude in the closet scene (HAM 3.4). The rhetorical conceit of ekphrasis – or the verbal depiction of a work of art – in the narrative poems and in some plays, has given rise to an impressive range of studies, giving way to different interpretations. The recent publication of Sillars’ work on Shakespeare and Visual Imagination (2015) proves the great breadth of this subject while opening up new perspectives on texts that have been already scrutinized. Elam’s next monograph, Shakespeare’s Pictures. Visual Culture in Drama, to be published by Bloomsbury in 2017, testifies to the vitality of such an interdisciplinary subject. In a dense article devoted to ekphrasis in Shakespeare, Belsey (2012) harshly criticizes studies of Elizabethan visual arts as they are mostly influenced by the religious debates of post-Reformation England and turn a blind eye to the diversity of visual productions in Shakespeare’s time. She advocates a new attitude towards Elizabethan visual culture: Despite a mounting accumulation of evidence, the rich visual culture of early modern English households still goes widely unacknowledged . . . This position is no longer tenable: not all pictures are icons, inviting the worship the Reformation deemed so dangerous to the true faith; what was banned was devotional imagery, especially in churches as places of worship, and not visual representation itself. No doubt, a fractured culture included pockets of anxiety about graven images, but in early modern society at large artistic display increased markedly in the newly built, expanded, and renovated houses brought into being by an unprecedented construction boom. (pp. 180–1) Her remarks challenge the ‘culture of suspicion’ towards images that pervaded Elizabethan society, but also contemporary academic work.

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Shakespeare and Visual Culture

The anti-visual prejudice In his innovative study of images, Freedberg (1989) has shown that in Western culture, the creation and contemplation of images gave rise to extreme, nearly irreconcilable reactions – fascination and repulsion: ‘Even in the briefest of summaries we see some of the deep paradoxes of iconoclasm. We love art and hate it; we cherish it and are afraid; we know of its powers. They are powers that, when we do not destroy, we call redemptive. If they are troubling they are the powers of images, not of art’ (p. 388). This ambivalent attitude towards the ‘power of images’ is exemplified by Shakespeare’s England, a society going through an unprecedented religious evolution in the wake of Henry VIII’s schism with Roman Catholicism and religious conflicts in the reign of Edward VI (1547–1553) and Mary Tudor (1553–1558). The sporadic movements of iconoclasm throughout the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries led to the destruction of most of the religious paintings, statues and stained-glass windows used to ornament Catholic churches in the Middle Ages. In his survey of funerary monuments, Weever (1631) depicts the violence of such destructions: They defaced and brake downe the images of Kings, Princes and noble estates, erected, set up or pourtraied, for the onely memory of them to posterity, and not for any religious honour. But the foulest and most inhumane action of those times was the violation of Funerall Monuments. Marbles which covered the dead were digged up and put to other uses, Tombes hackt and hewn apeeces; Images and representations of the defunct, broken, erazed, cut, or dismembred. (p. 51) In 1560, Queen Elizabeth signed a proclamation to stop iconoclasts and preserve funerary monuments (‘A proclamation against breaking or defacing of Monuments of Antiquitie, being set up in churches, and other publicke places, for memory, and not for superstition’): Her maiestie chargeth and commandeth all manner of persons hereafter to forbeare the breaking and defacing of any parcell of any Monument, or Tombe, or Grave, or other inscription and memory of any person deceased, being in any manner of place; or to breake any image of Kings, Princes, or noble Estates of this realme, or of any other that have beene in times past erected and set up, for the only memory of them to their posterity in common Churches, and not for any religious honour; or to break downe and deface any image in glasse windowes in any church, without consent of the ordinary. (Weever, 1631, pp. 52–3) Although iconoclasts and Puritans were deeply convinced that visual representations of God or biblical episodes polluted the mind and led believers to idolatry, the official doctrine of the Anglican church, developed in The Second Book of Homilies (Certain Sermons or Homilies, 1571) which was read in churches, also rejected religious images

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Introduction

while tolerating secular ones: ‘But we would admit and grant them, that images used for no Religion, or Superstition rather, we mean images of none worshipped, nor in danger to be worshipped of any, may be suffered. But images placed publickly in Temples, cannot possibly be without danger of worshipping and idolatry, wherefore they are not publickly to be had or suffered in Temples and Churches’ (The Third Part of the Sermon against the Perils of Idolatry, sig. M4). However pious or religious Elizabethans might have been in their everyday life, they were stimulated by the paintings and tapestries adorning their houses, or the colourful painted cloths or signs present in taverns. Despite the distinctions established in the official doctrine between religious and secular images and the soaring demand for works of art in Shakespeare’s time, certain historians have surveyed early modern English visual arts only through the lens of religious conflicts and upheavals, sometimes overemphasising the impact of Protestant ideas. For instance, some historians have relied on the assumption that visual culture could hardly strive and develop in a post-Reformation ‘iconophobic’ England to quote Collinson (1988, p. 99). In line with the latter’s theory developed in the Stenton Lecture (1985), Diehl’s survey of the development of early modern drama in a post-Reformation England is still influenced by the prevailing idea that the new culture that emerged in Shakespeare’s time was ‘anti-visual’ (1997, p. 2). Such theories have been reappraised and challenged by more recent studies highlighting the vitality and development of Elizabethan visual culture. Both historians and art historians have recently challenged the traditional standpoint of an iconophobic England as opposed to an iconophilic Italy. Images were far from being rooted out of an Anglican England. As already mentioned, Protestants and Anglicans were not systematically against all types of images, but rejected visual representations of religious subjects. In her innovative study of popular print and visual culture, partly focused on woodcut pictures, Watt (1991) questions Collinson’s theory by demonstrating the continuity between medieval and postReformation forms of piety. Similarly, in their introduction to a collection of innovative essays on the issue of iconoclasm, Hamling and Williams (2007) qualify the abovementioned theories by showing that Elizabethan visual arts were part of a broad ‘cultural transformation’ that went through ‘continuities and discontinuities, innovation and destruction’ (pp. 1, 4). Clay (see Boldrick 2007) contends that iconoclasm can reveal a ‘creative dimension’ as ‘even when an object is utterly erased the empty space that it once filled can connote new meanings for as long as the absent signifier is remembered’ (p. 9). In her study of visuality in Lyly and Shakespeare, Porter (2009) questions the dominant idea of an ‘absence’ of visual arts in Renaissance England: ‘Late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century drama did not step into a void created by the destruction of visual culture during the Reformation; nor do plays re-appropriate for a theatrical context types of visual experience eradicated as a result of religious change. Early modern English drama is rooted in a developing visual culture in which pre- and postReformation visual experiences were, to use Hamling’s and William’s terms, in the process of “re-formation” ’ (p. 12). Recent studies have shown that other types of images were promoted at the time; historians such as Dyrness (2004) and Hamling (2010) 3

Shakespeare and Visual Culture

suggest that in their private and domestic spheres, Protestants’ eyes and sight were stimulated by varied types of images. Despite these religious debates on the purpose and role of images in devotion, the aristocracy and the growing middle-class ordered large-scale paintings to adorn the galleries of their houses, or commissioned delicate miniature portraits, and increasingly demanded grander and more ornate funerary monuments to preserve their memory and extol their achievements Elizabethan and Jacobean visual arts Although painters and sculptors produced a great variety of works of art in Elizabethan and Jacobean England, these two visual arts have not received the same attention. While Elizabethan painting has been fully explored by historians such as Strong, and more recently Tittler and Cooper, early modern English sculpture has been largely ignored, probably ever since Shakespeare’s time: Princes’ images on their tombes Do not lie, as they were wont, seeming to pray Up to heaven: but with hands under the cheekes As if they died of tooth-ache – they are not carved With their eies fix’d upon the starres; but as Their mindes were wholy bent upon the world, The selfsame way they seeme to turn their faces. (Webster, The Duchess of Malfi, 4.2.153–9) The ferocious attack on funerary sculpture voiced by Bosola, disguised as a tomb-maker or sculptor in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (1612) seems to echo some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries’ derogatory attitude towards English visual arts. In Campaspe (1584), a comedy featuring the painter Apelles and pictorial art, John Lyly is ironical about the fashion of colouring funerary effigies: ‘Sepulchres have fresh colours, but rotten bones’ (2.2.56). The Elizabethan practice of painting statues to make them look alive horrified many contemporaries such as Sir Henry Wotton who sarcastically named this artistic feature an ‘English barbarism’: ‘Colours have therein the greatest power; whereupon perchance did first grow with us the fashion of colouring even regall statues, which I must take leave to call an English barbarisme’ (1624, 89–90). Nevertheless, these remarks do not reflect the reality of Elizabethan and Jacobean England as demand for statuary soared at the time. In the early sixteenth century, most sculptors lived and worked in areas near to the natural resources they needed, such as stone and alabaster, the material most frequently used at the time. They were mainly located in Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and the Midlands, areas renowned for the quality of their alabaster. As patrons gradually commissioned sculptures made of marble, London workshops boomed as they could easily import marble through London harbour. Hence, families of sculptors settled in London, such as 4

Introduction

the Johnsons and the Cures, took over the market that had previously been dominated by provincial workshops such as the Roileys from Burton-on-Trent who had thrived from the 1520s to the 1560s. Moreover, migrants from the continent, especially Flemish, settled in Southwark on the outskirts of London, sharing their knowledge of European sculpture. In addition to carving monuments, sculptors were versatile artists and craftsmen who played an active role in interior decoration as in the carving of chimneypieces, as in Hatfield House (see Figure 1), in garden statuary and also in the decoration of playhouses, as was evidenced by Wilson (1995) or Keenan and Davidson (1997). They often performed or took part in masonry work as Esdaile (1927) indicates: ‘it was long before the functions of sculptor and architect were really differentiated. Colt, Christmas, Stone, Bernard Johnson [. . .] are among these who in the 16th century combined the function of both’ (p. 95). Despite Esdaile’s pioneering work on this visual art (1927, 1938, 1946), historians have been influenced by Fairchild’s view of early modern sculpture as being ‘decadent’ (1937, p. 56). Although Whinney (1964) has explored the complexity of Elizabethan sculpture, she disparages the object of her study right from the introduction: ‘The history

Figure 1 Chimney-piece in the Van Dyck Room, Hatfield House, Maximilian Colt, c. 1610

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Shakespeare and Visual Culture

of English sculpture is a sorry tale. Though the quantity produced was great, its quality is at once mediocre and monotonous. The causes of this disappointing character of English sixteenth-century work lie in the limited opportunities offered to the craftsmen, the narrowness of their training, and their restricted knowledge of Continental art’ (p. 6). Art historians also took different approaches, such as Llewellyn (1990) who decided to break away from the model imposed by scholars like Whinney to explore the anthropological and social role played by the arts: ‘In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was a great deal of discussion about the function and legitimacy of carved images and the way in which they helped create and wield symbolic power. But these questions have not been addressed by art historians, who have preferred to take four traditional approaches to these funeral monuments; they have asked questions about taste, the role of the artist, decoration and periodisation’ (p. 219). Early modern English painters seem to have partly shared the same burden as sculptors. In the preface to his translation of Lomazzo’s Trattato della Pittura (1585), Haydocke (1598) contends that English painting ‘never attained to any great perfection amongst us . . . yet is much decayed amongst the ordinarie’. According to him, these bad productions are the result of low wages paid to painters: ‘First the buyer refuseth to bestowe anie great price on a peece of worke, because hee thinkes it is not well done: And the Workmans answere is, that he therefore neither useth all his skill, nor taketh all the paines that he could, because hee knoweth before hand the slendernes of his reward.’ No wonder that, with badly paid productions and low social status, Stow (1615) remarked that painting ‘is an Art now not accounted ingenuous or fit for a Gentleman, by reason that it is much fallen from the reputation, which it had aunciently, which whether it bee for the unworthinesse or unskilfulness of the persons exercising and practising it in this age, or for the abuse and deceipts used by Paynters, or for the scandal of Images and Idolls’ (sig. Oooo2ͮ). Furthermore, in drama, the characters of painters were also associated with poisoning as in Arden of Faversham (anonymous, 1592) where Alice and her lover Mosby pay a visit to a painter to talk about his ‘trick of poisoned pictures’ (1.1.278). The artist even offers a ‘poisoned crucifix’ to help Alice get rid of her husband (2.10). This reputation carried through to early seventeenthcentury drama when one character in Webster’s The White Devil (1611) dies on stage after kissing the poisoned portrait of her dear husband (2.2). This reputation can partly be explained by the dangerous, sometimes highly toxic, material used by painters on their canvas, such as ceruse or mercury. The poor quality of patronage, especially royal patronage, is another reason given by Strong (1983): ‘For the visual arts the effect of the political and religious disturbances of the reigns of Edward and Mary, followed by the massive financial cut-backs of Elizabeth, set the scene for an isolationist, iconic court art’ (p. 65). Some critics assert that Queen Elizabeth’s ‘tepid’ interest in visual arts in some ways hindered the development of a visual culture that could have rivalled that of the continent where patronage actually helped arts to flourish and strive, thanks to Italian popes or princes, or French kings such as Francis I. According to Kiefer (2003), the Queen’s ‘preference for words over pictures’ (p. 1) may also explain the lack of 6

Introduction

interest in visual arts during her reign. Although she neglected to develop the beautiful collection of art gathered by her father, Queen Elizabeth became aware that her image as a monarch needed to be controlled. Drafting a proclamation to forbid the circulation of unauthorized images of herself in 1563 was not sufficient to impose a pattern of her image onto artists. Despite the negative statements quoted above, the appointment of court painters or Serjeant Painter, such as George Gower in 1581, granted impetus to pictorial productions as members of the court commissioned portraits to these official artists. If Gower is famous for the first ‘Sieve portrait’ of the Queen (1579, Folger Shakespeare Library), the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard remains the best-known artist of her reign. Appointed as Queen Elizabeth’s limner and goldsmith, Hilliard took part in shaping the myth of the Virgin Queen, an essential feature of her political propaganda. Full-length portraits of the Queen such as the ‘Pelican’ and the ‘Phoenix’ pictures drawn by Hilliard around 1572 are structured around symbols of power and a subtle codification. The lavish exhibition of jewellery in this type of painting as well as in the delicate miniatures demanded highly skilled artists who had often been trained as goldsmiths. Isaac Oliver, Hilliard’s pupil, also became famous for his miniatures and the numerous paintings he drew for James I and Queen Anne. Elizabethan pictorial art has been explored to far greater extent and in a far more positive light than its sculpture, with the invaluable and monumental work by Strong who mainly specialized in Elizabethan portraits and miniatures. Other historians have explored other aspects of Elizabethan portraiture such as Cooper (2012) on urban painting and Tittler (2007). The printing of emblems as well as the illustrations for books with their elaborate frames also participate in the evolution of Elizabethan visual culture as a growing number of readers were more and more familiar with images printed in black and white as opposed to the polychromy of illuminated books reserved for an elite as shown in recent studies by Knapp (2003) and Fleming (2001). Tapestries and arrases with their vivid chromatic stories also form part of Elizabethan visual culture and have received some attention by scholars such as Rivère de Carles (2003, 2007) in France and Olson (2009, 2010) who has devoted a monograph to the representation of this artistic object in early modern drama (2013). Visual eloquence Visual culture cannot be approached only from the perspective of history of art and material culture since the representation of painting was also regarded in a sense as verbal in Renaissance England. Gent (1981) claims that dramatists and poets were more familiar with works of art they could read about in books than actual paintings or statues they could see in their everyday life: ‘Interest in pictures can be traced back to literary sources: to rhetorical and ekphrastic tradition, to the widespread doctrine of “ut pictura poesis” and to the discourse of influential classical authors, such as Pliny and Plutarch, on pictures’ (p. 3). Visual eloquence is undoubtedly a major way of exploring the intricate relationship between Shakespeare and visual culture, especially as he intentionally used 7

Shakespeare and Visual Culture

the rhetorical device of ekphrasis both in his narrative poems and his drama, and also dramatized the Italian debate of the paragone between poetry and painting in the opening scene of TIM or Sonnet 24 for instance, or the rivalry between sculpture and painting in TGV. The concept of ut pictura poesis (as is painting so is poetry) is usually attributed to Horace (Ars Poetica) and Simonide of Ceos. Horace merely remarked that some poems and pictures shared common features. This statement was then developed into a literary theory highlighting all the structural and aesthetic analogies between poetry and painting. Simonides suggested that painting was a silent poem, while poetry was a speaking image. This comparison had a huge impact on Elizabethan literary theories as evidenced by Sidney’s well-known definition of poetry: ‘Poesy therefore is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word μιμησιζ, that is to say, a representing, counterfetting, or figuring foorth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture: with this end, to teach and delight’ (1595, p. 25). The debate of the paragone originated in Italy in the 1430s when Alberti first compared painting and sculpture in his De Pictura (1435), claiming that, although they were equal despite their differences, sculpture was still far easier than painting and was even a necessary stage to the study of the art of painting. The superiority of painting was strengthened by the writings of other Italian artists, the best known being Da Vinci’s Paragone. This debate was wellknown in Elizabethan England through the translations of some key Italian treatises such as Lomazzo’s Trattato della Pittura (1584), translated by Haydocke as A Tracte Containing the Artes of Curious Paintings (1598) and Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (1527), translated by Hoby as The Book of the Courtier (1561). The word paragone, although originally applied to the visual arts, has been extended and widely used by scholars to describe the rivalry between poetry and painting as shown in Hunt’s study of TIM (1988). In the wake of these parallels, ekphrasis became another tool to explore the relationship between visual arts and literature especially as this rhetorical exercise, already taught in Tudor schools, was widely practised in Elizabethan England. In its restricted sense, ekphrasis alludes to the rhetorical description of a work of art, the bestknown examples in classical antiquity being Homer’s verbal depiction of the shield of Achilles in his Iliad (18) and the description of the Trojan wars on the wall of Juno’s temple in Virgil’s Aeneid (I), examples that were undoubtedly a source of inspiration for the long ekphrasis detailing the painting of Troy in LUC. According to Meek (2006), ‘ekphrasis is presented as a trope that is capable of creating a powerful illusion of presence, describing absent events (and absent works of art) that have no existence outside Shakespeare’s text’ (p. 406). Visual eloquence has opened the way for new literary theories on the relationship between word and image, initially theorized by Mitchell (1986) in his renowned work Iconology: ‘the paragone or debate of poetry and painting is never just a contest between two kinds of signs, but a struggle between body and soul, world and mind, nature and culture’ (p. 49). This vision has been taken up by many critics such as Heffernan (1993): ‘In my judgment, the most promising line of inquiry in the field of sister arts studies is the one drawn by W.T.J. Mitchell’s Iconology, which treats the relation between literature 8

Introduction

and the visual as essentially paragonal, a struggle for dominance between the image and the word’ (p. 1). This perspective on a supposed rivalry between arts and literature has been adopted by many scholars such as Hollander (1995) and Preston (2007). This theory has been recently challenged by Belsey (2012) who rightly contends that this antagonistic vision does not always correspond to the reality of the texts, especially in the case of imaginary ekphrasis (pp. 188–9). Colours in Shakespeare Studying the interrelation between Shakespeare’s works and visual culture would have been incomplete without entries devoted to colours. Colours encompass many aspects, such as material culture with fashion and clothing, but also rhetoric and eloquence and, of course, painting. If the relationship between colour and pictorial art sounds obvious, as recalled by Lomazzo’s definition of painting (‘Painting is an arte, which with proportionable lines, and colours answerable to the life, by observing the perspective light, doeth so imitate that nature of corporall thinges’ 1598, 13), Jones and Stallybrass (2001) signalled that ‘the connection between painters and colors was, indeed, formalized in the fact that all painters in London were officially supposed to belong to the Company of Painters-Stainers, a company that was responsible for illustrating documents, for coloring heraldic banners, for making the decorations for revels and pageants, as well as for what we now call “painting” ’ (p. 43). Linthicum (1936) asserts that ‘Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists mentioned in their plays most of the colours known to their age. Shakespeare was the master colourist’ (p. 24). This invaluable work, which remains even today a gold mine for understanding the different shades and meanings, can be truly considered as a pioneering study of material and visual culture as it explores the role of colours and clothes in Shakespeare. In his chapter on colours, Bloch (1984) argues that 80 per cent of the colour terms appearing in Shakespeare’s texts can be reduced to four: black, white, red and green. According to him, on the whole, Shakespeare’s works rely on nine colours – the other five being yellow (30 times), blue (28), brown (24), grey (24) and purple (18). Despite accurate readings, this survey is incomplete as there are more colour terms in Shakespeare that should be thought of in terms of hues. The dominant colours categorized by Bloch come in a variety of shades. If we take into account all the shades of red, for instance, it appears as much as black with hues such as scarlet, crimson or even purple (which was perceived as red in Elizabethan times). Likewise, black has its own shades such as sable, coal or even jet. Furthermore, colour is also signified in Shakespeare’s text in what we could call metaphoric ways, through powerful symbols such as the rose which can be red, white or pink (damask at the time), or literary conceits inherited from Petrarch such as, for example, ivory or lily to visualize white. Colours also played a vital role on theatrical stages with colourful scenery, stage properties, costumes and make-up. Although colour is not a new subject for Shakespearean academics, it has attracted far less interest than the relationship between Shakespeare and pictorial art, and only a 9

Shakespeare and Visual Culture

limited number of aspects have been explored thus far. Most studies devoted to colours in Shakespeare have been dominated by black which was explored for a long time only from the point of view of race, excluding other meanings of black which pervaded Elizabethan society, but are foreign to our contemporary world. Some academics, especially in North America, were so influenced by historical events, such as the civil rights movement, that they tended to project the problematics related to race in America onto Shakespeare’s text, especially OTH where the opposition between black and white seems sometimes to be imbued with a political agenda. Hence, the entry devoted to black strives to give an overview of the many studies on black – although it was impossible to quote them all – and to throw light upon research that takes into account the complex cultural readings of black pervasive in Elizabethan society, such as the impact of heraldry which is explored in the analysis of HAM in the B) part of the entry. Other colours have been explored, but to a lesser extent. Woodbridge (1987) probably remains one of the pioneers in this field with her invaluable article on the complex codification of white, red and black in Shakespeare, especially in his poetry. Harvey (2010) explores the colour of flesh in the Sonnets. Smith (2009) discusses the intricate codification of green in early modern English culture, offering illuminating analyses of Shakespeare. Knight (2014) has recently published a monograph on green, re-assessing Smith’s work and opening new perspectives on this particular colour. Chiari (2015) has edited a dense collection of articles on colours in early modern England which contains many articles on different colours in Shakespeare. This renewed interest in colour has probably been partly favoured by the French historian Pastoureau who has studied colours for the past twenty years and published monographs on the history of a single colour, such as blue (2001), black (2009) and recently green (2014). New books on red and yellow are expected, hopefully in the near future. Despite other illuminating studies on the history of colours led by historians such as Pleij (2004), Pastoureau is unrivalled in this field as no systematic study of colours in the English-speaking world has so far existed, let alone on the English Renaissance. Nonetheless, much information can be found in studies devoted to fashion and clothing such as in Schneider (1978, 2000) or on sumptuary laws. The entries related to colours attempt to give a brief overview of historical studies to help readers to find information. When investigating the dramatization or representation of colours in Shakespeare’s drama and poetry, one should also bear in mind that colour was also considered to be verbal insofar as it was perceived as a rhetorical conceit in the Renaissance. The colores rhetorici, or colours of rhetoric, a Latin phrase that was coined after Cicero’s treatise on rhetoric Ad Herennium, had become a conventional expression to describe rhetorical devices. In his treatise on poetry, Puttenham (1589) offers guidance to future poets on the proper way to use colours in poetry: This ornament we speake of is given by figures and figurative speaches, which be the flowers as it were coulours that a Poett setteth upon his language by arte . . . as th’excellent painter bestoweth the rich Orient coulours upon his table of 10

Introduction

pourtraiture . . . wherfore the chief prayse and cunning of our Poet is in the discreet using of his figures, as the skilfull painters is in the good conveyance of his coulours and shadowing traits of his pensill, with a delectable varietie, by all measure and just proportion, and in places most aptly to be bestowed. (p. 150) Mukerji (2006) has also shown that the colours of rhetoric were related to the legal world, more precisely to the Inns of Court, where many plays and pageants were performed at that time. One of the traditional rhetorical devices that would-be barristers had to learn was ‘to give colour’, which implied a certain wording of events in pleading. Methods and purpose Studying the complex interrelation between Shakespeare’s texts and visual culture has raised much controversy over many decades – nearly a whole century – not only because Shakespeareans have been divided on the scope of the subject, but also because the methodological approaches have greatly varied over time, leading to unequal input. Art historians have disagreed over this interdisciplinary subject because comparisons between different media require support from a structured and sensible methodology. Wellek (1941), one of the main opponents to studies on the relationship between art and literature, contends that it is impossible to transfer the methodology used by art historians onto a literary text. He lists all the possible pitfalls of such studies, ranging from the controversial survey of art and literature from the emotional standpoint to the speculative structural parallels between the two fields. He cites as unsound the theory developed by Oscar Walsel who transposed onto seventeenth-century drama the artistic categories drawn by Wölfflin on Renaissance art. According to the latter, Renaissance art relied on symmetries while baroque was structured around a lack of symmetry, and decentring. Hence, Walsel concluded that Shakespeare’s drama was baroque while Corneille and Racine were Renaissance since their plays hinged upon central characters. The other pitfall mentioned by Wellek is the difference between the artistic and literary productions at a given time: ‘we are finally confronted with the problem that certain times or nations were extremely productive only in one or two arts, while either completely barren or imitative in others’ (p. 61). To a certain extent, this imbalance partly corresponds to the reality of Elizabethan culture where the vitality of drama was unprecedented while the soaring demand for Elizabethan artistic productions such as monuments, paintings and tapestry sometimes gave rise to works of art that are not considered as quintessential English art. However, this argument of unequal ‘quality’ between the subjects of comparative studies has been rejected by most historians and philosophers such as Souriau (1969) who offers a structuralist method to explore the interrelationship between the arts and literature. In the early twentieth century, Shakespearean scholars such as Cust (1917) or Hereford (1927) tended to neglect the role played by the visual arts in Shakespeare’s 11

Shakespeare and Visual Culture

works. In his essay devoted to the subject, Cust (1917) asserts that ‘the arts of painting, sculpture and engraving in England during the latter half of the sixteenth century do not afford a very fruitful field for the historian . . . Shakespeare himself shows little enthusiasm for the pictorial arts, but the allusions, scanty as they are . . . show the dramatist in an observant, if hardly appreciative, attitude’ (pp. 1–2). Nearly one century later, scholars like Thorne (2001) are still suspicious about the extent of Shakespeare’s interest in visual arts: ‘Existing only as a textual effect, these artefacts tend to function reflexively as a trope for Shakespeare’s own rhetorical virtuosity, thereby instigating a running paragone between poet and painter. As comments on the mimetic process, his pictorial allusions are mostly unremarkable additions to the stock of Renaissance commonplaces on this theme’ (p. 73). Nevertheless, these voices remain minor in the wealthy and diverse field of this interdisciplinary subject. Exploring visual arts in Shakespeare cannot be limited to a single approach or methodology and Shakespearean scholars have explored different perspectives on this relationship, even those disapproved of by art historians. The domination of Italian art in Renaissance Europe has led some scholars to draw parallels between Shakespeare’s genius and the greatest artists of the Quattrocento, or later movement belonging to Mannerism or Baroque. In his study of the figure of Adonis, Doebler (1982), for instance, draws parallels between Shakespeare’s narrative poem VEN and paintings by Titian that Shakespeare had never seen so as to show common themes. Another methodology relying on the appropriation of aesthetic categories stemming from Italian art such as ‘Baroque’ or ‘Mannerism’ to analyse Shakespeare’s texts have raised much controversy in the academic world. Some scholars have applied this methodology to their studies of the interrelation between Shakespeare and visual arts, such as the pioneering work of Sypher (1955) who consciously transferred categories from art history onto early modern literature, or the French scholar Maquerlot (1995). Despite the value and interest of these learned studies, one of the main objections to such a methodology is that it ignores the fact that Shakespeare probably had never seen the works of art cited in these studies, and also tends to neglect the perceptions of Elizabethan spectators for whom these plays had been primarily and solely written and performed. Furthermore, these aesthetic categories do not correspond to the specificity of English arts and can thus be misleading in an interdisciplinary survey. I cannot agree more with Frye’s argument about such investigations. Frye (1980) rightly underlines that Shakespeare was a man of his time and that drama and painting were aloof from the Italian concern with the aesthetic principles of unity. The development of the unity principle in Italian art and drama did not influence Shakespeare and his fellow visual artists: ‘Both Elizabethan drama and Elizabethan painting substantially ignored the unities of time, place, and action which evolved out of the neoclassical tendencies of the Italian Renaissance. In Tudor England, plays and pictures were organized according to very different principles which emphasized unities of narrative themes, of ideas, and of persons’ (p. 323). Furthermore, unlike Italy, Elizabethan England did not produce any religious paintings or sculptures following the Reformation. 12

Introduction

Hence, this study of visual culture and Shakespeare does not include any parallels between Italian aesthetic or artistic categories and Shakespeare’s texts. Although the entries mainly focus on the specificity of English art, this work takes into account the influence of Italian philosophy and literature on Shakespeare. The domination of Petrarch’s poetry over Elizabethan sonnet-writing has been, for instance, taken into account to examine the representation of painting or of colours in Shakespeare, since he debunks many Petrarchan metaphors. This book is also indebted to the ‘pragmatic approach’ on the circulation and reception of Italian works in Elizabethan society developed by Marrapodi (2014, see his introduction). For example, the reference to the Italian artist Giulio Romano in WT (5.2) has been studied from the point of view of reception by scholars such as Martinet (1975) and more recently Elam (2014) who provides an unexpected connection between Romano and Aretino and the representation of ‘wanton pictures’ in SHR. The expression ‘visual culture’ chosen for the title of this book offers the possibility of exploring the Elizabethans’ visual experience which is not limited solely to pictures and statues as was previously the case in studies of the relation between Shakespeare and visual arts. It also enables to take into account both material culture and the literary and rhetorical aspect of visual elements. ‘Visual culture’, which is applied today to a wide range of visual productions such as cinema or even the internet, is regarded by many as more appropriate terminology than the more general, but vague ‘visual arts’, to describe the complex nature of what we would call today Elizabethan art. While Baxandall (1972) is the first art historian to resort to this broader term in his study of Italian Renaissance painting, it has been theorized in modern and post-modern art history over the past decades, especially by Elkins (2003). If the new field of studies devoted to visual culture is simply defined as ‘everything that is seen’ by Elkins (2003, p. 4), Porter (2013) claims that this phrase offers the possibility of moving beyond the artificial boundaries between arts and literature: ‘The word culture invokes the production of representations as a part of that field. It also collapses the disciplinary divisions between visual and literary modes of representation in ways that are useful for an interdisciplinary study’ (p. 22). The rhetorical approach to the role of visual culture in Shakespeare’s text is increasingly combined with a renewed interest in Elizabethan culture and artistic productions with which Shakespeare and his public were familiar to varying degrees. Belsey (1999) has devoted an invaluable chapter on the connection between funerary sculpture and Shakespeare’s text, following Smith’s illuminating systematic survey of the representation of statuary in Shakespeare (1985) and Wilson’s innovative parallels between Elizabethan monuments and the Elizabethan stage (1995). Waage (1980) has claimed that Shakespeare’s vision of visual arts evolved throughout his career as he explored the relation between writing and art in his narrative poems and the Sonnets and in his later plays (PER, CYM, WT, TEMP). According to him, the young poet depicted art as an imitation of nature while in his later Jacobean plays, he showed that art could surpass nature. This reading does not take into account the reality of Shakespeare’s writing as the close readings of Shakespeare’s texts given in this 13

Shakespeare and Visual Culture

dictionary draw a totally different picture. For instance, the two narrative poems explore arts in different, sometimes opposed directions. In LUC, the painter’s art goes beyond a mere imitation of nature as, for example, the ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy explores the technique of the trompe-l’oeil. Tassi’s dense and rich study of the dramatization of painting on the early modern stage, and more precisely in Shakespeare (2005) is a landmark monograph. Her approach to Elizabethan culture is focused on the influence of iconoclasm on the staging and the choices made by dramatists to stage or write about paintings. According to Tassi, Shakespeare provides the most complex treatment of visual arts on stage: ‘No Elizabethan dramatist explored the complex, paradoxical nature of human responses to painted images as fully as Shakespeare did, nor did any of his contemporaries exploit painting’s theatrical potential as extensively’ (p. 179). She also contends that Shakespeare’s attitude towards visual arts is ambivalent: ‘Shakespeare staged many scenes in which a double vision of art emerges, a vision characterized by appreciation and wonder on the one hand, and scepticism, or fear, or irony, on the other. Underlying Shakespeare’s stage unveilings of images was a competitive impulse to outdo the painter or sculptor by producing a more complex, wondrous visual art’ (p. 179). Meek (2009) provides a full and acute insight into visuality and the narrative process in Shakespeare. In her recent monograph, Porter (2013) has taken innovative steps by integrating recent studies on material culture such as Richardson’s survey of portraits (2011) or Jones and Stallybrass’s study of clothing (2001), to capture all the scope of Elizabethan visual culture and improve our understanding of its representation in early modern literature, especially Shakespeare. This dictionary is arranged alphabetically, with headwords ranging from pictorial art and colours, to less-often studied aspects of visual culture such as tapestries, chimneypieces or technical words such as chisel, pencil or materials such as alabaster. Entries are usually divided along three sections. Section A provides general definitions and gives a brief overview of the different meanings of the term in Shakespeare’s time. It has sometimes been necessary to include information about the historical, social and literary contexts so as to bring to light the diverse meanings of the studied term in Shakespeare’s texts. Section B, the longest part in most headwords, explores the different ways in which the headword is used by Shakespeare, sometimes showing the evolution of the term in one single play or in different works. Attention has been paid to rhetorical figures as well. I have endeavoured to guide the reader to as many secondary readings as possible in Section C, trying to include different approaches and interpretations to the headword. I have also focused on primary sources, in both sections A and C in order to bring to the fore authors Shakespeare was or might have been familiar with. As the main approach of this study is the close investigation of textual references to visual culture in Shakespeare’s works, this dictionary does not include some approaches to Shakespeare and visual arts, such as the representation of his works in postRenaissance art. Although Sillars’ recent book on Shakespeare and visual imagination is included here as he analyses Renaissance art, his former monographs (2006, 2008) 14

Introduction

which focus more on eighteenth-century and Victorian art, are not mentioned. Readers should be aware that other approaches exist. As this book targets English native speakers or people who have learnt English as a second language, the references to books or articles originally written in another language, especially French, have been given in English translations whenever possible in order to guide readers to the most accessible sources.

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16

A alabaster see marble, monument (A) This usually white and transparent stone is particularly suitable for ornaments or sculpture. In medieval England, alabaster was one of the most popular materials used to carve tomb effigies and funerary monuments. Sculptors specializing in this type of material were then called ‘alabasterers’. It was a natural resource available in the deposits located in the Midlands and in the north of England. However, by the late Elizabethan era, statuary made of alabaster was on the decline as patrons were fascinated by marble which was imported mainly from Italy. This noun can also be used as an adjective to describe a white and smooth skin. (B) In Shakespeare’s poetry, this type of stone refers to the whiteness of the skin such as Adonis’ hand (‘A lily prisoned in a gaol of snow,/Or ivory in an alabaster hand’ VEN 362–3) or Lucrece’s body (‘Her azure veins, her alabaster skin’ LUC 419). In R3, the innocence of the two young princes is visually emphasized by ‘their alabaster arms’ (4.3.11). The association between alabaster and monuments is heightened in MV when Gratiano compares Antonio who suffers from melancholy to a funerary effigy ‘cut in alabaster’ (1.1.84). The most tragic allusion to this material is illustrated in the final scene of OTH when the Moor perceives the sleeping Desdemona as an effigy, thus anticipating her death: ‘As smooth as monumental alabaster’ (5.2.5). (C) For a thorough and detailed study on alabaster monuments in the Middle Ages, see Gardner (1940). For a discussion on widowhood and alabaster in early modern drama, see Bensel Meyers’s dissertation (1986). anatomize see painter antics (A) This term is one of the English translations of the Italian word Grottesca, which could also be rendered by antica, anticke or antique in Shakespeare’s time. In the Renaissance decorative arts, antics referred to painted ornamentations intertwining animals and vegetable figures which could look monstrous or incongruous. Following the discovery of ancient grotto works decorating the walls of Nero’s villa on the Oppian Hill in Rome in 1480, many Renaissance artists were inspired by this style for interior decorations. The Grotesque style was imported to England by the Italian artists invited to King Henry VIII’s court. Antique works appeared on panels in Nonsuch palace or adorned chimney-pieces as pieces of sculpture (see Evett, 1990, 130–1), but were more often used to ornament the frames around illustrations in books. This term could also 17

antics

describe ludicrous behaviour or be applied to an actor playing the role of a clown or any other bizarre character. (B) In HAM, the well-known decision of the Prince of Denmark ‘to put an antic disposition on’ (1.5.170) conjures up the figure of the clown and announces his weird behaviour at court. Death is pictured as a clown in 1H6 (‘Thou antic death’ 4.4.130) and R2 (‘the antic sits,/Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp’ 3.2.162–3). In ROM, the ‘antic face’ (1.5.55) alludes to a mask. In TRO, antics are associated with chaos (‘Behold, distraction, frenzy and amazement,/Like witless antics, one another meet’ 5.3.85–6). The only reference to artistic antique work can be found in LUC when Lucrece wakes up and suddenly becomes aware that Tarquin is in her room: ‘She dares not look; yet, winking, there appears/Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes./“Such shadows are the weak brain’s forgeries” ’ (458–60). Although emotion and fear distort Lucrece’s vision to project monstrous images, the ‘ugly’ antics are far from being delusions as they actually picture Tarquin’s monstrosity. (C) Evett (1990) has devoted a chapter to the role of grotesques in Elizabethan literature. According to him, ‘Spelled anticke, the word most often (as in all Shakespeare’s uses) refers to bizarre human behaviour’ (p. 142). Laroque (1992) analyses antics and masks in ROM. ape see imitate arras see hanging, tapestry (A) In the field of visual arts, arras was richly ornamented tapestry on which episodes from the Bible or classical antiquity were represented in vivid colours. These thick hangings, often made from wool and sometimes woven with silver and golden threads, were used both for decorative and practical purposes as, when covering walls, they could protect from the cold and humidity. Although arras and tapestry are presented as synonyms in the OED, Olson (2010) has recently pointed out that they are not interchangeable terms for Shakespeare who used them ‘technically’ (p. 48): ‘If ‘arras’ is the term preferred by Shakespeare to refer to onstage hangings that characters interact with (hide behind, slash through, and so forth), ‘tapestry’ is the word for hangings that are not necessarily onstage’ (p. 51). (B) Unlike tapestries which are considered as artistic productions in Shakespeare, especially in CYM, arras invariably signals a stage property. Still, this prop was probably in colour and represented scenes the same way as actual arrases adorning houses, although this type of property was probably cheaper painted cloths. The best-known use of arras in a Shakespeare text is HAM where Polonus hides behind an arras so that he can overhear conversations. First, Polonius intends to eavesdrop on Hamlet’s and his daughter (‘At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him./Be you and I behind an arras then,/Mark the encounter’ 2.2.159–61); he then hides behind an arras set on stage in 3.4 to listen to the conversation between Gertrude and Hamlet in the closet scene (3.4.6). The closet scene ironically superimposes two visual items on stage, the arras and the portraits of the two kings presented by Hamlet to Gertrude, in a key moment where 18

art

sight and seeing the truth are at stake. Hamlet is so blinded by revenge that he accidentally slays Polonius with his sword; he cannot see who is hiding behind the arras and identifies it, perhaps ironically, as a rat. In a striking visual parallel on stage, Gertrude is so blinded by her new metamorphosis that she cannot see the ghost of her dead husband, unlike Hamlet, even though the contemplation of the two pictures has encouraged her to ‘turn [her] eyes into [her] very soul’ (3.4.87). This property is used for comical purposes in other plays such as in 1H4 when the prince orders Falstaff to hide behind an arras (‘Go hide thee behind the arras’ 2.4.484) which he does, but finally falls asleep (‘Falstaff! Fast asleep behind the arras and snorting like a horse’ 2.4.515–16). See also WIV (3.3.83–4). Arras is also related to eavesdropping in ADO when Borachio confesses he overheard a conversation between the prince and Claudio: ‘I whipped me behind the arras, and there heard it agreed upon that the prince should woo Hero for himself’ (1.3.56–8). In CYM, the arras, probably present on stage in Imogen’s room, is not associated with eavesdropping but voyeurism as Iachimo makes the inventory of all the objects of art ornamenting the young lady’s room: ‘Such and such pictures; there the window, such/The adornment of her bed; the arras, figures’ (2.2.25–6). Later on, in his ekphrastic description of the bedchamber he shifts to the term ‘tapestry’ (2.4.69) to depict the ‘arras’ seen on stage two scenes before (see tapestry). (C) In a recent and thorough study on arras interpreted as a visual text, Olson (2013) explores the dramatization of the ‘blank’ arras in HAM while investigating the rivalry between Giacomo’s verbal description of Imogen’s tapestry and the visual representation of the arras signified by the stage property positioned on stage in CYM. See also her article on arras in HAM (2009). In her article devoted to CYM (2010), Olson contends that the linguistic shift from arras to tapestry ‘transforms the “fixed” onstage arras/ tapestry before our eyes in a way that underscores Imogen’s own “translation” and overcoming of description’ (p. 49). art see artist, painting, statue (A) Although this term is nowadays evocative of visual or fine arts and of the romantic definition of artistic creation, it originally encompassed a wider range of activities. It primarily alludes to a skill developed in a certain area such as music, literature, drama or painting. Some forms of art are related to the activity of imagination and take on a visual form which aims to represent beauty or induce an emotion. In the Middle Ages, this idea of skill was integrated into the realm of knowledge which was taught in universities. The trivium (grammar, logic and rhetoric) together with the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy) were regarded as liberal arts necessary to educate the future elite. It was also associated with artifice and cunning and was also opposed to nature, a debate stemming from antiquity with Plato and Aristotle and resumed in the Renaissance by many writers such as Puttenham (1589). The controversy revolved around the issue of imitation – does art enable man to perfect or improve nature? Or is it always below the work of nature, as it is a mere copy? In his treatise, The Arte of English Poesie, Puttenham draws a distinction between 19

art

four categories. Taking the example of the gardener, he contends that art can improve nature and modify its aspect. The third category includes artificial works such as fountains, grottoes or statuary, which strive to imitate nature: ‘We say arte is neither an aider nor a surmounter, but onely a bare imitatour of natures works, following and counterfeiting her actions and effects’ (310). The fourth category mentions the Italian concept of terza natura (third nature) where art and nature are fused. The phrase ‘fine arts’ which is used to refer to the art of design such as painting, sculpture and architecture was invented in the eighteenth century and cannot be applied to the Renaissance. (B) In VEN, the ekphrasis describing the painting of a horse opens onto the debate on art and nature to highlight the limits of pictorial art: ‘Look when a painter would surpass the life/In limning out a well-proportioned steed,/His art with nature’s workmanship at strife,/As if the dead the living should exceed’ (289–92). Sonnet 24 alludes to the technique of perspective and the skill of the painter mastering this conceit: ‘And perspective it is best painter’s art’ (4). In Sonnet 78, art used in the plural refers to literary skills and not visual arts while the last lines rely on a pun between art as artifice or rhetorical conceit and the verb ‘to be’: ‘But thou art all my art, and dost advance,/As high as learning, my rude ignorance’ (13–14). The first sonnet addressed to the Dark Lady harshly criticizes the techniques used to change facial appearance such as cosmetics: ‘Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face’ (SON 127.6). The word art takes on the meaning of visual arts in some plays. The opening scene of TIM revolves around the issue of nature and art as the poet and the painter compete with each other. The poet admits that his rival’s picture improves nature: ‘I will say of it/It tutors nature; artificial strife/Lives in these touches, livelier than life’ (1.1.37–9). Similarly, in CYM, in the ekphrastic description of the carved chimney-piece decorating Imogen’s room, Iachimo praises the sculptor’s skill for his bewildering imitation of nature: ‘the cutter/Was as another Nature, dumb; outwent her,/Motion and breath left out’ (2.4.83–5). Art is definitely related to deception in MND. When he wakes up once his eyes have been smeared with Puck’s love-juice, Lysander’s perception has been turned upside down as he can see Helena’s true nature, thanks to art: ‘Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,/That through thy bosom make me see thy heart’ (2.2.103–4). In WT, the debate related to the merits of art and nature (4.4) held between the young shepherdess Perdita and the king of Bohemia, Polixenes, is set in a garden within the context of a pastoral where Perdita wearing flowers resembles Flora (4.4.1–3). The latter rejects the idea that art can perfect nature and has decided to grow only natural flowers in her garden: ‘For I have heard it said/There is an art which in their piedness shares/With great creating Nature’ (4.4.86–8). Conversely, Polixenes is associated with artifice as he comes from the unnatural and sophisticated world of the court. He defends the act of grafting as it enables him to improve the deficiencies of nature: ‘So over that art/Which you say adds to Nature, is an art/That Nature makes . . . This is an art/Which does mend Nature – change it rather – but/The art itself is Nature’ (4.4.90–2/95–7). This fusion of nature and art could echo Puttenham’s category of terza natura or third nature. 20

artist

This debate about nature and art related to gardening anticipates the statue scene where an artistic form is supposed to be superior to nature while the animation of the work of art makes art become nature again. However, Giulio Romano’s creation is not presented as superior to nature as he cannot give it life despite the tricks of perspective he uses: ‘a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Giulio Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly is he her ape’ (5.2.93–7). Despite his effort to trick nature (‘beguile’) by imitating it, his work still remains a lifeless copy, an imitation. Nevertheless, this statement sounds all the more ironical as the statue turns out to be more than mocking nature. Even before the spectacle of animation performed by Paulina, Leontes perceives a sparkle in the eyes of the statue, but wisely believes that his vision is probably tricked by trompe-l’oeil: ‘the fixure of her eye has motion in’t,/As we are mocked with art’ (5.3.67–8). When Hermione comes back from the dead or more precisely when her supposedly stony body turns into warm flesh again, Giulio Romano’s and Paulina’s ‘performance’ is interpreted as magic: ‘O, she’s warm!/If this be magic, let it be an art/Lawful as eating’ (5.3.109–11). (C) The emblem industria naturam corrigit in Whitney (1586) encapsulates the debate on art and nature in the Renaissance. Puttenham (1589) has written passages on the merits of art and nature. Tayler (1964) remains invaluable reading for a general survey on the debate of art and nature in the Renaissance Livingstone (1969) and Iwasaki (1984) explore the relationship between art and nature in WT. Pitcher (2010) also provides full insight into this debate in WT. See also Lamb (1989). Evett (1990) reads MND as a ‘comic image of the practice of the arts in England under the Tudors’ (p. 227). Dundas (1993) and Meek (2009) explore the role of art in VEN artificial see art artist see art, cutter, painter (A) Although this term is often related to visual arts, especially when it comes to Italian Renaissance art, a time when painters and sculptors strove to be recognized as artists and no longer as artisans, in Elizabethan England this noun covers wider categories of people to include anyone mastering a certain skill whether it be magic, alchemy or even philosophy. In the English Renaissance, the Italian debate on the status of the artist had not reached Shakespeare’s nation and, unlike their Italian fellow artists, English painters and sculptors were not considered by the society and did not perceive themselves as artists but as artisans who had a particular skill. (B) In TRO, artist is synonymous with a learned person in a long list based on oppositions: ‘the wise and fool, the artist and unread’ (1.3.24). See also PER (‘In framing artists, art hath thus decreed,/To make some good but others to exceed’ 2.3.14–15). In WT, the only play by Shakespeare to mention a contemporary artist, namely Giulio Romano, the latter is called ‘master’ (5.2.95) and is never described as an artist. 21

astonished

astonished see stone (A) Originally deriving from the adjective ‘stonish’ which alludes to a stony appearance, this verb depicts an extreme reaction due to grief or a sudden shock that leaves someone paralysed or deprived of any sensation. (B) When Collatine sees his dying wife Lucrece who has stabbed herself to death, he is turned into a kind of statue, paralysed by the sudden and extreme grief he experiences: ‘Stone-still, astonished with this deadly deed,/Stood COLLATINE and his lordly crew;’ (LUC 1730–1). In JC, Caska reminds Cassius that the Gods can strike humans dumb: ‘It is the part of men to fear and tremble/When the most mighty gods by tokens send/Such dreadful heralds to astonish us’ (1.3.54–6). In AWW, female beauty can sometimes mesmerize and paralyse beholders: ‘He lost a wife/Whose beauty did astonish the survey/Of richest eyes’ (5.3.15–17). The image of an ‘astonishing’ beauty might be evocative of the myth of the Gorgon or the Petrarchan literary figure of the donna de pietra (the stony lady) whose coldness paralysed the poet. In 1H6, words can also mesmerize someone as is the case with the French Dolphin Charles who is hypnotized by Joan of Arc’s speech: ‘Thou hast astonished me with thy high terms’ (1.2.93). Similarly, the English King Henry VI has been stunned by Suffolk’s praise of Margaret’s beauty: ‘Your wondrous rare description, noble earl,/Of beauteous Margaret hath astonished me’ (5.4.1–2). See also SON 86.8. auburn (A) Although auburn originally alluded to a shade of yellowish white, the spelling used in sixteenth-century England – abron or abrune according to the OED – gradually altered its etymology. Hence, this adjective became a synonym to describe a hue of golden or reddish brown. (B) Despite the semantic evolution of auburn in early modern England, Shakespeare uses the original meaning of this adjective. In TGV, when Julia scrutinizes Silvia’s portrait, she can hardly understand Proteus’ infatuation for her since the colour of her hair is ‘auburn’ while hers is ‘perfect yellow’ (4.4.187). The contrast between the two colours is more structured around an issue of brightness than an oppositon between brown and yellow. Julia’s hair represents the ideal Petrarchan beauty insofar as her hair looks more natural than Silvia’s whitish blonde. Likewise, in COR, auburn, which is spelt under the colloquial form ‘abram’, alludes to blonde hair since the third citizen underlines the important variations in hair colours among his people: ‘We have been called so of many, not that our heads are some brown, some black, some abram, some bald, but that our wits are so diversely coloured’ (2.3.16–19). (C) Holland (2013) clearly interprets auburn as blonde in COR. azure see blue, heraldry (A) This adjective, traditionally found in poetical descriptions of a clear blue sky, was, in Renaissance England, a term used in heraldry to refer to the colour blue as was sable to signify black. (B) Apart from Prospero’s poetical description of the ‘azured vault’ (TMP 5.1.43), Shakespeare resorted to this rare word in two ekphrastic descriptions of female bodies. In LUC, when Tarquin enters Lucrece’s bedroom, he indulges in a blazon where each 22

azure

part of Lucrece’s sleeping body is portrayed and associated with a colour, such as ‘her azure veins’ (419). This scene is visualized on stage a few years later in CYM when Iachimo, who has hidden in a trunk, manages to see Imogen sleeping in her bed. As he gives details of some parts of her body, he alludes to her blue eyes concealed beneath her closed eyelids (‘now canopied/Under these windows, white and azure lac’d/With blue of heaven’s own tinct’ (2.2.21–3). The choice of a heraldic term points to the literary conceit of the blazon. Imogen’s blue veins are subsumed into the ‘azur’d harebell, like thy veins’ (4.2.222), these flowers that Arviragus uses to adorn Imogen’s tomb. This chromatic echo between the two scenes is heightened by the presence on stage of the supposedly dead body of Imogen who has taken a sleeping potion.

23

24

B basilisk (A) This mythical serpent or lizard was well-known from antiquity for its lethal gaze. It was sometimes associated with the cockatrice, a mythical dragon. (B) Shakespeare uses this myth to describe a deadly gaze. While Suffrolk tries to comfort the King after Gloucester’s death, the latter wishes he would die instead: ‘Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding./Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,/And kill the innocent gazer in thy sight’ (2H6 3.2.51–3). When the King is gone, Suffolk compares his enemies to ‘murdering basilisks’ (3.2.324). In his soliloquy, Richard swears to be more deadly than the basilisk to strike and vanquish his enemies: ‘I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk’ (3H6 3.2.187). See also H5 (5.2.17). In R3, the image of the venom contained in the gaze of the basilisk is used in a rather unusual love scene where Richard III woos Queen Anne who has just lost her husband whose coffin is featured on stage: Anne: Richard: Anne: Richard:

Never hung poison on a fouler toad. Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine. Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead. I would they were, that I might die at once; For now they kill me with a living death. (R3 1.2.150–55)

While intermingling Plato’s theory of extramission with the image of the evil eye (see eye), Richard cunningly refashions the image of the deadly gaze of the basilisk into an open invitation to sexual intercourse when he plays on the polysemy of the verb ‘to die’, a recurrent pun in Shakespeare on the end of life and sexual pleasure. See also WT (1.2.384) and CYM (2.4.107). (C) For a detailed study of this mythological animal see Breiner (1987). Berger (1968) explores the meaning of the basilisk in TRO. Lecercle (1990) shows the connection between the basilisk and the antichrist in R3. Bate (1993) argues that the reference to basilisk in WT hints that Leontes’ distorted vision can be potentially fatal for those who look at him. Lobanov-Rostovsky (1997) provides an illuminating analysis of this mythical animal in Shakespeare. basis see statue bed see grave 25

begrime

begrime see black (A) This verb depicts an object or a person that is covered or dirtied with coal dust or soot, hence appearing black. (B) When Iago suggests Desdemona’s infidelity, Othello’s blurred judgement turns her pure and chaste whiteness into the blackness of evil and depravity: ‘Her name, that was as fresh/As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black/As mine own face’ (OTH 3.3.389–91). In LUC, this term does not necessarily signify the colour black, but the dirt of labourers depicted in the painting of Troy: ‘There might you see the labouring pioneer/Begrimed with sweat and smeared all with dust’ (1380–1). (C) Honigmann (1995) indicates that the make-up used by Elizabethan actors to impersonate black characters was made of grime (p. 234). See also Parker (2003). beguile see deceit This verb primarily alluding to deception and delusion is sometimes used in Shakespeare to hint at the artists’ skill to make counterfeits. In WT, the steward depicting the statue of Hermione suggests that the sculptor’s piece of work is so much like the model that even Nature could be deceived: ‘the princess, hearing of her mother’s statue . . . a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Giulio Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly is he her ape’ (5.2.92–7). In the second induction to SHR, the Lord mentions a picture of the story of Io where the painter managed to draw the victim’s deception and rape as if it was real: ‘We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid,/And how she was beguiled and surprised,/As lively painted as the deed was done’ (Ind. 2.52–4). When scrutinizing the painting of Troy, more precisely the devious character of Sinon, Lucrece interprets Tarquin’s duplicity through this painted character’s deception: ‘For even as subtle SINON here is painted . . . /To me came TARQUIN armed to beguild/With outward honesty, but yet defiled/With inward vice’ (1541/1544–6). behold see eye, gaze, look, see (A) In her study of the reception of images, Esrock (1994) draws a distinction between the different verbs related to visual perception in the English language: ‘readerly imaging is encouraged when fictional characters are engaged in specifically mentioned acts of visual perception. Verbs like saw, gazed and looked all suggest there is something to see. A verb like behold practically commands the reader to take a look’ (p. 183). Although the OED signals that behold can be synonymous with to see or to look, it sets forth the specificity of the verb to behold which implies an active participation in the act of looking at an object and also mentions that the imperative form signals that the speaker draws the audience’s attention, a technique evocative of the rhetorical figure of captatio benevolentiae (‘winning of goodwill’) regarded by Cicero as one of the major conceits in the art of rhetoric. This figure is devised to attract the public’s attention at the beginning of a speech. (B) In TGV, Proteus falls in love with Silvia after contemplating the ideal portrait drawn by his best friend, Valentine, and seeing her on stage: ‘Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,/And that hath dazzled my reason’s light’ (2.4.206–7). In this example, the 26

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active role of the beholder seems rather limited insofar as Silvia’s ‘image’ wins over Proteus to control his reason and his heart. This idea of passivity in love at first sight is resumed in Sonnet 137 when the poet laments that his infatuation for the Dark Lady has made him blind: ‘Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,/That they behold, and see not what they see?’ (1–2). In LUC, Tarquin is obsessed with the multiple images of Lucrece that he has seen upon their first encounter, but that he has also heard when Collatine praised the beauty of his wife in the opening stanzas (10–21): ‘Within his thought her heavenly image sits,/ And in the self-same seat sits COLLATINE./That eye which looks on her confounds his wits,/That eye which him beholds, as more divine,/Unto a view so false will not incline’ (288–92). The linguistic variation between Tarquin ‘looking’ at Lucrece and the image of Lucrece ‘beholding’ Tarquin, structured around an anaphora, throws light upon the opposed nature of Tarquin and his future victim. While Lucrece is associated with purity and innocence (‘heavenly’ and ‘divine’), reinforced by the idea of contemplation inherent in the verb ‘to behold’, Tarquin stands on the side of duplicity (‘a view so false’) and predation which is suggested by the preposition ‘on’ used with the verb ‘to look’. In the long ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy, the narrator intersperses commentaries on the painter’s technique within the narrative employing the neutral turn of phrase ‘you might behold’, hence directing the reader’s attention to some details of the picture (‘In great commanders grace and majesty/You might behold, triumphing in their faces’ 1387–8; ‘In AJAX and ULYSSES, O what art/Of physiognomy might one behold!’ 1394–5). However, behold takes on another meaning when Lucrece scrutinizes the painting to find an element reflecting her own grief: ‘Many she sees where cares have carved some,/But none where all distress and dolour dwelled/Till she despairing HECUBA beheld’ (1445–7). The contrast between seeing and beholding the picture underlines the active role of Lucrece’s gaze which is attracted by one particular detail in the picture. This verb appears again in the final moment of the narrative poem when Collatine is petrified by the sight of his dying wife while her father, whose sight is not blurred, desperately tries to save his daughter: ‘Stone-still, astonished with this deadly deed,/Stood COLLATINE and his lordly crew,/Till LUCRECE’ father, that beholds her bleed,/Himself on her self-slaughtered body threw’ (1730–3). The act of beholding is directly related to theatrical performance in H5 where the Chorus, appearing at different moments of the play, encourages the spectators to imagine some part of (a) the action and (b) the scenery. The recurrence of this verb highlights the visual nature of drama while insisting upon the complementary roles of imagination and visual perception during a performance. In the prologue, the chorus first invites the spectators to visualize, using their imagination, both the place of the action and the characters: ‘A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,/And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!’ (Prologue 3–4). The Chorus’s speech introducing Act 3, focuses on the paramount importance of the spectators’ active role in looking at the play as their imagination must supply what the stage cannot show: ‘Play with our fancies, and in them behold/Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing’ (3.0.7–8). The sense of hearing is also summoned: 27

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Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails, Borne with th’invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea, Breasting the lofty surge. (H5 3.0.9–13) Hearing and sight, the main senses appealed to during a dramatic performance, are intertwined in the act of imagination, even though sight is more prominent in this passage. The verb ‘to draw’ could hint that the spectators paint images with their mind’s eye, hence heightening the visual nature of the drama. The Chorus further insists upon the visualization of the action at the end of their prologue (‘O do but think/you stand upon the rivage and behold/A city on th’ inconstant billows dancing’ 3.0.13–15; ‘Work, work your thoughts, and therein see your siege;/Behold the ordnance on their carriages’ 3.0.25–6). In the last intervention of the Chorus in Act 5 (‘Behold, the English beach’ 5.0.9), the visual nature of the spectators’ imagination is once again set forth: ‘But now behold/In the quick forge and working-house of thought,/How London doth pour out her citizens’ (5.0.22–4). In TRO, the Chorus calls the spectators ‘fair beholders’ (1.0.26). This verb is also used by characters within the action of the play to attract both the attention of other characters and, implicitly, that of the spectators to a spectacle which is being performed or is about to be performed on stage. This explicit reference to the theatricality of a scene signals a play within the play. In the opening scene of ANT, Philo, one of the secondary characters who introduces the main plot of the play, draws attention to the entrance of Antony and Cleopatra (‘Behold and see’ 1.1.13), hence underlying from the first lines, the theatricality of the scene. When Antony is dying, he asks Eros if he can still see him as he attracts his attention – and that of the audience – to his wounded and bleeding body, comparing it to a vanishing cloud (‘Eros, thou yet behold’st me?’ 4.14.1). In the statue scene of WT, there is an implicit change from seeing the statue (‘To see the life as lively mocked’ 5.3.19) to beholding it (‘Behold, and say ‘tis well’ 5.3.20) before unveiling it. This imperative suggests that the statue is an object of spectacle, a sort of petrified show within the play. The next spectacle of the animation of the statue also requires an active role from the spectators: ‘If you can behold it,/I’ll make the statue move indeed’ (5.3.87–8). The power of endowing a statue with life on a stage partly depends upon the beholder’s will to believe in this miracle. black see begrime, colly, dark, ebony, jet, ink, sable, swart, tawny (A) This hue, considered today as a ‘non-colour’, is probably the most ambivalent of Shakespeare’s time. While it was primarily related to the devil and the darkness of hell, black started to symbolize virtue and austerity for the Protestant reformers as well as some of the Catholic kings and princes. In the Bible, black was associated with the original darkness that 28

black

existed before the creation of the world and disappeared thanks to the coming of light (Genesis, I, 1–5). Black was endowed with negative connotations in both testaments; its frightening nature was brought to the fore in the Middle Ages when it became the colour of the devil, along with red. This hue also symbolized sin and hell and was associated with witchcraft. In the Renaissance, it was still the colour of death insofar as it signified grief and mourning. It was extensively used for funerals as is testified by Sir Henry Unton’s portrait (anonymous, 1596, National Gallery, see Figure 2). This commemorative picture, commissioned by his wife, Lady Unton, in 1596, narrates the life and death of her dead husband. The funeral procession starts in the middle of the painting with mourners, clad in black, on their way to church and ends with the monument to Sir Henry Unton that was built ten years after the painting. This canvas offers a glimpse of the visual dramatizations of Elizabethan funerals, which were often reproduced in theatrical performances. Nonetheless, black was promoted to the rank of a positive colour at the turn of the thirteenth century when heraldry integrated this shade – then termed sable – among the six colours to be used when colouring armories (see blazon). Simultaneously, sumptuary laws forbade bright colours, such as red, for the rising middle-classes who decided to wear black. As they were extremely wealthy, they encouraged dyers to produce black dyes of a high quality. Professions of authority such as lawyers and judges also started to wear this colour which was perceived as a visual sign of virtue. Although King Edward I (1239–1307) and Richard II (1367–1400) often dressed in black, the fashion for wearing this colour in the English court actually soared with Queen Elizabeth I. Courtiers tended to wear only black and white, the Queen’s favourite colours, as is testified by the miniature portrait Young Man Among Roses by Hilliard (c.1585–1595, Victoria and Albert Museum; see Figure 4). The contrast between white and black heightened by the green landscape is often perceived as a secret declaration of love to

Figure 2 The Unton Portrait, anonymous, 1596, National Portrait Gallery

29

black

the Queen insofar as the courtier chose her personal colours as well as the white eglantine, a symbol of virginity used in the royal propaganda of the Virgin Queen (see Strong 1977). Elizabethans are often pictured in black garments in their portraits as they thought this colour enhanced the beauty of their jewels, one key element that showed their wealth. Puritan writers such as Philip Stubbes in his The Anatomy of Abuses (1583) praise black for its sobriety and reject bright colours. On the Elizabethan stage, black drapery was used to signify to the audience that a tragedy was to be performed as opposed to the lively colours of blazons conventionally used to announce a history play. Black is often used in poetical descriptions of night scenes to indicate to the audience (who attended the play in daylight) that the scene is taking place at night. Black could be visualized through the actors’ costumes or the make-up they resorted to so as to impersonate black characters. Black could also depict the complexions of people coming from the African continent, or the New World, but also Turks and Moors. Black characters on stage were impersonated by white actors who sometimes wore make-up made of soot or charred cork mingled with oil. Richard Burbage, who was the first white actor to impersonate Othello, probably wore make-up on stage to stand out from other white characters. This practice is evidenced by the ‘Longleat manuscript’, an Elizabethan illustration of TIT where the black character of Aaron is visualized using black make-up (Library of the Marquess of Bath, Longleat). The invention of printing influenced Shakespeare’s contemporaries’ perception of black since a growing number of readers could read a text and look at engravings or emblems in a black and white format. The primacy of black ink, promoted by printing, replaced the polychromous medieval texts. This technological change highlighted the virtuous nature of black which was etymologically connected to ink (according to the OED, black is derived from the Old Saxon blac, meaning ink). In literature, including in Shakespeare’s texts, black has often been linked with other elements to underline the diversity of its shades. Terms such as raven-black or coal-black are still in use (see also begrime, ebony, jet, raven). (B) Shakespeare’s reading of black is multi-faceted and sometimes contradictory insofar as he is deeply influenced by the negative medieval readings of this colour that still pervade Elizabethan society while he challenges the conventional codifications inherent in this hue through his apology for black in LLL and the Sonnets. Black should be first understood and interpreted as a visual sign whose presence on stage reveals precious information to the Elizabethan audience. Right from the opening line of 1H6, Bedford not only gives a poetical description of the sky, but also draws the spectators’ attention to the black curtains decking the stage: ‘Hung be the heavens with black. Yield day to night!’ (1.1.1). This stage convention creates a sense of tragedy while evoking the black drapery decorating churches on a funeral day. This codified staging of a funeral is recurrent in other plays, such as TIT where coffins are draped with black and characters are dressed in black. This conventional colour of mourning is challenged by Hamlet inasmuch as his ‘inky cloak’ (HAM 1.2.77) does not reflect his state of mind: 30

black

‘nor customary suits of solemn black . . . together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,/That can denote me truly.’ (1.2.78/82–3). For the association of black with mourning and funeral, see also 3H6 (2.1.160) and ROM (4.5.85). Black is unsurprisingly the colour of night and darkness. In ROM, Juliet anticipates her encounter with Romeo at night in rather erotic terms: ‘Come, gentle night, come, loving black-browed night,/Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die/Take him and cut him out in little stars’ (3.2.20–2). On stage, the evocation of black could signal a night scene to stimulate spectators’ imagination in an open-air theatre. When the dying Antony describes the ‘black vesper’s pageants’ (ANT 4.14.8), he not only indicates that night is coming, but also envisions his funeral. While red and white epitomize Lucrece’s beauty and virtue in LUC, Tarquin’s lust is invariably depicted in black (‘so black a deed’ 226, ‘the blackest sin is cleared with absolution’ 354). His desire for Lucrece is compared to ‘Night’s black bosom’ (788) whereas darkness enables him to conceal his devilish nature (‘thy black all-hiding cloak’ 801). After the rape, Lucrece has visually turned into the chromatic reflection of Hecuba who was painted with ‘her blue blood changed to black in every vein’ (1454) when she appears to her husband ‘clad in mourning black’ (1585), a visual sign of the corruption of her inner self that is dramatically revealed by the image of her blood in red and black. After she has stabbed herself to death, Tarquin’s black sin seems to claim a semi-victory over the beauty of red: ‘Some of her blood still pure and red remained,/And some looked black, and that false TARQUIN stained’ (1742–3). Although in the first act of HAM, black signifies Hamlet’s grief and melancholy, one of the four humours (1.2.78–83), the symbolism of this colour is altered in the following acts and represents evil. In his description of the tale of Aeneas and Dido, Hamlet quotes the passage describing Pyrrhus’ evil mind: The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, Black as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in th’ ominous horse, Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared With heraldry more dismal, head to foot. . . . (HAM 2.2.390–4) Just before the beginning of his play ‘the Mousetrap’, Hamlet alludes to the black garment of the devil: ‘let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables’ (3.2.122–3). After attending the play, Claudius confesses his guilt in a soliloquy overheard by Hamlet: ‘O wretched state, O bosom black as death,/O limed soul that struggling to be free/Art more engaged’ (3.3.67–9). Hamlet then enters the stage, his sword drawn, ready to strike Claudius who is kneeling so as to avenge his father: ‘Then trip him that his kneels may kick at heaven/And that his soul may be as damned and black/As hell whereto it goes’ (3.3.93–5). In the closet scene, Gertrude cannot bear looking at the two portraits of her dead husband and her new one as it obliges her to search her guilty soul: ‘Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul/And there I see such black and grieved spots/ 31

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As will not leave their tinct.’ (3.4.87–9). Likewise, in MAC black is related to Macbeth’s evil nature. In an aside, Macbeth tries to conceal his true devilish motives to win power: ‘Stars, hide your fires,/Let not light see my black and deep desires’ (1.4.50–1). Black is connected with Hecate and the witches (‘black Hecate’s summons’ 3.2.41; ‘black and midnight hags’ 4.1.48). Malcolm underlines Macbeth’s duplicity through the conventional opposition between black and white, light and darkness: ‘It is myself I mean, in whom I know/All the particulars of vice so grafted,/That, when they shall be opened, black Macbeth/Will seem as pure as snow’ (4.3.50–3). In PER, incest is black (1.2.74); in JN, the Bastard uses the traditional image of the devil (‘Thou’rt damn’d as black – nay, nothing is so black;/Thou art more deep damn’d than Prince Lucifer’ (4.3.121–2). In H8, when Buckingham is brought to the Tower, he longs to claim his innocence again: ‘It will help me nothing/To plead mine innocence, for that dye is on me/Which makes my whitest part black’ (1.1.207–9). However, Henry is convinced that Buckingham is as ‘black/As if besmeared in hell’ (1.2.123–4). Black can also be related to slander as with the phrase ‘black mouth’ used by Chamberlain in the following scene (1.3.58). Black can be used to describe the human complexion as some dark-skinned characters are featured in Shakespeare. Othello, the Moor of Venice, is undoubtedly the best known (‘black Othello’ 2.3.29; ‘haply for I am black’ 3.3.267). In ANT, Cleopatra’s skin is either described as tawny (1.1.6) or black (‘Think on me/That am with Phoebus’ amorous pinches black’ 1.5.28–9). In LLL, blackamoors play music to accompany the Masque of Muscovites performed by the king and his noblemen (5.2.158). In TIT, Aaron’s dark complexion is repeatedly stressed by other characters. He is described as a ‘swart Cimmerian’ (2.2.72) by Bassianus, as a ‘raven-coloured love’ by Lavinia (2.2.83) and as ‘a coal-black Moor’ by Titus (3.2.79). In an aside, Aaron reveals his evil nature which is equated with his complexion: ‘Aaron will have his soul black like his face’ (3.1.206). When Tamora gives birth to Aaron’s son, his dark skin is automatically perceived through the negative readings of the Renaissance. According to the Nurse, he is a ‘devil’ (4.2.66), ‘a joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue’ (4.2.68). As he hears these comments, Aaron launches into a brief defence of black beauty. He berates the artificial beauty of white people who look fair thanks to cosmetics (‘ye white-limed walls, ye alehouse painted signs!’ 4.2.100) while ‘coal-black is better than another hue’ (4.2.101). To a certain extent, this speech adumbrates Berowne’s praise of black in LLL and the poet’s love for the Dark Lady in the Sonnets. However, Aaron himself again resorts to the black of sin when he warns other characters that he can testify about horrifying deeds: ‘For I must talk of murders, rapes and massacres/Acts of black night’ (5.1.63–4). The opposition between black and white is mentioned in MV when Portia criticizes one of her suitors’ dark complexion, namely the Prince of Morocco, as she believes that black is the ‘complexion of a devil’ (1.2.125). However, in the first casket scene, the Prince appears on stage dressed in white (‘a tawny Moor all in white’ 2.1.0), a visual oxymoron reinforced by the Moor’s explanation of his complexion: ‘Mislike me not for my complexion,/The shadowed livery of the burnished sun,/To whom I am 32

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a neighbour and near bred’ (2.1.1–3). Paradoxically enough, his dark complexion was induced by an excess of light. Similarly, in TGV, Julia, who is disguised as Sebastian, explains to Silvia that Proteus’ former lover, namely Julia, is as dark as ‘him’ in that she neglected to protect her white skin from the sun: ‘The air hath starved the roses in her cheeks/And pinched the lily-tincture of her face,/That now she is become as black as I’ (4.4.152–4). In the last act, Turio can hardly believe Silvia’s statement that his face is fair as his complexion is dark: ‘Nay then, the wanton lies; my face is black’ (5.2.10). The tragedy of OTH hinges upon a stark visual contrast between the fair-skinned Desdemona and her black husband, Othello while showing that the white Iago has a dark soul. The first scenes take place at night and Othello’s first appearance on stage (1.2) is framed by darkness signified by the presence of torches, a stage property indicating a night scene in open-air theatres (‘Enter Othello, Iago and attendants with torches’ 1.2). The play opens with Iago’s bawdy announcement of the two lovers’ marriage: ‘an old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe!’ (1.1.87–8). Nevertheless, the Duke defends Othello’s honesty when he tells Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, that his ‘son-in-law is far more fair than black’ (1.3.292). This seeming praise of Othello is still influenced by the dichotomy between black as the colour of evil and white as the symbol of purity. When talking about a woman’s dark complexion, Desdemona focuses on her intelligence (‘How if she be black and witty?’ 2.1.131) while Iago affirms the necessity to match her with a white man: ‘If she be black, and thereto have a wit,/She’ll find a white that shall her blackness fit’ (2.1.132–3). As Othello starts to doubt his wife’s virtue, he perceives her as black, the visual sign of sin and lechery: ‘Her name, that was as fresh/As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black/As mine own face’ (3.3.389–91). In the same scene, Othello calls ‘black vengeance’ to arise ‘from the hollow hell’ (3.3.450). The tragic opposition between black and white gathers momentum in the final scene when Othello’s dark complexion is contrasted on stage with the sleeping Desdemona’s ‘alabaster skin’ (5.2.5). When Emilia discovers Desdemona’s lifeless body, the dichotomy between darkness and light, good and evil reaches its final climax: ‘O, the more angel she,/And you the blacker devil!’ (5.2.128–9). There are other references to black Turks in R2 (‘Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross/Against black pagans, Turks and Saracens’ 4.1.95–6) and their evil nature (‘O, forfend it God,/ That in a Christian climate souls refin’d/Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed’ 4.1.129–31). Black is related to feminine beauty since this colour can describe a woman’s hair or eyes as is the case with Phoebe in AYL (‘black silk hair’ 3.5.47; ‘he said mine eyes were black and my hair black’ 3.5.131). Ganymede’s comment sounds slightly unflattering as Phoebe’s beauty does not correspond to the Elizabethan standards of the fair-skinned and blonde-haired woman. In one of his poems dedicated to Rosalind, Orlando praises her superior beauty which overshadows even the most beautiful paintings: ‘All the pictures fairest lined/Are but black to Rosalind’ (AYL 3.2.89–90). Women’s beauty, or more precisely fairness (see fair), happens to be one of the main thematic lines of LLL. While the princess rejects poetic flattery of her beauty, Rosaline, one of her ladies in 33

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waiting, stands out as she is, to quote Berowne, ‘a whitely wanton with a velvet brow,/ With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes’ (3.1.191–2). The young man’s infatuation with Rosaline leads him to mount an apology for black beauty. In the sonnet-reading scene (4.3), Berowne’s praise of Rosaline’s unconventional beauty is put into perspective by the sarcastic remarks of the king and the other fledgling sonneteers. Berowne inverts the traditional association between fair-skinned, blonde-haired ladies and female beauty by equating black with fair: ‘No face is fair that is not full so black’ (4.3.249). The king responds by resorting to the most conventional clichés on this colour: ‘O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,/The hue of dungeons and the school of night;’ (4.3.250–1). Berowne reverses this stereotype by showing the evil side of white embodied by the biblical figure of the white devil (‘Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light’ 4.3.253). He proceeds his speech by imitating a seemingly Puritanical discourse on the deceitful nature of the cosmetics used by fair-skinned ladies to look whiter and conceal their emotions behind ‘painting’: ‘O, if in black my lady’s brows be decked,/It mourns that painting and usurping hair/Should ravish doters with a false aspect’ (4.3.254–6). This reversal in the conventional codification of colours to describe female beauty even leads Berowne to turn black into the colour of beauty as even ‘red, that would avoid dispraise,/Paints itself black, to imitate her brow’ (4.3.260–1). The confusion between black and red refers to the proximity between these two colours in the Renaissance theory of colours (see colour). Berowne’s defence of black is disregarded by his fellow sonneteers as well as the king – they compare Rosaline to a ‘chimney sweeper’ (4.3.262) and mock his reversal of the discrepancy between light and darkness (‘Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light’ 4.3.265). The praise of black beauty in LLL is undoubtedly echoed by the sonnets dedicated to the figure of the ‘Dark Lady’, a phrase coined by critics, not by Shakespeare. The sonnets addressed to this anonymous lady (127 to 152) primarily seem to break fresh ground as the first line to Sonnet 127 challenges the traditional codification of female beauty: ‘in the old age black was not counted fair’. The conventional ideal representation of the white-skinned and blonde-haired woman has long been diverted and undermined by the unlimited use of cosmetics, more particularly white powder (‘fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face’ SON 127.6). By addressing some of his love sonnets to a woman with ‘dun’ breasts and ‘black wires’ on her head instead of blonde hair (SON 130.3–4), Shakespeare openly debunks the Petrarchan literary conceit of the fair and virtuous Laura. Although the poet inverts the traditional ‘hierarchy’ of fairness with his apology for black beauty (‘thy black is fairest in my judgement’s place’ SON 131.12; ‘then will I swear beauty herself is black’ SON 132.13), he acknowledges the evil nature of his lover: ‘For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,/Who art as black as hell, as dark as night’ (SON 147.13–14). Black seldom appears in the sonnets dedicated to the young man, except to extol the superiority of poetry which, thanks to ink, can print the image of the youth on the white paper for eternity (‘His beauty in these black lines be seen/And they shall live, and he in them still green’ SON 63.13–4; ‘that in my black ink my love may still shine bright’ (SON 65.14). Likewise, in TGV, 34

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black is related to rhetoric and writing. Valentine explains to the duke, Silvia’s father, that flattery and lies are necessary to win over a lady’s heart: ‘Flatter and praise, commend, extoll their graces;/Though ne’er so black, say they have angels’ faces’ (3.1.102–3). Unfortunately, the duke discovers Valentine’s love letter addressed to his daughter. Black sometimes alludes to melancholy, one of the four humours, which was thought to be provoked by an excess of black bile. Next to Hamlet who is the epitome of melancholy in Shakespeare, the pedant Armado writes a letter describing his humour in very conventional terms: ‘So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome physic of thy healthgiving air’ (LLL 1.1.226–8). In the opening scene of ROM, Montague mentions that his son Romeo suffers from black melancholy (‘Black and portentous must this humour prove,/Unless good counsel may the cause remove’ 1.1.139–40), hence living in ‘an artificial night’ (1.1.138). Beyond the diverse meanings inherent in this colour, black was fraught with historical connotations as implied by many Shakespearean characters who refer to Edward, the Black Prince of Wales in H5 (1.2.105; 2.4.56), 2H6 (2.2.18) and R2 (2.3.101). Black is colloquially associated with blue to describe bruises (see blue). (C) For an overview of the history of black and its varied symbolisms in the Renaissance, Van Norden (1985) and Pastoureau (2009) remain invaluable. Schneider (1978 and 2000) provides a detailed account of the fashion of black dress in early modern England. Strong (1973 and 1999) explores the domination of black and white in Queen Elizabeth’s court and in some contemporary paintings. According to Bloch (1984), black is the most frequently used colour in Shakespeare’s drama and poetry, occurring 177 times. He argues that this colour is imbued with both positive and negative aspects while occuring in very neutral contexts to describe night or the colour of hair. For the representation of black characters and blackface in early modern drama, including Shakespeare, see Jones (1965), Tokson (1982), Barthelemy’s thoughtprovoking study (1987), D’Amico (1991) and Wilson (1992). Vaughan (2005) explores the impersonations of black characters on the English stage, focusing more particularly on OTH and TIT. Many critics have explored the dramatization of blackness in OTH. See Hunter (1967), Rosenberg (1971), Vaughan (1994), Adelman (1997), Callaghan (2000), Hornback (2001), Ford (2002), Hopkins (2007) and Bartels (2008). Hornback (2009) has devoted a chapter to the relationship between black faces and the figure of the clown in English Renaissance drama. Costa de Beauregard (1989 and 2000) explores the varied symbolisms of black in HAM. Parker (2003) offers an invaluable analysis of black in HAM and OTH. Edwards (1968), Wilson (1992), Hall (1995), Hunt (1999), Healy (2011) and Caporicci (2013) have studied the figure of the Dark Lady in the Sonnets. DuncanJones’ edition of the Sonnets (2013) offers good commentaries on black. Woodbridge (1987) indicates that black emerges only at the end of LUC. Harvey (2010) contends 35

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that the semi-victory of black over red in the divided flow of Lucrece’s blood is evidence of her virtue. According to Parker (2003), the conflation of blackness and lime in Claudius’s speech (HAM 3.3.67–8) suggests ‘not only the blackness of death but the “lime” of the “whitelime” that masks blackness beneath, familiar from the “white-limed walls” of Titus Andronicus (4.2.98–100) or the “birdlime” attached to the white devil of Othello (2.1.126)’ (pp. 131–2). Caporicci (2015) and Sabatier (2015) analyse the relations between black and fair/light in LLL. For a study of the relationship between black and the medical theory of humours, see Iyengar (2011). blanch, blench see pale, white (A) The adjective ‘blanch’, obviously deriving from the French word blanc to signify the colour white, can be synonymous in English with a sudden paleness caused by emotions such as fear or embarrassment. The term ‘blench’ can also be found as a variant. The verb ‘to bleach’ means ‘to whiten’. (B) In MAC, blanch, which is analogous to paleness, alludes to strong emotions when Macbeth remarks that he is literally white with fear after seeing Banquo’s ghost while his wife’s cheeks have retained their red freshness: ‘When now I think you can behold such sights/And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks/When mine is blanched with fear’ (3.4.11–14). Similarly, the Prince of Denmark is convinced that a change of colour in Claudius’s face is to evince his guilt: ‘If a do blench/I know my course’ (HAM 2.2.532–3). See also TRO 1.1.26. In LLL, the idea of whiteness is surprisingly endowed with sexual connotations. This comedy closes onto the song of spring describing white flowers (‘And lady-smocks all silver white’ 5.2.883) and the song of the cuckoo bird which ‘mocks married men’ (5.2.887) ‘when turtles tread and rooks and daws,/And maidens bleach their summer smocks’ (52.893–4). The process of turning white in the company of black birds like daws suggests sexual intercourse as the lady/ maiden smocks lose their initial virginal colour while blending black and white, two emblematic colours discussed and dramatized in this comedy (see black, white). Although this adjective describes an empty space, blank can sometimes refer to white as in KL: ‘See better, Lear, and let me still remain/The true blank of thine eye’ (1.1.159–60). (C) In her illuminating study of black in HAM, Parker (2003) has explored the variants of white in Shakespeare such as blanch and bleach, highlighting in some cases the linguistic proximity between these synonyms of paleness and the word black. According to her, the term bleach in LLL is connected to the ‘discourses of whitening’ at work in the play (p. 143). Thomas and Faircloth (2014) investigate blenching in LLL in their entry devoted to lady-smock. blazon see heraldry (A) A blazon – which etymologically means a shield – consists of the description of coats of arms in heraldry. As a verb, it can relate to the technique of painting, adorning or colouring heraldic arms. This term is also analogous to the verb ‘to blaze’ as it can refer to the verbal depiction of a person’s virtue, which can be voiced in public (OED). In the Renaissance, the visual and aural nature of blazons was 36

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transposed to poetry and the word gradually alluded to the literary conceit used by poets to depict female beauty by focusing on one or several features of a woman’s face or parts of her body. Critics, such as Williams (2004) or Simpson-Younger (2013), conventionally draw a distinction between poetic and dramatic blazons as Shakespeare dramatized this rhetorical exercise on stage. (B) Blazon is akin to a coat of arms in WIV: ‘Each fair instalment, coat and several crest,/With loyal blazon, evermore be blest’ (5.5.63–4). In ADO, Don Pedro compares Beatrice’s unflattering verbal portrait of Claudio (2.1.269–71) to a blazon (‘I’faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true’ 2.1.272). Blazon is also synonymous with the verb ‘to portray’ in ROM (2.6.26). HAM highlights the non-visual aspect of the blazon as the ghost warns Hamlet that ‘this eternal blazon must not be/To ears of flesh and blood’ (1.5.21–2). The reference to the public proclamation of the king’s murder not only suggests the ‘tale’ that the ghost could ‘unfold’ (1.5.15), but also adumbrates the importance of hearing in this tragedy. Blazon also signifies proclamation in CYM 4.2.170. In TIT, blazon conflates vision and proclamation and is endowed with negative connotations when Saturninus denounces Titus’ libellous ‘scrolls’: ‘What’s this but libelling against the senate/And blazoning our injustice everywhere?’ (4.4.17–18). Some passages in Shakespeare’s poetry and drama are written on the model of the literary blazon such as in LUC (386–413) and CYM (2.2.17–39). The poetic conceit of the blazon is generally turned into ridicule by Shakespeare as in Sonnet 106 where the poet mocks ‘old rhyme’ and ‘the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,/Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow’ (5–6) which can only be written by an ‘antique pen’ (7). TN dramatizes the poet’s criticisms of old forms, first when Olivia rejects Viola/Cesario’s artificial praise of her beauty and offers a comical inventory of her beauty (‘It shall be inventoried and every particle and utensil labelled to my will, as, item, two lips, indifferent red . . .’ 1.5.237–9). This parody of the literary blazon is ironically inverted when Olivia, after describing parts of Viola/Cesario’s body in the literary fashion, comes to the conclusion that Cesario is probably a gentleman (‘Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit/Do give thee fivefold blazon’ 1.5.284–5). In OTH, Cassio mentions that Desdemona’s beauty surpasses any poetic description: ‘one that excels the quirks of blazoning pens’ (2.1.63). In LC, the abandoned young lady criticizes her former lover’s ‘deep-brained sonnets’ (209), more particularly the Petrarchan conceit which consists in comparing each feature of the woman’s face to a precious stone: ‘each several stone/ With wit well-blazoned smiled, or made some moan’ (216–17). (C) For a general study of the blazon in the Renaissance, see Saunders (1981) and Pastoureau (1997). Vickers (1985) is invaluable reading as she has influenced studies of the blazon in Shakespeare. Her main perspective is centred on gender relations as she explores the dichotomy between the male gaze and the female body as an object in Renaissance lyric blazons and in LUC. Parker (1987) also considers literary blazons from a feminist point of view. Sawday (1995) is invaluable reading. Whittier (1989) and Laroque (1993, ‘Heads’) have focused on the use of blazon in ROM. Iselin (1999) 37

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studies blazons and portraits in TN, LUC and some sonnets in the light of anatomy. Williams (2004) questions Vickers’ reading since, according to him, dramatic blazons expose male inner feelings while shedding light on the female gaze, more particularly in Shakespeare’s comedies. Ritscher (2009) explores the literary blazon in LUC. Simpson-Younger (2013) analyses the dramatic blazon in CYM. Parker (1985) explores the meaning of blazon in OTH. bleach see blanch blessing see kneel block This solid material is sometimes used to depict metaphorically a state of sudden paralysis that leaves someone senseless. In AYL, while Orlando bravely triumphs over the terrifying wrestler Charles, he stands motionless when Rosalind gives him a chain: ‘My better parts/Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up/Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block’ (1.2.238–40). Orlando seems to have been mesmerized by the lady’s gaze, looking like an inanimate statue. In JC, the conspirator Murellus criticizes the people of Rome who seem to have forgotten Pompey: ‘You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!/O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome’ (1.1.36–7). On stage, the actors performing the part of the crowd probably remain speechless and motionless, being thus visually turned into statues. blue see azure (A) Traditionally perceived as the colour of the sky, this primary colour became prominent in Western societies when it was chosen as the colour of the Virgin Mary by medieval painters from the twelfth century. It was also part of the restricted palette used in heraldry and was named azure. According to sumptuary laws, blue was reserved for servants (Linthicum, 1936, p. 27). (B) In AYL, Rosalind reproaches Orlando with not being the genuine image of the ‘true lover in the forest’ (3.2.294) as his face does not show the ‘marks’ of love which include ‘a lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken, which you have not’ (3.2.359–60). The stereotypical image of the ‘blue eye’ could be evocative of the Renaissance vision of ‘blue eyes’ as a sign of wantonness. In CYM, Imogen’s blue eyes highlight her celestial purity and are evidence of her innocence (‘To see th’enclosed lights, now canopied/Under these windows, white and azure laced/With blue of heaven’s own tinct’ (2.2.21–3). Blue is, unsurprisingly, the colour of the sky in HAM (‘the skyish head/Of blue Olympus’ 5.1.242–3) and OTH (‘aerial blue’ 2.1.39), of lightning in JC (1.3.50) and of clouds in ANT (‘Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish . . . /A forked mountain, or blue promontory’ 4.14.2/5). In LUC, blue is connected with the blood running through human veins. First, this colour is imbued with erotic connotations in the way that it attracts Tarquin’s gaze to Lucrece’s breasts (‘Her breasts like ivory globes circled with blue’ 407; ‘On her bare breast, the heart of all her land,/Whose ranks of blue veins . . . /Left their round 38

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turrets destitute and pale’ 439–41). However, after the rape, Lucrece notices that in the painting of Troy, Hecuba’s grief is signified by a change in the colour of her blood (‘Her blue blood changed to black in every vein’, 1454), a chromatic metamorphosis foreshadowing the corruption of Lucrece’s innocence as her blood partly turns into black (see black, red). Shakespeare explores the colourful proverb ‘to beat black and blue’ in a comical way in WIV when Quickly and Falstaff launch into a competition to claim the most polychromous bruises: Quickly: And have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant, speciously one of them. Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her. Falstaff: What tellst thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow, and I was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford. (WIV 4.5.103–9) Blue is also perceived as a social sign, more precisely in 1H6. The Cardinal dressed in scarlet (‘thy scarlet robes’ 1.3.42) is accompanied by his servants clad in tawny coats while his rival Gloucester is followed by his men wearing blue, a colour reserved for servants. The confrontation on stage reaches its highest point when Gloucester orders his men to chase the Cardinal’s men (‘blue coats to tawny coats’ 1.3.47). (C) For an historical study of the colour blue, Pastoureau (2001) is invaluable. Pleij (2004) surveys the codification of blue in the Renaissance. Linthicum (1936) explores this colour in early modern drama. Dusinberre (2009) interprets the blue colour of the lovers’ eyes in AYL as an indication of a lack of sleep, a hypothesis sustained by the adjective ‘sunken’. blush see red, white (A) This visual sign, caused by a sudden rush of blood to a person’s face, is usually considered as a feeling of shame, embarassment or as a token of modesty. This term can sometimes signify the rosy powder (known today as blusher) used in cosmetics to heighten a woman’s cheekbones. This dual contemporary interpretation of facial emotions is rather analogous to the Elizabethans’ perception of blushes, except that they were endowed with more moralizing connotations than is the case today. In early modern England, moralists believed that only white people were able to experience shame; black people were not thought to be capable of doing so since blushes were hardly perceptible on their faces and were assumed to be non-existent. In The Passions of the Mind in Generall (1601), Wright clearly draws this distinction and considers blushing as a way to redeem: ‘the very blushing also of our people showeth a better ground whereupon Virtue may build than certain brazen faces, who never change themselves although they commit, yea, and be deprehended in enormous crimes’ (p. 82). However, this idealistic conjunction between outward emotions and the inner self was challenged by the use of cosmetics that were extremely fashionable in Shakespeare’s 39

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time, the Queen’s quest for eternal beauty and youth being a prime example. This fashion gave rise to many controversies as polemicists such as Tuke (1616) harshly condemned women who artificially created a blush with make-up or whitened their skin to conceal their emotions. This practice of altering their facial appearance was seen as a criminal act against God’s work: ‘[a woman] who can paint her face and curle her heare, and chaunge it into an unnatural colour, but therein dooth worrk to reproofe to her maker, who made her’ (Anonymous, ‘An Homilie Against Excesse of Apparel’, p. 222). Others, such as Lomazzo (1585), attempted to warn users against the high toxicity of these products which were also used by painters. (B) Unsurprisingly, blushing is primarily related to the facial expressions of shame in Shakespeare. As she managed to kiss Adonis, Venus suddenly forgets ‘shame’s pure blush and honour’s wrack’ (VEN 558). The second narrative poem explores more in depth the feeling of shame. Blushing is first presented as a literary conceit in the highly chromatic blazon of Lucrece’s beauty. Tarquin’s initial perception of Lucrece’s face is the subtle blending of natural white and red which are at war: ‘When virtue bragged, beauty would blush for shame;/When beauty boasted blushes, in despite/Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white’ (LUC 54–6). This literary figure tragically turns into an actual rush of blood provoked by embarrassment when Lucrece wakes up and sees Tarquin in her room: ‘The colour in thy face,/That even for anger makes the lily pale/And the red rose blush at her own disgrace’ (477–9). After the rape, her lamentation is compared to Philomel’s song (1079) that is to end when ‘the blushing morrow’ comes (1082). This metaphor to describe the first red rays of light at sunrise could also reflect the shame felt by nature for interrupting her lament. In the daylight, Lucrece is convinced that the evidence of the rape can be seen by everyone. Hence, she mistakingly reads the blushing cheeks of a groom delivering a letter to her: ‘The homely villain curtsies to her low,/And blushing on her’ (1338–9), a sign of ‘bashful innocence’ (1341). To Lucrece’s mind, this young man can perceive the shame she feels and in a mirror effect projects this feeling back to her: ‘But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie/Imagine every eye beholds their blame;/For LUCRECE thought he blushed to see her shame’ (1342–4; see also 1354–5). When looking at the details of the painting of Troy, Lucrece realizes that the painter represented Sinon’s deceit by conceling his emotions: ‘Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so/That blushing red no guilty instance gave’ (1510–11). This picture of duplicity mirroring Tarquin’s nature leads Lucrece to scratch the painting. These tragic pictures of blushing take on their most vibrant form in the last inverted blazon of Lucrece’s dying body when her feeling of shame rushes out of her bleeding body, signifying in red her deep shame: ‘And blood untainted still doth red abide,/Blushing at that which is putrified’ (1749–50). In ADO, blushing turns out to be evidence of Hero’s supposedly unfaithfulness to Claudio, her husband-to-be, who decides to annul their nuptials. Claudio interprets her blushes not as a sign of ‘bashful innocence’ but as the guilt Hero feels after the night she is believed to have spent with another man: 40

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Behold how like a maid she blushes here! O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal! Comes not that blood as modest evidence To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear, All you that see her, that she were a maid, By these exterior shows? But she is none; She knows the heat of a luxurious bed. Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty. (ADO 4.1.32–40) This passage mingles legal vocabulary with the deciphering of facial colours in what is almost a mock trial of Hero’s virtue. Although Claudio mistakingly construes blushing as inculpatory evidence, Friar Francis defends Hero’s honour suggesting that her blushes exculpate her: ‘I have marked/A thousand blushing apparitions/To start in her face, a thousand innocent shames/In angel whiteness beat away those blushes’ (4.1.158–61). Likewise, in WT, this facial emotion is related to law by Hermione during her trial: ‘False accusation blush and tyranny/Tremble at patience’ (3.2.30–1). In 1H6, the red colour of blush is associated with the dispute over the red and white roses taking place in Temple garden: ‘No, Plantagenet:/‘Tis not for fear, but anger, that thy cheeks/Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses’ (2.4.64–6). It is futher related to the colour red (‘Saying the sanguine colour of the leaves/Did represent my master’s blushing cheeks’ 4.1.92–3). Hamlet is so obsessed with his father’s death and his mother’s wedding to the murderer of her husband that he does not at first realize that he has just killed Polonius who was hiding behind an arras. He accuses his mother of: ‘Such an act/That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,/Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose/From the fair forehead of an innocent love’ (HAM 3.4.38–41). This statement that should be directed at Hamlet’s horrifying deed as he has just ‘plucked off a rose’ when killing Polonius, is in fact addressed to the shame that Gertrude should feel. As she does not seem to understand his words, Hamlet shows two portraits of her husbands to oblige her to ‘turn [her] eyes into [her] very soul’ (3.4.87) and confront her with her shame ‘O shame, where is thy blush?’ (3.4.79). ROM intermingles the blush of virginity with the redness of passion and incipient sexual desire. In his declaration of love to Juliet, structured as a love sonnet, Romeo says that his lips like ‘two blushing pilgrims, ready stand/To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss’ (1.5.94–5). In LLL, Moth criticizes cosmetics that create false blushes and make women’s faces indecipherable: ‘If she be made of white and red,/Her faults will ne’er be known,/For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,/And fears by pale white shown’ (1.2.94–7). Ironically enough, Armado who was praising female beauty as red and white, cannot help blushing when he sees Jacquenetta: ‘I do betray myself with blushing’ (1.2.126). In the sonnet-reading scene, blushing which is usually perceived as a feminine emotion, is applied to men. King Ferdinand, who has listened to some of the

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sonnets, hidden behind a bush rebukes the young men: ‘Come sir you blush . . . I have been closely shrouded in this bush,/And marked you both and for you both did blush./I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your passion’ (4.3.128/134–6). (C) Paster (1993) is invaluable for a cultural survey of shame in early modern England. Dawson (1982), Cook (1986) and Fleck (2006) have explored the diverse meanings of blushing in ADO. Fernie (2002) studies shame in Shakespeare’s text. Iyengar (2005) provides illuminating analyses on the association of blushing and shame in early modern England and explores this visual sign in ADO. See also her entry on cheek in her dictionary (2011). Baumbach (2008) has devoted some of her study on physiognomy in Shakespeare to blushing. brass see monument, statue (A) This yellow substance, combining copper and zinc, was used only to carve funerary effigies of royalty or nobility, especially in Tudor England. The best known example of this type of sculpture is epitomized by Henry VII’s tomb (1512–1518) which can be seen at Westminster Abbey. In Shakespeare’s time, the English nobility as well as royalty were won over by marble, a material imported from the continent. The royal tomb raised for Queen Elizabeth in 1606 in Westminster Abbey by her successor James I, testifies to this change in taste and fashion. (B) Brass is not always associated with sculpture in Shakespeare as is clear in SHR where it is related to household items (2.1.359). Beyond the many references to architecture (see for example JC 1.3.93), brass is sometimes used to describe funerary monuments. Sonnet 107 dramatizes the conventional literary rivalry between the poet and the sculptor – the sonneteer’s ‘poor rhyme’ (11) embodies a monument to posterity while statues are doomed to be destroyed by time: ‘And thou in this shalt find thy monument,/When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent’ (13–14). In historical plays, monuments in brass are perceived as a way to keep the memory of the dead alive as in H5: ‘A many of our bodies shall no doubt/Find native graves, upon the which, I trust,/Shall witness live in brass of this day’s work’ (4.3.95–7). In H8, Griffith ironically uses the metaphor of the monument in brass to remind the dying Katherine that men’s worst actions are to be remembered: ‘Noble madam,/Men’s evil manners live in brass, their virtues/We write in water’ (4.2.44–6). brazen see brass (A) This term is the adjective to refer to brass or to the colour of this material and even to the sound of objects made of brass. (B) Brazen is often used to depict monuments, acting as a grammatical variation of the noun brass. The opening lines of LLL praise the importance of posterity that is to be preserved by monuments made in brass: ‘Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,/ Live registered upon our brazen tombs,/And then grace us in the disgrace of death’ (1.1.1–3). It can also signify religious statuary as in 2H6 where Queen Margaret harshly criticizes her husband’s idolatry for statues of saints while his enemies are plotting against him: ‘His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves/Are brazen images of canonised 42

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saints’ (1.3.60–1). This adjective is used to describe the sound made by trumpets in R2 (3.3.33) or in ANT (4.8.36). brazier see brass, brazen This term refers to someone working in brass. Shakespeare uses this word only once in H8: ‘he should be a brasier by his face’ (5.3.38). breath see life, lively (A) The natural act of respiration, one of the signs of life among living beings, can sometimes be used to praise the artist’s nearly divine power when he creates such a lifelike painting or statue that the beholder is tricked into believing it might be alive and ready to move. In Renaissance Italy, Michaelangelo was regarded as Il Divino (‘the Divine’) since his works of art were thought to surpass nature. The bestknown example remains Giovanni Strozzi’s amazement at the sight of the statue of the Night in Florence which, according to him, seems to be on the point of waking up (see Gross, 1992, p. 92). Renaissance literature is also replete with seemingly alive works of art as in Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia (1467), translated into English by Robert Dallington in 1592 (The Strife of Love in a Dreame). On the English stage, some works of art such as the head of brass in Greene’s The Honourable Story of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1589?) were able to speak and move or statues such as the image of Pandora in Lyly’s The Woman in the Moon (1597) or Ferdinand’s fake effigy in the anonymous play The History and Triall of Chevalry (1605) came to life. This conceit of the visual artist as a demi-god is deeply rooted into antiquity and Christianity. While in Genesis God created man out of dust by breathing the breath of life into his new creation (Gen 2.7), in ancient Greece, Prometheus is said to have shaped man out of clay and endowed him with breath and a soul. In the Middle Ages, both figures were merged in a narration of the creation of man. Prometheus was also regarded as the first sculptor carving and animating statues as is mentioned by Elyot in his dictionary (1598): ‘[Prometheus] fyrste invented the makynge of ymages, wherfore the paynymes supposed that he made men. And faygned that he wente up into heven and there dyd steale fyre to make his ymage have lyfe’. Hence, Barkan (1981) underlines that this conflation conveys the idea that artists might also be able to give life to their work of art, an endless quest: ‘The whole history of sculpture can trace itself back to this Promethean pun, for the same arts that allow the sculptor to imitate life perfectly will give the appearance that the sculptor has, in a godlike way, bestowed souls upon his creations’ (p. 642). Pygmalion stands as one of Prometheus’ heirs although Venus is the one who endows his statue with the breath of life (see Pygmalion). Painters were also regarded as nearly divine creators who could create the illusion that the figures in their paintings were alive and breathing (see life). (B) When Giacomo describes some details of Imogen’s chamber to prove her lack of chastity, he expresses his admiration for the semi-divine power of the sculptor who carved a scene of Diana bathing on the chimney-piece: ‘the cutter/Was another nature, dumb: outwent her/Motion and breath left out’ (CYM 2.4.83–5). Despite the artist’s skill, the illusion is still incomplete since the figure of Diana is carved in stone for eternity. In MV, Bassanio’s breath is taken away when he discovers Portia’s portrait 43

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locked in the leaden casket: ‘Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demigod/Hath come so near creation? . . . /Here are severed lips/Parted with sugar breath’ (3.2.115–16/118–19). Unlike the sculptor who cut the figure of Diana in CYM, the painter in MV seems to have won over the carver insofar as the painted face of Portia seems as alive as the boy actor’s, a living being impersonating this character who stands on stage, probably facing Bassanio – unless the proximity between the model and the portrait on stage blurs the line between the shadow and the substance. Respiration takes on a more dramatic turn in WT in the tragic opposition between life and death. After Hermione has fainted and been carried off stage, Paulina comes back to break the sad news of her death: ‘I say she’s dead – I’ll swear’t . . . /If you can bring/Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,/Heat outwardly or breath within, I’ll serve you/As I would do the gods’ (3.2.200/202–4). The lack of breath as a sign of death is reminiscent of King Lear’s denial of Cordelia’s death: ‘Lend me a looking-glass;/If that her breath will mist or stain the stone/Why then she lives’ (KL 5.3.259–61). However, in WT Paulina is the only one testifying to Hermione’s death, encouraging Leontes and the spectators to believe that the queen is actually dead. The last act opens with Leontes’ redemption and grief at his wife’s absence. Paulina makes him swear never to marry again ‘unless another/As like Hermione as is her picture/Affront his eye’ (5.1.73–5). If the term ‘picture’ foreshadows the statue scene, Paulina’s order that Leontes marry ‘when your first queen’s again in breath/Never till then’ (5.1.83–4) anticipates the dramatization of the animated statue. Nevertheless, Paulina is not the only one to be able to endow the lifeless with breath since the carver who cut the statue of Hermione is described as a demi-god by the gentlemen: ‘the princess, hearing of her mother’s statue . . . a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Giulio Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly is he her ape’ (5.2.92–7). Leontes is confused by the lifelike quality of the ‘statue’: ‘Would you not deem it breathed, and that those veins/Did verily bear blood?’ (5.3.64–5), ‘Still methinks/There is an air comes from her. What fine chisel/Could ever yet cut breath?’ (5.3.77–9). However, the only breath that can be given to a work of art is the actor’s breath – impersonating Hermione in this case – hence showing the superiority of drama over other visual arts. (C) Enterline (2000) devotes a chapter to the study of what she terms ‘the poetic of animation’ in WT. Tassi (2005) explores the animation of Portia’s portrait in MV. brown (A) This colour, usually regarded as a combination of orange and black or of red, yellow and black, can vary greatly in hue as it can be darker or brighter. It can be used to depict the colours of clothes or of hair or signify a dark-skinned person. Pleij (2004) notes that this colour was endowed with ambiguous connotations in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance – as it looks similar to the earth, it could be related to the devil while this proximity with soil could be regarded as a sign of humility (p. 50). (B) Brown is used to depict the colour of hair in ANT when Antony describes his inner conflict in chromatic terms: ‘My very hairs do mutiny, for the white/Reprove the 44

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brown for rashness, and they them/For fear and doting’ (3.13–15). In COR, brown is a shade similar to auburn and black (‘We have been called so of many, not that our heads are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald, but that our wits are so diversely coloured’ 2.3.16–19). In ADO, Benedick remarks that since Hero’s beauty is unconventional, namely that she is not blonde, she deserves no praise: ‘she’s too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise’ (1.1.163–5). Likewise, in SHR, Petruchio points out that Katherine’s beauty does not meet the usual standards set by love poetry: ‘Kate like the hazel twig/Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue/As hazelnuts, and sweeter than the kernels’ (2.1.255–7). This hue can sometimes signify a dark complexion (see H8 3.2.295 and TRO 1.2.89–93). The phrase ‘brown bills’ used twice in Shakespeare (KL 4.6.91; 2H6 4.10.11) refers to halberds carried by soldiers, which were partly painted brown to protect these weapons from rust. ‘Brown bastard’ was a type of sweet wine imported from Spain. Henry mocks Francis for drinking too much (‘Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink! For look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully’ 1H4 2.4.72–4) while the lustful Elbow in MM reminds the Duke that wine favours procreation: ‘Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown and white bastard’ (3.1.1–4).

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C carnation (A) Originally alluding to the colour of flesh, this term refers to a light shade of pink mingling white and red. Linthicum (1936) asserts that in Renaissance drama carnation could be synonymous with a deeper shade of red resembling the doubleflowered plant that also bears this name. She also points out that this hue of pink was fashionable among the nobility (p. 37). (B) Apart from WT where Perdita mentions carnation as a flower (4.4.82), Hostess Quickly literally interprets the phrase ‘devils incarnate’ (2.3.30) when she claims that ‘’A could never abide carnation, ‘twas a colour he never liked’ (H5 2.3.31–2), hence relying on the shared etymology of ‘incarnate’ and ‘carnation’, two terms related to human flesh. Costard’s remark on the ‘carnation ribbons’ in LLL (3.1.141) conjures up a fashionable colour worn in court. (C) Harvey (2010) explores Shakespeare’s representation of the colour of flesh. Thomas and Faircloth (2014) provide an entry on carnation. carver see cutter, statue Carver was one of the varied nouns used in Shakespeare’s time to refer to what we call today a sculptor (see cutter). Carver is used only once in Shakespeare to signify the artist Giulio Romano’s gift for sculpting Hermione’s statue to the life, even showing her wrinkles: ‘So much the more our carver’s excellence,/ Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her/As she lived now’ (WT 5.3.30–2). casket see counterfeit, portrait, picture, shadow (A) This object is primarily a jewel box of varied sizes, which can be richly decorated. Although the OED (3) indicates that the term casket has been synonymous with coffin in American English since the nineteenth century, Shakespeare equated this item with coffins in some of his plays. (B) Caskets are featured as stage properties in both TIM and MV. After the masque of Cupid, Timon asks his servant to bring in his casket full of jewels (1.2.159–60) and offers them to one of the Lords invited to the banquet (1.2.171). The casket plays a key role in the plot related to Portia’s future marriage in MV, summarized by Nerissa, Portia’s waiting lady in the opening act (1.2.27–31). Three caskets are presented to three potential wooers, each being made of a different material, namely gold, silver and lead. In the three casket scenes (2.7, 2.9 and 3.2), the objects of desire are hidden behind a curtain as is indicated by Portia herself: ‘Go, draw aside the curtains and discover/The several caskets to this noble prince’ (2.7.1–2). The props are probably located within the discovery space and the curtain heightens the theatricality of the scenes. Each casket 47

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bears a sort of motto which is supposed to guide the potential husband (2.7.4–9). Portia’s portrait is locked in one of them: ‘Behold, there stand the caskets, noble prince./If you choose that wherein I am contained,/Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemnized’ (2.9.4–6). Suitors tend to assess the value of the casket by its outward colour which is also perceived by the audience – for instance, the Prince of Morocco sees in silver the ‘virgin hue’ (2.7.22). Despite its visual appeal, the golden casket reveals a skull while ‘the portrait of a blinking idiot’ (2.9.53) lies in the silver one. Once opened, each object found in the caskets can be interpreted thanks to the presence of a small text. The last casket scene (3.2) is imbued with a death-like atmosphere as Bassanio discovers the caskets to the sound of music and Portia’s funeral oration (3.2.43–8) as she fears her lover might fail to choose the right one. After a long moralizing commentary on the deceiving nature of ornament and female beauty, Bassanio opens the leaden casket and finds Portia’s portrait (3.2.114). In the opening scene of PER, the eponymous character is asked to decipher a riddle so as to marry Antochius’ daughter. After understanding the horrifying truth, Pericles compares the woman he loves to a beautiful jewel box containing an immoral secret: ‘Fair glass of light, I loved you, and could still,/Were not this glorious casket stored with ill’ (1.1.77–8). The metaphor of the casket is associated with Thaisa’s false death. As Lychorida brings Thaisa’s seemingly dead body on stage, Pericles asks her to bid Nicander to bring ‘ink and paper,/My casket and jewels’ (3.1.65–66) as well as a ‘satin coffer’ (67) to give her a decent burial. In JN, the meaning of the jewel box is combined with the image of the coffin. The Bastard announces to the king that Arthur was found ‘dead and cast into the streets,/An empty casket, where the jewel of life/By some damn’d hand was robb’d and ta’en away’ (5.1.39–41). Likewise, when Lucrece contemplates suicide, she compares her body to a ‘guiltless casket’ that is to be ‘burnt’ by her death (LUC 1057). (C) The plot of the three caskets in MV is thought to have been inspired by the story of the three vessels related in the medieval Gesta Romanorum, translated into English by R. Robinson in 1595. Freud (1913) provides a psychoanalytic reading of the caskets in MV. Doebler (1974) reads the symbol of the caskets in MV in the light of the Renaissance images of death, such as memento mori or ars moriendi, drawing parallels between caskets and coffins (pp. 49–50). Karim-Cooper (2006) provides an illuminating analysis of the casket scene in MV by connecting this object to cosmetics. Cartwright (2011) ranges exhaustively through the diverse meanings of the casket in MV, adding a few illuminating analyses of PER. See also Stone (2008). ceremonies see statue chameleon see colour This animal is famous for its ability to change the colour of its skin in different circumstances. In Shakespeare’s time, it was thought that it fed on air as is clear in HAM (3.2.89–90) or in TGV where Speed remarks on the shallowness of love: ‘the chameleon Love can feed on the air’ (2.1.159–60). The two qualities of the lizard are conflated in 2.4 when Valentine compares Turio to a chameleon: 48

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Silvia: Valentine: Turio:

What, angry, Sir Turio? Do you change colour? Give him leave, madam, he is a kind of chameleon. That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your air. ( TGV 2.4.23–7)

The comparison to this animal takes on a darker tone when Richard Plantagenet exposes his duplicity to the public in his poignant soliloquy: ‘I can add colours to the chameleon,/ Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,/And set the murderous Machiavel to school’ (3H6 3.2.191–3). In the Arden edition of TGV, Carroll (2004) indicates that the association of love, air and the chameleon is also used by John Lyly (p. 173). chapel (A) In Christianity, this term can signify a small church or a room within a church dedicated to prayer and meditation that can also be used to hold some religious offices. In Elizabethan England, funeral monuments could be placed in a chapel, as is the case with Queen Elizabeth I’s tomb which is still visible in the north aisle of Henry VII’s chapel in Westminster Abbey. Chapels were also built as adjacent rooms to mansions or palaces. (B) Shakespeare mentions this place of worship either for a wedding celebration or the remembrance of the dead. This location is mainly related to the rituals of life and death. In AYL, Touchstone is ready to marry Audrey ‘under a tree’ in the forest or in Sir Oliver Martext’s ‘chapel’ (3.3.60–1). In H8, Cromwell informs Cardinal Wolsey that the king has officially married Anne Boleyn (3.2.402–5) and that she was seen in public as his wife ‘going to chapel’. In ADO, Hero’s false resurrection in the final scene is celebrated in the chapel where her wedding, and not her funeral, is about to be solemnized (5.4.67–71). See also KJ (2.1.538). In HAM, Claudius asks Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to bring back Polonius’ dead body to the ‘chapel’ (4.1.37). In CYM, Iachimo compares the sleeping Imogen to ‘a monument/Thus in a chapel lying’ (2.2.32–3). In WT, the chapel is associated with death and resurrection. When Leontes is told that Hermione and his son are dead, he promises to preserve their memory: ‘Prithee bring me/To the dead bodies of my queen and son./One grave shall be for both . . . Once a day I’ll visit/The chapel where they lie’ (3.2.231–3/235–6). Sixteen years later, Paulina invites Leontes and Perdita ‘to see the queen’s picture’ (5.2.171). As they have ‘passed through’ Paulina’s gallery to admire ‘many singularities’ (5.3.11–12), Paulina draws a curtain to expose the statue of Hermione. She warns the visitors that if they want to see the statue come to life, they must have faith: ‘Either forbear,/Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you/For more amazement’ (5.3.85–7). It is unclear whether the chapel where the statue is set is that mentioned by Leontes in 3.2. It is presented as an adjacent room to Paulina’s gallery since Leontes and his daughter first walk through the gallery contemplating Paulina’s ‘singularities’ and then proceed to the chapel, which could be Paulina’s private chapel. On stage, this sacred area is probably located in the discovery scene where the statue stands. (C) The presence of the statue in Paulina’s ‘chapel’ has raised much controversy among the critics insofar as this location together with other religious elements pervading

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the statue scene in WT have been interpreted by some scholars as evidence of Shakespeare’s supposed Catholic faith. Wilson (2004) remains one of the main supporters of this theory. Lupton (1996) has explored the Catholic atmosphere in WT. See also Vanita (2000) and Dolan (2007). O’Connor (2003) discusses the staging of the chapel in WT as well as the religious references in the final scene in the light of Protestantism. Porter (2013) interprets the chapel in the light of art collection, presenting Paulina as a patron of visual art since women showed great interest in patronage in early modern England. cherry see red (A) The bright colour of this fruit is conventionally used to describe a precise shade of red. In Renaissance love poetry, it became a metaphor to praise a lady’s red lips as exemplified by Spenser’s Epithalamion (1594). In his tenth verse dedicated to his marriage, he celebrates his beloved’s beauty in a blazon-like manner, detailing each feature of her face such as ‘her lips lyke cherryes charming men to bite’ (10.8). Although this poem has a background in Neo-platonism, the above-quoted line is imbued with eroticism. (B) Shakespeare sometimes alludes to cherries simply as fruit as in the narcissistic portrait of Adonis beholding his ‘shadow in the brook’ (1099). The birds are so overjoyed by the contemplation of his stunning beauty that they ‘bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries’ (1103). By mentioning the colour of the cherries, Shakespeare may underline one of the main colours of Adonis’ beauty explored at the beginning of the narrative poem (see red). In MND, when waking up, Demetrius falls in love with Helena’s beauty which he describes in highly rhetorical terms: ‘O, how ripe in show/ Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow’ (3.2.139–40). These lines echo Spenser’s ambiguous portrait of tempting red lips. The image of the cherry is conjured up again by Helena to remind Hermia of their bonds: ‘So we grew together,/Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,/But yet an union in partition’ (3.2.208–10). This literary conceit is challenged in the parodic love scene of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe performed by the artisans in the forest. As Flute, playing the role of Thisbe, stands near the wall impersonated by Snout, he confesses that he has kissed the wall many times: ‘My cherry lips have often kiss’d thy stones’ (5.1.188). This parodic treatment of the colour of beauty reaches its highest point when Thisbe/Flute discovers Pyramus’ lifeless body: ‘these lily lips,/This cherry nose’ (5.1.325–6). This comical mixing of the codified colours of feminine beauty applied here to a male character signals Shakespeare’s subtle challenge of literary codifications (see red). Cherry is also evoked in R3 to underline the colour of a woman’s lips: ‘We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot,/A cherry lip, a bonny eye’ (1.1.93–4). In PER, cherry alludes to the bright reds used by Marina in her needlework: ‘with her nee’le composes/Nature’s own shape of bud, bird, branch or berry,/That even her art sisters the natural roses./Her inkle, silk, twin with the rubied cherry’ (5.0.5–8). cherubin (A) A biblical figure represented under the shape of an angel, usually symbolizing innocence and purity. This heavenly creature, part of the second order of 50

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angels, has been featured in decorative as well as visual arts. Henry VII’s and Elizabeth of York’s tomb, carved by the Italian artist Pietro Torrigiani (1512–1518) visible in Westminster Abbey exemplifies the role of cherubins in early Tudor sculpture. However, this motif was no longer used in post-Reformation English sculpture. (B) Many textual occurrences of this word in Shakespeare are connected with the Bible as in MAC (‘like a naked new-born babe,/Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, horsed/Upon the sightless couriers of the air’ 1.7.21–3), HAM (‘I see a cherub that sees them’ 4.3.47) or even MV (‘young-eyed cherubins’ 5.1.62) where Lorenzo describes the heavenly order of the music of the spheres. It is the image of purity in TMP (1.2.152), false innocence in TIM (4.3.64) and is imbued with ironical tones in OTH (‘Turn thy complexion there,/Patience, thou young and rose-lipped cherubin,/Ay, here look grim as hell!’ 4.2.63–5). Cherubins interpreted as a visual icon play a key role in Giacomo’s description of Imogen’s room in CYM. After describing the tapestry narrating the encounter between Cleopatra and Antony on the Cydnus river as well as the chimney-piece depicting Diana bathing, Iachimo uses his third supposed ‘ocular proof’: ‘The roof o’th’chamber/ With golden cherubins is fretted. Her andirons/(I had forgot them) were two winking Cupids’ (2.4.87–9). The sculpted angels decorating the roof of Imogen’s bedchamber mirror the figure of chaste Diana carved on the chimney-piece, silently testifying to her innocence and purity. However, the presence of cupids, deceptively resembling angels, echoes the erotic image of Antony and Cleopatra woven in the tapestry, hinting at another interpretation of Imogen’s chastity. Sculpted cherubins are featured in Norfolk’s ekphrastic narration of the lavish meeting between the French King Francis I and King Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold near Calais. The supposedly extravagant tastes of the French side is mocked by Norfolk as the French King was, according to him, accompanied by ‘dwarfish pages’ dressed as ‘cherubims, all gilt’ (H8 1.1.22–3). (C) Fairchild (1937) asserts that cherubins were not perceived as religious figures in early modern England. The references to this decorative feature in Shakespeare alludes to house decoration (p. 64). For the religious symbolism of cherubins in Shakespeare, see Shaheen (1999) and Hassel (2005). Edgecomb (2001) explores the contrast between cherubins and cupids in CYM while Ivy (1958) analyses the image of the cherubin in OTH. chimney-piece (A) In early modern England, a chimney-piece was part of decorative arts and could refer to a tapestry, a painting or a carved scene ornamenting a fireplace. The sculpted scene decorating one of the fireplaces in Hatfield House (see p. 5) is a prime example of the key role of statuary in interior designs and offers a glimpse of the kind of chimney-piece Shakespeare may have had in mind when he wrote CYM. (B) The only example of a carved chimney-piece to be found in Shakespeare is the one described by Iachimo in CYM. In order to create a false ‘ocular proof’ of Imogen’s lasciviousness, Iachimo adds to the visual inventory of Imogen’s bechamber the sculpted mantel-piece of the fireplace: 51

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The chimney Is south the chamber, and the chimney-piece Chaste Dian bathing: never saw I figures So likely to report themselves; the cutter Was as another Nature, dumb; outwent her, Motion and breath left out. (CYM 2.4.80–5) The silent icon of the carved Diana on the mantel-piece testifies to Imogen’s chastity while standing in sharp contrast with the underlying eroticism of the tapestry depicting the first encounter between Antony and Cleopatra (2.2.201–15). (C) Mercer (1962) explores the role of chimney-pieces and overmantles in Elizabethan interior decorations. Muñoz Simonds (1992) provides a detailed analysis of Imogen’s chamber, including the chimney-piece which, according to her, was not carved but made of plaster. Coussement-Boillot (2006) and Plett (2012) interpret the passage in CYM as an example of the literary conceit of ekphrasis. chisel see breath, carver This tool made of metal or steel is often used by sculptors to give shape to wood, stone or even metal when carving statues or funerary effigies. Shakespeare uses this technical word once in WT when Leontes is bewildered by Giulio Romano’s nearly divine power to carve out an image to the life of his supposedly dead wife: ‘What fine chisel/Could ever yet cut breath?’ (5.3.78–9). clinquant see glitter, golden This adjective derived from French describes the glitter of gold. Shakespeare uses this term once in H8 when Norfolk mockingly depicts to the audience the extravagant magnificence displayed by the French King Francis I during his encounter with King Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in June 1520: ‘Today the French,/All clinquant, all in gold like heathen gods,/Shone down the English’ (1.1.18–20). Although this adjective is not imbued with pejorative tones as is the case in French, the portrait of the French side in H8 oozes with anti-Catholicism since the Catholic King and his followers are identified with the biblical figure of the golden calf (‘heathen gods’), a symbol of idolatry in the Old Testament (Exodus 32, 3–7). Linthicum (1936) provides analyses for this term in early modern drama. cloth see arras, hangings, tapestry (A) In Elizabethan England, this type of fabric could signify painted hangings, often worked with figures, mottoes or texts, which were considered as a cheaper type of arras, reproducing the designs of tapestries, and were used to decorate taverns or modest houses. (B) Shakespeare sometimes uses this term to depict richly ornamented fabric such as in the ekphrastic description of the first encounter between Antony and Cleopatra on the Cydnus river in ANT, where Enobarbus details the highly chromatic appearance of the Queen of Egypt: ‘she did lie/In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,/O’erpicturing that 52

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Venus where we see/The fancy outwork nature’ (2.2.208–11). In H8, the name of the location chosen for the lavish festivities organized at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, mentioned in the opening scene, refers to the rich fabric woven with gold thread used to decorate some of the tents or the kings’ clothes. Otherwise, Shakespeare often alludes to what is known as ‘painted cloths’, low-value tapestries that adorned houses, taverns and theatrical stages. In AYL, Orlando compares Jaques to a ‘painted cloth’ (3.2.266). In LLL, Costard mentions the Nine Worthies that were a familiar feature of painted cloths (5.2.571). In 1H4, an arras is used on stage so that Falstaff can hide away (2.4.485–516). This visual property, probably appearing as richly ornamented, is ironically subverted in Falstaff’s derogatory description of the ‘ensigns, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies’ who look like ‘slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth’ (4.2.23–5). The reference to a biblical episode, a common feature of tapestries and arrases, is conjured up again by Falstaff in his depiction of the story of the Prodigal son (Luke 15,11–32) that is narrated on ‘fly-bitten tapestries’ (2H4 2.1.147). See also TRO 5.11.45. (C) The detail of the golden cloth in Enobarbus’ ekphrastic description of the Queen of Egypt was directly inspired by Plutarch in The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (1579): ‘she was laid under a pavilion of cloth-of-gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the goddess Venus commonly drawn in picture’ (p. 981). In her study of popular piety, Watt (1991) has highlighted the important role played by painted cloths in Elizabethan visual culture. Mander (1997) provides good historical background on painted cloths in Elizabethan England, more precisely on the cloth of Lazarus. Regarding the references to painted cloths in Shakespeare, Ronayne (1997) and Keenan and Davidson (1997) offer a synthetic analysis of the role of painted cloths on the Elizabethan stage. Watt (1991) draws a parallel between the painted cloth of Lazarus in 1H4 and the parable of the ‘Dives and Lazarus’ which was a common painted image in taverns and alehouses (p. 209). Hamlin (2013) mentions that the image of the painted cloth of Lazarus in 1H4 is reminiscent of two panels depicting scenes from the life of Lazarus at Pittleworth Manor (1580) (p. 23). colly/collier see black, dark (A) This obsolete term alludes to an object or a person covered with coal dust or soot. A collier is an individual who supplies coal. (B) Shakespeare sometimes uses this rare word as a synonym for black as in MND when Lysander describes the ‘lightning in the collied night’ (1.1.145). In LLL, the image of soot is conjured up by some of the king’s attendants to mock Berowne’s celebration of Rosaline’s dark beauty and complexion: Dumaine: To look like her are chimney-sweepers black. Longaville: And since her time are colliers counted bright. (LLL 4.3.262–3) Not only do Dumaine and Longaville turn into ridicule Berowne’s defence of Rosaline’s darkness, but they also expose the shallowness of his discourse. His rhetorical praise of 53

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a love as ‘black as ebony’ (4.3.243) is as solid and genuine as the dirty ashes smearing the chimney-sweepers’ faces, more precisely his inversion of the values of black and white when he claims that ‘No face is fair that is not so full of black’ (4.3.249). To a certain extent, the metaphor of coal may suggest that the seeming solidity of ebony, which is a piece of wood, can be reduced to simple ashes, just like his fair discourse which is both attractive and specious. In OTH, the image of coal dust indicates that Othello’s judgement has been misled or darkened: ‘Now, by heaven,/My blood begins my safer guides to rule/And passion, having my best judgment collied,/Assays to lead the way’ (2.3.200–3). In TN, the colour of coal dust is associated with the negative connotations of black: ‘What, man, ‘tis not for gravity to play at cherry-pit with Satan. Hang him foul collier’ (3.4.112–14). The opening lines to ROM hinge upon a pun on coals, collier, choler and collar that do not mention the colour of colliers’ faces but probably their bad reputation (1.1.1–4). (C) Paker (2003) offers insights into this metaphor in her study of black in HAM and OTH. colour see discolour, dye, hue, tinct (A) In Renaissance England, colour was a highly ambivalent word as it was tinged with moral and pejorative connotations. It first and foremost alluded to the diverse hues and tones that can be perceived by the human eye, such as black, white, green, red or yellow. In Shakespeare’s time, the scientific approach to the visual experience of colour was still influenced by Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories of vision (refer to see). The ‘extramission’ theory, which originated with Plato and was supported by Cicero and Euclid, contends that colour is produced by the collision of two beams of fire, one coming from the viewer and the other issuing from the object that is looked upon. Aristotle challenged this theory as he asserted that colour emerged only from objects. Colours were inventoried within a spectrum of brightness and darkness, starting from white and ending with black. The intermediary colours were understood as a coalescence of these two colours. Gage (1993) has structured Aristotle’s spectrum as follows – black, grey, deep blue, leek-green, violet, crimson, yellow, white (pp. 12–13). Robert Fludd’s spectrum of colours (1626), represented in a circle evinces the influence of this theory continuing in early seventeenth-century England (Gage, figure 1, p. 9). This representation of colours is challenged by Isaac Newton’s experiments in the late 1660s. Elizabethan medical theories were still shaped by Galen’s physiology which associated the four colours that were thought to be used by the Greek painter Apelles with body fluids – black bile, white phlegm, yellow bile and red blood. Any change in these fluids could alter a person’s complexion, such as anger which could result in blushing or pallor. The theory of the four-colour palette supposedly used by the renowned painter Apelles was still influential in the Renaissance through the translations of classical writers such as Pliny who contends in his Natural History (1601) that some painters were able to paint a whole picture with only four colours: ‘Of all whites, they had the white of Tripoli of Melos: for yellow ochres, they took that of Athens: for reds, they sought no farther 54

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than to the red ochre or Sinopie ruddle in Pontus: and their black was no other than ordinarie vitrioll or shoemakers blacke’ (p. 532). However, Gage (1993) has shown that this theory does not necessarily reflect the reality of Greek painting as Pliny tries to support his own theory of the primacy of colores austeri (p. 30). Nor does it correspond to the Elizabethan practice of painting as revealed by the miniaturist Hilliard who claims to resort to a larger palette. In his treatise, The Arte of Limning (1601), he explains that black and white are the most used colours in painting: ‘all painting is performed by lightening and shadowing, which may be termed white and black, for light and darkness, in what colour soever it be’ (p. 69). Then, he ranks five other main colours ‘which are colours of perfection in themselves, not participating with any other, nor can be made of any other mixed colours. And of them five are nevertheless divers kinds, which with them are made by mixture: murrey, red, blue, green and yellow’ (p. 73). Furthermore, due to his former training as a goldsmith, Hilliard establishes correspondences between these colours and precious stones: ‘I say for certain truth that there are besides white and black but five perfect colours in the world, which I prove by the five principal precious stones bearing colours, and which are all bright and transparent stones, as followeth. These are the five stones: amethyst orient for murrey, ruby for red, sapphire for blue, emerald for green, and hard orient topaz for yellow’ (p. 81). These associations are also evocative of the vocabulary used in the medieval art of heraldry which was still influential in Elizabethan England (see blazon, heraldry). In addition to setting strict rules for the composition and the association of colours on coats of arms, heraldry relies on a specific vocabulary that resurfaces in Shakespeare. Gules stands for red, vert (and emerald) for green, sapphire for blue and sable for black. Whitney’s emblem In colores (1586), taken from Alciati, offers another glimpse of an approach to the symbolism of colours in Renaissance England. The figure of the dyer points to the pre-industrial process of making colours while throwing light upon the commercial value of colour whose varying prices made dyestuffs sometimes highly expensive (see dye). The opening lines of the text commenting on the picture highlight the whimsical mood of customers, an emblem of human fickleness. Dyers were organized in guilds and specialized in one particular colour, hence could not possibly use other dyes. In figurative meanings, the word colour was synonymous with a pretence or an excuse. Through its Latin etymology, it is believed to derive from the verb celare, meaning ‘to hide’ as is evidenced by Elyot’s definition of the Latin word ‘color’: ‘by a metaphore a cloke and pretence of a matter. Also the eternall face and beauty of a thing’ (Bibliotheca Eliotae 1559). Colour was thus metaphorically identified with concealment and false appearances in Shakespeare’s time. The deceiving nature of colour was reinforced by its links with the art of rhetoric. The colores rhetorici, or colours of rhetoric, had become a conventional metaphor to depict rhetorical devices in Renaissance England as exemplified by Puttenham in his Arte of English Poesie (1589): ‘This ornament we speake of is given by figures and figurative speaches, which be the flowers as it were and coulours that a Poett setteth upon his language by arte [. . .] as th’excellent painter bestoweth the rich 55

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Orient coulours upon his table of pourtraite’ (p. 150). Furthermore, the colour of rhetoric was related to the legal world with rhetorical exercises such as the one named ‘to give colour’ that was to be practised by would-be barristers in the Inns of Court. In her definition of this form of pleading, Mukherji (2006) clearly shows that it was related to falsehood: ‘It took the form of the defendant offering his own description of the plaintiff’s case, to suggest that though there was indeed a conflict, the basis of the plaintiff’s complaint was legally unsound . . . The interest of the device lies in its patent fictionality . . . It was an attribute of style, wit and performative skill rather than an instrument of factual truth’ (pp. 149–50). For Elizabethans, colour was evocative of the cosmetics used by women, but also men, especially in Elizabethan court. As the Queen was growing older, she used makeup – mainly rouge and white powder – to hide her wrinkles, thus creating what is known as the ‘mask of youth’. This practice was condemned by Puritans who reproached women for changing the face that God gave them (see paint). On top of condemning the colours of cosmetics, Puritans rejected any bright colours for clothes, praising the sobriety of black garments. The colours and the material used for clothing were regulated by strict sumptuary laws which prescribed the hue and fabric that people could buy and wear depending on their social status (see scarlet). (B) In Shakespeare’s text, colour primarily corresponds to the different hues perceived by the human eye. In LLL, when Armado discusses the ‘colour of lovers’ (1.2.83), he refers to the diverse shades of green as well as red and white (1.2.94). As they plot to mock Malvolio, Maria informs Sir Toby that her lady hates yellow (‘He will come to her in yellow stockings – and ‘tis a colour she abhors’ TN 2.5.192–3). Viola declares that she is the perfect copy of her brother as she wears the same clothes (‘Even such and so/In favour of my brother, and he went/Still in this fashion, colour, ornament,/ For him I imitate’ 3.4.377–80). During their rehearsal of the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, Flute’s stereotypical speech on the colours of female beauty is rendered even more comical as the actor adds the word colour or hue after each colour, hence giving rise to hilarious pleonasms: ‘Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,/Of colour like the red rose on triumphant briar’ (MND 3.1.87–8). This linguistic debunking of the Petrarchan rigid codification of colours is reinforced by the reversal of roles as Thisbe, the female character, applies the chromatic convention of female beauty to a man, namely her lover Pyramus (see lily). It can also refer to the colour of a character’s hair or eye. In ANT, Cleopatra asks her attendant to observe her new rival, Octavia, and to report to her all the features of her face, including the colour of her hair (2.5.114). In AYL, Celia, disguised as Aliena, mocks Rosalind’s description of Orlando’s hair which is of ‘dissembling colour’ (3.4.6), nearing Judas’s red hair. As Rosalind claims that ‘his hair is of a good colour’, Celia remarks that it matches her auburn hair: ‘An excellent colour – your chestnut was ever the only colour’ (3.4.9–11). See also ADO (2.3.33). In WT, Paulina forbids Perdita to touch the statue of her mother as it ‘is but newly fixed, the colour’s/Not dry’ (5.3.47–8). In this context, the word colour is fraught with several meanings as it calls to mind the fashion of painting statues in the 56

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Elizabethan time when funerary sculpture was considered as an art of colour alongside painting. Still, it can also be interpreted as a metatheatrical reference to the cosmetics that the boy actor impersonating Hermione has put on to look like a woman and, incidentally, a statue. Likewise, in VEN, the horse painted by the artist surpasses the real one in ‘courage, colour, pace and bone’ (294). 2H6 explores the human ability to perceive colours when the king is informed that a blind man has miraculously recovered his sight at Saint Alban’s shrine (2.1.62–4). In order to put this unbelievable recovery to the test, Gloucester asks Simpcox to describe the colour of the coat he is wearing: Gloucester: Simpcox: Gloucester: Simpcox: King: Suffolk:

Sayst thou me so? What colour is this cloak of? Red, master, red as blood. Why, that’s well said. What colour is my gown of? Black, forsooth, coal-black as jet. Why then, thou knowst what colour jet is of? And yet, I think, jet did he never see. ( 2H6 2.1.105–110)

Simpcox’s metaphorical perception of colours arouses suspicion and Gloucester denounces his lies, building up a theory on the perception of colours: ‘If thou hadst been born blind/ Thou mightst as well have known all our names as thus/To name the several colours we do wear./Sight may distinguish of colours, but suddenly/To nominate them all, it is impossible’ (2.1.122–6). In addition to the colours of actors’ costumes, the colours of some stage properties can also be highly significant for the spectators. On the early modern stage, battle scenes are traditionally announced by the sound of drums and the visual presence of a coloured flag which is indicated in stage directions by the term ‘colours’. There are many references in Shakespeare’s plays: see MAC (5.2; 5.4; 5.5; 5.6); TIT (1.1); R2 (3.2; 3.3). It can also refer to the cosmetics used by actors to visualize blood on stage. When Lady Macbeth compares her red hands with her husband’s (‘My hands are of your colour, but I shame/To wear a heart so white’ (MAC 2.2.65–6), her remark suggests the false blood the actors have smeared their hands with while highlighting the visual mirror effect produced by this theatrical cosmetics. It also foreshadows the blood on Duncan’s dead body, the visual sign of murder according to Macbeth himself: ‘His silver skin laced with his golden blood . . . there the murderers,/Steep’d in the colours of their trade, their daggers/Unmannerly breech’d with gore’ (2.3.110/112–14). Colour also alludes to complexion or facial reactions such as blushes or paleness. In TGV, Silvia remarks that anger changes the colour of Thurio’s face: ‘What, angry, Sir Thurio? Do you change colour?’ (2.4.23). In JC, Cassius describes Caesar’s lack of courage when he grew pale because of fever: ‘His coward lips did from their colour fly’ (1.2.122). In WT, Steward points out that the narration of Hermione’s death and Leontes’s grief was so poignant that no one could remain insensitive: ‘Who was marble there changed colour’ (5.2.87–8). In R3, Richard asks Buckingham if he can pretend to be frightened: ‘Come, cousin, canst thou quake and change thy colour’ (3.5.1). In MV, Portia describes Bassanio’s sudden paleness when he opens the letter from Venice, hence 57

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giving information for the actor playing this role: ‘There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper/That steals the colour from Bassanio’s cheek’ (3.2.242–3). Conversely, in KJ, Salisbury interprets the King’s facial blushes as evidence of a tormented soul: ‘The colour of the king doth come and go/Between his purpose and his conscience’ (4.2.76–7). In 2H4, the Hostess comically mixes the medical theory of humours with the effect of wine on the human body: ‘I’faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality. Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire, and your colour I warrant is as red as any rose, in good truth, la! But I’faith you have drunk too much canaries, that’s a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere one can say’ (2.4.21–7). In TRO, Cressida and Pandarus discuss Troilus’s complexion which is, according to Pandarus ‘brown and not brown’ (1.2.93). Cressida challenges Helen’s praise of Troilus’s beauty as his complexion is dark and not fair. When Pandarus remarks that Helen ‘praised his complexion above Paris’ (1.2.95) who is supposed to have ‘colour enough’ (1.2.96), that is to be dark skinned, then Troilus is too dark: ‘Then Troilus should have too much. If she praised him above, his complexion is higher than this; he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion’ (1.2.98–101). In WIV, Falstaff amusingly describes the bruises he was inflicted upon when ‘he was beaten . . . into all the colours of the rainbow’ (4.5.108) (see blue). In addition to the poetical visualization of the colours of beauty, purity and sin (see black, red and white), LUC delves into the intricacies arising from the polysemy of the generic term ‘colour’. After painting Lucrece’s beauty in highly rhetorical red and white (64–6), the poet turns to the noun colour in order to describe Tarquin’s deceitful nature: ‘For that he coloured with his high estate,/Hiding base sin in pleats of majesty’ (92–3). In his long monologue, Tarquin imagines Lucrece’s facial reaction when she grows aware of his true intentions: ‘O, how her fear did make her colour rise!’ (257). In this example, colour describes Lucrece’s emotions. A few lines later, Tarquin shifts back to the meaning of pretence: ‘Why hunt I then for colours or excuses?’ (267). These contradictory fluctuations between spontaneous facial colours and duplicity not only highlight the ambivalent nature of colours, but also adumbrate Tarquin’s rhetorical speech which relies on the aforementioned duality to justify his lust. When Lucrece wakes up and realizes that Tarquin is about to rape her, she emphasizes the neutral meaning of colour, namely the sense of reason or cause: ‘she with vehement prayers urgeth still/Under what colour he commits this ill’ (475–6). This pleading is to no avail as Tarquin finds a justification to his immoral thoughts through a cunning rhetorical manipulation of colour: Thus he replies:‘The colour in thy face, That even for anger makes the lily pale And the red rose blush at her own disgrace, Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale. Under that colour am I come to scale Thy never-conquered fort. ( LUC 477–82) 58

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If it goes without saying that the ‘colour’ in Lucrece’s face conjures the changes in her complexion, the colour alluding to Tarquin’s motive fuses the military connotations of the coloured flag (enhanced by the metaphor of the fort) with the meaning of pretence or excuse that he evoked in his monologue (‘Why hunt I then for colours or excuses?’ 267). The ambiguous verbal play on the word ‘colour’ fades away after the rape and colour is conjured up again in the artistic context of the ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy. The story depicted in the picture mirrors her inner grief: ‘So LUCRECE, set a-work, sad tales doth tell/To pencilled pensiveness and coloured sorrow;/She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow’ (1496–8). When Collatine sees Lucrece again, the colour of her face has changed and reflects her despair: ‘Her eyes, though sod in tears, looked red and raw,/Her lively colour killed with deadly cares’ (1592–3). In 2H6, the Queen tries to convince the King to ‘rid the world’ of Gloucester (3.1.234). Cardinal Winchester reminds her that an execution should be decided according to the rule of law: ‘That he should die is worthy policy;/But yet we want a colour for his death./ ‘Tis meet he be condemned by course of law’ (3.1.235–7). The term colour, meaning here a good reason, almost sounds like ‘collar’, suggesting death by hanging while Winchester is possibly playing with the homophony on ‘die’ and ‘dye’. This quibble is reminiscent of the quarrel in the garden scene in 1H6 when the two sides express their rivalry with white and red roses. The Earl of Warwick prefers to pick the white rose to signify his spite towards the colours of rhetoric used by the rivals: ‘I love no colours: and, without all colour/Of base insinuating flattery,/I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet’ (2.4.34–6). In LLL, the pedant Holofernes, who overindulges in the art of rhetoric, ironically rejects the colours of rhetoric through a polyptoton, a stylistic device where the same term is repeated with a grammatical variation: ‘I do fear colourable colours’ (4.2.147–8). The suspicion toward the artificial nature of verbal colours is echoed by Berowne’s scorn for women’s use of cosmetics who lie about their nature and their emotions by covering their faces with artificial visual colours: ‘Your mistresses dare never come in rain,/For fear their colours should be washed away’ (4.3.266–7). In the Sonnets, the youth’s beauty is unequalled insofar as the natural colours of his face, primarily white and red, are superior even to the colours of roses and lilies, two conventional metaphors that fail to depict his beauty: ‘More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,/But sweet, or colour, it had stol’n from thee’ (SON 99.14–15). Despite the powerlessness of the colours of rhetoric to preserve the youth’s beauty in the sonnets (‘Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed’ SON 101.6), the poet urges his Muse to inspire him to build a verbal monument for the youth (‘Then do thy office, Muse: I teach thee how/To make him seem long hence as he shows now’ SON 101.13– 14). Except for the reference to Hamlet’s black garment that he wears as a sign of grief for his father’s death (‘Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off’ HAM 1.2.68), colour is equated with the art of lying in this tragedy. Hamlet guesses that his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were asked to come and visit him insofar as they are unable to lie: ‘You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour’ (2.2.244–6). During the rehearsal of Hamlet’s play, 59

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Polonius admires the actors’ ability to express emotions they do not feel: ‘Look where he has not turned his colour and has tears in’s eyes’ (2.2.457–8). Similarly, when Polonius asks Ophelia to pretend she is a virtuous woman and directs her on stage by giving her a book, he resorts to the painting trope he had used for the actors: ‘Read on this book/That show of such an exercise may colour/Your loneliness’ (3.1.43–5). See also TMP (1.2.143). Otherwise, colour can take on the meaning of pretext or excuse as is exemplified in H8 when Buckingham describes Charles the Emperor’s strategy to prevent the meeting between Henry VIII and the French King Francis I: ‘Charles the Emperor,/Under pretence to see the Queen his aunt –/For ‘twas indeed his colour, but he came/To whisper Wolsey – here makes visitation’ (1.1.176–9). Likewise, in a short soliloquy, Proteus confesses how he manipulates his friends to see the fair Silvia (‘Under the colour of commending him [Turio]/I have access my own love to prefer’ TGV 4.2.3– 4). In the opening scene of OTH, Iago plots to spoil Brabantio’s reason to be overjoyed by his daughter’s marriage by revealing Desdemona has married an ‘old black ram’ (1.1.87): ‘Though that his joy be joy/Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t/As it may lose some colour’ (1.1.70–2). (C) The symbolisms of colours in the Renaissance are inventoried by a certain Sicile, Herald of Alphonso V who published Le Blason des couleurs en Armes livrees et devises (1528) which was translated into English by Richard Robinson, A Rare True and Proper Blazon of Coloures and Ensignes Military with theyre Peculiar Signification (1546). In England, colour symbolism was also explored in books devoted to heraldry such as Gerard Legh, Accedens of Armory (1562) and Sir John Ferne, Blazon of Gentrie (1586). Art treatises offer another interesting source for understanding the symbolism of colours: see Lomazzo (1585) and Hilliard (1601). Stubbes (1583) provides an interesting account on the codification of colours in Elizabethan society. In the field of history of art, the two main books written by Gage (1993 and 1999) are invaluable reading to fully understand the theories of colours, the evolution of the perception of colours and their complex symbolism in visual arts. See also Ball (2001), Finlay (2003) and Pleij (2004). Regarding the colours of rhetoric, see Lichtenstein (1993), Skinner (1996) and Plett (2004). Bloch (1984) argues that 80 per cent of the colour terms appearing in Shakespeare’s text can be reduced to four, namely black, white, red and green. On the whole, his works rely on nine colours – the other five being yellow (30 times), blue (28), brown (24), grey (24) and purple (18). He also emphasizes that the words orange and pink do not describe colours, except in MND where orange is associated with tawny to depict the colour of a beard (1.2.87). Regarding the colours of the costumes worn by actors working for Shakespeare’s company, Linthicum (1936) remains invaluable reading as she deciphers the different meanings inherent in the various hues and shades of stage costume. Meagher (2003) devotes a chapter of his book to the costumes probably used by actors working for Shakespeare, discussing the codification of colours. Smith (2009) provides a full account of the theories related to the perception of colours in the English Renaissance. Woodbridge’s study (1987) is still central to an understanding of the intricate treatment 60

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of colours in some of Shakespeare’s work. Mazzio (2000) asserts that LLL relies on ‘textual colorphilia’ (198). Chiari (2011) explores the symbolism of colours in WT. Her collection of essays (2015) devoted to colours in early modern England is replete with illuminating analyses on colours in Shakespeare. Colossus see statue (A) This gigantic statue was originally part of the seven wonders of the world along with the prodigious chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia, carved by Phidias circa 430–22 BC. The Colossus of Rhodes, a 30-metre high bronze statue representing Helios, the sun god, and sculpted by Chares of Lindos, was standing on one side of Rhodes harbour to guide travellers. It was unfortunately destroyed by an earthquake in 228 BC. The contemporary representations of this larger-than-life statue bestriding the entrance to Rhodes harbour were shaped by the fertile imaginations of medieval and Renaissance travellers and geographers. This view seems to have originated in the fourteenth century when Nicolò di Martini, a pilgrim from Capua, depicted the statue in this position in 1394–95. This imaginary vision of the Colossus was expanded by varied accounts of European merchants, scholars and even monks. The very first visual representation can be precisely dated back to 1556 when Jean Cousin the younger illustrated the French geographer André Thevet’s book, Cosmographie du Levant. In this illustration, the Colossus is shown with a mirror around his neck, bestriding the harbour while holding a sword. (B) Except in 1H4 (‘Nothing but a Colossus can do thee that friendship’ 5.1.123–4) the main references to this statue focus upon its majestic and imposing position (‘bastard Margareton/Hath Doreus prisoner,/And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam’ TRO 5.5.7–9). In JC, the comparison of Caesar to a Colossus reinforces the discrepancy between the nearly god-like figure of the eponymous character and the very low status of the Roman people (‘Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world/Like a colossus, and we petty men/Walk under his huge legs’ (1.2.134–6). Although Shakespeare does not directly mention the Colossus in ANT, Cleopatra’s imaginary portrayal of a gigantic and celestial Antony bestriding the ocean immediately conjures up the image of such a statue: ‘His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm/Crested the world’ (5.2.81–2). The detail of the raised arm and the term ‘crested’ – describing the flourish of a sword in heraldry – could be evocative of Jean Cousin’s engraving of the Colossus, showing the giant triumphantly holding a sword. (C) This statue was described by many classical writers, such as Philon of Byzantium or Pliny. In the second volume of Naturalis Historia translated into English by Philemon Holland (1601), Pliny gives a detailed description of the ruins of the statue after the earthquake. He observes that some of the fragments of this statue – the thumbs of the hands and toes – were bigger in size than whole statues (p. 495). The engraving of the Colossus by Philips Galle (1572) contrasts the image of the gigantic statue with the image of the fragments of the Colossus. For emblems on the Colossus and its moralizing readings see Peacham (1612). In his historical poem, The Civile Wars Between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke (1595), Daniel compares the defeated Richard II to a 61

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Colossus on the point of crumbling to dust: ‘Like when some great Colossus, whose strong base/Or mightie props are shronke or sunke awaie,/Fore-shewing ruine, threatning all the place/That in the danger of his fall doth stay’ (Bk 2, stanza 6, 49–52, p. 23). For an historical survey of the Colossus and the seven wonders of the world, see Ashley (1980) and Romer (1995). In her study of fragmented bodies in ANT, Di Miceli (1991) mentions the Colossus. Neill (1997) suggests that the image of Antony as a Colossus is akin to one of Cleopatra’s ‘monumental icons’. Tassi (2005) reads the analogy to the Colossus in ANT as an illustration of the paragone between Shakespeare and visual artists insofar as his description of the gigantic statue is more graphic than that described in Pliny’s account. James (1996) interprets the passage on the Colossus in ANT as ‘Cleopatra’s revisionist blazon’ as she ‘plays the role of the Petrarchan lover’ (pp. 230–1). Conversely, Starks (2005) contends this description is more a ‘heraldic blazon’ than Petrarchan (249). See also Cheadle (1990). complexion (A) In early modern England, the colour of the human face is primarily related to the theory of the four humours which connected complexion with temperament and other elements such as geographical location or bodily fluids. Iyengar (2011) provides a convenient table of all these associations, including the colours allocated to the different types of humours. Beyond this medical theory, complexion was regarded as a complex visual sign related to what we would call today race, and to female beauty, and was also interpreted as a kind of mirror reflecting emotions. (B) In OTH, complexion is only mentioned twice in the context of racial difference, first when Iago reminds Othello that his wife’s complexion, namely her white skin, is connected with a precise geographical area (‘Of her own clime, complexion and degree’ 3.3.234) which is opposed to his. Othello ironically mocks her white complexion when he compares Desdemona to so-called visual icons of innocence and virtue: ‘Turn thy complexion there,/Patience, thou young and rose-lipped cherubin,/Ay, here look grim as hell!’ (4.2.63–5). The cardinal virtue of patience as well as the biblical cherubin, sometimes featured on funerary monuments, could conjure up images of white alabaster or marble, hence adumbrating Othello’s vision of Desdemona’s ‘monumental alabaster’ skin in the final scene (5.2.5). However, as these ideal pictures of white innocence are subverted by the sensuality of the red lips, Othello seems to urge his wife to change the colour of her face to reveal her true dark nature. The association of cruelty, savagery and blackness is heightened by the proximity of the adjective ‘grim’ with the noun ‘grime’, a metaphor to describe Othello’s complexion, but also Desdemona’s wicked nature (‘Her name, that was as fresh/As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black/As mine own face’ 3.3.389–91). Similarly, the association of race and complexion pervades the MV, especially through the character of the Prince of Morocco whose tawny ‘complexion’ is the result of ‘the shadowed livery of the burnished sun’ (2.1.2). Before meeting him, Portia is influenced by the connection between black skin and evil (‘If he have the condition of a saint and the complexion of a devil’ 1.2.124–5). Her prejudice seems to be confirmed by the Prince’s choice of the golden casket since she is convinced that he was 62

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guided by his complexion, namely his temperament, which is devoid of virtue (‘Draw the curtains, go./Let all of his complexion choose me so’ 2.7.78–9). In HAM, dark complexions are also equated with evil as in the passage from the tale of Aeneas and Dido quoted by Hamlet (‘The rugged Pyrrhus . . . Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared/With heraldry more dismal’ 2.2.388/93–4). In Sonnet 132 devoted to the Dark Lady, complexion fuses several features of the female face insofar as this sonnet initially devoted to the lady’s black and cruel eyes closes with a general praise of her darkness, hence including her skin colour, and probably her dark hair: ‘Then will I swear beauty herself is black/And all the foul that thy complexion lack’ (13–14). Complexion can vary according to human emotions such as paleness or blushing. In AYL, Corin depicts the chromatic contrast between the infatuated Silvius and the scornful Phoebe: ‘If you will see a pageant truly played/Between the pale complexion of true love/And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain’ (3.4.48–50). In the Sonnets, the deep red of the young man’s cheeks seems to reverberate in the lover’s blood, suggesting that the sanguine beauty of the youth has ignited the poet’s passion: ‘The purple pride/Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells/In my love’s veins thou has too grossly dyed’ (SON 99. 3–5). LLL conflates the varied interpretations of complexion explored by Shakespeare. The issue of skin colour is raised by Armado who strives to express the passion he feels for Jacquenetta with the right colours: Armado: Moth: Armado: Moth: Armado: Moth: Armado: Moth:

I am in love too. Who was Samson’s love, my dear Moth? A woman, master. Of what complexion? Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four. Tell me precisely of what complexion? Of the sea-water green, sir. Is that one of the four complexions? As I have read, sir, and the best of them too. ( LLL 1.2.73–82)

Moth’s description of the medical theory of humours is rather unlikely since green was not part of the four humours unlike black, white, red and yellow. Moth plays on the bawdy connotation of sea-water green, a colour worn by courtesans. Besides, in medical theories, green was associated with green-sickness or love-sickness, a disease that affected young women and men who were in love. The only cure prescribed at the time was sexual intercourse within wedlock. Skin colour is at the heart of the debate on female beauty among the young sonneteers. In his defence of Rosaline’s unconventional beauty, Berowne awkwardly puns on her beautiful cheek and the economic meaning of marketplace implied by the noun ‘fair’: ‘Of all complexions the culled sovereignty/Do meet as at a fair in her fair cheek’ (4.3.230–1). The King reminds him that if Rosaline’s dark complexion is to be regarded as fair, then all African women can boast about their beauties: ‘And Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack’ (4.3.264). 63

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(C) Iyengar (2005) is invaluable reading on the subject of dark complexions. She has also devoted a whole entry to complexion in her dictionary on medical language in Shakespeare (2011). Ivy (1958) analyses the image of the cherubin in OTH. KarimCooper (2006) offers invaluable insight into female complexions in early modern literature, including Shakespeare. In her study of the dichotomy between darkness and light in Shakespeare, Caporicci (2014) argues that the Prince of Morocco’s tawny complexion due to ‘the shadowed livery of the burnished sun’ (MV 2.1.2) reveals a new ‘kinship’ between black and white, ‘a derivation of black from white which necessarily calls into question the value judgment attributed to the two entities . . . the colour conflict is rendered paradoxical, resulting in a shadow whose very blackness is a sign of the light that shines on and in it’ (p. 206). conceit see imagination This polysemous word related to the work of the mind and imagination is conjured up in the ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy in LUC. When Lucrece remembers this work of art, she describes the painter as ‘conceited’ (1371) to suggest his skill in painting trompe l’oeil as ‘heaven, it seemed, to kiss the turrets bowed’ (1372). The art of making things which are not visible appear on the canvas is further analysed by Lucrece when the role of imagination in perspective painting is brought to the fore: ‘For much imaginary work was there:/Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind’ (1422–3). conduit see fountain (A) Although conduit is understood today as a synonym for a canal, Fairchild (1937) argues that in early modern England it also referred to garden statuary since a conduit in a fountain was ‘a structure for the distribution of water, which is made to spout from it, often in the form of a human figure’ (p. 70). (B) After the rape, the weeping Lucrece is compared to an ivory statue adorning a red fountain: ‘A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,/Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling’ (LUC 1233–4). In TIT, the mutilated and silent Lavinia is compared to a garden statue adorning a fountain as she tries to speak to Marcus: ‘As from a conduit with three issuing spouts,/Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan’s face,/Blushing to be encountered with a cloud’ (2.3.30–2). Juliet’s father mocks his weeping daughter by equating her to a fountain statue: ‘How now, a conduit, girl? What, still in tears?’ (ROM 3.5.129). When the third gentleman narrates the reunion of Leontes with his daughter, the old shepherd who found Perdita is depicted as ‘a weather-bitten conduit of many kings’ reigns’ (WT 5.2.54–5). copy see image coral see crimson, purple, red, ruby, scarlet, vermillion (A) Although today coral is more evocative of the multi-coloured polyps living at the bottom of oceans, whose skeletons have aggregated upon reefs, the species of red coral has been a highly soughtafter gemstone since Antiquity. First present in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, 64

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red coral was part of an important trade between Europe and India, fuelling commercial rivalries in medieval and early modern Europe. In figurative meanings, coral is evocative of a bright shade of red. In Renaissance poetry, coral became one of the Petrarchan conventions to picture a woman’s lips whose red was supposed to be more beautiful than the natural red of the precious coral. (B) Coral is used only once to describe the stone-like deposit rather than the colour. In one of his songs, Ariel depicts the petrifaction of the remains of a dead man lying at the bottom of the sea: ‘Full fathom five thy father lies,/Of his bones are coral made;/ Those are pearls that were his eyes’ (TMP 1.2.397–9). Otherwise, coral invariably signals the redness of a woman’s lips, thus echoing the traditional Petrarchan literary trope. Except for SHR where the besotted Lucentio is dazzled by Bianca’s ‘coral lips’ (1.1.173), this shade of red is only mentioned in Shakespeare’s poems. In LUC, coral is inserted in the portrait of Lucrece fast asleep on her bed. In a typically Petrarchan blazon in which each part of the woman’s body is associated with a set colour, Tarquin contemplates a genuine stereotype of female beauty: ‘Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,/Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin’ (419–20). The metaphor of the coral appears a second time, after the rape, in the portrait of Lucrece in tears who resembles a statue in a fountain: ‘A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,/Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling./One justly weeps, the other takes in hand/No cause but company of her drops’ spilling’ (1233–6). While this description could relate to the noble and precious materials used for this fountain, ivory and coral are undoubtedly reminiscent of the opposition of red and white, a recurrent pattern to describe Lucrece’s beauty at the beginning of LUC (see ivory, red). VEN offers an ironical version of the Petrarchan trope insofar as coral is associated with Adonis’ lips (‘sweet coral mouth’ 542). This reversal foreshadows the well-known anti-Petrarchan Sonnet 130 where the poet rejects the literary codification of female beauty (‘Coral is far more red than her lips’ red’ 2). (C) Watson’s Hecatompathia, or The Passionate Century of Love (1582) is one of the best-known examples of Petrarchan poetry in early modern England. Poem 7 is structured around a blazon of the female beauty in which the white cheeks and blonde hair are heightened by ‘lips more red than any Corall stone’ (11). Meek (2009) draws a parallel between the blazon of Lucrece in LUC and the description of the shrine to Diana in Chaucer’s ‘The Knight’s Tale’ in which ivory and coral are associated (p. 64). Johnston (2010) suggests that Sonnet 130 could have been inspired by the anti-Petrarchan poem Zepheria (1594) written by an anonymous author. The opening lines turn into ridicule the literary metaphor of the coral lips: ‘Thy coral-coloured lips, how should I portray/Unto the unmatchable pattern of their sweet’ (503, ll.1–2). counterfeit see picture (A) Although today this term is more evocative of a deceitful imitation often created with a fraudulent intention as in forgery, it used to be a synonym for a painting or could also refer to a disguise. (B) Shakespeare often uses counterfeit to expose some character’s pretence (see 1H4 5.4.114–18) or sometimes to suggest the talent of some actors (‘Tut, I can counterfeit 65

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the deep tragedian’ R3 3.5.5). In plays where pictures are featured on stage or simply mentioned, counterfeit mostly highlights the deceitful nature of pictorial art. In MV, Portia’s portrait, representing the end of the quest for the golden fleece, is referred to by ‘counterfeit’ and not picture (‘fair Portia’s counterfeit’ 3.2.115). This noun does not merely work as a linguistic variation, but it also echoes Bassanio’s previous speech on the traps and lures of ornament (see ornament) and introduces his next discourse on the illusions created by the painter although Portia surpasses this feigned ‘shadow’ (see shadow). In TIM, the second meeting between Timon and the painter accompanied by the poet, takes on a dramatic turn signalled by the linguistic shift to describe the artist’s productions as ‘pencilled figures’ in the opening scene (1.1.163) to flattering counterfeits in the last act: ‘Good honest men! [to Painter] Thou draw’st a counterfeit/Best in all Athens; thou’rt indeed the best/Thou counterfeit’st most lively’ (5.1.78–80). This reversal signals Timon’s painful awareness of the hypocrisy of courtly life. Despite his discovery of gold after his disgrace, he is no longer distracted by vain ornaments and exposes the painter’s forgery as his illusionistic representations are as genuine as his hypocritical mind. In the closet scene, Hamlet shows two paintings representing his father and the new king: ‘Look here upon this picture, and on this,/The counterfeit presentment of two brothers’ (HAM 3.4.51–2). Despite its derogatory connotations, the adjective ‘counterfeit’ seems to have been chosen as a synonym for picture since it alludes to both paintings. In Sonnet 16, the poet encourages the youth to have children since these natural images of his ‘living flowers’ will surpass any ‘painted counterfeit’ (8). This term could allude both to visual and verbal portraiture, shedding light on the powerlessness of art and poetry to preserve the memory of the youth. In Sonnet 53, counterfeit explicitly depicts a verbal image (‘Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit/Is poorly imitated after you’ 5). (C) Tassi (2005) explores the varied uses of the word counterfeit both in Shakespeare’s time and in his plays, more precisely in MV and HAM. creation see breath crimson see coral, purple, red, ruby, scarlet, vermillion (A) This colour is perceived as a shade of deep red nearing purple. It used to be derived from kermes, an insect used to make red dye, and referred later on to the kind of red obtained from cochineal. This tinge of red was customarily used to dye fine cloth and velvet. This term can describe, in figurative terms, blushing or the colour of blood. (B) This hue of red mainly occurs in metaphorical descriptions of blood. The most vivid picture of crimson blood is to be found in TIT when Lavinia enters the stage with her hands and tongue cut off. Marcus’s poignant description of Lavinia’s bleeding mouth from which ‘a crimson river of warme blood’ (2.4.22) escapes not only visualizes the horror of the mutilation, but also heightens the visual icon seen by the spectators. This tinge of deep red is conjured up in the final act when Titus shows to Tamora the ‘bloody lines’ (5.2.14) he has written for the executions: ‘Witness this wretched stump, witness 66

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these crimson lines’ (5.2.22). This spectacular dramatization of crimson blood on stage brings to the fore the horrifying spectacle of Caesar’s wounded body: ‘Here wast thou bayed, brave hart./Here didst thou fall. And here thy hunters stand/Signed in thy spoil and crimsoned in thy lethe’ (JC 3.1.204–6). The portrayal of Lucrece’s bleeding body is also highlighted by deep shades of red (‘And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide/In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood/Circles her body in on every side’ LUC 1737–9). In R2, Bolingbroke threatens to shed more blood on the green lands of the king if the latter does not yield: ‘It is such crimson tempest should bedrench/The fresh green lap of fair King Richard’s land/My stooping duty tenderly shall show’ (3.3.46–8). In many historical plays, crimson is used to describe the colour of blood, probably reinforcing the dramatic effect of wounding or of death (see H5, 4.4.15; JN, 4.3.254; 2H6, 3.1.259, 3.2.200). Crimson can sometimes signify the flush of blood on the human face such as the blush of ‘crimson shame’ felt by Adonis (VEN 76) or in H5 where Burgundy describes the blush of a maid as ‘the virgin crimson of modesty’ (5.2.293). The most tragic and best-known reference to facial crimson is the pivotal moment when Romeo misreads the red hue of Juliet’s lips, indicating that she is slowly coming back to life: ‘Thou art not conquered. Beauty’s ensign yet/Is crimson in thy lips and thy cheeks,/And death’s pale flag is not advanced there’ (ROM 5.3.94–6). In MND, Titania evokes the traditional opposition of the white and the red rose to offer a poetical description of the change in seasons: ‘And thorough this distemperature we see/ The seasons alter; hoary-headed rose,/Fall in fresh lap of the crimson rose’ (2.1.106–8). The adjective hoary referring to the white hair of old age contrasts with the vitality of the red rose, foreshadowing the return to life heralded by the coming of spring. The metaphor of the crimson rose anticipates the purple flower used by Oberon and Puck to play tricks on some characters in MND (see purple). The botanical metaphor is also conjured up by Iachimo to describe a particular mole on Imogen’s breast: ‘on her left breast/A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops/I’th’bottom of a cowslip’ (CYM 2.2.37–9) (C) Wells (2013) suggests that the image of the ‘crimson drops’ in CYM results from a superimposition of the story of the woman with a wart on her breast related in Boccacio’s Decameron and the tale of Philomela in Ovid (1597). The latter narrates the myth of Philomela whose tapestry bore purple marks that appeared later on upon her sisters’ breasts. curtain see arras, cloth, hanging, tapestry (A) This type of hanging could be used for decorative purposes in domestic life the same way as tapestries or arrases while taking on different functions on the Elizabethan stage. In her study devoted to the role of curtains in early modern playhouses, Rivère de Carles (2013) shows that curtains played a vital role in dramatic performances: ‘They could adorn the railings of the galleries; they could be used to signify thresholds for the various openings in the tiring-house wall and they could also be part of the action, linked with movable props such as beds or stately seats’ (p. 52). Some of Shakespeare’s best-known plays were put on at The Curtain, an amphitheatre built in 1577 which had been converted to a playhouse. 67

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(B) In Shakespeare’s text, curtain is both used as a metaphor and in stage directions to indicate a stage property. It is unsurprisingly connected to revelation as in 1H4 (‘This absence of your father’s draws a curtain/That shows the ignorant a kind of fear/Before not dreamt of’ 4.1.71–3) or 2H4 (‘Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless . . . /Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night,/And would have told him half his Troy was burnt’ 1.1.70/72–3). In LUC, the curtain metaphorically adumbrates the desecration of Lucrece’s body. In her chamber, the curtain hiding Lucrece’s bed seems to stimulate Tarquin’s growing desire (‘The curtains being close, about he walks,/Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head’ 367–8). In the following stanza, the opening of the curtain (‘Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun/To wink, being blinded with a greater light’ 374–5) introduces the ekphrastic description of Lucrece’s body which is first compared to a ‘virtuous monument’ (391). The presence of the curtain and the comparison to a funerary effigy are reminiscent of the hangings decorating tombs in Shakespeare’s time. An opened curtain usually signified resurrection (see monument). This visual item also draws the reader’s attention to the chromatic and pictorial blazon of Lucrece’s body (393–420). Similarly, in TN curtains are associated with pictorial art and blazoning. While Sir Toby mocks the curtains covering pictures (‘are they like to take dust, like Mistress Mall’s picture?’ 1.3.121–2), Olivia compares her face to a painting concealed behind a curtain to depict the veil hiding her face: ‘Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face? You are now out of your text. But we will draw the curtain and show you the picture. [Unveis] Look you, sir, such a one I was at this present. Is’t not well done?’ (1.5.224–8). The conflation of the curtain as a decorative object protecting a work of art with the metatheatrical reference to hangings as stage property throws light upon the dramatization of Olivia’s body which is turned into an object of spectacle while foreshadowing the anti-blazon she creates out of her body (1.5.236–41, see blazon). Likewise, in TRO, Cressida’s face is hidden behind a veil when she is introduced to Troilus. As the two young people hesitate, Pandarus encourages Cressida to ‘draw the curtain’ to ‘see your picture’ (3.2.45). This scene is highly reminiscent of TN through the equation of the woman’s face to a miniature portrait protected behind a curtain. The association of curtains and visual arts is further explored on stage both in tragedies and comedies. In ROM, Juliet’s bed is signified on stage with a bed hidden behind curtains which are opened and closed throughout Act 4. In scene 3, Juliet is in her bedroom, which is represented on stage by a bed, either located in the discovery space or set forth on stage probably as a four-poster bed. At the end of the scene, she drinks the potion given by Friar Laurence to give her the appearance of lifelessness. According to the stage directions (‘She falls upon her bed within the curtains’ 4.3.58), the boy actor, after uttering his soliloquy, lies down and the curtains are closed. The next scene opens with the organization of Juliet’s wedding (4.4) while the bed is still on stage. In scene 5, the Nurse opens the curtains and discovers Juliet’s lifeless body and the curtains are closed again at the end of the scene. The opening and closing of the bedcurtains in this act are reminiscent of the symbolism of hangings on funerary monuments as opened 68

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curtains epitomized the promise of resurrection while closed curtains signified death. The dramatization of this visual item looks all the more ironic when the Nurse opens the curtains in Act 4 scene 5, a symbol of resurrection, this visual sign of life is only perceived by the audience while the characters on stage are deceived by the death-like appearance of Juliet’s body which seems cold and stiff (4.5.25–6). Although there is no indication in the text, Hodges (1984) has suggested that Juliet’s tomb could be located in the discovery scene behind curtains. According to his drawing, the actor impersonating Romeo opens the trapdoor to indicate that he enters the tomb and walks down to where the corpses lie. Then, he opens the curtains where Juliet lies in the discovery space where her bed was probably set in Act 4. Similarly, the bed is turned into a funerary monument in 2H6 when Warwick opens the bed curtains to expose to the king’s eyes Gloucester’s dead body (3.2.149). This dramatization conjures up the curtains carved on monuments because, according to the king himself, this visual object reflects his future death: ‘That is to see how deep my grave is made,/For with my soul fled all my worldly solace;/For, seeing him, I see my life in death’ (3.2.150–2). Likewise, in OTH, the Moor of Venice, after smothering his wife to death, closes the bed curtains to hide away his horrifying deed (‘Let me the curtains draw’ 5.2.103). In MV, the caskets containing different types of portraits are hidden behind curtains that are opened and closed in the three casket scenes (‘Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover/The several caskets to this noble prince’ 2.7.1–2; see also 2.9 and 3.2). The object of desire, namely Portia’s miniature portrait, is probably located within the discovery space while the curtain heightens the theatricality of the scenes. In WT, the curtain plays a key role in the dramatization of the statue of Hermione. Giulio Romano’s supposed work of art is concealed behind a curtain that Paulina opens to expose the object to her guests’ eyes (5.3.20). This spectacle is introduced by Paulina’s short ekphrastic description of the statue as a funerary effigy (5.3.14–20). Once again, the conflation of the verbal portrait of a tomb and the visual item of the curtain evokes the frozen spectacle offered by Elizabethan and Jacobean tombs (see monument) while the opened curtain adumbrates the animation of the statue. However, Paulina threatens to close the curtain because Leontes is ready to believe that the statue can come to life (‘No longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your fancy/May think anon it moves’ 5.3.60–1). In H8, the curtains are used to draw a line between public and private spaces as when the king is discovered in his study, probably located in the discovery scene (2.2.60). See also 5.2.33. (C) Dessen and Thomson (1999) suggest three designations for the use of curtains on stage. See also Carnegie’s complementary study (1996). Wilson (1995) provides illuminating analyses of the use of curtains in stage productions and on funerary monuments. Smith (2009) has devoted a chapter to the role of curtains in playhouses while exploring the codification of colours on curtains as decorative and visual items. Hosley (1964) has an essay on the use of curtains in Shakespeare, relating this stage property to discovery scenes. Roberts (2002) provides one of the most influential accounts of the role of bed curtains in OTH and ROM, by bringing to the fore the invaluable information on the staging of the curtain contained in Q1 stage directions of 69

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these two tragedies. Rivère de Carles (2007) offers a full insight on the role of curtains as stage properties on the early modern stage. According to her, the curtains in the final scene of OTH anticipate Desdemona’s burial: ‘Bed-curtains become the visual epicentre of the scene. Othello, Emilia and the audience are all positioned with regard to the morbid cloths. Curtains as dramatic objects play the anaphorical part of Desdemona’s grave’ (pp. 219–20). Olson (2013) is invaluable reading on the subject. cut see cutter This verb is used only once by Shakespeare to describe the work of the sculptor Giulio Romano who has supposedly carved the statue of Hermione in WT. Amazed by the lifelike appearance of Paulina’s work of art, Leontes alludes to the paradoxical gesture of the carver who seems to have carved life into a block of stone: ‘what fine chisel/Could ever yet cut breath?’ (5.3.78–9) cutter see carver, statue (A) As the word sculptor was not in use in Elizabethan time, the craftsmen who specialized in what we call today sculpture were either named according to the guilds they belonged to, such as alabasterers or marblers, or were referred to with broader terms such as carver, lapidary, image-maker or stone-cutter. Most of the works commissioned to the sculptors were funerary monuments as the demand for this type of statuary soared in Shakespeare’s time. They also collaborated with architects or masons in garden statuary, and took part in interior decorations as they carved many chimneypieces or mantles in castles or gentlemen’s houses. While in the early sixteenth century, the influential workshops were based in the Midlands where alabaster was the main material used for statues, the London guilds gradually overshadowed the provincial workshops in Elizabethan and Jacobean time as marble, which became fashionable, could be easily imported into the capital. Like painters, most of the sculptors were foreigners, mainly Italian and Flemish immigrants who settled down in Southwark, near playhouses. They also carved scenery and the decorations of playhouses. (B) While Kent insults Oswald by stating that ‘a tailor made thee’, hinting that the latter is superficial despite his good clothing, Cornwall asks him to explain such a proverb: ‘Ay, a tailor, sir; a stone-cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill’ (LR 2.2.56–7). The presence of the painter and the sculptor in the list implies that, like the tailor, these two visual artists master the art of shaping flattering outward appearances. In order to prove Imogen’s duplicity, Iachimo gives to Posthumus a detailed description of her chamber, focusing more particularly on the chimney-piece depicting a sculpted scene of Diana bathing. Iachimo goes as far as praising the gift of the artist who imitated nature: ‘the cutter/Was as another Nature, dumb; outwent her,/Motion and breath left out’ (CYM 2.4.83–5). (C) For a general overview of the professional organization of sculptors see Esdaile (1927, 1946), Whinney (1964), Kemp (1985), Llewellyn (1990), and Mowl (1993). Wilson (1995) has shown the relationships between sculptors and playwrights. Ronayne (1997) and Keenan and Davidson (1997) have studied the importance of carving in the interior design of the Globe theatre. 70

D damask (A) This noun describes an old type of hybrid rose believed to have been brought to England from Damascus. Its pink colour has often been used in literature as a metaphor to describe women’s delicate complexions. It is also known for its heady scent and is still used in perfumery. (B) In keeping with the conventional metaphor to depict female beauty, damask is first and foremost a way to praise a woman’s perfect complexion as in COR where Brutus describes the fashion of women for wearing veils to protect their fair skin from the sun: ‘Our veiled dames/Commit the war of white and damask in/Their nicely guarded cheeks to th’ wanton spoil/Of Phoebus’ burning kisses’ (2.1.209–12). In TNK, the Wooer recites a typical blazon where the ideal woman has ‘cherry-lips and cheeks of damask roses’ (4.1.74). Likewise, before using the image of the grieving woman compared to a statue of patience, Viola explains to Orsino that her imaginary sister has always kept her love for a man secret: ‘A blank, my lord. She never told her love,/But let concealment, like a worm i’th’ bud,/Feed on her damask cheek’ (TN 2.4.110–12). This traditional metaphor of female beauty is comically reversed in AYL when Phoebe describes her beloved’s face in a blazon-like manner: ‘There was a pretty rednesse in his lip,/A little riper and more lusty red/Than that mixed in his cheek. ‘Twas just the difference/Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask’ (3.5.121–4). Finally, Sonnet 130 rejects this literary trope: ‘I have seen roses damasked, red and white,/But no such roses see I in her cheeks’ (5–6). The only reference to the scent of this rose is to be found in Autolycus’ song: ‘Gloves as sweet as damask roses’ (WT 4.4.222). dark see black, light, white (A) The conventional opposition between darkness and light stems from the opening lines of the Genesis when the world was created thanks to the coming of light over darkness: ‘the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep . . . And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from darkness’ (1.2–4). In Christianity, this contrast, visible in the natural alternation of day and night, was endowed with moral connotations as darkness was regarded as the emblem of the devil and evil while light was interpreted as the epitome of good and a sign of God, although the Bible describes the deceptive nature of light in the episode of the white devil (2 Corinthians 11:14). In the Renaissance, Neoplatonism as well as Petrarchism resumed and strengthened the dichotomy between obscurity and brightness (see fair, light). Dark is also associated with death and can sometimes depict someone’s complexion. 71

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(B) In Shakespeare, darkness is unsurprisingly related to the coming or presence of night as in 2H6 (‘deep night, dark night’ 1.4.16), MAC (‘and yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp’ 2.4.7) or MND (‘Dark night, that from the eye his function takes’ 3.2.177). It is also connected with death as in COR (‘Death, that dark Spirit’ 2.1.155) or 3H6 (‘Dark cloudy death o’ershades his beams of life’ 2.6.62). When Cleopatra asks Charmian to get the clown to bring in the asps, Charmian understands that the queen and her closest attendants are about to die: ‘Finish, good lady. The bright day is done/And we are for the dark’ (ANT 5.2.192–3). In VEN, the lack of light in Adonis’ eyes is understood as evidence of his death: ‘She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,/Where lo, two lamps, burnt out, in darkness lies’ (1127–8). Furthermore, dark takes on moral and negative connotations in Shakespeare to depict the presence of evil. In AWW, the Clown mentions the black prince, ‘alias the prince of darkness; alias the devil’ (4.5.41– 2). When Lucrece narrates the rape to her husband, Tarquin is described as emerging from darkness: ‘ ’For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,/With shining falchion in my chamber came/A creeping creature with a flaming light’ (LUC 1625–7). The contrast between shining light and darkness is reminiscent of the episode of the rape and is also evocative of the moral reading of black that signifies Tarquin’s evil nature (‘so black a deed’ 226, ‘the blackest sin is cleared with absolution’ 354). In the passage describing the rape, Lucrece’s chamber and sleeping body are imbued with a sort of divine light (see light) that even dazzles Tarquin (375) while his destructive lust brings back the original darkness of chaos: ‘But when a black-faced cloud the world doth threat,/In his dim mist th’aspiring mountains hiding,/From earth’s dark womb some gentle gust doth get’ (547–9). The stark contrast between light and darkness structures some of the Sonnets, especially those addressed to the Dark Lady. In SON 43 devoted to the absence of the young man, the poet’s eyes can contemplate the image of the youth even at night: ‘When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see;/For all the day they view things unrespected,/ But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,/And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed’ (1–4). The literary conceit of the antimetabole in line 4 (repetition of the same words in a reversed order) mingling obscurity and brightness relies on the extramission theory which implied that eyes emitted light but could also receive it (see eye). The visual capacity of the poet’s eye to perceive the image of the youth even in the dark exposes the genuineness of his love for the youth. Conversely, in SON 147, the oxymoronic association developed in SON 43 is challenged by the poet’s senseless passion for the Dark Lady as he grows aware that he has been blinded by her unconventional dark fairness (see black) which turns out to be the emblem of lechery and moral corruption: ‘For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright/Who art as black as hell, as dark as night’ (13–14). LLL hinges upon the conventional opposition between light and darkness that has been shaped by religious and philosophical traditions as well as literary codifications. In the opening scene, Berowne rejects the conventional Ciceronian image of the ‘light of truth’ (75–6), claiming that this search can cause blindness: ‘Light seeking light doth light of light beguile;/So, ere you find where light 72

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in darkness lies,/Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes’ (1.1.77–9). Ironically enough, this rhetorical exercise on opposites is conjured up again when the King’s attendants, whose sonnets have been mocked by Berowne, discover his poetic celebration of Rosaline’s dark beauty. His defence of black fairness is torn into pieces by Dumaine who berates Berowne’s equation of darkness and light: ‘Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light’ (4.3.265). In the final act, Katherine, the stereotypical fair beauty, reminds Rosaline that her unconventional beauty cannot be pure: Rosaline: Katherine: Rosaline: Katherine:

What’s your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word? A light condition in a beauty dark. We need more light to find your meaning out. You’ll mar the light by taking it in snuff; Therefore I’ll darkly end the argument. Rosaline: Look what you do, you do it still i’th’dark. Katherine: So do not you, for you are a light wench. ( LLL 5.2.19–25) This witty exchange between a dark and a fair beauty, probably visible on stage, relies on the prejudice toward black people who were perceived as lascivious in the Renaissance as exemplified by Othello, the lustful ‘black ram’ (OTH 1.1.87) or the ‘tawny’ Cleopatra (‘[Antony] is become the bellows and the fan/To cool a gipsy’s lust’ ANT 1.1.9–10). This rhetorical exercise relying on the conceits of oxymoron and polyptoton (‘dark meaning’; ‘I’ll darkly end the argument’) where Katherine tries to impose her truth on the supposed wantonness of Rosaline ironically turns out to be false, as on the one hand she is short of evidence (‘I’ll darkly end the argument’), leaving Rosaline in ‘the dark’, and on the other hand, her defence of brightness and the chastity and purity of whiteness was previously debunked by the King’s attendants who perceived the bawdiness of white beauties (2.1.196–9; see light and white). In TRO, Pandarus also refers to Cressida’s slightly unconventional beauty as her hair is black: ‘An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen’s’ (1.1.39–40). Darkly as an adverb is sometimes used to depict a certain tone of voice that can be threatening as in R3 when Clarence faces his murderers (‘How darkly, and how deadly dost thou speak!’ 1.4.168) or to share a secret as in AWW (‘I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly with you’ 4.3.9–10) (C) Van Norden (1985) and Pastoureau’s history of the colour black (2009) provide thorough insights into the symbolism of darkness in Christianity and Neoplatonism. Wilson (1992), Hall (1995), Hunt (1999) and Caporicci (2013) offer innovative analyses of the figure of the Dark Lady in Shakespeare. Duncan-Jones’ edition of the Sonnets (2013) provides the reader with illuminating commentaries on the intricate imagery built upon darkness and light. Caporicci (2014) offers an incomparable insight into the opposition between darkness and brightness in Shakespeare, focusing on the impact of Neoplatonism in the European Renaissance. Her recent article (2015) devoted to this thematic line in LLL is also invaluable. 73

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deceit (A) The power of pictorial art to create illusory and evanescent representations of reality aroused suspicion among philosophers and theologians for a long time, ranging from Plato and later on Tertullian to the Puritans and iconoclasts who firmly condemned the depravity of painted images in Elizabethan England. Hence, the painter’s ability to trick the beholder into believing they see something that does not exist raised moral and ontological issues in Shakespeare’s time (see image, shadow). (B) Although Shakespeare mocks the excesses of idolatry towards pictures in TGV and WT, his vision of the tricks of perspective created by artists seems to be devoid of any moral commentary. He explores the delusions projected by paintings in his two narrative poems. After praising the painter’s capacity to ‘surpass the life/In limning out a well-proportioned steed’ (VEN 289–90), he hints at the story of the grapes painted by the classical painter Zeuxis who managed to fool birds into believing that these illusory fruits were real: ‘Even as poor birds, deceived with painted grapes/Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw’ (601–2). In the ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy in LUC, Lucrece admires the painter’s use of perspective that makes things which are not visible appear on the canvas: ‘For much imaginary work was there:/Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind’ (1422–3). Nevertheless, when she moves her eyes to the figure of Sinon, she grows aware that the artist’s skill can also conceal evil: ‘In him the painter laboured with his skill/To hide deceit, and give the harmless show/An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still’ (1506–8). (C) One of the main sources for the story of Zeuxis’ grapes in the Renaissance was Pliny’s Natural History (1601). He narrates the competition between the painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius as follows: ‘Parasius by report was so bold as to challenge Zeuxis openly and to enter the lists with him for the victorie: in which content and triall, Zeuxis for proof of his cunning, brought upon the scaffold a table, wherein were clusters of grapes so lively painted, that the very birds of the aire flew flocking thither for to bee pecking at the grapes’ (p. 535). This story is mentioned by the dramatist Lyly in Campaspe (1584) (1.2.65–71). Dundas (1993) contends that this anecdote reveals the will of ‘both poets and painters . . . to transcend the limits of their medium, to make words or paint disappear in the evocation of a reality’ (p. 16). Belsey (1995) is invaluable reading for her interpretation of Zeuxis’ trompe l’oeil in VEN. Meek (2009) provides illuminating analyses of the meaning of Zeuxis’ grapes in VEN (pp. 35–8). deceive see deceit deface see image demigod see breath, life discolour see colour This verb depicts any change in colours either when they are unexpectedly altered or disappear. Shakespeare seldom resorted to this term. In LUC, it signifies the spoiling of Lucrece’s beauty after the rape since the triumphant red and 74

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white of her radiant beauty has been replaced by ‘a lank and lean discoloured cheek’ (708). In H5, the king threatens to shed blood if the French king ‘hinders’ the progression of his army: ‘we shall your tawny ground with your red blood/Discolour’ (3.6.160–1). dislimn see limn disrobe see image draw (A) this verb can sometimes signify the act of creating a picture by tracing lines before applying colours to the canvas. It can also metaphorically depict the act of writing. (B) Shakespeare uses this rather technical word in the context of portraiture. The best-known example remains SON 24 where the eye of the poet ‘hath played the painter’ (1). This sonnet intermingling pictorial art and poetical writing revolves around a subtle exchange of glances between the poet and the youth. By relying on his fertile imagination, the poet’s ‘mind’s eye’ delineates the features of the youth, an image that the latter can contemplate: ‘Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me/Are windows to my breast’ (10–11). Nonetheless, the poet sadly concludes that this imaginary act of portraiture does not enable the poet to see the youth’s true nature: ‘Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art/They draw but what they see, know not the heart’ (13– 14). Helena describes how she has created an imaginary portrait of Bertram in her mind: ‘Twas pretty, though a plague, To see him every hour; to sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, In our heart’s table – heart too capable Of every line and trick of his sweet favour. But now he’s gone, and my idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his relics. (AWW 1.1.93–9) The young girl’s imagination seems to have been inspired by love poetry and the art of miniature painting. This description is highly reminiscent of the miniature as Helena has chosen to focus only on Bertram’s face. The detail of the ‘curls’ conjures up the figure of the Young Man Among Roses, a miniature painted by Hilliard (c.1585–1595, see Figure 4). The detail of the curly hair also echoes Portia’s golden locks represented on her portrait in such a manner that its beauty traps the eyes of the beholders (‘crisped snaky golden locks,/Which maketh such wanton gambols with the wind’ MV 3.2.92–3). This feature was also explored in poetic blazons which, in themselves, were literary portraits highlighting each feature of a lady’s face, particularly her brow and her eyes. In his treatise on limning, Hilliard (1601) draws attention to the vital role of the sitter’s eyes in a portrait: ‘the eye is the life of the picture’ (p. 59). In Helena’s picture, Bertram’s eyes seem to be animated (‘hawking’). The term ‘table’ alludes to the canvas or vellum 75

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used by the painter to draw lines and apply colours. The association between the heart and a picture echoes the opening lines of Sonnet 24 (‘Mine eye hath played the painter, and hath steeled/Thy beauty’s form in table of mine heart’ 1–2). The comparison of the poet’s gaze to the act of painting is evoked by Ophelia when she describes Hamlet’s strange behaviour when he looks at her: ‘he falls to such perusal of my face/As ‘a would draw it’ (HAM 2.1.87–8). This technique of portraying is sometimes related to poetic writing as in LLL 5.2.38 or SON 98.12 (C) Lecercle (1989) provides full insight into the act of drawing in AWW and HAM. dumb, dumbness (A) Dumbness is not necessarily the result of a lack of intelligence since this term primarily alludes to a momentary or definite deprivation of speech. In the context of the paragone between literature and visual arts, this conjures up the Horatian phrase ut pictura poesis where painting is described as a silent poem while poetry is a ‘speaking picture’. This literary debate was well-known in Shakespeare’s time as is evidenced by Sidney’s famous definition of poetry: ‘[poetry] is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word μιμησιζ [mimesis], that is to say, a representing, counterfetting, or figuring foorth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture: with this end, to teach and delight’ (1579, p. 25). (B) In R3, Buckingham’s speech is so astonishing that it has petrified his hearers: ‘They spake not a word,/But, like dumb statues or breathing stones/Stared each on other and looked deadly pale’ (3.7.24–6). The poet’s comment on the painter’s picture in the opening scene of TIM exemplifies the Horatian motto: ‘How big imagination/ Moves in this lip! To th’ dumbness of the gesture/One might interpret’ (1.1.33–5). The poet ironically points out the limits of pictorial art since the beholder’s gaze and understanding are necessary to endow the picture with meaning. This paragone (comparison) between poet and painter is extended to the work of the sculptor in CYM. When Iachimo describes the details of the chimney-piece decorating Imogen’s room, he points out that, despite his skill, he did not surpass nature as the sculpted figures on the chimney-piece were speechless: ‘the cutter/Was as another Nature, dumb; outwent her,/Motion and breath left out’ (2.4.83–5). In WT, the narration of the reunion of Leontes with Perdita and Florizel by the Gentleman foreshadows the confrontation of Leontes with the statue of his supposedly dead wife: ‘They seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases of their eyes. There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture’ (5.2.11–14). The characters are so astonished by their reunion that they are turned into some kind of speaking pictures. Leontes, faced with the statue, becomes aware that the speechless work of art seems to deliver a silent, but meaningful message (‘Does not the stone rebuke me/For being more stone than it?’ 5.3.37–8). (C) Hunt (1988) surveys the debate of the paragone in TIM. Barkan (1995) explores the literay conceit of the speaking picture in early modern literature, including Shakespeare. Meek (2009) provides a full insight into this debate in WT, arguing that the gentleman’s speech in 5.2 is an ‘ekphrastic description’ (p. 165) 76

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dun see brown This adjective appears in the anti-Petrarchan Sonnet 130 where the Dark Lady’s bosom is depicted with this rather unflattering shade of greyish brown: ‘If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun’ (3). The choice of this colour aims at challenging the conventional codification of female beauty partly imposed by the Italian poet Petrarch who pictures the heavenly Laura as a white-skinned, blond-haired woman with lips as red as rubies. dye see colour, hue, tinct (A) This term conjures up the figure of the dyer pictured in Whitney’s emblem In colores working in dire conditions to produce different shades of colours to tint cloth. This profession was regulated by strict rules as dyers specialized in one particular colour and were allowed to use only a limited number of materials and pigments. English dyers had a poor reputation in Elizabethan times as the quality of their dying process was far below the technical prowess of their Italian counterparts. (B) Shakespeare uses this noun mainly as a synonym for colour as in MND when Oberon describes the magical flower as being ‘of this purple dye’ (3.2.102). Likewise, in 1H6, the verb ‘dye’ is used to suggest how the colour of blood tinges the white rose with red (‘Here in my scabbard, meditating that/Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red’ 2.4.60–1; see also ‘until the white rose that I wear be dyed/Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry’s heart’ 3H6 1.2.32–3). In KJ, the colour of blood epitomizes the victory of the English army: ‘Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,/Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes’ (2.1.322–3). In H8, Buckingham’s guilt is equated with a tincture that has been imposed on him despite his innocence: ‘It will help me nothing/To plead mine innocence, for that dye is on me/Which makes my whitest part black’ (1.1.207–8). ‘Dye’ is sometimes imbued with the negative connotations related to colours (see colour) as in WT when Leontes reminds his son Mamillius that women can lie and be false as ‘o’erdyed blacks’ (1.2.132). Similarly, Polonius warns Ophelia against Hamlet’s deceitful speech and the colours of rhetoric: ‘Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers/Not of that dye which their investments show/But mere implorators of unholy suits . . . The better to beguile’ (HAM 1.3.126–8/30). In the Sonnets, the noun ‘dye’ can be used as an equivalent of colour (‘The canker blooms have full as deep a dye/As the perfumed tincture of the roses’ SON 54.4–5; ‘O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends/For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?’ SON 101.1–2) or to signify the natural colours or complexion and blushes surfacing on the youth’s face. Hence, the deep red of the young man’s blushing cheeks seems to contaminate the poet’s blood, igniting passion (‘The purple pride/Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells/In my love’s veins thou has too grossly dyed’ SON 99.3–5). In Sonnet 111, Shakespeare compares the poor reputation of his profession to the stains left by the industrial process of dying: ‘Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,/And almost thence my nature is subdued/To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand’ (5–7). Othello explains the symbolism of the handkerchief he gave to Desdemona on their wedding day, using ‘dyed’ to mean ‘imbued in’: ‘The 77

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worms were hallowed that did breed the silk,/And it was dyed in mummy’ (OTH 3.4.75–6). (C) Chiari (2011) investigates the image of dye in WT. Duncan-Jones (2013) suggests that in SON 111, the stain left on the dyer’s hand could be interpreted as ink: ‘In so far as Shakespeare’s occupation was writing, rather than acting, his own hand could also be imagined as darkened with ink’ (p. 332).

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E ebony see black (A) Ebony, also spelt ebon, is a type of black wood that can metaphorically signify an intense shade of black. (B) In LLL, ebony is a linguistic variation to describe the black ink in which a letter is written: ‘Then for the place, where? Where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest’ (1.1.234–7). When Berowne asserts his love for Rosaline’s unconventional black beauty, the king by contrast compares the young woman to a piece of wood: King: By heaven, thy love is black as ebony! Berowne: Is ebony like her? O word divine! A wife of such wood were felicity. ( LLL 4.3.243–5) In TN, Feste uses a paradox to describe Malvolio’s house: ‘the clerestories toward the south-north are as lustrous as ebony’ (4.2.37–8). Ebony is fraught with some of the negative connotations inherent in black as in 2H4 when Pistol calls on Revenge: ‘Rouse up Revenge from ebon den’ (5.5.36). Venus laments over Adonis’ demise as he was struck by ‘Death’s ebon dart’ (VEN 948) instead of ‘Love’s golden arrow’ (947). (C) Parker (2003) suggests a possible link between ebony and poison in her study of black in HAM and OTH. effigy In visual arts, this term alludes to the carved image of a dead person which is traditionally set on a funerary monument. In early modern England, the style of effigies was rapidly changing (see monument). Shakespeare made use of this rather technical word only once in AYL when the Duke Senior is convinced that Orlando is Sir Rowland’s son since ‘mine eye doth his effigies witness,/Most truly limned and living in your face’ (2.7.197–8). The pictorial reference to the art of limning or miniature painting (see limn) highlights the visual resemblance between the original and the model, the father and the son, since this living and breathing effigy is in colours. It might also signify the Elizabethan fashion of painting funerary statues to make them appear lifelike (see statue). The parallel drawn between natural creation (children) and artistic production is also explored in WT (see image). Dussinberre (2009) gives further insight into the relationship between this passage and Elizabethan art (p. 232). 79

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emblem (A) In the Renaissance, an emblem was primarily understood as a picture representing an allegory, accompanied by a commentary which was usually given a moralizing tone. As is evidenced by the emblem on colour extracted from Whitney’s Choice of Emblemes (1586), the image is introduced by a short motto in Latin, followed by a text highlighting the moral message contained in the picture. These ‘speaking pictures’, so to speak, circulated in books and were produced on a larger scale than the medieval illuminated books thanks to the blooming printing industry. Otherwise, in Shakespeare’s time, an emblem could also simply mean a symbolical image as is the case in present-day English. (B) Although there is no doubt that Shakespeare was familiar with emblem books whose moral messages or pictures are quoted in his works, he uses this word only twice to set forth a symbol. In AWW a scar becomes a symbol: ‘You shall find in the regiment of Spinii one captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek’ (2.1.40–3). In H8, once the procession for the coronation of Anne Boleyn has crossed the stage, a gentleman enters to describe the coronation within the church which takes place off stage. He insists upon the royal attributes: ‘The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems/Laid nobly on her’ (4.1.89–90). (C) For general studies of emblems in early modern England, see Freeman (1948), Corbett and Lightbown (1979), Bath (1994) and Manning (2002). Hunt (1989) has explored the use of emblems in Shakespeare. emerald see blazon, green, heraldry (A) If emerald has always alluded to a green precious stone and has often been used as a metaphor, this term was related to heraldry in Shakespeare’s time. Emerald could be used as a synonym for ‘vert’ to describe a green element in a coat of arms. (B) Shakespeare plays on the chromatic and heraldic aspects of the emerald. In LC, the abandoned young lady mocks her former lover’s ‘deep-brained sonnets’ (209) which were replete with metaphorical precious stones to dazzle her, the green emerald deceiving the eye of the beholder: ‘the deep green emerald, in whose fresh regard/Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend’ (213–14). The metaphorical use of precious stones by the poet aimed at embellishing a clever sonnet which ‘with wit well-blazoned smiled, or made some moan’ (217). The reference to the literary blazon enhances the implicit reference to heraldry. In the final scene of WIV, Mistress Quickly mentions heraldry when she describes a ‘coat and several crest/With loyal blazon’ (5.5.63–4). She suggests that the motto ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ should be written in ‘em’rald tufts’ and other precious materials (5.5.70). Emerald is used to describe the vivid green colour that appears on a coat of arms. Green is supposed to be ‘more fertile-fresh than all the field to see’ (5.5.68). (C) Kunz (1916) provides a thorough analysis of precious stones in Shakespeare’s text. engrave see table entombed see tomb 80

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entrap Before choosing the casket containing Portia’s portrait in MV, Bassanio launches into a moralizing speech on the allurements of ornament and deceiving outward appearances, drawing the conclusion that ornament is ‘the seeming truth, which cunning times put on/To entrap the wisest’ (3.2.100–1). Guided by this new wisdom, he rejects the golden casket to focus on the unattractive leaden one, hence winning his quest for the Golden fleece. However, Bassanio grows aware that the prize contained in the casket, namely Portia’s portrait, was devised so as to arouse passion. The painter drew Portia’s golden locks so as to make the beholders fall in love with her: ‘The painter plays the spider and hath woven/A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men’ (3.2.121–2). epitaph see monument, tomb (A) Elizabethan monuments were often ornamented with epitaphs, texts that recorded the deceased person’s life and deeds worthy of being remembered. Shakespeare is thought to have written some epitaphs such as the one for Thomas Stanley’s monument in Tong church, Shropshire (see Esdaile, 1946, p. 60). (B) In AWW, Bertram thanks the king for his condolences after his father’s death, emphasizing that his words and the memory he will keep of his father are superior to epitaphs: ‘His good remembrance, sir,/Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;/ So in approof lives not his epitaph/As in your royal speech’ (1.2.48–51). Epitaphs are dramatized on stage in PER when Gower reads the epitaph written ‘in glittering golden characters’ (4.3.43) ornamenting Marina’s tomb which is present on stage (4.4.23). In TIM, Alcibiades reads the epitaph that Timon has written for himself, thus unveiling the last image he wanted to create for posterity (5.4.69). Sonnet 81 concerns the poet’s desire to celebrate the youth’s beauty for posterity (‘Or I shall live, your epitaph to make’ 1) that is to take the shape of his ‘gentle verse’, namely the Sonnets, which will stand as the youth’s ‘monument’ (9). See also MAN (4.1.206; 5.1.276). (C) Esdaile (1938) was one of the first historians to claim that Shakespeare had written the epitaph for the Stanley monument. Moorwood (2013) has reappraised this theory, bringing to light fresh evidence. Kerrigan (2013) brings new light upon the Stanley epitaphs and other inscriptions. eternity see creation excel In the ekphrastic passage discussing the debate between art and nature where the painter is depicted as rivalling nature’s creation (‘His art with nature’s workmanship at strife’ VEN 291), the painted horse surpasses the model: ‘So did this horse excel a common one/In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone’ (293–4). The following stanza structured around a detailed description of the horse in imitation of rhetorical descriptions of horses as found in Virgil’s Georgics (III) might suggest that this passage praises the poet’s mastery of the colours of rhetoric, conveying a visual representation of reality superior to the painter’s picture. 81

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expressly This adverb is used by Shakespeare to underline the true likeness of some figures depicted in the painting of Troy in LUC. As Lucrece admires the painter’s art of physiognomy (1395), she praises the artist’s skill to represent feelings on the faces of the painted figures: ‘Their face their manners most expressly told’ (1397). eye (A) Also spelt eyne in plural. In the Renaissance, the act of seeing relied on two opposing theories which both focused on the relationship between the eye and the object seen. On the one hand, extramission, a theory detailed by Plato and Euclid, established that rays of light coming from the eye were projected onto objects. On the other hand, the medieval theory of intromission held that light coming from objects struck the human eye. Although the latter theory prevailed over the former, the idea of eyes emitting light still pervaded Renaissance culture and literature. In Elizabethan times, it was thought that an object could infect the eye as, for example, in the ‘evil eye’ created by the gaze of the basilisk. Although new scientific theories about visual perception such as Kepler’s camera obscura (1604) – or dark chamber – which showed that the eye was a separate receptacle of light were known in Shakespeare’s England, they did not immediately supplant the theory of intromission. Negative perceptions of sight in Renaissance England partly emerged with the Puritans’ distrust of Catholic devotion to images which they equated with the sin of idolatry. In his treatise devoted to the Vanitie of the Eie, Hakewill (1606) sheds light upon all the corruption created by human sight, including the original sin and idolatry (see idol and image). He evokes the danger of looking at works of art, especially paintings. The human eye is drawn and fascinated by deceitful images: ‘For so it is that this sense which I finde not in any of the rest, is so bewitched that its then most delighted, when tis most deceived, by shadowings, and landships [i.e landscapes], and in mistaking counterfaits for truth’ (pp. 88–9). The images projected by theatrical performances also raised concern among Puritan antitheatricalists. For instance, Gosson (1582) warned theatregoers of the potential dangers for their eyes when attending a theatrical performance, on account of the visual nature of drama. According to him, drama was endowed with a petrifying power, turning spectators into senseless blocks of stone: ‘Shall wee that vaunte of the law, of the Prophets, of the Gospel, so looke, so gaze, so gape upon plaies, that as men that stare on the head of Medusa and are turned into stones, wee freeze unto yse in our own follies?’ (p. 180). In pictorial art, the representation of eyes was regarded as central and vital for a portrait. In his treatise, Hilliard (1600) reminds the painters that the depiction of the eyes endows the picture with life: ‘So chiefly the drawer should observe the eyes in his pictures, making them so like one to another as nature doth, giving life to his work, for the eye is the life of the picture’, adding that a ‘white speck’ is necessary to capture ‘the reflection of light’ and make the eyes look alive (p. 59). Eyes could also take on other connotations in portraits as in the well-known Rainbow Portrait (see p. 249) where Queen Elizabeth is clad in an orange cloak adorned with eyes and ears. This complex symbolism has been interpreted by Strong (1977) as ‘symbolizing those who watched and listened to purvey their intelligence to her’ (p. 52). 82

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(B) Shakespeare sometimes alludes to Plato’s theory of vision and uses the metaphor of the eye-beam in different contexts. In the sonnet-reading scene in LLL, the extramission theory is assumed in the sonnet written by the king to set forth the eyes of the beloved, one of the female features praised by Petrarch and love poetry: ‘As thy eyebeams when their fresh rays have smote/The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows’ (4.3.25–6). This literary conceit is used in a love scene in R3. While the coffin of her father-in-law stands on stage, Richard III woos Anne who would rather not see him: Anne: Richard: Anne: Richard:

Never hung poison on a fouler toad. Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine. Would they were basilisks, to strike thee dead. I would they were, that I might die at once; For now they kill me with a living death. ( R3 1.2.150–5)

This passage interweaves Plato’s theory of extramission with the image of the evil eye infecting the beholder when Anne is disgusted by the sight of Richard, which is like a disease. Richard cunningly distorts her image by replacing it with the Petrarchan conceit of Laura’s sparkling eyes. The metaphor of the deadly basilisk is endowed with sexual innuendos when Richard plays on the polysemy of the verb ‘to die’. The image of the eye emitting light is also found in SON 20 where the youth’s eyes endow the objects they look at with a golden hue: ‘An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling/Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth’ (6–7). VEN explores the extramission theory when Venus complains that Adonis is responsible for the love she feels for him: ‘Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me’ (196). However, the only light that Adonis’ eye projects when he sees Venus is disdain (‘And now Adonis, with a lazy sprite,/And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye’ 181–2). Venus soon grows aware of Adonis’ lack of interest and compares him to a senseless statue that can only be admired and not touched: ‘ ’Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone . . . /Statue contenting but the eye alone’ (211/213). The poet evokes Venus’ frustration through another comparison with pictorial art when he quotes the example of Zeuxis’s painting of grapes which fooled birds into believing that the image was real: ‘Even so poor birds, deceived with painted grapes,/Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw’ (601–2). The illusionistic painting might ‘content’ the eye, but not the bodily needs. Shakespeare’s second narrative poem is replete with references to eyes and gazes like VEN, where the role and representation of eyes in pictorial art are explored in detail in the ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy. When meeting Lucrece for the first time, Tarquin describes the chromatic blazon of her beauty: ‘This silent war of lilies and of roses/Which TARQUIN viewed in her fair face’s field/In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses’ (LUC 71–3). However, instead of contemplating Lucrece’s beauty, it seems that Tarquin somehow entraps the colours of beauty within his eyes, abruptly interrupting the heraldry described by the narrator. In Lucrece’s room, his eye 83

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directs his gesture towards her sleeping body as if the sense of sight was controlling all other senses, especially touch: ‘His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye,/His eye commends the leading to his hand’ (435–6). Just before Lucrece tries to bring to mind the painting of Troy in a desperate attempt to alleviate her suffering after the rape, the narrator mentions the superiority of sight over hearing, hence justifying the literary conceit of ekphrasis: ‘To see sad sights moves more than hear them told,/For then the eye interprets to the ear/The heavy motion that it doth behold’ (1324–6). Once she has visualized the painting in her mind’s eye (‘At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece/ Of skilful painting made of PRIAM’s TROY’ 1366–7), she concentrates on the way the painter has pictured eyes on the canvas, more specifically his skill in using perspective to make some characters’ eyes appear without representing their whole bodies: ‘And from the towers of TROY there would appear/The very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust,/Gazing upon the GREEKS with little lust./Such sweet observance in this work was had/That one might see those far-off eyes look sad’ (1382–6). In another passage describing a trompe-l’oeil, the poet insists on the work of imagination, ‘the mind’s eye’ that can perceive thanks to imagination what is not visible: For much imaginary work was there: Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, That for ACHILLES’ image stood his spear, Gripped in an armed hand; himself behind Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind: A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head, Stood for the whole to be imagined. ( LUC 1422–8) After much observation of the picture, Lucrece feels so angry when she realizes that it does not reflect her inner grief that she is tempted to deface it, targeting more precisely the eyes of some characters: ‘And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes/Of all the GREEKS that are thine enemies’ (1469–70). This power of eyes painted on a canvas is also mentioned in MV when Bassanio discovers Portia’s portrait in the leaden casket and scrutinizes the eyes of the shadow: ‘Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demigod/Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?/Or whether riding on the balls of mine/Seem they in motion?’ (3.2.115–18). Bassanio is fascinated by the illusion created by the painter, making the beholder believe that the shadow of Portia’s eyes are alive and look at the beholder. Or the illusion could be created by the beholder himself whose eyes endow the eyes of the pictured lady with life and motion. This statement is evocative of Hilliard’s theory that the eyes ‘are the life of the picture’. Bassanio is still bewildered by the technique used by the painter as he comes back to the subject of the eye a few lines further (‘But her eyes!/ How could he see to do them?’ 3.2.123–4). This issue is briefly resumed in the opening scene of TIM when the poet praises the way the painter depicted the eyes of the sitter: ‘What a mental power/This eye shoots forth!’ (1.1.32–3). 84

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WT revolves around Leontes’ distorted vision which leads him to falsely accuse his innocent wife of adultery. Hermione’s death and the statue scene both function as a way of healing his vision. Hermione is already depicted as a statue in Antigonus’ vision of her after her death: ‘In pure white robes,/Like very sanctity, she did approach . . . her eyes/Became two spouts’(3.3.21–2/24–5). The detail of Hermione’s eyes metamorphosed into spouts to signify extreme grief hints that her ghost appears like a garden statue. In the final act, Paulina asks Leontes to swear he will never marry again without her consent unless he sees a copy of Hermione: ‘Unless another/As like Hermione as is her picture/Affront his eye’ (5.1.73–5). Paulina anticipates to some extent her dramatization of the animation of the statue of Hermione in the final scene. When facing the stony copy of his dead wife Leontes feels the heavy gaze of the statue (‘Does not the stone rebuke me/For being more stone than it?’ 5.3.37–8). Nonetheless, he is fascinated by the illusionistic art of Giulio Romano who can bring motion in fixity: ‘The fixure of her eye has motion in’t/As we are mocked with art’ (5.3.67–8). Sonnet 24, hinging upon a comparison with pictorial art, opens onto a direct association between the eye of the poet and the hand of the painter: ‘Mine hath played the painter and hath steeled/Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart’ (1–2). The image drawn by the poet is reflected in the youth’s eyes that act as a mirror: ‘your true image pictured lies,/Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,/That hath windows glazed with thine eyes’ (6–8). However, the game of reflections and reverberations between the poet and the youth does not enable the poet to understand the youth’s heart to discover his true nature: Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done: Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me Are windows to my breast, where through the sun Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee; Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art: They draw but what they see, know not the heart. ( SON 24.9–14) This comparison between what the eye can actually perceive and what the heart knows is turned into a ‘war’ in Sonnets 46 and 47 which are built upon the opposition between the poet’s eyes, which can see the youth’s outward appearance, and his heart, which can see him inwardly, that is to say, understand the youth better. While they are ‘at a mortal war/ How to divide the conquest of thy sight’ (1–2) in Sonnet 46, Sonnet 47 restores the harmony between the heart and the eye as the poet grows aware that they are complementary since they project different ‘pictures’ of the youth to be contemplated at different times: either the eyes offer ‘thy picture or my love,/Thyself away, art present still with me’ (9– 10) or ‘if they sleep, thy picture in my sight/Awakes my heart to heart’s and eye’s delight’ (13–14). Other sonnets explore the image of the mind’s eye or imagination that can conjure up images of the youth that the poet’s inward eye can contemplate in his absence. Hence, in Sonnet 43, imagination projects images of the youth at night while he is away: 85

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‘When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see;/For all the day they view things unrespected,/ But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,/ And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed’ (1–4). Hence, ‘unseeing eyes’ (8) or ‘sightless eyes’ (12) can paradoxically see the youth at night. The sonnets dedicated to the Dark Lady explore other aspects of eyes. They aim to challenge the Petrarchan literary figure of Laura who is depicted as blonde-haired, fair-skinned and with eyes shining like diamonds. Right from the first sonnet in this part of the sequence, the poet praises the Dark Lady’s unconventional beauty as she has dark eyes: ‘Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black,/Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem/At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack’ (9–11). In the openly anti-Petrarchan Sonnet 130, the poet rejects the conventional simile of eyes which shine like the sun: ‘My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun’ (1). Nevertheless, the poet’s love for this mysterious lady is differently expressed when he grows aware that his vision has been distorted, so that his perception of her is false. In Sonnet 141, the poet asserts that he loves the Dark Lady only with his heart and not his eyes, hence resuming the conflict between the eyes and the heart previously evoked in Sonnets 46 and 47: ‘In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,/For they in thee a thousand errors note;/But ‘tis my heart that loves what they despise’ (1–3). In Sonnet 148, he criticizes ‘love’s eye’ (9) which projects images that ‘have no correspondence with true sight’ (2). In Sonnet 152, he describes his blurred vision through the image of the ‘perjured eye’ (13) which mistook lies for the truth. The image of the inward eye is also evoked in HAM when, in the closet scene, Gertrude cannot bear to look at the two portraits of her dead husband and her new one since this action obliges her to search her guilty soul: ‘Thou turn’st my eyes into my very soul/And there I see such black and grieved spots/As will not leave their tinct’ (3.4.87–9) (see black). (C) The former dramatists and new antitheatricalists, Gosson (1582) and Munday (1580) disparage the corruption of theatre on the audience as contaminating spectators’ eyes. For a detailed study of the different theories of vision see Lindberg (1976) and Clark (2007). O’Connell (2000) investigates the Puritans’ mistrust of visuality and drama. Graziani (1972), Yates (1975) and Strong (1977) provide different analyses of The Rainbow Portrait. Goldstein (1974) explores Shakespeare’s deconstruction of Petrarchan discourses on vision and of the literary conceit of the lovers’ eyes in LLL. Fineman (1986) investigates visuality in Shakespeare, mainly in the Sonnets. Yoch (1980) explores the act of seeing in VEN. See also Belsey (1995). Nordlund (1999) provides a full and detailed account of vision and visuality in Shakespeare, focusing on the narrative poems, the Sonnets and some other plays like KL. Schwartz (1990) analyses the relation between perception and knowledge in Shakespeare. Dundas (1985) investigates the conflict between visual perception and other senses in Shakespeare. Anderson (1991) has focused on the relationship between seeing and hearing in HAM. Meek (2009) offers useful readings on visuality in Shakespeare. Knapp (2011) devotes a chapter to vision in WT.

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F fair see black, colour, white (A) This adjective is replete with varied and different meanings, ranging from equitable, reasonable decisions to beautiful outward appearances. In his analysis of ‘Shakespearean beauty marks’, Greenblatt (2011) claims that Shakespeare uses this word ‘more than seven hundred times in his work’ (p. 25). Beyond the conventional courteous address of ‘fair sir’ or ‘fair lady’, this term often alludes to a woman’s beauty and/or to her white complexion, and sometimes to her blonde hair. ‘Shakespeare often conveys the sense of beauty’s radiance with the word “fair” . . . “Fair” can denote lovely, clear, fine, or clean, but it also has the distinct sense of shining lightness. And this lightness of hair and whiteness of complexion in turn set off the pink of blushing cheeks and the deep red of beautiful lips’ (Greenblatt, 2011, p. 25). By conflating the meanings of beautiful, light and bright indicated in the OED, this adjective encapsulates the archetypal female beauty of the Renaissance, a blonde-haired whiteskinned woman as fixed by literary and pictorial conventions (see white). Treatises devoted to female beauty indicate that ‘fair’ was then understood as a whiter shade of white since it was endowed with the radiance of ivory while white was more akin to the colour of snow (Firuenzola, 1541, p. 731). The OED also mentions the ambiguous linguistic nature of fair words insofar as they could simply reveal elegant wording or turn out to be mere flattery. (B) In the blazon-like description of Lucrece’s sleeping body, her archetypal beauty is expressed in the conventional terms of Petrarchan poetry: ‘Without the bed her other fair hand was,/On the green coverlet, whose perfect white/Showed like an April daisy on the grass’ (LUC 393–5). After the rape, the radiant beauty of her fair complexion has vanished (‘Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent?’ 1600). In SHR, the association of fair and white is symbolized by the name Bianca, Katherine’s ‘fair’ sister (1.2.165/174). In OTH, the polysemy of the adjective ‘fair’ sometimes refers to the different skin colours of the main characters, as when the Duke of Venice remarks that Othello, despite his dark complexion, has a pure mind: ‘Your son-in-law is far more fair than black’ (1.3.291). In MV, Portia’s fairness is symbolized by the golden hues of her blonde hair and of her father’s fortune. She is first described as a ‘lady richly left’ who is ‘fair’ – even ‘fairer than that word’ – and ‘of wondrous virtues’ (1.1.161–3). Her wealth, beauty and virtues have encouraged many suitors to launch into a new quest for her ‘golden fleece’ (1.1.170), one of the main features of archetypal female beauties in the Renaissance. The golden colour of her hair is ironically conflated with the coins of gold. In the casket scenes, suitors to ‘fair Portia’ (2.7.43, 47) are misled by the deceitful 87

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colours of the jewel boxes as is the case with the Prince of Morocco who naively believes that the golden casket contains ‘fair Portia’s’ portrait (2.7.43/47). Conversely, as Bassanio is not fascinated by the glitter of the golden box and prefers to turn his eyes to the dullness of lead, he succeeds in finding ‘fair Portia’s counterfeit’ where her ‘golden mesh’ is pictured (3.2.122). His victory enables him to marry the ‘thrice-fair lady’ (3.2.146) that he described in the opening act (1.1.161–3). Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, also embodies some of the features associated with Portia’s fairness. When the former’s letter is brought onto stage, Lorenzo recognizes her handwriting: ‘I know the hand; in faith, ’tis a fair hand,/And whiter than the paper it writ on/Is the fair hand that writ’ (2.4.13–15). The sense of elegant wording is here mingled with white complexion. Jessica’s fairness is also related to the colour of gold when Lorenzo tells Gratiano that the young lady is ready to elope with her father’s gold, disguised as a torchbearer during the Carnival (‘Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer’ 2.4.40). The image of the golden flame of the torch foreshadows the scene of the theft when Jessica decides to steal the gold by ‘gilding herself’ (2.6.50). Shakespeare challenges the traditional archetypal white and blonde-haired beauties in some of his early comedies so as to expose the artificial and deceitful nature of fairness. In TGV, Speed tries to warn his master Valentine that his vision of Silvia’s beauty is ‘deformed’ (2.1.59) in that her beauty could be artificial: ‘Marry, sir, so painted to make her fair that no man counts of her beauty’ (2.1.55–6). Although the adjective ‘fair’ primarily alludes to Silvia’s beauty, the verb ‘painted’ hints that this beauty results from the use of cosmetics, mainly rouge for the lips and cheeks, and white powder to heighten women’s complexions. When Proteus, Valentine’s best friend and Julia’s lover, lays his eyes on the fair Silvia, his vision is in turn ‘deformed’: ‘And Silvia – witness heaven that made her fair –/ Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope’ (2.6.25–6). This celebration of whiteness reveals Proteus’s distortion of reality since Julia’s complexion is as fair as Silvia’s. Besides, her hair is naturally blonde, golden (‘yellow’) while Silvia’s is described as auburn, which was considered as whitish blonde in Shakespeare’s time (‘Her hair is auburn, mine perfect yellow’ 4.4.187). Julia might suggest that Silvia’s blonde hair is dyed. The opposition between black and fair to define beauty is resumed in the last act when Turio, a suitor to Silvia, asks Proteus if the young lady likes him: Turio: Proteus: Turio: Proteus:

What says she to my face? She says it is a fair one. Nay then, the wanton lies; my face is black But pearls are fair; and the old saying is, ‘Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies’eyes. ( TGV 5.2.8–12)

In MND, Helena reminds Hermia that she cannot be called ‘fair Helena’ (1.1.180) since even her lover Demetrius is mesmerized by her beauty: ‘Call you me fair? That fair again unsay!/Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair’ (1.1.181–2). Beauty and whiteness are 88

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fused in the forest once Demetrius’ and Lysander’s vision has been altered by the juice of Puck’s purple flower. Helena is then perceived as ‘the princess of pure white’ (3.2.144) while Hermia is perceived as a black woman, an ‘Ethiope’ and ‘tawny Tartar’ (3.2.257/263) although she is still as ‘fair’ as she used to be (‘I am as fair now as I was erewhile’ 3.2.274). The notion of fairness is challenged, and even dislocated, in LLL where literary conventions and rhetorical speeches are constantly questioned and reversed. The female characters reject the pseudo-poetical discourses on their beauties that the fledgling poets and sonneteers in the play painstakingly labour to master. Weary of being called ‘fair princess’, the Princess launches into a diatribe against the linguistic hypocrisy and shallowness of such a word: Princess: Nay, never paint me now. Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow. Here, good my glass, take this for telling true: [She gives him money] Fair payment for foul words is more than due. Forester: Nothing but fair is that which you inherit. Princess: See, see, my beauty will be saved by merit! O heresy in fair, fit for these days! ( LLL 4.1.16–22) The reference to painting conjures up the colours of rhetoric which could be perceived as deceitful ornaments in Shakespeare’s time (see colour). The conflation of beauty with monetary value (‘fair payment’) exposes the evil nature of fair language (‘foul words’). However, the ‘heresy in fair’ remains a dominant feature of the male characters’ poetical achievements. The pedant Armado indulges into the rhetorical conceit of the polyptoton to bring to the fore Jaquenetta’s beauty (‘that thou art fair is most infallible’; ‘More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous’ 4.1.61–62 and 63–64) while Longaville compares his beloved to a ‘fair sun’ (4.3.66) and Berowne’s awkward pun on Rosaline’s unconventional fairness (‘Of all complexions the culled sovereignty/Do meet as at a fair in her fair cheek’ 4.3.230–1) metamorphoses her into an object. Berowne’s eulogy of Rosaline’s dark beauty is thus imbued with ironical connotations. His ambition to ‘make black fair’ (4.3.257) consists in berating the artificial nature of white/fair complexions whose radiant beauty is heightened by cosmetics (‘if in black my lady’s brow be decked/It mourns that painting and usurping hair/Should ravish doters with a false aspect’ 4.3.254–6). Rosaline is not mesmerized by Berowne’s attempt to celebrate her dark beauty in so far as his ‘fair words’ are imbued with the false colours of rhetoric: ‘The numbers true, and, were the numbering too,/I were the fairest goddess on the ground./I am compared to twenty thousand fairs./O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!’ (5.2.35–8). The celebration of black beauty in LLL partly echoes the poet’s challenge to the Petrarchan white beauty in the Sonnets. Although the adjective ‘fair’ is recurrent in the sonnets addressed to the young man, it is seldom used in the sense of white complexion 89

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or even blonde hair. The poet encourages the youth to have children since beauty is not eternal (‘every fair from fair sometime decline’ SON 18.7) and the poet’s pen cannot preserve beauty (‘time’s pencil or my pupil pen,/Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,/Can make you live yourself in the eyes of men’ SON 16.10–12). The youth’s natural beautiful complexion is praised in Sonnet 82 (‘Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue’, 5) and, according to the poet, does not need the colours of rhetoric (‘I never saw that you did painting need,/And therefore to your fair no painting set’ SON 83.1–2). Conversely, the sonnets addressed to the figure of the ‘Dark Lady’, a phrase coined by critics and not by Shakespeare, exemplify Shakespeare’s mistrust for literary conceits related to female beauty. Sonnet 127, the first sonnet of the ‘Dark Lady’ series, debunks the traditional literary discourses on white beauties and the ugliness of black complexions (‘In the old age black was not counted fair’ 1) by denouncing artificial whiteness (‘Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face’ 6) and celebrating another type of beauty (‘At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack’ 11). The dualism between black and white/fair/light is extended in the reversed blazon of the Dark Lady’s beauty where ‘If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun’ (SON 130.3) and in the following sonnet where the lady’s ‘black is fairest in my judgement’s place’ (SON 131.12). Nevertheless, the praise of black fairness comes to an end when the poet grows aware that he has been blinded by the luminous black beauty, forgetting his genuine fair love, the young man: ‘Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,/Which, like two spirits, do suggest me still:/ The better angel is a man right fair,/The worser spirit a woman coloured ill’ (SON 144.1–4). This sonnet signifies the poet’s sudden awareness of the Lady’s ‘heart of darkness’: ‘For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,/Who art as black as hell, as dark as night’ (SON 147.13–14). (C) Hieatt (1998) explores the puns on ‘fair’ in LLL. Hall (1995 and 1998) is invaluable for understanding the social and cultural meanings of fairness in Shakespeare’s text. Karim-Cooper (2006) provides illuminating analyses of fairness in MND, LLL and OTH. See also Iyengar (2005) for her insights into the complexity of white and fairness in Shakespeare. fame see tomb fancy see imagination figure This term can sometimes signify an artistic representation whether in painting or sculpture. When Iachimo describes the decoration of Imogen’s room while she is asleep, he briefly mentions works of art: ‘Such, and such pictures: there the window, such/Th’ adornment of her bed; the arras; figures,/Why, such and such’ (CYM 2.2.25–7). When he reports what he saw, the word figure is applied for the characters of Diana bathing with her nymphs carved on Imogen’s chimney-piece: ‘never saw I figures/So likely to report themselves’ (2.4.82–3). Likewise, in ROM, figure alludes to the future statue of Juliet that is to be built to preserve her memory: ‘There shall no figure at such rate be 90

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set/As that of true and faithful Juliet’ (5.3.301–2). Timon praises the painter’s skill for sketching ‘pencilled figures’ (TIM 1.1.163). fix This verb is used twice by Shakespeare to depict one particular detail of a work of art. In WT, Paulina forbids Perdita to touch the statue of Hermione, pretending that the colour covering it is not stabilized yet: ‘O patience/The statue is but newly fixed; the colour’s/Not dry’ (5.3.47–9). In LUC, the technique of the fixed points used in perspective painting seems to be used to comment upon the depiction of the duplicity of Sinon: ‘little stars shot from their fixed places,/When their glass fell wherein they viewed their faces’ (1525–6). The impression of movement of the painted stars is created by the stability of some elements in the painting. fixure This rare term is used by Shakespeare to signify the paradoxical quality of the statue of Hermione whose supposedly stony motionless eyes seem to be endowed with life: ‘the fixure of her eye has motion in’t,/As we are mocked with art’ (WT 5.3.67–8). flatter In his essay ‘How to tell a flatterer from a friend’ featured in Moralia, a collection of essays that greatly influenced European Renaissance writers and was translated into English by Holland in 1603, Plutarch compares some of the strategies used by flatterers to overemphasize someone’s quality to the skills of painters who ‘set up their colours and give them more beautiful light and lustre’ (p. 58). This idea seems to pervade the opening scene of TIM where the poet and the painter compete to win over Timon’s favour. These ‘glass-faced flatterers’ (1.1.60) only deceive those who wish to be deceived as is suggested by Apemantus who is not impressed by the painter’s and poet’s works: ‘He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’th’ flatterer’ (1.1.229–30). Similarly, when Julia holds the picture of her rival Silvia in TGV, she is convinced that the painter strove to please the eye and taste of the sitter: ‘And yet the painter flattered her a little,/Unless I flatter with myself too much’ (4.4.185–6). flesh see stone flint see stone form (A) This term alludes to the outline of an object or the outward shape of a person’s body. While the sculptor can easily reproduce in three dimensions the outward appearance of an item or an individual, the painter is obliged to use tricks of perspective or play on colours, light and shadow. (B) In some of his ekphrases or scenes related to visual arts, Shakespeare focuses on the way the painter delineates forms on a canvas. In LUC, Lucrece is angry at the painter’s ‘wondrous skill’ (1528) insofar as he concealed Sinon’s duplicity: ‘This picture she advisedly perused . . . saying some shape in SINON’s was abused:/So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill’ (1527/1529–30). Likewise, this pictorial term is used as a 91

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metaphor in Sonnet 24 to praise the poet’s literary images of the youth: ‘Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled/Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart’ (1–2). In his commentary on the portrait of his dead father, Hamlet draws his mother’s attention to the delicate features drawn by the painter on the canvas: ‘A combination and a form indeed/ Where every god did seem to set his seal/To give the world assurance of a man’ (HAM 3.4.58–60). In the description of perspectives, Bushy asserts that an indirect point of view enables the beholder to catch a glimpse of the real shape of things: ‘Like perspectives, which, rightly gazed upon,/Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry,/Distinguish form’ (R2 2.2.18–20). This word can sometimes be analogous to a picture as in MV when Portia tells the Prince of Morocco she will marry him if he finds her portrait in the golden casket: ‘There, take it, prince [giving him the key] and if my form lie there/Then I am yours!’ (2.7.61–2). Julia describes the dumb figure of Silvia portrayed on the painting in similar terms, playing on the ambiguity of the form seen on the picture and the shape of the boy actor that spectators have just seen before this soliloquy: ‘O thou senseless form,/ Thou shalt be worshipped, kissed, loved and adored’ (TGV 4.4.196–7). fountain see conduit, statue (A) Fountains were one of the main features of early modern gardens as well as grottoes, pergolas, flowers. Statues could sometimes ornament fountains. The most-often quoted example of Elizabethan garden statuary adorning a fountain is the Grove of Diana built in Nonsuch garden. This fountain carved out of a rock was decorated by a group of statues representing the episode of Diana bathing who was spied on by Acteon. (B) There are several examples of fountain statues in Shakespeare. Rosalind may refer to the statue of Diana in Nonsuch garden, or in another garden when she claims: ‘I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain’ (AYL 4.1.143–4). The other two examples are related to bleeding statues. In the case of TIT, the mutilated Lavinia is compared to a ‘bubbling fountain’ (2.3.23), taking the shape of a red statue (see conduit). The most dramatic image occurs in JC when Calphurnia narrates the prophetic dream of Caesar’s death whom she envisioned as a ‘statue,/Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,/Did run pure blood’ (2.2.76–8). (C) Fairchild (1937) argues that statues of weeping Diana were fashionable ornamentations for fountains in Elizabethan gardens. In his famous study of Elizabethan and Jacobean gardens, Strong (1979) analyses the function of garden statues and fountains. As for the image of the bleeding statue, Plutarch (1579), Shakespeare’s main source for JC, does not mention such a detail (p. 793). Shakespeare may have had in mind the Niobe fountain described in stanza 6 in George Chapman’s Ovid’s Banquet of Sense (1595). frame This decorative structure to protect or ornament a painting is alluded to only once, in Shakespeare’s SON 24, a sonnet built upon the imagery of pictorial art: ‘Mine eye hath played the painter, and hath steeled/Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart/ My body is the frame wherein ‘tis held’ (1–3). The poet intertwines the image of his 92

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lover’s body and the metaphor of painting, endowing this sonnet with some sexual undertones. fretted see cherubin This verb can sometimes be used in visual arts or architecture to describe an interlaced design or a carved ornament. In his visual inventory of Imogen’s bedchamber, Iachimo mentions the sculpted angels ornamenting the roof: ‘The roof o’th’chamber/With golden cherubins is fretted’ (CYM 2.4.87–8). Muñoz Simonds (1992) analyses the particular design of the ceiling in Imogen’s bedchamber.

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G gallery (A) This polysemous term is connected with art in that artists’ works have been exposed to the eye and the judgement of the public ever since the creation of public art galleries and museums in the eighteenth century. In Elizabethan England, some paintings and statues were removed away from the public eye when the iconoclasts destroyed, stole or whitewashed what we consider today works of art. Although funerary monuments were mostly preserved and could still be viewed in churches, portraits and statues were confined to the private space of the home. Elizabethans and Jacobeans ornamented the galleries in their houses, which were akin to long corridors, with paintings and sculpture. In his preface to his translation of Lomazzo’s treatise, Haydocke (1598) signals that gentlemen bought foreign works of art to decorate their houses: ‘as may appeare, by their Galleries carefully furnished, with the excellent monuments of sundry famous and ancient masters, both Italian and Germane’ (p. 6). The famous collector Lord Arundel exposed to posterity his impressive collections of statues and paintings in the two portraits drawn by the painter Daniel Myrtens in 1618 – one picture represents Lord Arundel directing the beholder’s eyes to his antique statues ornamenting the gallery on the first floor of Somerset House whilst in the second picture, his wife sits next to the portrait gallery located on the ground floor (National Portrait Gallery, London). In the Elizabethan theatre, gallery was used to describe the balcony over the stage where musicians would sit to play music or where characters could appear, such as Juliet in the balcony scene in ROM (2.2) or Cleopatra in ANT (see monument). (B) In H8, the King advises Lovell to ‘avoid the gallery’ (5.1.86), probably alluding to the long corridor in a mansion. In PER, Simonides could also refer to this corridor or the balcony on stage (2.2.57). Gallery is clearly identified with art in 1H6 and WT. When the Countess is confident that she will be able to keep Talbot as her prisoner, she first reminds him that her hatred was sustained by his portrait decorating the gallery of her house: ‘Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me;/For in my gallery thy picture hangs./But now the substance shall endure the like’ (1H6 2.3.35–7). In WT, Paulina’s ‘gallery’ intertwines the varied meanings inherent in this word: O Paulina, We honour you with trouble. But we came To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery Have we passed through, not without much content In many singularities, but we saw not 95

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That which my daughter came to look upon, The statue of her mother. ( WT 5.3.8–14) Leontes mentions a gallery they have walked through where they could see ‘many singularities’ other than the statue of Hermione. At first reading, gallery obviously refers to the particular architecture of Elizabethan and Jacobean houses where paintings and statues were exhibited in long corridors. Paulina’s private room is conflated with the public space of the stage as gallery is also a metadramatic reference to the specific architecture of theatrical venues in Shakespeare’s time. We could imagine that the actors were seen walking across the balcony and then appearing on the stage below. This downward movement made possible on stage would throw light upon another meaning of gallery that has been synonymous with a crypt or a catacomb since the tenth century (OED). This interpretation is sustained by Paulina’s remark a few lines later when she compares the statue of Hermione with a funerary monument (‘her dead likeness’ 5.3.15) (see monument, statue). (C) Rhodes (1972) analyses the role of the gallery in ANT. Tigner (2012) provides an illuminating study of the gallery in WT by focusing on the role of the Italian loggia in Renaissance gardens. gaze see eye, look, see (A) This verb denotes a fixed and intent look at something. In Shakespeare’s time, it could also refer to astonishment. (B) In the statue scene, Paulina warns her guests that their contemplation of the statue must be interrupted unless they agree to believe in the miracle of the moving statue: ‘No longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your fancy/May think anon it moves’ (WT 5.3.60–1). In LUC, Tarquin’s eyes seem to calm down his burning desire when he contemplates Lucrece’s sleeping body: ‘His rage of lust by gazing qualified’ (424). When Lucrece scrutinizes the perspective in the painting of Troy, the narrator invites the reader to focus on the detail of the Trojans’ eyes looking at the Greeks: ‘And from the towers of TROY there would appear/The very eyes of men through loop-holes thrust,/Gazing upon the GREEKS with little lust’ (1382–4). Later on, Lucrece observes the way the painter drew the deceiving Sinon with ‘so fair a form’ hiding ‘a mind so ill’ (1530): ‘And still on him she gazed, and gazing still,/Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied,/That she concludes the picture was belied’ (1531–3).The literary conceit of the antimetabole (1531, repetition of the same words in reverse order) throws light upon the intensity of Lucrece’s gaze as she wants the picture to reflect her emotions and her perception of reality, so that evil should be visible on people’s faces. However, as she fails to perceive her reality in the picture, ‘she concludes’ that the latter is ‘belied’. In the description of the perspective painting in R2, Bushy reminds the Queen that a direct look at the picture is not the proper way to look at a trompe-l’oeil: ‘Like perspectives, which, rightly gazed upon,/Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry/ Distinguish form’ (2.2.18–20). 96

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(C) Freedman (1991) analyses the gaze in Shakespeare’s comedies. Carter (1995) provides an illuminating study of the gaze in LUC. gild see golden (A) as opposed to the adjective golden which refers to the colour or the material aspect of gold, the verb ‘to gild’ signifies the technique of covering the surface of an object with a layer of gold to endow it with the appearance of the precious metal. This act of giving a deceptive appearance to an item is also transposed to language when fair words or specious rhetoric are used to embellish reality. In Shakespeare’s time, this verb could describe the action of smearing with blood, a meaning that is obsolete today (OED). (B) H8 opens onto a glittering ekphrastic description of the lavish encounter between King Henry VIII and the French King Francis I in June 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold where the rival kings organized festivities over three weeks. In Shakespeare’s version, Norfolk lays emphasis upon the excessive pomp displayed during the peace treaty that was signed between the two nations during this meeting. He mocks the extravagant taste of the French ‘all clinquant all in gold, like heathen gods’ (1.1.19) accompanied by ‘their dwarfish pages’ who looked ‘as cherubins, all gilt’ (1.1.22–3). This seemingly anti-catholic speech against lustre and deceitful appearances occurs in the scene depicting Cardinal Wolsey’s disgrace when he grows aware that ‘no sun shall ever usher forth mine honours,/Or gild again the noble troops that waited/Upon my smiles’ (3.2.410–12). Likewise, in KJ, Salisbury denounces the vanity of the king’s second coronation: Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp, To guard a title that was rich before, To gild refined gold, to paint the lily . . . Or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. ( KJ 4.2.9–11/14–16) The excessive display of power is ironically figured by the redundant action of painting actual gold with a new coat of gold. Sonnet 55 is built upon a less usual version of the rhetorical conceit of ut pictura poesis which compares the skills of the painter and the poet since the latter competes with the sculptor when he asserts that sculpture is inferior to poetical writing: ‘Not marble, nor the gilded monuments/Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme’ (1– 2). Similarly, in SON 101, the poet reminds his Muse that it ‘lies in thee/To make him much outlive a gilded tomb’ (10–11). The image of the gilded tomb in these two sonnets probably alludes to the royal tombs such as Henry V’s tomb in Westminster Abbey, which were gilt in the early sixteenth century. The motif of the gilded tomb is conjured up in MV when the Prince of Morocco reads out the letter contained in the golden 97

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casket: ‘gilded timber do worms enfold’ (2.7.69). Although this image probably resonates with the biblical image of the ‘whited sepulchre’ containing ‘dead men’s bones’ (Matthew 23.27), it could also signify the double-tier tombs that were fashionable in the Middle Ages and early seventeenth-century England (see monument). The image of the superficial layer of gold painted on the tomb unveils the deceiving appearances of the golden casket which is supposedly made of gold while illustrating the opposition between outward appearances and truth, within and without inherent in the play. The idea of deceit is also reinforced by Jessica’s decision to rob her father in the scene before – as she lays her hands on jewels and gold she describes herself as an artificial coat of gold: ‘I will make fast the doors and gild myself/With some moe ducats, and be with you straight’ (2.6.50–1). The contrast between within and without is evoked in R2 when Mowbray asserts that if a man’s reputation is tarnished, man is merely a decorative object, shining or colourful (‘painted’) on the outside, but empty inside: ‘Men are but gilded loam or painted clay’ (1.1.179). The image of deceit inherent in the verb ‘to gild’ is also transposed to language and rhetorical embellishment. In 1H4, this act is openly related to lying: ‘For my part, if a lie may do thee grace/I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have’ (5.4.157–8). Similarly, the Lord Chief Justice warns that Falstaff’s stories are somewhat exaggerated (‘Your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s Hill’ 2H4 1.2.148–9). Shakespeare relates the image of blood to gilt in some of his tragedies. The bestknown example is Lady Macbeth’s decision to cover up her husband’s crime by smearing Duncan’s blood on the sleeping guards: ‘If he do bleed,/I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal,/For it must seem their guilt’ (2.2.55–7). Likewise in KJ, the return of the courageous warrior is signified by the red colour of their ‘armours’ ‘all gilt with Frenchmen’s blood’ (2.1.316). In HAM, the image of ‘offence’s gilded hand’ used by Claudius may refer to the blood shed by criminals (3.3.58). In Sonnet 20, the eyes of the young man are superior to those of women in so far as his gaze endows all the objects it lays on with a golden light (‘gilding the object whereupon it gazeth’ 6). This verb can appear in some poetical descriptions of the sunlight projecting golden light onto nature as in TGV (‘the sun begins to gild the western sky’ 5.1.1). (C) Duncan-Jones (2013) suggests that the image of the gaze ‘gilding’ objects in SON 20 may refer to the extramission theory of perception (see see). She also notes that it could be related to deceit. For a study of the image of the gilded tomb see McDonald (1998), Rasmussen (2004) and Fulton (2013). Giulio Romano see statue (A) This is the only visual artist appearing in the whole of Shakespeare’s works. Giulio Pipi (1499–1546) – also known by the nickname ‘Giulio Romano’ because he was born in Rome – was Raphael’s most gifted pupil. After working with his master in the Branconio dell’Aquila palace in Rome, Giulio Romano left for Mantua where he successfully redesigned some parts of the Pallazo del Te for Frederigo 98

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Gonzaga in the 1520s. His contemporaries admired his use of perspective in his paintings, the room of the Giants in the Palazzo being the most striking visual example of his mastery of tricks of perspective. Even though he was primarily a painter and an architect, Giulio Romano is also remembered as a sculptor – the epitaph on his tomb in Santo Barnabe church in Mantua celebrates his talents for the three arts. (B) After describing the reunion of Leontes and Perdita, one of the gentlemen gives the name of the artist who carved a statue of Hermione: ‘a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master Giulio Romano’ (WT 5.2.93–5). (C) Although Giulio Romano was not primarily a sculptor, Armenini (1587) emphasizes that the statues he painted in niches were so lifelike that they actually looked as if they were real statues of marble or stone. Lomazzo (1585), whose Trattato had been translated into English by Richard Haydocke in 1598, quotes Giulio Romano as one of the talented painters who could imitate marble in his paintings. Vasari (1550) gives a full quotation of the epitaph on his tomb. In early modern England, Giulio Romano’s name was more evocative of erotic paintings than tricks of perspective. In Ben Jonson’s Volpone (1606), he is confused with Pietro Aretino, the author of the erotic poems that Romano had illustrated: ‘But for a desperate wit, there’s Aretine/Only his pictures are a little obscene’ (3.4.96–7), see also 3.7.59–60 and The Alchemist (1610) 2.2.43–44. Jonson mentions Giulio Romano as an Italian painter in Timber or Discoveries (1640). Spencer (1977) suggests that Giulio Romano could have been Giulio Caccini, an Italian musician who was described as ‘one of the rarest and most judicious Maisters’ by Robert Dowland in A Musical Banquet (1616). Martinet (1975) is essential reading on the issue as she brillantly explores the connections between Shakespeare’s Giulio Romano and Giulio Pipi. Ziegler (1985) shows that Shakespeare probably read about Giulio Romano in The Necessarie, Fit and Convenient Education of a Young Gentlewoman, an English translation printed in 1598 of Giovanni Michele Bruto’s La institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente (1555). She highlights the impact of this work on WT. The choice of such an artist has been diversely commented upon. According to Barkan, the presence of such a multi-talented figure throws light upon the dramatization of ‘the multiplicity of the arts, the rivalry among them, and the ‘paragone’ of art and nature’ (1981, p. 657). Not only does the insertion of Romano within the dramatic text reinforce the parallel between sculpture and drama, but it also brings to the fore the celebration and communion of painting, sculpture and drama (Waage, 1980). See also Talvacchia (1992), Sokol (1994), Apseloff (2002), Orgel (2003) and Tassi (2005). Tigner (2006) reminds us that Giulio Romano was also a garden designer, hinting that Shakespeare could have referred to the statues he carved for secret gardens in Italy. glance (A) This term depicts a quick or sidelong gaze at something. (B) In one of the sonnets about the Dark Lady, the poet bids his mistress not to look at her other lovers in his presence: ‘but in my sight,/Dear heart, forbear to glance thine 99

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eye aside’ (SON 139.5–6). In the painting of Troy, the painter represented the contrasted emotions of Ajax and Ulysses through their gazes: ‘In AJAX’s eyes blunt rage and rigour rolled;/But the mild glance that sly ULYSSES lent/Showed regard and smiling government’ (LUC 1398–1400). The best-known example remains Theseus’ description of the poet’s look upon the world: ‘the poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,/Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven’ (5.1.12–13) gleam In Shakespeare’s time, this term alluded to a brilliant light, such as the one emitted by the moon described by Bottom/Pyramus in his pseudo-poetical description of the moon in MND: ‘I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;/For by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,/I trust to take of truest Thisbe sight’ (5.1.267–9). In LUC, the narrator praises the painter’s skill in endowing with life some inanimate objects or features (1374) such as the lifelike representation of blood or the last gleam of life in some of the faces: ‘The red blood reeked, to show the painter’s strife,/And dying eyes gleamed forth their ashy lights,/Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights’ (1377–9). glister see glitter, golden (A) This verb is akin to glitter. (B) The most striking use of this term remains the famous proverb ‘all that glisters is not gold’ that the Prince of Morocco finds in the golden casket instead of Portia’s portrait (2.7.65). Despite this example, the verb ‘glister’ is less identified with gold in Shakespeare than its synonym ‘glitter’. Apart from the poetical description of the golden rays of the sun in TIT (‘As when the golden sun salutes the morn,/And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,/Gallops the zodiac in his glistering coach’ 2.1.504–6), it refers to the sparkling light of flames to figure forth desire in VEN (‘His eye which scornfully glisters like fire/Shows his hot courage and his high desire’ 275–6) or else it signifies the colour of grief in H8 (‘to be perked up in a glistering grief’ 2.3.21). In TMP, Ariel appears on stage ‘loaden with glistering apparel’ (4.1.193). glitter see glister, golden (A) This verb describes the sparkling reflection of light and in figurative meanings, it can be synonymous with lustre or splendour. (B) Shakespeare often associates this verb with the outward appearance of gold. The best-known example remains Timon’s discovery of gold while digging for roots: ‘Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold?’ (4.3.26). In 1H4, Vernon mocks the pomp displayed by the Prince of Wales who has turned his army into sparkling statues: ‘glittering in golden coats like images’ (4.1.99). In KJ, King Philip mentions gold in the context of alchemy when he describes the ‘glorious sun’ which ‘stays in his course and plays the alchemist,/Turning with splendour of his precious eye/The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold’ (3.1.4–6). See also PER (4.3.42–5). (C) Marx (1844) has given an economic interpretation of the discovery of gold in TIM (4.3), bringing to the fore the paradoxical nature of money in this play in the way that gold is both ‘a visible divinity’ and ‘a common whore’ (167–8). 100

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gloss see light, lustre (A) While gloss is primarily related to language to describe an explanatory note or comment inserted in a text, it can also signify a superficial brilliancy than can sometimes be deceptive. (B) In TRO, Agamemnon points out that Patroclus’ vision of Achilles’s supposed virtues is changing as their lustre gradually fades away: ‘yet all his virtues,/Not virtuously on his own part beheld,/Do in your eyes begin to lose their gloss’ (2.3.115– 17). Virtue is also associated with lustre in LLL when Maria describes Longaville’s brilliant outward qualities that conceal rude manners: ‘The only soil of his fair virtue’s gloss –/If virtue’s gloss will stain with any soil –/Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will’ (2.1.47–9). In VEN, Venus praises Adonis’ radiant beauty when she addresses Death, reproaching ‘this hard-favoured tyrant’ (931) with ‘stifl[ing] beauty and steal[ing]’ Adonis’ ‘breath,/Who when he lived, his breath and beauty set/Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet’ (934–6). In TMP, the shine of gloss takes on a comical turn when Gonzalo gives a rather comical description of his wet clothes: ‘that our garments being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and gloss, being rather new-dyed than stained with salt water’ (2.1.63–6). In PP, beauty is depicted as an evanescent flash of light: ‘Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,/A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly’ (13). Shakespeare also conflates the two meanings inherent in this term to depict the deceitful power of words. In 2H6, the Cardinal exposes Gloucester’s duplicity and warns Buckingham against his ‘smoothing words’ (1.1.154): ‘I fear me, lords, for all his flattering gloss,/He will be found a dangerous Protector’ (1.1.160–1). Similarly, in H8, Gardiner exposes Cranmer’s heretical beliefs that are visible for men who are not blinded by his glittering rhetoric: ‘My lord, my lord, you are a sectary./That’s the plain truth. Your painted gloss discovers,/To men that understand you, words and weakness’ (5.2.104–6). See also MAC (1.7.32–5) and TIM (1.2.15–16). glow (A) This verb alluding to the bright light and heat emanating before the start of a fire can describe a sudden blushing revealing strong emotions or red healthy cheeks. (B) The brilliance and warmth of glowing can connote passion and growing desire as suggested in the opening lines of VEN where the passionate and lusty Venus’ red cheeks betray her attraction to the young Adonis (‘She red and hot as coals of glowing fire’ 35). Conversely, this brightness suggests Adonis’ anger and shame at the sight of Venus’ behaviour: ‘He sees her coming, and begins to glow,/Even as dying coal revives with wind’ (337–8). In his ekphrastic description of Cleopatra sitting on a barge compared to a ‘burnished throne’ that ‘burned on the water’ (ANT 2.2.201–2), Enobarbus points out the useless efforts of the boys accompanying the Queen of Egypt as the ‘wind’ of their ‘divers-coloured fans’ ‘did seem/To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool’ (2.2.213–14). This image highlights the nascent passion of Cleopatra for Antony while underlining her sensuality. In KJ, glowing signifies the blush of shame (‘And if you do, you will make it blush/And glow with shame of your proceedings’ 4.1.112–13) while in JC it reveals anger (‘The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow’ 101

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1.2.182). In AYL, Corin depicts the chromatic contrast between the infatuated Silvius and the scornful Phoebe: ‘If you will see a pageant truly played/Between the pale complexion of true love/And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain’ (3.4.48–50). LC is probably the only example in Shakespeare where glowing refers to the redness of healthy complexion when the tears running from the man’s eyes ‘glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses/That flame through water which their hue encloses’ (286–7). Conversely, in Sonnet 73, the poet uses the image of a dying fire emitting its last bright light to picture his slow decline: ‘In me thou seest the glowing of such fire/That on the ashes of his youth doth lie’ (9–10). Glow is sometimes related only to heat as in PER (1.2.40) and WIV (3.5.111) or describes the surging warmth of lust as in LUC: ‘To quench the coal which in his liver glows’ (47). golden see casket, gild, glitter (A) This adjective derived from the most sought-after precious metal in the world can signify the nature of the metal or its colour. Although the image of gold in the Renaissance is often imbued today with the negative connotations of exploitation and violence following the Spanish plunder of the New World’s natural resources in the sixteenth century, in Shakespeare’s time, gold was generally considered as a highly positive symbol. In treatises of heraldry such as Herald of Sicily’s Le Blazon des couleurs (1528), gold is perceived as the noblest colour and depicted as a symbol of virtue and of the sun. Gold was thought to bring comfort, probably as it was reminiscent of the divine light. As well as representing divinity, God’s glory, and also wealth and riches, gold was primarily associated with royal power embodied by the golden sceptre and the golden crown. Jewels made of gold played an important role in the display of wealth as is evidenced by the numerous portraits where the sitter exhibits to the beholder’s eyes his/her most precious jewels. The portraits of the Queen remain a prime example of the complex work done by painters to reproduce the glitter of gold and gems. According to sumptuary laws, clothes woven with threads of gold were reserved for high-ranking people such as duchesses, earls and the royal family. Gold is invariably connected with the discovery of America since many explorers described lands of plenty abounding in spices, precious gems and gold. Sir Walter Raleigh who travelled to the Americas wrote an account of his travel to Guiana in 1596 (Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana), taking part in the mythical construction of a new Golden Age. In antiquity, the myth of the Golden Age symbolized an ideal period of peace, harmony and opulence. The Elizabethan period is perceived as a Golden Age in English history since under Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the nation enjoyed stability and economic growth while literature, music and poetry flourished. The Queen was also associated with the Virgin goddess Astraea who was the last one to live in the first Golden Age according to Ovid. The poetical celebration of the Queen as a new Astraea by poets such as Spenser in The Faerie Queene (1596) strengthened the political construction of the figure of the Virgin Queen. (B) In nearly every historical play, gold is invariably related to symbols of power and royalty. The trilogy of H6 is replete with allusions either to the golden crown coveted by 102

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many characters, such as the Duke of York who wants to ‘claim the crown,/For that’s the golden mark I seek to hit’ (2H6 1.1.239–40; also called the ‘golden circuit’ 2H6 3.1.351), or to the golden sceptre that Suffolk promises to Margaret of Anjou who becomes Queen of England in 2H6 (‘I’ll undertake to make thee Henry’s queen,/To put a golden sceptre in thy hand’ 1H6 5.2.138–9). Craving the ‘golden round’ (MAC 1.5.28) can pave the way for the desecration of royal power through regicide, breaking open ‘the Lord’s anointed temple’ (MAC 2.3.68). The stabbing of King Duncan exposes his royal blood as Macbeth describes ‘his silver skin laced with his golden blood’ (MAC 2.3.113). As a stage property, the golden crown can be used to dramatize the disgrace of kings as when Richard II is obliged to relinquish his power – he asks Bolingbroke to hold onto the ‘golden crown’ with him. He compares this stage image of the quest for kingship to a ‘deep well/That owes two buckets, filling one another. . .That bucket down and full of tears am I’ (R2 4.1.184–5/8). This image signifies the literal and metaphorical fall of the king. After Wolsey’s disgrace in H8, gold is visualized on stage in the first two scenes of Act 4 so as to dramatize the contrasted fates of Henry VIII’s first two wives. Act 4 scene 1 presents the audience with a public scene for the celebration of Anne Boleyn’s lavish and glittering coronation – each character silently proceeds on stage holding a golden object symbolizing royalty such as ‘Marquess Dorset, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a demi-coronal of gold’ (4.1.36.8–9) or wearing golden jewels such as the ladies attending on the new crowned queen (4.1.36.22–3). This extravagant pageant echoing the ekphrastic description of the lavish encounter of King Henry VIII and the French King Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1.1) is introduced as a play within the play since Act 4 scene 1 opens with the informal conversation between two gentlemen who remain on stage to admire the royal pageant. This glittering display of earthly power is set in contrast with the following scene presenting Katherine’s spiritual vision of characters dressed in white and gold, who also silently pass over the stage (‘six Personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of bays, and golden vizards on their faces, branches of bays or palm in their hands’ 4.2.82.1–5). Shakespeare explores many myths related to the colour of gold. There are a few direct references to the Golden Age in AYL where the old Duke has escaped to the Forest of Arden, an ideal location where young men ‘fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world’ (1.1.112–13). Likewise, in the TMP, Gonzalo’s ideal society should ‘excel the Golden Age’ (2.1.169) (see also SON 3.12). Except for one allusion to the Golden Fleece in 1H6, which refers to an order of knighthood (‘Worthy Saint Michael and the Golden Fleece’ 4.4.181), the Greek myth of the quest for the Golden Fleece by Jason and the Argonauts is explored only in MV. Originally, the fleece alluded to the golden hair of a winged ram that lived in Colchis. When Jason claimed the throne of Iolkos that had been usurped by his uncle Pelias, the latter ordered him to bring back the Golden Fleece to have his power restored. Traditionally interpreted as a symbol of authority and kingship, this fleece is turned by Shakespeare into the token of wealth, symbolized here by Portia’s golden hair, one of the signs of the ideal female beauty according to Petrarch: 103

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‘for the four winds blow in from every coast/Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks/ Hang on her temples like a golden fleece’ (1.1.168–70). The colour of the fleece is visually represented on stage in the first casket scene when the blonde-haired Portia unveils the three caskets to the Prince of Morocco. He is attracted by the golden one as he is convinced that the fair lady’s portrait is contained in the most valuable casket: They have in England A coin that bears the figure of an angel Stamped in gold: but that’s insculped upon. But here, an angel in a golden bed Lies all within. (MV 2.7.55–9) Nevertheless, the Prince has been fooled by the golden glitter of the casket and has to face a skull and the famous proverb that ‘all that glisters is not gold’ (2.7.65). This warning against deceitful appearances is resumed by Bassanio who launches into a long moralizing speech against the dangers of ornament. The image of gold is conjured again when the myth of the Golden Fleece is turned into the myth of the dangerous power of the Gorgon. According to Bassanio, beauty resembles the ‘crisped snaky golden locks,/Which maketh such wanton gambols with the wind’ (3.2.92–3). The metaphor of the ‘snaky golden locks’ is evocative of the blonde hair as a symbol of the ideal beauty and is also suggestive of the stunning beauty of the Gorgon whose hair was made of snakes and whose gaze turned men into statues (see Gorgon). The dangerous attraction embodied in women’s, and Portia’s, golden locks throws light upon the ambivalent nature of female beauty. To avoid being blinded by the glitter of gold, Bassanio refuses to be a new Midas (‘Therefore, then, thou gaudy gold,/Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee’ 3.2.101–2). Ironically enough, when Bassanio opens the leaden casket and realizes he has won the quest for the golden-haired Portia, he is still wary of the enticement of the golden locks pictured by the painter of Portia’s portrait: ‘here, in her hairs,/The painter plays the spider and hath woven/A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men/Faster than gnats in cobwebs’ (3.2.120–3). The sub-plot built upon the quest for Portia’s golden hair and wealth is paralleled by the character of Jessica who steals her father’s gold and jewels (see gild). The colour of gold is related to other classical myths such as the golden apples and the Hesperides in PER when Antiochus introduces his daughter as the ‘fair Hesperides/With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch’d’ (1.1.18–19). In TGV, Proteus draws on the myth of Orpheus who could endow inanimate objects with life at the sound of his lute (‘For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poet’s sinews,/Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones’ 3.2.77–8). In MND, Hermia alludes to Cupid’s bow and ‘his best arrow with the golden head’ (1.1.170) which caused people to fall in love (see VEN 947). The colour of gold is also conjured up in poetical descriptions of sunset or sunrise and of the universe (see for example LUC: ‘As is the morning silver melting dew/ Against the golden splendour of the sun’ 24–5; ROM 1.1.117–18). After Cleopatra’s 104

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death, Charmian evokes the mythical figure of the sun that the Queen of Egypt will never see again: ‘Downy windows, close,/And golden Phoebus, never be beheld/Of eyes again so royal’ (ANT 5.2.315–17). The Prince of Denmark evokes the traditional beauty of the universe to highlight the corruption of Claudius’ court: ‘this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours’ (HAM 2.2.266–9). The image of the golden roof could signify the stage decoration since the universe was actually painted under the canopy built over the stage that the actor impersonating Hamlet may point to in his description of the ‘o’erhanging firmament’. In Sonnet 7, the course of the rising sun is compared to a ‘golden pilgrimage’ (8) while sunrise ‘kiss[es] with golden face the meadows green,/Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy’ (SON 33.3–4). (C) For general studies of the myth of the Golden Age in the Renaissance, see Kevin (1969) and Parry (1981). Cairncross (1970) draws a distinction between the myth of the Golden Age which is endowed with positive values for Shakespeare and the ‘Age of Gold’ ‘where money was the supreme or only value’ (p. 173). According to him, Shakespeare’s drama relies on the tension between these two contradictory visions of gold, ‘the two opposite sides of the one medal’ (p. 173). Hopkins (2002) investigates the myth of the Golden World in AYL. Dusinberre (2009) provides an insight into the myth of the Golden Age in AYL. Buchanan (2013) explores the myth of the Golden Age in MND. Hardman (1994) analyses the hidden references to Golden Age in WT. Sklar (1976) provides an impressive account of the diverse interpretations of the myth of the Golden Fleece in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, focusing more particularly on the echoes between Gower’s Confessio Amantis and the portrayal of Bassanio as Jason in MV. Weinfield (2010) also explores the allusions to the myth of the Golden Fleece in MV. Costa de Beauregard (2000) mentions that the colour of the leaden casket in MV is black as opposed to the more noble hues of gold and silver. According to her, the presence of the portrait in the leaden casket was chosen ‘to dramatize the Christian ethics of humility and charity’ (p. 96). Stone (2008) also explores the gold imagery in MV. Many studies have been devoted to the influence of Apuleius’ Golden Ass (158/9 AD) on Shakespeare’s drama and poetry: see Starnes (1945), Nosworthy (1982) and Lemercier-Goddard (2003). Gorgon (A) In Greek mythology, varied stories describe the Gorgons as three horrifying sisters whose hair was made of living snakes. Their faces were said to be so terrifying that anyone who dared to look at them was turned into a statue. Stheno and Euryale were believed to be immortal while Medusa is better known as the Gorgon who was beheaded by Perseus thanks to the reflection of a mirror. The main recurrent features of this mythological creature are its petrifying gaze and snaky locks. (B) In the perspective portrait of Antony imagined by Cleopatra, the Gorgon is paired with Mars, the god of war, to underline his duality and ambiguity: ‘Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,/The other way’s a Mars’ (ANT 2.5.116–17). In MAC, 105

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Macduff compares the dead King Duncan’s face to the horrifying Gorgon’s face whose sight could petrify onlookers: ‘Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight/With a new Gorgon’ (2.3.71–2). (C) Homer (1581) refers many times to this myth in his Iliad (Bks 5, 8 and 11) while Ovid (1597) explains Medusa’s original metamorphosis into a horrifying woman and relates how Perseus managed to kill her in Metamorphoses (Bks 4 and 5). In the Middle Ages, the Gorgon stands at the entrance to Hell in Dante (1307–1321) (Inferno, canto 9). In his preface to the translation of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1591), Sir John Harrington explores the different levels of readings – literary, moral and theological – that are inherent in the myth of the Gorgon. In love poetry, the Gorgon is associated with the literary conceit of the donna de petra, or the stony lady, originally featured in Dante’s Rime Petrose (1296). In the Canzoniere (1327–1368) Petrarch compares the hard-hearted Laura to a Medusa, setting a literary conceit that inspired some Elizabethan sonnet sequences such as Barnes’ Parthenophil and Parthenophe (1593) or Percy’s Sonnets to the Fairest Coelia (1594). Suther (1987) gives a detailed description of the evolution of this myth in European literature and arts from ancient Greece to modern times. In his thorough study of the diverse meanings of the Gorgon in ancient Greece, Vernant (1985) explains that in Homer’s Iliad (Bk 8), Hector’s wrath on the battlefield is compared to the Gorgon’s frightening gaze. In one of the Elizabethan translations of Homer’s Iliad (1581), Hector is depicted as Mars and the Gorgon: ‘This while the ghastful/Hector he, with ‘Mars’ his dreadful eyes/And flaming like the Gorgons lights, upon the Greeks he flies’ (p. 144). Wigginton (1980) argues that the Gorgon embodies Antony’s rage and advocates that this mythical creature is more masculine than feminine in ANT. Bate (1993) suggests that the Gorgon symbolizes the negative aspect of Antony’s anger while Mars represents the positive and beneficial side of wrath in times of war. Palmer (1982), Peyré (1988), Laroque (1993) and Tassi (2013) highlight other meanings of the Gorgon in MAC. grain (A) This seed usually connected to cereals used to be regarded as the grains coming from Kermes (red dried insects) or Scarlet that were used for dyeing. The turn of phrase ‘in grain’ meant that colours were fast-dyed. (B) In ERR, the expression ‘in grain’ is used to depict a woman’s complexion. Dromio mentions that his future wife’s complexion is dark (‘swart like my shoes’ 3.2.102) and when Antipholus tells him that this colour can be easily washed away, he replies that it is fast dyed, hinting that it is her natural complexion: ‘No, sir, ‘tis in grain; Noah’s flood could not do it’ (3.2.106–7). This phrase is also used in TN to describe Olivia’s complexion. The reference to facial colours is connected to pictorial art when Olivia decides to unveil her face to Viola/Sebastian in order to ‘show’ the ‘picture’, that is her face (1.5.226). She mentions that the colours are fixed (“Tis in grain sir, ‘twill endure wind and weather’ 1.5.230), probably suggesting that she does not need to wear any cosmetics. Likewise, grain is associated with painting and colour in the closet scene where Hamlet confronts his mother with the two portraits of her late and new husband. 106

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Horrified by the pictorial comparison, Gertrude reproaches her son for obliging her to search her soul to look directly at her black deeds: ‘Thou turn’st my very eyes into my very soul/And there I see such black and grieved spots/As will not leave there their tinct’ (HAM 3.4.87–9). (C) Smith (2009) suggests that Olivia’s insistence upon the fast-dyed colours of her face reveals her ‘concern with fixity [which] is not surprising in an age when most colors were, as the technical term has it, “fugitive” ’ (p. 60). See also Elam (2008) for his analysis of portraiture in TN. grave see monument, tomb (A) Traditionally, a grave refers to the receptacle where dead bodies are buried beneath the ground. This word is sometimes made analogous to a monument or a tomb. (B) In ROM, graves and tombs play a pivotal role in the unfolding of the plot, coalescing death and life, burial and marriage, tragedy and comedy. When Juliet asks the Nurse to find information about Romeo’s identity, she fears he might be already married: ‘If he be married,/My grave is like to be my wedding bed’ (1.5.133–4). This oxymoronic association of the grave and the wedding bed sets out one of the main strains of imagery in this tragedy that reaches its most dramatic point in the final scene set in the Capulets’ monument. Friar Laurence who is to manipulate false death and false resurrection with his potions, depicts the blurred lines between life and death in nature: ‘The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb,/What is her burying grave, that is her womb’ (2.3.5–6). Lady Capulet mocks Juliet’s excessive grief for her cousin’s death (‘What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?’ 3.5.70). In the final act, Romeo first buys poison so as to be reunited with Juliet in the grave (‘Come, cordial and not poison, go with me/To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee’ 5.1.85–6). When he arrives in the churchyard and sees Juliet’s tomb, signified on stage by the trapdoor strewn with flowers, Romeo conjures up the image of the bed and grave used by Juliet in Act 1: ‘Why I descend into this bed of death/Is partly to behold my lady’s face,/But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger/A precious ring, a ring that I must use/In dear employment’ (5.3.28–32). First, the actor impersonating Romeo opens the trapdoor to indicate that he enters the tomb and walks down to where the corpses lie. Then, he opens the curtains where Juliet lies in the discovery space where her bed was set in Act 4. Graves are also represented on stage in the well-known scene of the cemetery in HAM (5.1) where the Prince of Denmark picks up a skull to contemplate death. When Laertes is described in the stage directions as ‘leap[ing]’ into the grave (5.1.248), the actor jumps in the trapdoor that had been previously opened for Ophelia’s funeral. This gesture relates to the ritual of laying down the corpse to its final resting place that was usually accomplished by the family. The association of the grave and the bed, though less pregnant in 2H6, is evoked when King Henry discovers Gloucester dead in his bed. This property is ‘put forth on stage’ and curtains are drawn revealing the actor lying in bed, playing a dead person. This staging is reminiscent of some of the aesthetic features of funerary tombs, a reference heightened by the King’s remark: ‘That is to see how 107

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deep my grave is made,/For with my soul fled all my worldly solace;/For, seeing him, I see my life in death’ (3.2.150–2). In ANT, while Cleopatra is kept prisoner by Caesar’s guards, she wishes her lifeless body would lie in a common grave: ‘Rather on Nilus’ mud/Lay me stark naked’ (5.2.57– 8). Nevertheless, the dramatization of her death when she chooses to wear her royal attributes and die by poisoning helps Cleopatra build her final image as the Queen of Egypt and preserve her love for Antony for eternity: ‘She shall be buried by her Antony./ No grave upon the earth shall clip in it/A pair so famous’ (5.2.357–9). The image of the grave in the Sonnets mostly stems from Horace’s Odes where poetry is regarded as an eternal monument that can preserve the memory of the addressee (see monument). Paradoxically enough, the opening sonnet warns the youth against self-love, a sterile feeling that will devour him: ‘Pity the world, or else this glutton be,/ To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee’ (SON 1.13–14). However, as the sonnets unfold, this negative tone is reversed when the devouring grave is turned into a sacred receptacle of the poet’s love: ‘Thou art the grace where buried love doth live,/Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone’ (SON 31.9–10). In SON 81, the poet draws a distinction between the physical grave where his dead body will lie in complete oblivion while his poems will preserve the youth’s beauty for ever: ‘The earth can yield me but a common grave,/Your monument shall be my gentle verse’ (7–8). (C) The coalescence of the bridal bed and the grave in ROM has often been interpreted as a re-appropriation of the Death-as-Bridegroom conceit. See Mahood (1957), Black (1975), Holderness (1991) and Holding (1992). Thomson (1995) argues that the discovery space was used both to stage Juliet’s bed and the Capulet’s monument. Roberts (2002) explores the motif of the wedding bed and the tomb in ROM by throwing light on the dramatic use of the curtain. Hosley (1963) and Bergeron (1976) provide invaluable readings on the role of graves in ANT. green see colour (A) This chromatic combination of yellow and blue has conjured up images of a luxuriant and pristine nature over many centuries and the contemporary connection of this colour with environment in the West is probably deeply rooted in the Bible. Green is the first hue to be mentioned in Genesis when on the third day of Creation, God separates earth and water and creates grass and trees (Gen I.11–12). Water used to be perceived as green for many centuries and even in the Renaissance as is evidenced by the codification of colours on maps in early modern Europe. This colour also symbolizes the coming of spring and the hope for renewal. In the Renaissance many pagan festivities celebrated this season with the figure of the ‘green man’. The idea of restored vitality and flourishing is related to incipient love. In the Middle Ages, young girls who were old enough to get married were usually dressed in green and so were pregnant women. This cycle of fertility was invariably identified with hope, one of the traditional symbols of green. Despite these highly positive values, green, like all colours (see colour) was endowed with opposite meanings, especially in the Middle Ages. Green was then allocated to the devil, witches and associated with poison. The 108

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worrying character of the ‘Green Knight’ and his ambiguous connection with magic haunts English medieval literature. In the Renaissance, green was the emblem of passions, more precisely jealousy. Smith (2009) signals that this term derives from the Middle English grenen which meant to long for something (p. 37). No wonder that this particular hue was associated with lovers and sexual desire – medical treatises signalled the existence of ‘green-sickness’, a disease common among young unmarried women, and also men, that could only be cured by sexual intercourse within wedlock. Linthicum (1936) indicates that variations of green such as ‘sea-water green’ and ‘popingay’ were related to courtesans (pp. 32–3). (B) Green is unsurprisingly connected with nature in poetical depictions of landscapes as when the poet highlights the visual contrast created by the golden rays of sunrise and the green countryside (‘Full many a glorious morning have I seen/Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,/Kissing with golden face the meadows green’ SON 33.1–3). On stage, this kind of description stimulates the spectators’ imagination to picture the location of a scene. In TMP, Gonzalo admires the luxuriant nature of the supposedly desert island (‘How lush and lusty the grass looks! How green’ 2.1.55) while Sebastian mocks him by underlining the colour of the ground (‘The ground indeed is tawny’ 2.1.56). Conversely, Prospero’s masque is set in a tamed nature (‘Why hath thy queen/ Summoned me hither to this short-grassed green?’ 4.1.82–3). In TIT, Titus’ seemingly poetical remark on his surroundings (‘The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,/The fields are fragrant and the woods are green’ 2.1.1–2) primarily helps the audience to understand that the characters have moved to a forest, a visual indication sustained by the sounds of hounds and horns off stage. The green foliage of the forest seems to ignite passions since in the next scene Tamora invites her lover Aaron to enjoy the shadow of trees: ‘the green leaves quiver with the cooling wind/And make a chequered shadow on the ground./Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit’ (2.2.14–16). The underlying eroticism of this scene is tragically reversed with the rape of Lavinia and the murder of Bassanius in the forest. Similarly, MND is replete with references to green nature (1.1.185), more precisely when the plot unfolds in the forest (2.1.9/28/94/99), a location which looks suitable for the rehearsal of Quince’s play (‘This green plot shall be our stage’ 3.1.2–3). See also the role of the forest in AYL and WIV. Green is also connected with summer in Shakespeare (SON 12.7; SON 68.11). The colour of the sea is perceived as green in TMP (‘And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault’ 5.1.43) and in ANT (‘I, that with my sword/Quartered the world and o’er green Neptune’s back/With ships made cities’ 4.14.58–60). When the pedant Armado attempts to define the colour of love, he first chooses green before turning to the conventional pairing of white and red. His attendant Moth ridicules his choice by wittily showing that colours are double-sided: Armado: Moth: Armado:

I am in love too. Who was Samson’s love, my dear Moth? A woman, master. Of what complexion?

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Moth: Armado: Moth: Armado: Moth: Armado:

Moth:

Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four. Tell me precisely of what complexion? Of the sea-water green, sir. Is that one of the four complexions? As I have read, sir, and the best of them too. Green indeed is the colour of lovers. But to have a love of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He surely affected her for her wit. It was so, sir, for she had a green wit. (LLL 1.2.73–85)

Contrary to what is argued by Moth, green was not part of the four humours, unlike black, white, red and yellow. It was generally the conventional symbol of youth and innocence as is suggested by Berowne in the opening scene when he mentions young immature girls: ‘The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding’ (1.1.97). Similarly, in his criticism directed at sonnet-writing, Berowne resumes the image of green innocence to berate sonneteers: ‘this is the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity,/A green goose a goddess. Pure, pure idolatry’ (4.3.71–2). Moth’s pun on ‘green wit’ (1.2.85) alludes to the immature state of mind of the lover. The ‘colour of lovers’ is highly ambivalent in this passage as it could also be imbued with sexual innuendo at the time, as is suggested by the bawdy reference to a specific hue of green, namely ‘sea-water green’ (80), a colour usually worn by courtesans. Furthermore, green was also associated with green-sickness or love-sickness, a disease that affected young women and men who were in love. Some Shakespearean female characters are accused of suffering from that kind of disorder such as Juliet (‘Out, you green-sickness carrion!’ ROM 3.5.156) or Ophelia (‘Affection? Pooh, you speak like a green girl’ HAM 1.3.100). In TN, Viola’s imaginary sister is supposedly affected by ‘a green and yellow melancholy’ that has petrified her into a funerary statue ‘smiling at grief’ (TN 2.4.113–15). There are other references to green-sickness in 2H4 (4.3.93) and ANT (3.2.5–6). Shakespeare conjures up the traditional personification of jealousy as a green-eyed figure. When Bassanio is about to open the casket in MV, Portia is beset with strong emotions that she describes through a kind of inventory: ‘How all the other passions fleet to air,/As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,/And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy’ (3.2.108–10). The most often-quoted reference to jealousy remains Iago’s warning to Othello: ‘O beware, my lord, of jealousy!/It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock/The meat it feeds on’ (OTH 3.3.167–9). Green is evoked in Desdemona’s song of the ‘green willow’ signifying grief: ‘The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree/Sing all a green willow’ (4.3.39–40) (C) Pastoureau (2014) has published a history of the colour green, highlighting its contradictory meanings in the Renaissance. Knight (2014) provides a new cultural study of green in Renaissance England, taking different and innovative paths unexplored by Smith (2009) in his thorough history of green in early modern England. Smith has 110

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focused on tapestries, stage scenery, theories on this colour and its representation in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature. He offers stimulating readings of OTH and LUC. See also his article on the sound of green in HAM (2001). Linthicum (1936) explores the varied hues of green and their symbolism in Shakespeare. Bloch (1984) has listed 94 occurrences of the term green and five personal names in Shakespeare. According to him, this colour mainly symbolizes virility, innocence or jealousy. Woodbridge (1994) has devoted a chapter to what she terms ‘green Shakespeare’. The phrase ‘green world’, originally used by critics such as Barber (1959) and Frye (1989) in their studies of Shakespearean comedies, has become a critical tool to analyse the representation of nature in Shakespeare or his use of the literary genre of the pastoral. The 1994 conference devoted to the green world in early modern literature held in Paris gave rise to an invaluable collection of essays exploring the scope of this phrase in Shakespeare: see Jones-Davies (1995). See also Laroque (1991) and Armistead (2002). Theis (2009) provides a thorough insight of the treatment of the forest in Shakespeare. Ecocritical studies can be of interest, see Brayton and Bruckner (2013). Godfrey (1972) explores the image of the green-eyed monster in OTH. According to Honigmann (1995), the song of the green willow in OTH may have been inspired by a ballad published in 1578 (p. 291). Mazzio (2000) underlines that the association of green with Armado in LLL is a reference to Robert Greene. Iyengar (2011) analyses the medical aspects inherent in the colour green in her study of complexion and the greensickness disease in Shakespeare. Costantini-Cornède (2015) provides full insight into the representation of green in Shakespeare while Oki-Siekierczak (2015) focuses on the meanings of green in TMP. grey (A) This colour, perceived as intermediary between black and white, has traditionally symbolized old age like white. Although grey was identified with the garments worn by lower classes in the Middle Ages, the promotion of black among the nobility and the royalty in the Renaissance endowed this colour with new positive values since it matched black and white. (B) Grey symbolizes old age in Shakespeare as in HAM (‘for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards’ 2.2.193–4), heralding the coming of death (‘And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,/Nestor-like aged, in an age of care’ 1H6 2.5.5–6). Grey is perceived as a bright colour in poetical descriptions of morning and sunrise as in TIT when grey is associated with light: ‘The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey/The fields are fragrant and the woods are green’ (2.1.1–2) The radiance inherent in this colour reinforces the image of a pristine nature sustained by green. See also 2H4 2.3.19, MAN 5.3.27 and SON 132.6. Grey eyes turn out to be a conventional feature of Petrarchan beauty that is ridiculed by some Shakespearean characters. Mercutio mocks Romeo’s infatuation for a female literary model (‘Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in . . . Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose’ ROM 2.4.38–9/42–3) whilst Olivia parodies the stereotypes 111

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of female beauty in her blazon-like inventory of the perfect woman’s face (‘item, two lips, indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them’ TN 1.5.239–40). When Julia compares her beauty to her rival Silvia as pictured on the portrait she is holding, she remarks that the colour of their eyes is the same (‘Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine’ TGV 4.4.190) gules see heraldry, red In the medieval art of blazoning, colours were given specific names to signify the main shades used to ornament shields. Gules signified red whilst sable was the synonym for black and azure for blue. Shakespeare uses this rare term to depict blood as in HAM when Hamlet reads the story of ‘Priam’s slaughter’. Pyrrhus, who was first featured in black, is now pictured in blood red: ‘Now is he total gules, horridly tricked/With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons’ (2.2.395–6). Similarly, in TIM, the eponymous character advises Alcibiades to go on with his war: ‘Follow thy drum,/With man’s blood paint the ground gules, gules’ (4.3.59–60).

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H hangings see arras, cloth, tapestry (A) This term is sometimes used as a synonym for tapestry to describe these richly ornamented items that decorated Elizabethan houses (see tapestry). In Shakespeare’s time, hangings could also signify the stage decorations that were probably used on the bare stage, like curtains, or painted cloth as is evidenced by the well-known quotation from Heywood’s Apology for Actors (1615): ‘Oh these were times/Fit for you Bards to vent your golden Rymes./Then did I tread on Arras, Cloth of Tissue/Hung round the fore-front of my stage’ (l.99–102). (B) This noun appears twice in Shakespeare to describe decorative items, in 2H6 (‘And like rich hangings in a homely house,/So was his will in his old feeble body’ 5.3.12–13) and in SHR (‘My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry’ 2.1.353). (C) Gurr (1980) provides invaluable information on the use of hangings and curtains on the Elizabethan stage. Olson (2013) has written a monograph on the dramatization of tapestries and hangings in early modern drama, offering acute readings of Shakespeare’s text. hard-hearted see stone heraldry see blazon (A) The European art of designing coats of arms to preserve lineage conjures up the medieval chivalric world where knights proudly carried shields bearing their arms pictured in vivid colours when they left for wars. Although this phenomenon no longer existed in Shakespeare’s time, Elizabethans were still eager to display their coat of arms to show their nobility or gentility. The College of Arms was then considered as a safeguard against any fraudulent attempt at making false coats of arms. To a certain extent, they took part in the preservation of lineage by granting applications. Although his father dropped his application, William Shakespeare successfully received his family’s coat of arms in 1596. The design shows a golden spear and a silver falcon with the French motto ‘Non sans droit’. This art partly relied on a strict codification of colours which were given old French names – ‘sable’ referred to black while ‘gules’ alluded to red, and green was translated by ‘vert’. Precious stones could also be used in heraldic terminology to depict colours (see emerald, sapphire). (B) Genealogy is significant in AWW, as when Lafew reminds Parolles that his attitude is not worthy of a gentleman: ‘You are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry’ (2.3.260–2). Lineage is 113

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also evoked by Horatio in HAM (1.1.86). When Hamlet invites the players for his play, he quotes a passage from Virgil’s Aeneid where Pyrrhus is depicted with the chromatic codification of heraldry: ‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,/Black as his purpose, did the night resemble . . . Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared/ With heraldry more dismal, head to foot./Now is he total gules, horridly tricked’ (2.2.390–1/93–5). This poetical description combines genealogy with the art of colouring coats of arms as this portrait of Pyrrhus covered with blood is replete with references to colours, mainly black and red. This highly chromatic depiction heralds the next image of Pyrrhus who is as motionless as ‘a painted tyrant’ (2.2.418). In MND, Helena uses the imagery of heraldry to remind Hermia that despite her inferior lineage, they were brought up like sisters: ‘with two seeming bodies, but one heart;/Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,/Due but to one, and crowned with one crest’ (3.2.212–14). This symbol of union also appears in OTH (3.4.47). Lucrece’s beauty is compared to a ‘heraldry’ (LUC 64), a term introducing the highly chromatic description of her face in white and red. (C) For an historical overview of heraldry in Shakespeare’s time, see Fergusson (1960), Stone (1965) and Pastoureau (1997). Callaghan (2013) gives a detailed account of Shakespeare’s coat of arms.Vickers (1985) analyses heraldry in LUC. For an analysis of heraldry in HAM see De Grazia (2007). hue see colour, dye, tinct (A) Even though today hue is part of the three elements to define colour, along with saturation and value, in Shakespeare’s time, this word was regarded as a synonym for colour or could describe a person’s complexion and outward appearance. (B) In LLL, hue happens to be a linguistic variation of colour since black is ‘the hue of dungeons’ (4.3.251) and ‘cuckoo-buds’ are of the ‘yellow hue’ (5.2.884). In MND, the text rehearsed by Flute seems to rely upon a series of pleonasms as it sounds saturated with colours: ‘Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue/Of colour like the red rose on a triumphant briar’ (3.1.87–8). In SHR, Petruchio depicts Katherine’s unconventional beauty as ‘brown in hue/As hazelnuts’ (2.1.256–7). In JN, Salisbury muses on the excessive display of pomp and wealth by resorting to chromatic metaphors: ‘To gild refined gold, to paint the lily . . . /or add another hue/Unto the rainbow . . . /Is wasteful and ridiculous excess’ (4.2.11/13–14/16). See also SON 98.6. Otherwise, most references to hues are related to the human complexion. In MV, this word is first used by the Prince of Morocco to describe his dark complexion (‘the best-regarded virgins of our clime/Have loved it too. I would not change this hue’ 2.1.10–11) and is resumed in the casket scene when the Prince depicts the white colour of the silver casket which, to him, reflects Portia’s true colour: ‘What says the silver with her virgin hue?’ (2.7.22). In his well-known monologue ‘to be or not to be’, Hamlet denounces man’s hypocrisy as his outward natural complexion (probably understood as ruddy, the English ‘native’ complexion) is at variance with his inner thoughts: ‘Thus conscience does make cowards – /And thus the native hue of resolution/Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought’ (HAM 3.1.82–4). In VEN, hue alludes to the strong emotions felt by Venus 114

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whose face shifts from paleness to blushing: ‘To note the fighting conflict of her hue,/ How white and red each other did destroy!’ (345–6). In TIT, hue is first equated with white and purity as Marcus presents Titus with a white robe (‘This palliament of white and spotless hue’ 1.1.185). This noun resurfaces in the negative speeches directed at the devilish nature of black. Bassanius warns Tamora that her love for Aaron’s ‘body’s hue’ (2.2.73) will tarnish her reputation (see black, swarthy). At the birth of his son, Aaron rejects the nurse’s prejudice against his dark skin (‘is black so base a hue?’ 4.2.73) and as he wants to protect his new-born baby, he launches into a defence of their different complexions (‘Coal-black is better than another hue/In that it scorns to bear another hue’ 4.2.101–2). In the Sonnets, the poet celebrates the young man’s natural complexion (‘A man in hue, all hues in his controlling’ SON 20.7; ‘thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue SON 82.5; ‘So your sweet hue’ SON 104.11) which does not need the artifice of cosmetics insofar as his beauty cannot be surpassed by portraiture: ‘Why should false painting imitate his cheek,/And steal dead seeing of his living hue?’ (SON 67.5–6).

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I idol see image, statue (A) In contrast to our contemporary use of the term idol to signify people admired for some of their achievements, in the early modern period this term primarily referred to a painted or sculpted representation of a divinity used as an object of devotion or worship. Besançon (2000) underlines the ontological difference between an idol and an image in Christianity – while the former corresponds to ‘a false representation of what does not exist’, the latter is ‘the truthful representation of an existing thing’ (p. 66). In the wake of Henry VIII’s schism, religious paintings and statues were often destroyed since Puritans were convinced that the contemplation of religious images – a practice inherited from Catholicism – led the believer to commit the sin of idolatry that is condemned in the Old Testament since God forbade the worshipping of idols in the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth’ (Exodus 20.4). In the Apocrypha, idols are believed to corrupt the mind: ‘For the devising of idols was the beginning of spiritual fornication, and the invention of them the corruption of life’ (Wisdom of Solomon 14.12). In Elizabethan England, Puritans also drew attention to the evanescent nature of idols since they were regarded as shallow representations of the divine: ‘The generall propertie of all Idols is that they are NOTHING in the world, as Paul saith, I. Cor.8.4. Ant they are so tearmed, because they have nothing in them of the divinitie or Godhead, whether we regard the nature or the efficacie thereof’ (Perkins, 1601, p. 4). Puritans condemned the art of drama since attending a dramatic performance resulted in the worship of fake idols, namely actors: ‘stage plays are sucked out of the Devills teates to nourish us in ydolatrie, hethenrie, and sinne’ (Stubbes, 1583, p. 142). (B) In Shakespeare’s text, idolatry is often drawn upon to express intense love. In HAM, the Prince of Denmark addresses his love letter to Ophelia in a rather conventional tone inspired by Petrarchanism: ‘To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia’ (2.2.108–9). Likewise, Juliet compares Romeo to ‘the god of my idolatry’ (ROM 2.2.114). This devotion is ridiculed by Berowne who mocks the fledgling sonneteers in LLL: ‘This the liver vein, which makes flesh a deity,/A green goose a goddess. Pure, pure idolatry’ (4.3.71–2). The poet of the Sonnets distances himself from the idea of false worship when expressing his love for the young man: ‘Let not my love be call’d idolatry,/Nor my beloved as an idol show’ (SON 105.1–2) TGV encapsulates the dangers of worshipping women and their painted counterfeit. After meeting Silvia, Proteus wonders if the young lady is the ‘idol’ that his friend 117

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Valentine ‘worship[s] so’ (2.4.142). His enthusiastic answer, full of religious echoes (‘is she not a heavenly saint?’ 2.4.143; ‘Call her divine’ 2.4.145), brings to mind again the literary figure of the Petrarchan lover who worships the ideal woman. Proteus’ remark is ironically subverted when, after failing to attract Silvia’s attention, he begs her to give him her portrait. Although Silvia condemns such idolatrous behaviour (‘I am very loath to be your idol, sir’ 4.2.125), she gives her picture to Julia who brings the object of devotion to the besotted Proteus who could have worshipped the true substance of Julia had he not changed his mind: ‘And were there sense in his idolatry/My substance should be statue in thy stead’ (4.4.198–9). Similarly, Venus exposes Adonis’ evanescent nature by comparing him to a shallow statue, a mere shadow since she cannot enjoy the substance (‘well-painted idol, image dull and dead/Statue contenting but the eye alone’ VEN 212–13). (C) For historical studies related to the status of idols in early modern England, see Philips (1973) and Eire (1986). Barish (1981), Siemon (1985), Davidson and Eljenholm (1989) and Diehl (1997) explore the Puritans’ attacks against drama. Waldron (2013) explores the opposition between dead idols and lively images in Renaissance England. Sichi (1981) highlights all the religious references in TGV. Girard (1989) contends that the use of the word idol in TGV ‘can be insulting’ in that it ‘carries the connotation of false worship’ (p. 235). O’Connell (2000) provides a detailed account of the controversial issues surrounding idolatry in Shakespeare’s time and drama. Tassi (2005) offers invaluable reading of idols and idolatry in TGV and WT. Porter (2009) analyses idolatry in WT. Meek (2009) suggests that in VEN Venus’ comparison of Adonis to a lifeless idol reverses the myth of Pygmalion, suggesting that ‘visual art is a lifeless copy of the real world . . . it remains a ‘lifeless’ illusion’ (p. 34). idolatry see idol image see idol, painting, statue (A) This polysemous term initially signifies an artistic representation of an object or a person either in the form of a statue or a painting. According to Gent (1981), image was synonymous with statue until the 1620s (p. 14). It can signify a perfect copy or imitation of someone’s features, hence drawing attention to resemblances. Images can be the result of a mental projection, a representation of something that is shaped by imagination and not by direct observation. A mental image can also be conjured up by speech and rhetoric through the use of literary tropes such as simile or metaphor. In Renaissance England, religious images, such as statues of saints, stained-glass windows or paintings, were partly destroyed by Puritan iconoclasts who believed that images polluted the mind of the believer who was supposed to rely solely on the word of God. Weever (1631) points out that these sporadic movements aimed at eliminating idolatrous practices were inherited from Catholicism: ‘Toward the latter end of the raigne of Henry the eighth and throughout the whole raigne of Edward the sixth, and in the beginning of Queene Elizabeth, certaine persons of every County were put in authority to pull downe, and cast out of all Churches, Roodes, graven Images, Shrines 118

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with their reliques, to which the ignorant people came flocking in adoration. Or anything else, which (punctually), tended to idolatrie and superstition’ (pp. 50–1). However, the Puritans’ standpoint towards the role of images for devotional purposes remains ambiguous, as evidenced by Fulke (1583) who draws a distinction between mental images and visual representations of God: ‘The brasen serpent first and last was an image, holy when it was commaunded by God to bee made as a sacrament of our redemption by Christ, lawfull when it was reserved onely for memorie of that excellent miracle: unlaweful, cursed, and abhominable, when it was worshipped, and justly broken in peeces by the godly King Ezechias’ (p. 183). (B) In Shakespeare’s text, the term image is more often used to signify a statue than a painting. In LUC, however, image appears in the context of pictorial art in the long ekphrasis describing the painting of Troy (1366–1575). Lucrece focuses on the detail of ‘ACHILLES’ image’ (1424), scrutinizes ‘a wretched image bound’ (1501) which could reflect her grief, comments on the ‘mild image’ drawn by the ‘well-skilled workman’ (1520) and grows aware that the ‘painted images’ (1577) she has looked upon gave her little comfort. Conversely, in VEN, the goddess of love compares the young Adonis to a ‘well-painted idol, image dull and dead/Statue contenting but the eye alone’ (212–13). Image could here potentially signify both a painting and a statue. The sculptural metaphor calls to mind the Petrarchan figure of the donna de pietra or stony lady, which symbolized the hard-hearted woman who refused to yield to the poet despite the beautiful lines he wrote for her. This literary conceit of the petrified lady, which goes back to Dante’s Rime Petrose, is ironically debunked by Shakespeare who applies the device to a man and not a woman. This twist is resumed by Beatrice when she compares Count John to ‘an image’ who ‘says nothing’, unlike Benedick (MAN 2.1.7–8). In his historical plays, Shakespeare sometimes alludes to religious statues. In 1H4, Vernon describes the army of the Prince of Wales as ‘all in arms’, ‘glittering in golden coats like images’ (4.1.96/99). The picture of an army resembling statues of saints in a church is immediately modified by Vernon who depicts the young men as ‘wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls’ (4.1.103). Likewise, in 2H6, Queen Margaret harshly criticizes the king’s devotion to ‘brazen images of canonized saints’ (1.3.61) as he turns away from her. She berates his attitude again when the latter is lamenting Gloucester’s death (‘Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester’s tomb?’ 3.2.78). The image of the funerary monument is debunked by the contrast between two types of images: ‘Erect his statue and worship it,/And make my image but an alehouse sign’ (3.2.80–1). Margaret despises her husband as she compares him to these statues representing young widows mourning for their husbands, a traditional feature of Elizabethan tombs (see monuments). Conversely, Margaret will not be sculpted (‘my image’) as the aggrieved widow on the King’s future monument since she thinks he considers her no better than a painted sign in a tavern. This image of the petrifying power of grief recalls Marcus’ petrifaction in TIT (‘Even like a stony image, cold and numb’ 3.1.259). There is one direct reference to iconoclasm in R3 when the King laments that some ‘vassals’ ‘defaced/The precious 119

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image of our dear Redeemer’ (2.1.123–4). The harshest criticism of idolatry is probably voiced by Murellus and Flavius in the opening scene of JC. These two tribunes challenge Julius Caesar’s tyranny which is bodied forth, according to them, by the statues of Caesar standing in Rome and decorated with ‘ceremonies’ and ‘trophies’. This form of political idolatry has turned the people of Rome into senseless statues (‘You blocks, you stones’ 1.1.34). Flavius then orders Murellus not to destroy the statues, but to remove all their ornaments (‘Disrobe the images,/If you do find them decked with ceremonies’ 1.1.65–6; ‘Let no images/Be hung with Caesar’s trophies’ 1.1.69–70). This gesture is finally punished as Caska mentions that ‘Murellus and Flavius, for pulling scarves off Caesar’s images, are put to silence’ (1.2.284–5). Their nearly iconoclastic action has ironically turned the Tribunes into silent and senseless statues. Shakespeare has embedded in WT an analogy between children and visual arts, the natural copy and the artificial one. In the first acts of the play, Leontes’ suspicion towards Hermione’s presumed adultery leads him to wonder if Mamillius is his son (‘they say it is a copy out of mine’ 1.2.122) and reject his daughter, the future Perdita, despite her resemblance to him (‘Although the print be little, the whole matter/And copy of the father – eye, nose, lip’ 2.3.97–8). Conversely, in the final act, Leontes’ restored vision enables him to recognize Polixenes’ son, Florizel: ‘Were I but twenty-one,/Your father’s image is so hit in you’ (5.1.125–6). The noun ‘image’, first used as a synonym for a natural copy, appears in the final scene when Paulina describes Leontes’ speechless reaction before the statue of his dead wife: ‘If I had thought the sight of my poor image/ Would have thus wrought you . . . I’d not have showed it’ (5.3.57–9). The echo of the sense of natural copy implied in 5.1 combines art and nature, an idea defended by Polixenes in 4.4 (see art). Hence, while the statue of Hermione is presented by Paulina as an artificial copy of the Queen ‘performed’ by the Italian artist Giulio Romano, the wrinkles of the statue testifying to the passage of time hint that this artificial image is, in fact, a perfect natural copy of Hermione since she is undoubtedly the best copy of herself. By playing on the varied meanings inherent in the term image, Shakespeare fuses artistic creation with natural reproduction. Image is also understood as a natural copy in LUC (1753) and R3 (2.2.50). Image can also be interpreted either as a reflection in a mirror (‘Look in a glass, and call thy image so’ 2H6 5.1.142) or as a projection of the mind, an image conjured up by the inward eye, namely imagination. Collatine’s verbal depiction of Lucrece’s beauty and Tarquin’s contemplation of her face inflame his imagination: ‘Within his thought her heavenly image sits’ (LUC 288). Similarly, the poet’s obsession with the young man keeps him awake at night: ‘Is it thy will thy image should keep open/My heavy eyelids to the weary night?’ (SON 61.1–2). In HAM, Horatio describes the ghost as an ‘image’ (1.1.80) as if he was trying to believe that what he saw was a mere figment of imagination. Hamlet uses the word ‘image’ to describe the play ‘The Mousetrap’: ‘This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna’ (3.2.232). (C) For an historical approach to iconoclasm in Renaissance England, see Philips (1973), Eire (1986), Aston (1988), Collinson (1988) and Duffy (1992). Recent 120

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collections of essays have re-assessed the impact of the Reformation on the role of images in Elizabethan society: see Hamling and Williams (2007), Boldrick and Clay (2007). Diehl (1997) investigates the development of early modern drama in a postReformation society. Tassi (2005) is invaluable for understanding Shakespeare’s complex handling of images in his drama and poetry in a post-Reformation England. Jensen (2008) contends that Shakespeare explores the different aspects of iconoclasm in WT, starting with ‘Leontes’ diseased iconoclasm’ which ‘exaggerates the extreme Reformation position against both images and festive sport’ (p. 197) and ending on the statue-scene which is replete with references to Catholicism. Knapp (2011) brings to the fore the ethical dimension of images in Shakespeare’s drama. According to him, Elizabethan literature ‘offered a space in which to explore the relationship between visual experience and ethical action at the critical moment when English culture was undergoing epistemological, theological and aesthetic transformations’ (p. 2). His study mainly focuses on MND, MM, OTH and WT. See also Porter (2009). imaginary see imagination imagination (A) This term generally alludes to the ability of the human mind to project and create images or ideas which cannot be perceived by the senses insofar as they do not exist in the real world. These images or shadows only perceived by the ‘eye of the mind’, to quote Shakespeare (see eye), can be inspired by previous experiences or may sometimes be deceptive. In this case, they may be thought of as resulting from fancy, a faculty distinguished today from imagination, though it was regarded as similar to imagination in Shakespeare’s time. In Renaissance England, imagination played an important part in poetical creation and artistic production as well as in drama where the spectators’ imagination was often appealed to so as to picture vital elements of a play that could not be represented in material form on stage. (B) The best-known example of the power of imagination in poetry remains Theseus’ detailed description of the creative power of the poet in MND: The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact . . . The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. ( MND 5.1.7–8/12–7) 121

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The poet is endowed with an almost divine power as he has the ability to create ex nihilo (out of nothing) like God in the Bible. The poet of the Sonnets summons up this power to more narcissistic effects in Sonnet 27 when he describes the mental images he created while the youth is away: ‘Save that my soul’s imaginary sight/Presents thy shadow to my sightless view’ (9–10). The polysemous word ‘shadow’ is reminiscent of pictorial art while evoking the illusory nature of pictures created by the mind’s eye. The relation between poetic writing and the art of painting is fully explored in LUC. In the ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy, the poet throws light upon the illusion created by perspective paintings by underlining that such pictures are partly shaped by the beholder’s own imagination, and not entirely by the painter’s skill: For much imaginary work was there: Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind, That for ACHILLES’ image stood his spear, Griped in an armed hand; himself behind Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind: A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head, Stood for the whole to be imagined. ( LUC 1422–8) The polyptoton on ‘imaginary’ and ‘imagined’ framing this particular stanza lays emphasis upon what is not made visible in a painting as if teaching the beholder how to see a double vision of a painting, both through the human senses to see what is actually painted on the canvas and through imagination or ‘the eye of mind’ to create images suggested by hidden elements on the canvas. This account of the subtle art of illusions created by artistic trompe l’oeil is an embedded statement about the conception of poetry as an art enabling the poet to shape his personal images into words; this he does through the use of rhetorical conceits like ekphrasis which verbally stimulate the reader’s imagination to create a painting within his mind as it cannot be physically materialized. This embedded structure is complex because the painting of Troy in LUC is an image projected by Lucrece herself, who tries to remember a picture she had seen before: ‘At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece/Of skilful painting made for PRIAM’s TROY’ (1366–7). The long examination of this shadow – understood here as a picture, a non-existent image – offered by the long ekphrasis in LUC exposes the vital role of the reader’s imagination in the act of beholding and understanding the ‘speaking picture’ or, in other words, the visual poem inserted within the narration of LUC, referred to as the painting of Troy. In the opening scene of TIM, the poet claims that without the beholder’s imagination, the painter’s picture would remain a dead image: ‘How big imagination/Moves in this lip! To th’ dumbness of the gesture/One might interpret’ (1.1.33–5). As the material conditions of stage production were by present-day standards rather limited in Shakespeare’s time, especially in open-air theatres, dramatists had to rely upon the spectators’ imagination to supply some missing elements on stage. The most 122

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explicit and metatheatrical reference to the vital role played by imagination during dramatic performances is to be found in H5 where the Chorus opening each act asks the audience to imagine a part of the scenery or events that occurred between two acts. Hence, in the Prologue, spectators are invited to picture the backdrop of the play (‘On our imaginary forces work’ Prologue 18) and to visualize through the eye of their minds a whole army (‘and make imaginary puissance’ Prologue 25). At the beginning of Act 3, the Chorus explains to the audience that the next scene is supposed to take place days after the previous one: ‘Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies/In motion of no less celerity/Than that of thought’ (3.0.1–3). In Act 5, the Chorus invites the spectators to visualize the location where the king is supposed to be (‘You may imagine him [the King] upon Blackheath’ 5.0.16). These two statements are evidence of the lack of unities of time, space and action in Elizabethan drama, rules that had been imposed on Italian Renaissance drama. This lack of unity is invoked in later plays such as in PER where Gower announces a change in location (‘Imagine Pericles arrived at Tyre’ 4.0.1) or WT where the figure of Time justifies the fact that sixteen years have elapsed between the end of Acts 3 and 4 and that the action is now located in Bohemia, and not Sicilia as previously: ‘imagine me,/Gentle spectators, that I now may be/In fair Bohemia’ (4.1.19–21). The work of imagination is also involved in the animation of the statue, but under the guise of fancy (‘No longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your fancy/May think anon it moves’ 5.3.60–1). Sometimes, characters are encouraged to imagine a location or a landscape that does not exist, as in KL where Edgar describes Dover cliffs to the blind Gloucester to make him believe that he is about to fall from a place that exists only within his mind (4.6.11–24, see sight). Similarly, in order to overcome Antony’s death, Cleopatra creates, in a dream, an imaginary sculptural image of her lover under the features of the Colossus of Rhodes (ANT 5.2.81–2). To her, this idealized image, shaped by imagination, surpasses what Nature could have made: ‘Nature wants stuff/To vie strange forms with fancy; yet, t’ imagine/An Antony were nature’s piece ’gainst fancy,/ Condemning shadows quite’ (5.2.96–9). (C) Harding (1964) gives insight into the varied meanings of imagination and fancy in Shakespeare. Gombrich (1962) suggests that the stanza devoted to ‘Achilles’ image’ in LUC (1422–8) echoes Philostratus’ depiction of the siege at Thebes where the skill of the painter lies in his ability to suggest what is hidden (176–7). In Imagines, Philostratus concludes with these words: ‘this, my boy is perspective; since the problem is to deceive the eyes as they travel back along with the proper receding planes of the picture’ (p. 24). However, in her analysis of the role of visual arts in LUC, Dundas (1983) contends that Shakespeare’s interest probably lies in what cannot be seen and how it can be supplied by the ‘eye of the mind’ (p. 18). She also shows that, for Shakespeare, imagination played a major role in the perception of works of art: ‘but underlying Shakespeare’s references to the means of illusion lies his fascination with what man’s imagination contributes to his sense perceptions’ (p. 17). Dundas (1993) suggests that in Sonnet 27, the poet ‘virtually becomes a portrait painter with his mind’s eye: he sees without seeing’ (p. 55). Rosand (1980) has explored the relation between imagination and works of art in Shakespeare. 123

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Thorne (2001) has a chapter on the role of imagination in ANT, showing ‘its capacity for forming vivid mental images and its role in artistic production’ (p. 167). Tassi (2005) also explores the relation between imagination and painting in ANT. imitate (A) Imitation is one of the key issues raised in the debates devoted to artistic and literary productions. If imagination plays a vital role in the act of creation, the poet or the artist often draw their inspiration from nature or people surrounding them. Drawing a picture in the Renaissance, whether verbal or visual, was related to the concept of mimesis – or imitation – originally defined by Plato in his Republic where art was understood as a mere reflection of an object, and extended by Aristotle to poetry, drama and literature. These theories pervaded the English Renaissance as is evidenced by Sidney’s definition of poetry in A Defence of Poetry (1579): ‘[poetry] is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word μιμησιζ [mimesis], that is to say, a representing, counterfetting, or figuring foorth’ (p. 25). Likewise, Puttenham (1589) regards statuary as ‘a bare imitatour of nature’s works, following and counterfeiting her actions and effects’ (p.310). (B) ‘Imitari is nothing. So doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider’ (LLL 4.2.125–7) – this derogatory statement on imitation does not sound surprising in a comedy such as LLL, where the conventional poetic form of the sonnet is challenged and debunked when several characters strive to imitate clichéd metaphors and antique literary conceits, but to no avail. In his defence of the beauty of blackness, an openly anti-Petrarchan discourse, Berowne contends that the old chromatic codifications have been reversed since red, one of the traditional colours of beauty, tries to look black: ‘And therefore red, that would avoid dispraise,/Paints itself black, to imitate her brow’ (4.3.260–1). This coalescence of poetic writing and pictorial art stemming from the representation of colour is echoed in some of the Sonnets. In Sonnet 67, the poet worries that the youth’s beauty could be badly imitated in a poor painting or other flattering verbal portrait: ‘Why should false painting imitate his cheek,/And steal dead seeing of his living hue?’ (5–6). In Sonnet 53, the poet remarks that any verbal picture of stereotypical male beauty would always be inferior to the youth, even the poetic image he drew of the young ‘rose-cheeked’ Adonis in his first narrative poem: ‘Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit/Is poorly imitated’ (5–6). Imitation is also drawn upon in the painting of Troy when the narrator describes the similarity between natural elements and the events depicted: ‘And from the strand of DARDAN where they fought/ To SIMOIS’ reedy banks the red blood ran,/Whose waves to imitate the battle sought/ With swelling ridges’ (LUC 1436–9). In WT, the artist Giulio Romano is regarded as a demigod who has the ability to endow his works of art with life: ‘a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Giulio Romano, who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape’ (5.2.93–7). (C) Dundas (1983) and Belsey (2012) provide illuminating analyses of imitation in LUC. 124

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incarnadine see also crimson, red This adjective originally meant flesh coloured. The term, appearing only once in Shakespeare, has its first recorded use as a verb in MAC: ‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood/Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather/The multitudinous seas incarnadine,/Making the green, one red’ (2.2.61–4). After killing Duncan, Macbeth’s guilt convinces him that it would be impossible to wash away the blood on his hands as the king’s blood would turn the oceans red. ink see also black (A) This material mainly used for writing was endowed with new meanings in the Renaissance when the technique of printing with moveable type was invented in the fifteenth century. The ink set on a piece of paper by the poet’s or the scribe’s hand was then integrated into a high-scale reproduction of a text as well as illustrations, hence promoting the circulation of ideas while reinforcing the development of visual culture. In Elizabethan English, ink was also part of the conventional metaphor to describe a deep shade of black. (B) The best known reference to ink as a colour in Shakespeare is Hamlet’s ‘inky cloak’ that he wears to visualize mourning and remember his dead father (HAM 1.2.77). Furthermore, ink is used as a metaphor to depict some of the features of a woman’s face when, for instance, Rosalind describes Phebe’s eyebrow as ‘inky’ (AYL 3.5.47). Otherwise, ink is identified with the act of writing. In LLL, the pedant Armado misuses literary clichés to describe the letter he has written: ‘I did encounter that obscene and preposterous event that draweth from my snow-white pen the eboncoloured ink’ (1.1.234–6). In the Sonnets, the poet vindicates the superiority of poetry over sculpture and even the universe insofar as the ink printed on the white page can preserve both the poet’s feeling for the youth and his memory: ‘that in my black ink my love may still shine bright’ (SON 65.14). (See also SON 108.1.) (C) Harris (2010) explores the role of ink in the Sonnets. insculp (A) This verb is a synonym for ‘to carve’ or ‘to engrave’. (B) This term is used only once by Shakespeare in MV. When the Prince of Morocco chooses the golden casket he mentions : ‘a coin that bears the figure of an angel/Stamped in gold: but that’s insculped upon’ (2.7.56–7). The idea of the angel ‘insculped’ or engraved on the surface is used to contrast with the ‘angel in a golden bed’ that ‘lies all within’ (2.7.58–9), that is to say Portia’s portrait that he believes to be locked in the golden casket. Ironically enough, the Prince creates an opposition between the superficial engraving on the coin and the supposed depth of the golden casket. This imagined discrepancy between truth and outward appearances suddenly vanishes when it is unlocked. (C) Shakespeare probably inserted this unusual term into his text after reading the 1595 edition of the Gesta Romanorum which contains the story of the three caskets (see casket). insculpture see also insculp This noun appears once in TIM to describe the text engraved upon Timon’s epitaph (5.4.67). 125

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interlace This term normally applying to the art of tapestry is used by Shakespeare to describe a painter’s technique as in LUC where the painter’s effort to create the illusion of life is depicted as a method of connecting different threads to narrate the story of the fall of Troy: ‘And here and there the painter interlaces/Pale cowards marching on with trembling paces,/Which heartless peasants did so well resemble/That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble’ (1390–3). ivory (A) This sought-after white material, mainly taken from the tusks of elephants, was used for carvings, jewellery and in visual arts, particularly for religious figures. (B) Except for one reference to ivory as a sign of wealth (‘In ivory coffers I have stuffed my crowns’ SHR 2.1.354), ivory is mainly used by Shakespeare as metaphor for white. In MV, Salerio mocks Shylock for denying the irreconcilable differences between the father and the daughter: ‘There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet and ivory’ (3.1.34–5). In VEN, ivory is used as another synonym to depict Adonis’ purity when Venus takes his hand to seduce him: ‘A lily prisoned in a gaol of snow,/Or ivory in an alabaster hand’ (362–3). Likewise, Lucrece’s chastity is signified by this valuable material when Tarquin sees her breasts (‘Her breasts like ivory globes circled with blue’ LUC 407). However, this collusion between innocence and sensuality encourages Tarquin to desecrate her body (‘His hand that yet remains upon her breast –/ Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall!’ 463–4). After the rape, the weeping Lucrece and her maid are compared to statues adorning a red fountain where the signs of beauty and chastity are petrified by grief: ‘A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,/Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling’ (1233–4).

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J–K jet see black (A) This semi-precious stone is often used as a metaphor to depict a deep shining shade of black. (B) When Shylock looks for his daughter (‘my flesh and blood’ 3.1.34), Salerio reminds him that Jessica hardly looks like him: ‘there is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet and ivory’ (MV 3.1.34–5). After comparing Tamora’s sons to the personification of Rape and Murder (5.2.45), Titus depicts their sinful nature with a deep shade of black (‘two proper palfreys, black as jet’ TIT 5.2.50). In 2H6, Gloucester and the King question Simpcox’s miraculous recovery when they ask him to name the colour of their gowns. His emphatic use of a simile (‘black, forsooth, coalblack as jet’ 2.1.108) arouses suspicion as his answer makes it clear that he knows colours although he pretends to be unable to see them. jewel (A) As well as being lavishly represented in full-length portraits, jewels could themselves contain miniature portraits to be viewed in private. The best-known example of this type of jewellery remains the Drake jewel that Queen Elizabeth offered to Sir Francis Drake after the defeat of the Spanish Armada. A miniature portrait of the Queen herself, painted by Hilliard in 1586/87 is set within a gold locket (Victoria and Albert Museum). (B) In TN, Orsino gives Viola a jewel that he must bring to Olivia as a token of love (2.4.123). Ironically enough, Olivia gives another jewel to Viola/Cesario as a symbol of her love for him/her: ‘Here, wear this jewel for me, ‘tis my picture’ (3.4.203). The stage property held by Olivia is meant to feature a miniature portrait set in a jewel that was highly fashionable in Shakespeare’s time. This prop is reminiscent of the first encounter between Olivia and Viola/Cesario when the former compared her face hidden behind a veil to a picture (‘Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face? You are now out of your text: but we will draw the curtain and show you the picture’ 1.5.224–6). In Sonnet 27, the poet mentions the pictures of the youth that his imagination shapes in his mind at night: ‘Save that my soul’s imaginary sight/Presents thy shadow to my sightless view/Which like a jewel hung in ghastly night/Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new’ (9–12). Although the jewel is probably ornamented with luminous precious stones, the polysemy of the term shadow which can refer to an image and a painting could suggest that the jewel contains a miniature picture of the youth drawn by the mind’s eye and that its beauty radiates through the night. This interpretation could also be sustained by the fact that unlike full-length portraits, miniature portraits were supposed to be contemplated in private. 127

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(C) Scarisbrick (1995) gives an insight into the varied jewels worn in Shakespeare’s time. Strong (1983) is invaluable reading for understanding the complex connections between jewellery and pictorial art. kneel In WT, Perdita wishes to pay tribute to the statue of her dead mother by kneeling before it: ‘And give me leave,/And do not say ‘tis superstition, that/I kneel and the implore her blessing’ (5.3.42–4). Perdita’s unusual request conjures up images of Catholic devotion, a religious practice that was forbidden in Elizabethan England. Her rejection of ‘superstition’ is evidence of the religious tensions pervading this scene. This act of religious worship is delayed as Paulina warns Perdita not to touch the statue since the colour on it is still fresh. Perdita is invited to show her respect for her mother once she has come back to life (‘kneel/And pray your mother’s blessing’ 5.3.118–19). Some critics have interpreted this reference as evidence of Shakespeare’s Catholic faith: see Vanita (2000) and Wilson (2004).

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L life see breath (A) If life can be regarded as a criterion to draw a distinction between animate beings and inanimate objects, it also enables the establishment of a difference between a living, breathing body and a dead corpse. In the Renaissance, medical knowledge hardly helped doctors and physicians to identify precisely signs of life and death. Warmth and breath were thought to be sufficient evidence even though errors of diagnosis were unavoidable. Although statues and paintings were categorized as inanimate objects, Freedberg (1989) has shown that the belief in live images was deeply rooted in Renaissance Europe, including Elizabethan England (pp. 283–316). The fashion of painting funerary monuments in Shakespeare’s time aimed to make stony images look lifelike and alive (see monument). Furthermore, the artistic illusions created by trompe-l’oeil or tricks of perspective in pictorial art could deceive the eye of the beholder and could encourage him to think that what he saw was real. In the Renaissance, visual artists of the period competed to create works that would surpass nature, endeavouring to rival God. The aesthetic theories of deus artifex (God the artisan) and deus pictor (God the painter) that prevailed in early modern Europe praised the creative powers of artists who could produce the illusion of life. (B) Lifelessness is sometimes ironically used in Shakespeare to ridicule some male characters. After beating Charles, the terrifying wrestler, Orlando sees himself as an inanimate block of stone when Rosalind offers him a chain to celebrate his victory: ‘My better parts/Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up/Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block’ (AYL 1.2.238–40). When Adonis refuses to yield to Venus, the goddess compares the frigid young man to a ‘lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,/Wellpainted idol, image dull and dead,/Statue contenting but the eye alone’ (VEN 211–13). This reversal of the Petrarchan figure of the donna de pietra (the stony lady, see hardhearted) anticipates the ekphrasis on the painting of the horse: Look when a painter would surpass the life In limning out a well-proportioned steed, His art with nature’s workmanship at strife, As if the dead the living should exceed. (VEN 289–92) Venus’ negative comment on pictorial and sculptural arts is echoed by the poet’s comments on the limits of painting which remains a ‘dead’, lifeless, production. Conversely, in LUC, when Lucrece ‘calls to mind’ the painting of Troy (1367), the 129

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tricks of perspective created by the ‘conceited painter’ (1371) are praised in the following paragraph: ‘A thousand lamentable objects there,/In scorn of nature, art gave lifeless life’ (1373–4). The skill of the painter lies in his ability to make the beholder believe in the illusion that the representations of an object or a person look more real than reality itself, such as the evocation of the smell of blood on the canvas (‘the red blood reeked, to show the painter’s strife’ 1377) or the vanishing gleam of the soldiers’ eyes (1378–9). The praise of the painter’s skill in representing life in LUC is reversed in the opening scene of TIM where the competition between the painter and the poet is dramatized. While the painter highlights his talent of imitation when he asserts that his picture ‘is a pretty mocking of the life’ (1.1.36), the poet embodies Sidney’s ideas that art ‘tutors’ nature and offers guidance for improvement: ‘I will say of it,/It tutors nature; artificial strife/Lives in these touches livelier than life’ (1.1.37–9). In CYM, Iachimo expresses his amazement at the artist’s skill in depicting, in the tapestry decorating Imogen’s room, the encounter between Antony and Cleopatra on the river Cydnus: ‘a piece of work/So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive/In workmanship and value; which I wonder’d/Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,/Since the true life on’t was – ’ (2.4.72–6). All these depictions of artistic representations of ‘true life’ are bodied forth on stage in the final scene of the WT when the statue of Hermione is endowed with a new life. Before unveiling the picture, Paulina reminds her guests that the lifelike quality of the image is mere imitation: ‘Prepare/To see the life as lively mocked as ever/ Still sleep mocked death’ (5.3.18–20). The oxymoronic conflation of life and death is vividly perceived by Leontes who seems to understand that the statue is suspended between the inanimate and the animate: ‘O, thus she stood,/Even with such life of majesty – warm life,/As now it coldly stands’ (5.3.34–6). Polixenes praises Giulio Romano’s talents for ‘aping’ life: ‘Masterly done./The very life seems warm upon her lip’ (5.3.65–6). The animation of the statue (‘be stone no more’ 5.3.99) reverses the petrifaction of Hermione when breath and warmth had vanished from her body in Act 3 scene 2. The restoration of breath and warmth signifies the (false) resurrection of Hermione: ‘Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him/Dear life redeems you’ (102–3). (C) Gent (1981) explores the relationship between life and artistic creation. Talvacchia (1992) contends that ‘the reason to insert Giulio Romano into The Winter’s Tale was to present him as the epitome of the artist who could deceive the beholder’s eye into mistaking plaster and pigment creations for nature’s moving and living beings’ (p. 165). See also Barkan (1981 and 1995) and Tassi (2005). lifeless see life light see dark, eye, white (A) If the term light is today defined by scientific theories showing that this natural agent makes human vision possible, in the Renaissance the visual nature of light, though taken seriously at the time, does not come first. When introducing his chapters on light, Lomazzo (1585) (translated into English by Haydocke 130

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in 1598) primarily insists upon the vital role of light in pictorial art, the issue of his book: ‘Light hath so great force in pictures, that (in my judgment) therein consisteth the whole grace thereof, if it be wel understood; and contrariwise, the disgrace if it be not perceived’ (p. 135). He then proceeds with a general definition of light, classifying its meanings in a decreasing order inspired from Neoplatonism, starting from the spiritual level and ending with the earthly one: This word light is diversly taken: first and principally it signifieth, the image of that divine nature which is the sonne of God, and the brightness therof; which the Platonickes called the image of the divine minde. Secondly the comfortable operation of the holy ghost. Thirdly that divine vertue, which being diffused through all the creatures, is in men their divine grace . . . Fourthly that intelligence in the Angels . . . Fifthly in the heavenly bodies it causeth abundance of Life . . . Sixtly it is taken in men, for the light of their agent understanding . . . Last of all it signifieth a quality proceeding from the Sunne or the fire, which so discovereth colours, that they may be seene. And this (as the Peripateticks say) is the cause or formal reason, wherby coloured things are seene: whose shapes & images passe to the phantasie & especially inlighten the eies, in which the image is formed, which first passeth to the common sense, afterward to the phantasie, and last of all to the understanding. This light is dispersed and extended unto all bodies that are openlie proposed unto it; in which colour and a beawtiful resplendencie of thicke and dark bodies is discovered, (as Platonickes speake) caused by this light, together with a certain beneficient and generative vertue. (p. 139) It is no wonder that the religious aspect is put first since, according to the Bible, the origin of the world stems from the coming of light in the primitive darkness as emphasized in the Old Testament: ‘the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep . . . And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from darkness’ (Genesis 1.2–4). In the earthly world of vision, light is regarded as necessary to perceive colours, a theory mainly inspired by Aristotle (see colour) while sight is possible thanks to the light emitted by objects (for the theories on sight, see eye). Lomazzo’s final comment on light is indicative of the influence of Neoplatonism in the Renaissance, a philosophical trend that strengthened the dichotomy between obscurity and brightness (see fair, light). Despite all the positive values of light, some episodes of the Bible draw our attention to the potentially deceitful nature of light and whiteness as exemplified by the reference to the white devil and Satan’s transformation into ‘an angel of light’ (2 Corinthians 11:14). In pictorial art, the representation of eyes was regarded as central and vital for a portrait. In his treatise, Hilliard (1600) reminds painters that the depiction of the eyes endows the picture with life: ‘So chiefly the drawer should observe the eyes in his pictures, making them so like one to another as nature doth, giving life to his work, for 131

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the eye is the life of the picture’, adding that a ‘white speck’ is necessary to capture ‘the reflection of light’ and make the eyes look alive (p. 59). According to him, the perfect miniature combined lustre, colour, light and shadow (p. 70). (B) Regarding human vision, Shakespeare sometimes alludes to the light animating the eyes. When Iachimo enters Imogen’s bedroom while she is fast asleep, he imagines the taper attempting to see the light in her eyes (‘To see th’enclosed lights, now canopied/ Under these windows, white and azure laced/With blue of heaven’s own tinct’ (CYM 2.2.21–3). In the ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy, the waning lights in the eyes of the painted figures symbolize the fall of Troy: ‘The red blood reeked, to show the painter’s strife,/And dying eyes gleamed forth their ashy lights,/Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights’ (LUC 1377–9). In TGV, Speed strives to convince his master Valentine that his unrequited love for the fair Silvia has ‘deformed’ (2.1.59) his vision and that he is in the dark: ‘Because Love is blind. O, that you had mine eyes, or your eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going ungartered’ (2.1.66–8). After seeing Silvia, Proteus, Valentine’s friend, also suffers from the same disease since not only has his vision been distorted, but his understanding, or his intellectual light, is shut up in the dark: ‘ ’Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,/ And that hath dazzled my reason’s light’ (2.4.206–7). In VEN, the goddess of love’s eyes which are compared to two lamps, emit light: ‘But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light,/Shone like the moon in water seen by night’ (491–2). Light can sometimes deceive and mislead human vision, projecting a false image of reality. In the opening scene of PER, the eponymous character is asked to decipher a riddle so as to marry Antochius’ daughter. After understanding the horrifying truth, Pericles compares the woman he loves to a beautiful jewel box containing an immoral secret: ‘Fair glass of light, I loved you, and could still,/Were not this glorious casket stored with ill’ (1.1.77– 8). In ERR, the courtesan who comes to woo Antipholus of Syracuse seems to him to represent Satan and the figure of the angel of light: ‘Nay, she is worse, she is the devil’s dam; and here she comes in the habit of a light wench, and thereof comes that the wenches say “God damn me”, that’s as much to say “God make me a light wench”. It is written, they appear to men like angels of light; light is an effect of fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light wenches will burn; come not near her’ (4.3.50–6). Conversely, the light of the sun symbolizes royalty as in H8 where the French King Francis I and King Henry VIII are compared to ‘two suns of glory, those two lights of men’ (1.1.6), a solar image anticipating Norfolk’s ekphrastic description of the lavish and glittering meeting of these two kings at the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1.1.13–38). Following the religious origin of light and the revival of Neoplatonism in the Renaissance, light is more often than not contrasted with darkness in Shakespeare. After lighting a candle, Tarquin meditates upon the fire of his burning desire for Lucrece: ‘Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not/To darken her whose light excelleth thine’ (LUC 190–1). Lucrece’s radiant beauty, painted in white and red in the opening stanzas is superior to the light of the candle, endowing her fair luminosity with a spiritual dimension. Hence, when he enters Lucrece’s bedroom, Tarquin is blinded by the light 132

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coming out of the room (‘Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun/To wink, being blinded with a greater light:/Whether it is that she reflects so bright/That dazzleth them’ 374–7). The desecration of Lucrece’s body takes place at night as Tarquin refuses to see her radiant whiteness and blows out the candle to hide his desire: ‘he sets his foot upon the light,/For light and lust are deadly enemies’ (673–4). After committing the horrifying deed, the values of light and darkness are inverted as Tarquin searches for the light of the day to leave Lucrece’s chamber while she wishes to hide away in the dark: ‘He in his speed looks for the morning light;/She prays she never may behold the day’ (745–6). Lucrece’s radiant beauty wanes into darkness as the light of day exposes her soiled chastity: ‘Make me not object to the tell-tale Day!/The light will show, charactered in my brow,/The story of sweet chastity’s decay’ (806–8). The pervading presence of the oxymoronic association between darkness and light throughout a play such as ROM which constantly conflates life and death, tragedy and comedy, comes as no surprise. In the opening scene, Montague complains that his son Romeo, who suffers from black melancholy has shut himself up in a dark room away from daylight (‘The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,/Away from light steals home my heavy son’ 1.1.134–5), hence living in ‘an artificial night’ (1.1.138). Darkness is more appealing to his deadly enemy Capulet who organizes ‘an old accustomed feast’ (1.2.19) at night that will reveal his daughter’s luminous beauty: ‘At my poor house look to behold this night/Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light’ (1.2.23–4). The lights emerging from darkness are visually represented on stage by Romeo and his friends who take part in Capulet’s feast as masquers bearing torches, a stage property traditionally signifying a night scene on the Elizabethan stage while obviously evoking light at the same time. Because of his melancholic mood, Romeo asks his friends if he can bear the torch as he refuses to dance: ‘Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling,/But being heavy I will bear the light’ (1.4.11–12). Despite his friends’ sexual jokes, Romeo refuses to take part in the feast, preferring to bear the torch (‘A torch for me. Let wantons light of heart/Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels’ 1.4.35–6). This theatrical gesture which turns Romeo into a being of light, enables him to relinquish his dark mood and open his eyes to Juliet’s luminous beauty: ‘O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright’ (1.5.43). In the first balcony scene taking place at night, Romeo is attracted by the light coming out of her window: ‘But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?/It is the east, and Juliet is the sun’ (2.2.2–3). The metaphor of the sun is reminiscent of Petrarchan poetry where Laura is also compared to the sun. After confessing her love for Romeo, Juliet hopes that the young man will not interpret her beauty as a sign of wantonness: ‘Therefore pardon me,/And not impute this yielding to light love,/Which the dark night hath so discovered’ (2.2.104–6). After Romeo has spent the night with Juliet, the two lovers appear on the balcony, looking at the sunrise which announces Romeo’s departure after his banishment (‘It is some meteor that the sun exhales/To be to thee this night a torchbearer/And light thee on thy way to Mantua’ 3.5.13–15). Light is turned into the enemy of the lovers: ‘More light and light, more dark and dark our woes’ (3.5.36). This reversal of light as a positive 133

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symbol reaches its highest point in the final scene when torches bring light onto the death of the lovers. The scene of the cemetery takes place at night as is indicated by the different torches borne by Paris and Romeo. Romeo enters the stage, holding a torch (‘Give me the light’ 5.3.25) so as to ‘behold’ his ‘lady’s face’ and join her in the tomb (5.3.29–32). After fighting with Paris and killing him, Romeo catches a glimpse of the light coming out the tomb: ‘O, no, a lantern, slaughtered youth,/For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes/This vault a feasting presence full of light’ (5.3.84–6). Even in death, Juliet’s solar beauty radiates through the dark. Once Romeo has drunk the poison, Friar Laurence enters the stage, holding a torch, but also a spade, one of the traditional attributes of Death visible in Renaissance illustrations. This figure of death discovers the horrifying conclusion of his plot to save the lovers when he sees light coming out of the tomb: ‘What torch is yond that vainly lends his light/To grubs and eyeless skulls?’ (5.3.125–6). The contrast between light and darkness also pervades OTH, a tragedy revolving around the complex symbolism of white and black. Right from the opening scene, the chromatic combat of these two opposite colours is verbalized during a night scene when Iago informs Brabantio that the Moor of Venice has married his daughter (‘an old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe’ 1.1.87–8). This revelation is followed by the appearance of torches on stage, first when Brabantio decides to come down from the upper stage (‘Give me a taper . . . Light, I say, light’ 1.1.139/142) and when Othello enters the stage in the following scene, emerging from darkness with a torch in his hand. The confrontation between Brabantio and Othello is theatrically visualized with lit torches, suggesting Brabantio’s prejudice against the Moor’s complexion (‘a maid so tender, fair and happy, . . . /Would ever have . . . /Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom/Of such a thing as thou?’ 1.2.66/69–71). This initial contrast that permeates the whole play is visually conjured up a second time in the final scene when Othello enters Desdemona’s chamber holding a torch: Yet I’ll not shed her blood Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow And smooth as monumental alabaster: Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men. Put out the light, and then put out the light! If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore Should I repent me. But once put out thy light, Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume. (OTH 5.2.3–13) The duality between black and white resurfaces in this final moment through the actors’ complexions visible on stage as well as Othello’s metaphors to heighten Desdemona’s 134

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whiteness, like the Petrarchan conceit of the white snow and the comparison to a white funerary effigy. Iago’s initial bawdy description of Othello’s and Desdemona’s union (1.1.87–8) is reversed when the bed, a symbol of erotic union, is turned into a tomb. This death sentence is finalized with the disappearance of the light of life that animates Desdemona and is to be visualized when the candle is blown out on stage (‘Put out the light, and then put out the light!’ 5.2.7). Such a fatal gesture terrifies Othello since he is well aware that he is not Prometheus and cannot bring his wife back to life. The myth of Prometheus is both related to the light of life and to sculpture. Greek mythology offers different versions of this myth as Prometheus is represented as stealing fire from the gods to bring light to mankind, or bringing the light of life to the statues he has carved out of clay, hence becoming the creator of mankind and of sculpture. See also MAC (1.4.51–2). LLL conflates the diverse aspects of light, challenging Neoplatonism with its opposition between the world of ideas and the world of shadows, while debunking Petrarchan poetical codifications of an ideal and luminous Laura who remains out of reach. In the opening scene, Berowne indulges in a rhetorical exercise built upon different aspects of light: As painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth, while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look. Light seeking light doth light of light beguile; So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. (LLL 1.1.74–9) Berowne rejects the Ciceronian image of the ‘light of truth’ emerging from the reading of books, contending that improving human understanding thanks to reason’s light can cause blindness. The second part of the quotation revolves around the conventional opposition between light and darkness explored by Christianity and classical philosophers such as Plato and revived by Humanists in the Renaissance. Through rhetorical figures (such as the anadiplosis in lines 78–9 where light and dark are repeated in a parallel symmetry), Berowne shows the absurdity of such contrasts as confusing for human understanding. This first challenge to the idealistic nature of light not only adumbrates his celebration of darkness and black beauty in 4.3, but sets the ironical tone of the following scenes. When applied adjectivally to women, the term light takes on less spiritual meanings since it can signify lightness of heart or wantonness. After discussing the colours of love (see colour), Armado is convinced that he is in love with Jaquenetta: ‘My spirit grows heavy in love’ (1.2.116). Moth comically puns on heavy by suggesting that while such a woman may not be heavy, she is definitely not chaste: ‘And that’s great marvel, loving a light wench’ (1.2.117–18). This play on words anticipates Longaville’s and Boyet’s lewd comments on the white beauty of some of the Princess’s attending ladies: 135

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Longaville: I beseech you a word. What is she in the white? Boyet: A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light. Longaville: Perchance light in the light. I desire her name. (LLL 2.1.196–8) The pun on lightness and wantonness endows white beauty with sexual innuendos as in Berowne’s portrait of Rosaline as ‘a whitely wanton with a velvet brow/With two pitchballs stuck in her face for eyes’ (3.1.191–2). Mesmerized as he is by Rosaline’s dark eyes (‘I am toiling in a pitch, pitch that defiles’ 4.3.2–3), Berowne tries to turn away from his desire so as to be guided by his reason’s light: ‘O, but her eye! By this light, but for her eye, I would not love her – yes, for her two eyes’ (4.3.8–10). Berowne’s hesitation between not loving and the singular form of eye, an image for the vagina, hints at his growing lust for the dark beauty of the play even though he tries to convince himself that he only looks at Rosaline’s face (‘yes for her two eyes’). In his defence of the beauty of black (‘No face is fair that is not full so black’ 4.3.249), Berowne berates the deceitful white beauties by conjuring up the biblical figure of the white devil: ‘Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light’ (4.3.253). This remark echoes the puritanical anti-cosmetic speeches which condemned women’s use of ceruse or mercury to obtain fair and glowing complexions, hence concealing their real complexion and their soul (see paint, white). However, the other Lords tear to pieces Berowne’s reversal of colour codification by debunking his equation of darkness and light: ‘Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light’ (4.3.265). In the final act, Katherine, the stereotypical fair beauty, suggests to Rosaline that her unconventional beauty cannot be pure. After telling the story of a lady who died of melancholy, Katherine gives a rather surprising moral reading of this event when she explains that ‘had she been light, like you’ (5.2.15), she would have lived a long life ‘for a light heart lives long’ (5.2.18). This reading of the wantonness of light ladies triggers off a dialogue built upon another contrast between dark and light: Rosaline: Katherine: Rosaline: Katherine:

What’s your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word? A light condition in a beauty dark. We need more light to find your meaning out. You’ll mar the light by taking it in snuff; Therefore I’ll darkly end the argument. Rosaline: Look what you do, you do it still i’th’dark. Katherine: So do not you, for you are a light wench. (LLL 5.2.19–25)

This witty exchange between a dark and a fair beauty, the distinction between whom is probably visible on stage, relies on the prejudice against black beauties who were perceived as lascivious in the Renaissance (see black), while encapsulating the varied attempts at challenging conventional speeches shaped by religion, philosophy, eloquence and poetry interspersed throughout this comedy.

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(C) Maguin (1980) explores all the aspects of night in Shakespeare. Brown (1984) studies the effects of light on the Elizabethan stage, including Shakespeare. Parker (1968) considers the imagery of light in ROM. Laroque (1992) has investigated the oxymoronic association of light and darkness in ROM. Edgecombe (2008) offers interesting interpretations of the different lights referred to by Othello in the final scene of OTH. Caporicci (2014) gives an insight into the opposition between darkness and brightness in Shakespeare, focusing on the impact of Neoplatonism in European Renaissance. Her recent article (2015) devoted to this thematic line in LLL is invaluable reading. See also Sabatier (2015). likeness This word is used once in an artistic context when Paulina underlines the resemblance between the statue of Hermione and the supposedly dead Queen of Sicilia before unveiling her work of art: ‘As she lived peerless,/So her dead likeness I do well believe/Excels whatever yet you looked upon’ (WT 5.3.14–16). This seemingly paradoxical description recalls Elizabethan funerary effigies which were painted so as to make them look alive. It also hints at the illusion created by drama which aims at making spectators believe that the breathing boy actor standing still on stage actually embodies a statue. lily see rose, white (A) The name of this flower includes today a great variety of plants and flowers as it has been extended to water lily, lily of the valley and so forth. In Shakespeare’s text, this flower is often conjured up for its whiteness and paleness and as an emblem of chastity. In ancient Greece, it was associated with the goddess Hera as evidence of purity and innocence while in Christianity it was related to the Virgin Mary. It has also been combined with feminine beauty, probably going back to the Song of Solomon where the conflation of the lily with the rose is presented as the main feature of beauty: ‘I am the Rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley’ (2.1). This metaphor for female whiteness explored by Petrarch became a stock literary figure in Elizabethan love poetry. In the anonymous collection of poems, The Phoenix Nest (1593) contemporary with Shakespeare’s narrative poems, the lily, often associated with the red rose to conventionally portray female beauty, is celebrated for its radiant beauty. ‘The lilie in the fielde,/That glories in his white’ is superior to ‘Fair Cinthia’s silver light’. (B) In the narrative poems, this flower is used to depict a white skin, mostly the hand, and signifies chastity. In VEN, the goddess’s white hand is analogous to lilies, hence evoking a traditional metaphor for feminine beauty: ‘And when from thence he struggles to be gone,/She locks her lily fingers one in one’ (227–8). However, when she takes Adonis’ hand in her attempt to seduce him, this image is inverted as the young man is ironically compared to ‘a lily prisoned in a gaol of snow’ (362). The final reference is when Venus discovers Adonis’ wounded body where his purity is mingled with red blood (‘whose wonted lily white/With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drenched’ 1053–4), a fatal combination foreshadowing the ‘purple flower . . . chequered with white’ (1168) that springs from his blood in the final stanzas. In LUC, the lily is 137

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constantly associated with the rose to highlight the chromatic contrast between white and red, two pivotal colours to praise feminine beauty. Hence, the blazon of Lucrece’s beauty depicted by ‘beauty’s red and virtue’s white’ (65) is signalled by the metaphoric ‘silent war of the lilies and of roses’ (71) to describe her pure white complexion and her red lips and cheeks. This ‘silent war’ is still visible in the second blazon of Lucrece’s beauty when Tarquin discovers that ‘her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,/Coz’ning the pillow of a lawful kiss’ (386–7). This emblem of chastity (‘o’er the white sheet peers her whiter chin’ 472) takes on a different meaning when she wakes up and sees Tarquin. The future rapist interprets the colours in a face as a sign of anger and shame: ‘The colour in thy face,/That even for anger makes the lily pale/And the red rose blush at her own disgrace’ (477–9). Similarly, in the Sonnets, the lily can represent virtue (SON 94. 4) or the beauty of white skin (SON 98.9). In LLL, the Princess asserts her chastity by alluding to the lily (‘Now, by my maiden honour, yet as pure/As the unsullied lily’ 5.2.351–2) while Flute’s hilarious pastiche of love poetry awkwardly draws on the too-well-known metaphors to depict Pyramus’ beauty (‘Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,/Of colour like the red rose on triumphant briar’ MND 3.1.87–8). CYM calls to mind the second blazon of Lucrece’s beauty in LUC (472) when Iachimo enters Imogen’s room and perceives her as an emblem of chastity ‘Cytherea,/How bravely thou becom’st thy bed! fresh lily!/And whiter than the sheets’ (2.2.14–16). In H8, the lily appears only once in a negative context when Katherine compares herself to a lily during her trial: ‘like the lily,/That once was the mistress of the field and flourished,/I’ll hang my head and perish’ (3.1.151– 3). Nevertheless, it is turned into the emblem of the future Queen Elizabeth’s chastity in Cranmer’s prophecy during her baptism: ‘yet a virgin,/A most unspotted lily, shall she pass to th’ ground’ (5.4.60–1). (C) In their dictionary devoted to plants in Shakespeare, Thomas and Faircloth (2014) have devoted an entire entry to the lily. Tigner (2012) has a book on the representation of gardens in early modern literature, including Shakespeare. KarimCooper (2006) mentions that in Peacham’s collection of emblems, Minerva Britannia (1612), female beauty is symbolized by a lily (p. 29). limn (A) In Medieval England, the verb ‘to limn’ primarily belonged to the realm of illuminated manuscripts as it originally alluded to the act of ornamenting a text or a picture with gold or bright colours. In Elizabethan English, it was extended to painting to include portraiture as is testified by the title chosen by the painter Nicholas Hilliard, The Arte of Limning (1606), for his treatise on the varied techniques of painting miniature portraits. (B) Shakespeare uses this term to praise the painter’s skill in VEN: ‘Look when a painter would surpass the life,/In limning out a well-proportioned steed’ (289–90). In AYL, the Duke uses a pictorial metaphor to underline the physical and visual resemblance between Orlando and his father: ‘as mine eye doth his effigies witness,/Most truly limned and living in your face’ (2.7.197–8). The most poetical use of this term in 138

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Shakespeare occurs in Antony’s description of his dying body. While he details the changing aspects of clouds in the sky, he compares his body to a cloud that is slowing vanishing: ‘That which is now a horse, even with a thought/The rack dislimns and makes it indistinct/As water is in water’ (ANT 4.14.9–11). This pictorial term, astonishingly used as an antonym, primarily heightens the ekphrastic description of the clouds (see blue) while playing on the near homophony with the verb ‘to dislimb’ which brings to the fore the slow disintegration of Antony’s body. lively see breath, life (A) This adjective alluding to an animated being could be used in Shakespeare’s time to depict the lifelike quality of a work of art that imitated nature in such a way that the beholder could be tricked into thinking that it was ready to move or speak. (B) In the opening scene of TIM, the painter and the poet compete as to which of them is more able to create a piece of art. While the painter underlines that his picture is an imitation of life (‘It is a pretty mocking of the life’), the poet expresses the prevailing idea that art improves nature and can even look more real than life itself: ‘I will say of it,/It tutors nature; artificial strife/Lives in these touches livelier than life’ (1.1.37–9). In the final act, the quality of liveliness is cynically reversed by Timon who reminds the painter that artistic illusion is nothing more than forgery: ‘Thou draw’st a counterfeit/Best in all Athens; thou’rt indeed the best,/Thou counterfeit’st most lively’ (5.1.78–80) In SHR, the servant promises Christopher Sly that he will bring him ‘wanton pictures’ where the tale of Io and Jove is ‘as lively painted as the deed was done’ (Ind 2.52). However, the painting is never brought on stage and is only described to stimulate Sly’s and the spectators’ imagination. The adjective ‘lively’ is imbued with ironical tones in the context of drama and of the play within the play performed by the Lord since dramatic art is lively thanks to the breathing actors moving about the stage unlike lifeless pictures. Nevertheless, for an Elizabethan audience, drama and pictorial art were intertwined and linguistically perceived as illusions since the term ‘shadow’ could mean evanescent images, portraits, ghosts and actors (see shadow). Hence, Shakespeare praises illusion within the illusion created by the Lord to deceive Sly while the induction is overtly presented as evanescent within a play dramatizing dreams and tricks of perspective. (C) Hazard (1974) explores the notion of liveliness in the Renaissance. look see behold, gaze, eye, see, sight (A) This verb of visual perception can signify a person’s capacity to see or to examine or contemplate an object. As is the case with other verbs related to sight (see behold, see), the imperative form of ‘look’ partakes of the rhetorical figure of captatio benevolentiae (‘winning of goodwill’) which was considered by Cicero as one of the major conceits in the art of rhetoric. This figure is intended to attract the public’s attention at the beginning of a speech. (B) VEN is replete with imperative forms of the verb to look so as to draw the reader’s attention to different visual conceits. This type of captatio benevolentiae is used in the 139

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opening stanzas to introduce the metaphor of the trapped bird, a pivotal image for Adonis’ entanglement: ‘Look how a bird lies tangled in a net’ (67). A few lines later, the narrator uses this device to focus again on the opposition between the main characters: ‘Look how he can, she cannot choose but love’ (79). This rhetorical conceit presents the reader with the ekphrasis of the painted horse: ‘Look when a painter would surpass the life/In limning out a well-proportioned steed’ (289–90). After detailing all the different parts of the horse in the following stanza in the manner of a blazon, the narrator ends this stanza on another summons to the reader to ‘look what a horse should have he did not lack’ (299). These few examples testify to the conflation of rhetoric and pictorial art, evoking the traditional comparison of poetical writing to painting encapsulated by Sidney’s well-known image of poetry as a ‘speaking picture’ (1579, p. 25). Although Shakespeare’s second narrative poem is also structured around captatio benevolentiae (refer to see), the varied uses of the verb ‘to look’ throw light upon a different dramatization of visuality. After Tarquin has drawn the curtain leading to Lucrece’s chamber (367–71), the narrator’s use of captatio benevolentiae seems to temporarily divert the reader’s attention away from the scene to draw the gaze to a poetical motto, hence briefly suspending the progress of the narrative: ‘Look as the fair and fierypointed sun/Rushing from forth a cloud bereaves our sight’ (LUC 372–3). The summons to look sounds especially ironical as the narrator describes the emblem of blindness exemplified by the next lines depicting Tarquin as momentarily blinded by the light coming from Lucrece’s room. Beyond the rhetoric, the narrator invites the reader to ponder on the unsettling of senses and reason induced by lust. This distortion of sight resurfaces when Lucrece scrutinizes the figure of Sinon on the painting of Troy as she grows aware that visual perception (to look at) can be misled by a person’s outward appearance (to look). The painter has portrayed Sinon with ‘calm looks’ (1508), but Lucrece discovers the duplicity of this character and can hardly understand how someone’s eyes and outward appearance can fail to reveal their true nature : ‘ “It cannot be”, quoth she, “that so much guile” – / She would have said can lurk in such a look’ (1534–5). No sooner has she prepared to make this rather naive statement than she remembers Tarquin’s deceitful nature and rephrases her remark (1538–40). Then, Lucrece switches to the imperative form of the verb ‘to look’ not to attract the reader’s attention, but to warn Priam of his blindness: ‘ ’Look, look, how list’ning PRIAM wets his eyes/To see those borrowed tears that SINON sheds!/PRIAM, why art thou old and yet not wise?’ (1548–50). At the beginning of the statue scene in WT, Leontes uses the verb ‘to look’ in a neutral way so as to describe the purpose of his visit to Paulina’s gallery: ‘but we saw not/That which my daughter came to look upon,/The statue of her mother’ (5.3.12–14). When Paulina warns her guests that she can endow the statue of Hermione with life, she orders them to ‘behold’ (‘If you can behold it,/I’ll make the statue move indeed’ 5.3.87–8), a verb implying an active participation. Leontes’ answer suggests that he expects to be a more passive spectator of this performance as he intends to look, but also to listen: ‘What you can make her do/I am content to look on; what to speak/I am 140

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content to hear’ (5.3.91–3). This remark points to the two vital senses that are appealed to when attending a theatrical performance. In TGV, Proteus also draws a slight distinction between beholding and looking when he describes his encounter with Silvia: ‘ ’Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,/And that hath dazzled my reason’s light/But when I look on her perfections,/There is no reason but I shall be blind’ (2.4.206–9). While behold suggests contemplation, the verb ‘to look’ implies here a reasoned examination of Silvia. In TN, when Olivia lifts her veil to reveal her face, she uses the device of captatio benevolentiae, thus enhancing the dramatization of her theatrical gesture: ‘You are now out of your text. But we will draw the curtain and show you the picture. [Unveils] Look you, sir, such a one I was this present’ (1.5.225–7). Similarly, when Bassanio describes Portia’s portrait in detail, he draws the spectators’ attention both to the object and the model standing on stage, namely the boy actor impersonating Portia: ‘Yet look how far/The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow/In underprizing it’ (MV 3.2.126–8). (C) Burrow (2002) suggests that VEN employs a ‘trick of stage-setting to create a pictorial mode of writing, in which similes become part of the visually imagined scene’. According to him, the poem’s ‘repeated use of imperative forms of “look” urges a reader to see the poem as a piece of pictorialism’ (p. 24). Meek (2009) offers useful analyses of visual perception in Shakespeare’s narrative poems. Sillars (2015) interprets the insistence upon looking in VEN as follows: ‘The repeated injunctions to the reader to “Look” and “See” place the act of reading the text in direct equivalence to that of reading a painting or engraving, to be forcefully developed in Lucrece. The effect is also to make the whole sequence perceived in an unfolding continuous present, offering the reader a verbal analogy to the process of experiencing a visual image as it develops a narrative’ (p. 71). lustre (A) As it generally describes the luminous or brilliant quality of an object such as precious stones, lustre was seen as an important feature of miniature painting by the Elizabethan painter Nicholas Hilliard. In his treatise (1601), he reminds the reader that ‘limning’ is superior to ‘painting’ since the limner strives to reproduce the radiance of precious items: ‘[Limning] excelleth all other Painting what soever, in sondry points, in giving the true lustre to pearle and precious stone’ (p. 42). According to him, the perfect miniature combined lustre, colour, light and shadow (p. 70). (B) In the glittering ekphrastic scene narrating the meeting of King Henry VIII and the French King Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the two kings, dressed in rich gowns, are depicted as ‘equal in lustre’ (1.1.29). When relating the king’s decision to get a divorce, Norfolk compares Katherine to a jewel whose beauty is still radiant despite Henry’s lack of interest in this gem: ‘[The cardinal] counsels a divorce, a loss of her/ That like a jewel has hung twenty years/About his neck, yet never lost her lustre’ (2.2.29–31). Lustre is often associated with the radiance of the eye. When Cassius describes Caesar’s weakness when he was ill in Spain, he underlines that ‘that same eye, 141

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whose bend doth awe the world,/Did lose his lustre’ (JC 1.2.123–4). Similarly, when Paulina comes back on stage after Hermione swoons and is carried off stage, the disappearance of the radiance in the Queen’s eyes is presented as evidence of her death: ‘if you can bring/Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye’ (WT 3.2.201–2). See also TRO (4.4.117) and H5 (3.1.30).

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M mar This verb, which can refer to an act of destruction or damage, is used once by Shakespeare in the context of visual arts. In WT, Paulina forbids Leontes to touch the statue of Hermione since the painting covering it is still fresh: ‘The ruddiness upon her lip is wet./You’ll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own/With oily painting’ (5.3.81–3). This warning is reminiscent of the Puritans’ diatribe against idolatry in relation to statues and painting, and Leontes’ gesture is also evocative of the myth of Pygmalion, another emblem of idolatry in works of art. However, Paulina’s warning can also be interpreted as an attempt to save her spectacle and sustain the belief that the boy actor impersonating Hermione – whose cosmetics are also oily and can stain – is a real statue. marble see alabaster, monument, statue, stone (A) This highly refined type of stone well-known for its solidity, is traditionally used in sculpture and architecture. Its variety of colours offers the possibility of playing on chromatic contrasts. Marble became fashionable in England halfway through the sixteenth century, overshadowing the traditional local materials such as stone or the fragile alabaster. Marble was mostly imported from Italy and shipped to London harbours, thus favouring London sculptors. The association of white and black marble to set off contrasts became fashionable in Shakespeare’s time, as evidenced by the funerary monument to Queen Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey where the funerary effigy is made of white marble, surrounded by columns of black marble. The black-and-white dualism is even more spectacular in double-decked monuments where white effigies lie on black biers. While Sir Francis Vere’s tomb in Westminster Abbey (1609) is structured around four statues of warriors made of alabaster carrying slabs of black marble, the funerary monument to the first Earl of Salisbury (1612) in Hatfield House (see Figure 3) plays on the chromatic duality of white-and-black marble. Marble was also used in garden statuary as in the ‘Temple or Bower of Diana’ in Nonsuch Palace where a statue of Diana ornamenting a fountain was framed by pillars made of black marble (see Strong, 1979). In Renaissance England, carvers were organized in guilds according to the materials they used. However, by 1584, only twelve sculptors using marble (‘marblers’) were still members of ‘The Marbler’s Company’ (which fused with the powerful guild of architects ‘The Mason’s Company’ in 1596). Hence, the title of ‘Master Mason’ could be given to masons who were former marblers such as Cornelius Cure. According to Mercer (1962), marblers were a dying breed by the late 1590s: ‘By 1591, the Southwark marblers had 143

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Figure 3 Tomb of the first Earl of Salisbury, 1612, by Maximilian Colt, Hatfield House

completely succumbed to or closed with the native demand for massive architectural tombs with family figures upon them’ (p. 232). (B) In Shakespeare’s text, marble is often evocative of funerary monuments, the best-known example being Cleopatra’s staging of her suicide in ANT. After Antony’s death, Cleopatra dramatizes her final moment and carefully plans the details of her own death. Before the clown’s arrival with the fatal snakes, she uses the metaphor of the marble to express her unflinching determination to meet Antony again in the afterlife: ‘My resolution’s placed, and I have nothing/Of woman in me. Now from head to foot/I am marble-constant’ (5.2.237–9). This image calls to the spectators’ minds funerary effigies they were used to seeing when attending church. Cleopatra’s metamorphosis into a stone effigy is complete when Iras gives her her robe and her crown (5.2.277), the social attributes represented on Elizabethan tombs (see monument). Likewise, Hamlet mentions the marble monument of his dead father when he sees his ghost: ‘Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell . . . why the sepulchre/Wherein we saw thee quietly interred/ Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws/To cast thee up again’ (HAM 1.4.46/48–51). After his disgrace, Cardinal Wolsey understands that after his death his name will be doomed: ‘And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,/And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention/Of me more must be heard of’ (H8 3.2.432–4). Sonnet 55 is a literary 144

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variation of the ut pictura poesis conceit where the poet and the painter are presented as rivals (see painter). Right from the opening lines, the poet asserts the superiority of the pen over the sculptor’s chisel: ‘Not marble, nor the gilded monuments/Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme/But you shall shine more bright in these contents/ Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time’ (1–4). This paragone between the sculptor and the poet echoes the epitaph that Shakespeare probably wrote for the monument to Sir Thomas Stanley in Tong Church, in Shropshire (c. 1603): ‘Not monumental stone preserve our fame/Nor sky aspiring pyramids our name/The memory of him for whom this stands/Shall outlive marble’ (Esdaile, 1946, p. 60). The poet challenges the capacity of marble to preserve the memory of the dead since it is regarded as an evanescent material that can be worn out by the passage of time unlike the lines written by the poet. The latter affirms the power of poetic writing which is praised as being superior to the art of carving funerary effigies as the young man is assured that his name will be remembered (‘You live in this’, SON 55.14). This sonnet is also evocative of the opening lines to LLL (‘Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,/Live registered upon our brazen tombs’ 1.1.1–2). Marble can also depict a hard-hearted person as in MAC where the metaphor of the marble is used to describe Macbeth’s inner petrifaction as he attempts to become tougher after the murder: ‘I had else been perfect;/Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,/As broad and general as the casing air’ (MAC 3.4.19–21). Likewise, in WT, the reunion of Leontes and his new-found daughter Perdita, narrated by the steward is supposed to move even the coldest witness of such a scene: ‘Who was most marble there changed colour’ (5.2.87–8). The image of marble anticipates the statue scene in 5.3. See also 3H6 (3.1.38). Marble can sometimes signify heaven; see CYM (5.3.181) and OTH (3.3.463). (C) Bowers (1983) suggests that as Cleopatra utters the lines on marble constancy, the actor probably stands still, thus re-enacting on stage the recently carved marble monuments of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, commissioned by King James I and displayed in Westminster Abbey in 1606, the date when ANT was probably written. He also contends that Cleopatra’s dramatization of her death is evocative of double-decked monuments (see monument). Di Miceli (1991) and Neill (1997) also provide detailed analyses of Cleopatra’s finis coronat opus. Honigmann (1995) suggests that Othello uses the metaphor of marble to describe heaven to hint that it is ‘indifferent to the sufferings of others’ (p. 239). Esdaile (1938) is the first to have drawn attention to Shakespeare’s authorship of the verses on Sir Thomas Stanley’s epitaph. Booth (1977) asserts that SON 55 was probably inspired by the classical poets Ovid (Metamorphoses, Bk 15) and Horace (Odes III, 30 ‘exegi monumentum aere perenius’) who praise poetry for its power to confer eternity (pp. 71–2). masonry Although this term is usually applied to architecture, the clear distinction we draw today between this art and sculpture did not exist in early modern England. Not only did masons and carvers work hand in hand for the construction of funerary 145

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monuments, but the dwindling Marbler’s Company merged with the powerful Mason’s Company in 1596. Hence, it is not surprising that in Sonnet 55, devoted to the rivalry between the poet and the sculptor, Shakespeare mingles masonry and statuary: ‘When wasteful war shall statues overturn,/And broils root out the work of masonry’ (5–6). master see artist Medusa see Gorgon miniature see portrait mock see imitate (A) Unlike its neutral synonym ‘to imitate’, the verb ‘to mock’ was imbued with negative connotations in Elizabethan English. It primarily alluded to a scornful statement or disdainful action aimed at ridiculing an individual. It could also refer to a deceptive act or describe a counterfeit object. (B) Shakespeare resorted to this polysemous word to put into perspective the aesthetic debate on imitation (see imitate). In the opening act of TIM, the painter, who is in competition with the poet to flatter Timon to sell his works, acknowledges that his picture ‘is a pretty mocking of the life’ (1.1.36). This seemingly neutral statement about imitation is to be interpreted in the broader context of ut pictura poesis and the debate between art and nature. Before this cue, the poet has praised the painter’s skill in making the beholder believe that the painting is nearly alive: ‘What a mental power/ This eye shoots forth! How big imagination/Moves this lip! To th’ dumbness of the gesture/One might interpret’ (1.1.32–5). The poet cleverly reminds the audience that despite the painter’s artifice and cunning, the picture is still mute; only the beholder’s imagination and mind can give it life, not the painter. However, the poet concedes that this limited imitation of life can surpass the work of nature: ‘Artificial strife/Lives in these touches livelier than life’ (1.1.39–40). In LUC, the artistic device of perspective in pictorial art is introduced in the text with this ambiguous word. When the poet depicts all the minute details of the representation of the Greek army in the painting of Troy, he mentions some of the illusionistic techniques inherent in trompe-l’oeil to represent a crowd where elements which cannot be shown on the canvas can still be seen: ‘the scalps of many, almost hid behind,/To jump up higher seemed, to mock the mind’ (1413–14). The skill of the painter lies in his ability to deceive the eye of the beholder into believing he can see all the characters in a crowd while painting only a part of it. Shakespeare plays on all the layers of meaning inherent in this word in the statue scene of WT. Before unveiling the statue, Paulina warns her guests that the funerary effigy of the Queen is such a perfect artistic imitation that the picture looks alive or asleep: ‘But here it is: prepare/To see the life as lively mocked as ever/Still sleep mocked death’ (5.3.18–20). As Leontes is under the impression that the eyes of the statue are gleaming with life, his reason summons him to understand that this illusion is merely an artistic deceit: ‘The fixure of her eye has motion in’t, /As we are mocked with art’ (5.3.67–8). 146

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However, despite his awareness of Giulio Romano’s artistic conceit, he cannot refrain from kissing the statue, hoping he will not be turned into an object of ridicule: ‘Let no man mock me,/For I will kiss her’ (5.3.79–80). (C) Heckser (1970) claims that lines 1413–14 in LUC represent ‘an archaic mode of perspective’ (p. 62). Dundas (1983) contends that these lines and the following stanza are reminiscent of the Valois tapestries (1582), regarded as one of the greatest achievements of illusionistic art (p. 17). Berek (1978) investigates the diverse meanings of this term in WT. monument see alabaster, brass, grave, marble, statue, tomb (A) This term can either refer to a tomb standing in a church or in a cemetery, or signify the carved effigy or statues positioned on a grave or a tomb. Monuments mainly aim to preserve the memory of a deceased person and are regarded as an act of remembrance. However surprising this might sound today, in Shakespeare’s England, the nobility and some members of the middle class ordered monuments to sculptors in their lifetime while supervising the work of the artists not only to anticipate their own death, but also to make sure their social rank and success were to be displayed lavishly for posterity. Monuments varied in size and ornaments according to the wealth of the person to be commemorated. Artists and men of letters usually ordered wall monuments as was the case for Shakespeare (his monument stands in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford). When it comes to the aesthetics and the style of Elizabethan and Jacobean monuments, this period is seen as a turning point and a break from medieval codes in the whole of Europe. While in the Middle Ages, statues often represented the stark reality of the decomposed body for the sole purpose of reminding the living of what they could expect (memento mori), in the Renaissance (starting in the Italian quattrocento, fifteenth century), carvers depicted effigies as if they were asleep, hence offering to the gazer’s eyes a peaceful and comforting vision of death. Semi-reclining effigies lying on monuments were highly fashionable in England. Statues were also depicted as if they were praying or having a conversation. The first effigy portrayed as sitting and holding a new-born baby is dated back to 1605 (monument to Lady Margaret Leigh, carved by Maximilian Colt, All Saints Church, Fulham). Monuments are then used as a means to record the social position of the dead and their courageous actions. A dead man’s family, mainly his wife and children, were also represented on the monument, the lineage of the deceased being carved in stone. Despite the popularity of these monuments, doubledecker (or double-bier monuments) inspired by the fifteenth-century Gothic movement, were chosen by some aristocrats in Jacobean England. Traditionally, a horrifying image of an emaciated corpse, presented in a putrefying state, sometimes with worms, lies at the bottom of the monument while above, a peaceful image of the dead appears dressed in state to recall his social status. Double-bier monuments were first carved in fifteenthcentury England as testified by Archbishop Chichele’s monument in Canterbury Cathedral (1424). This type of monument was ordered by Sir Frances Vere (d. 1609, monument carved by Maximilian Colt, Westminster Abbey) and a few years later, by 147

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Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury (d. 1615, monument carved by Simon Basil and Maximilian Colt, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, see Figure 3). Whereas Vere’s monument reversed the codes by presenting his armour on top, Robert Cecil’s tomb remains a classical example with a skeleton lying down at the bottom and a peaceful image of the deceased dressed in state on top. Four statues representing cardinal virtues stand in each corner. These contrasting visions of the dead body are a common feature of the representation of death in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. (B) Some sonnets dramatize the literary rivalry between writers and visual artists (see painter) through the contest between the poet and the sculptor. The poet’s rhyme prevails over the marble monument (‘Not marble nor the gilded monuments/Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme’, SON 55.1–2) insofar as words have the power to preserve memory (‘And thou in this shalt find thy monument/When tyrants’crests and tombs of brass are spent’ SON 107.13–14) and even outlive the readers yet to be born: ‘Your monument shall be my gentle verse,/Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read,/ And tongues to be your being shall rehearse/When all the breathers of this world are dead’ (SON 81.9–12). The comparison of a sleeping woman to a funerary figure is recurrent in Shakespeare’s drama and poetry. When Tarquin enters Lucrece’s room while she is fast asleep, he perceives her as an effigy: ‘Where like a virtuous monument she lies,/To be admired of lewd unhallowed eyes’ (LUC 391–2). In OTH, Desdemona’s white skin resembles funerary stone (‘Yet I’ll not shed her blood/Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow/ And smooth as monumental alabaster’ 5.2.3–5). The candle held by Othello not only heightens Desdemona’s pale skin, but this stage property is also reminiscent of the candles lit next to funerary monuments in Tudor England. Candles could also be carved on monuments – if they were represented with a flame, they symbolized the promise of resurrection while the absence of flame symbolized death. When Othello decides to blow out the candle (5.2.7), the aesthetic device of the unlit candle adorning funerary monuments may have been conjured up in the spectators’ minds. In CYM, Giacomo’s intrusion into Imogen’s room at night echoes Tarquin’s transgression in LUC as Giacomo also compares Imogen’s sleeping body to a statue adorning a grave in a church (‘O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her,/And be her sense but as a monument/Thus in a chapel lying’ CYM 2.2.31–3). After she has drunk a potion giving the appearance of death, Imogen’s body is mistakenly perceived as a lifeless corpse by Belarius and his sons. Feeling sad that this body should lie ‘without a monument’ (4.2.228), the men bury Imogen. In TN, Viola narrates the story of her imaginary sister’s grief whose motionless body gives her the appearance of a carved figure adorning a grave: ‘She pined in thought,/And with a green and yellow melancholy/She sat like Patience on a monument,/Smiling at grief’ (2.4.112–15). This metaphor could suggest some of the funerary statues representing virtues that decorated monuments or the widows carved on their husbands’ graves. From its opening scene, the tragedy of TIT highlights the social dimension of funerary monuments as Titus wishes to offer a decent burial to his sons who bravely fought on 148

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the battlefield (1.1.90–3) while he refuses to bury his son Mutius’s dead body in the family monument: ‘He rests not in this tomb./This monument five hundred years hath stood,/Which I have sumptuously re-edified’ (1.1.354–6). The stark contrast between the corpse preserved in a monument and the lifeless body left to rot in an anonymous grave is visualized on stage when Bassanius’ body is left in a pit, probably shown by the trapdoor on stage. Standing over the pit, Martius indicates that the shining ring on the body is the only evidence to name the rotting corpse: Upon his bloody finger he doth wear A precious ring that lightens all this hole, Which like a taper in some monument Doth shine upon the dead man’s earthy cheeks And shows the ragged entrails of this pit. ( TIT 2.2.226–30) The image of the taper lighting up a monument is both reminiscent of the candles lit next to chapel’s monuments and of the above-mentioned decoration adorning tombs. This traditional symbol of eternal life and resurrection is perverted in this scene in the way that the flame brings to the fore the stark reality of the rotting corpse. The discrepancy between the image of eternity and the verbal description of the decomposed body could be reminiscent of double-decked monuments. In a striking parallel with the opening scene, the final scene of TIT closes with the image of the ‘household’s monument’ where Lavinia and her father are to lie buried for eternity (5.3.193). The above-mentioned examples have brought to the fore the role of metaphorical descriptions of monuments to feed the spectators’ imagination. Monuments can also be represented on stage through the use of properties such as tombs or some of the architectural features of the Elizabethan and Jacobean stages in open-air theatres. The two tragedies ROM and ANT exemplify the way monuments can be visualized on stage because of the presence of the tiring-house façade, the decoration of which recalls triumphal arches on Elizabethan tombs. When Juliet hears that she must marry Paris, she wishes she could be lying dead in her family’s vault instead: ‘Delay this mariage for a month, a week,/Or if you do not, make the bridal bed/In that dim monument where Tybalt lies’ (ROM 3.5.200–2). The oxymoronic association of the bridal bed with death recalls Juliet’s comparision of her bed to a grave (1.5.134; see grave) and foreshadows the ambiguous union of death and life visualized on stage in Act 4 when Juliet, sitting on her bed, drinks up the potion that is supposed to give her the appearance of death while her family is busy preparing her marriage to Paris. Once Romeo has finished relating his dream where Juliet gave him a reviving kiss, Balthasar announces that Juliet is dead: ‘Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,/And her immortal part with angels live’ (5.1.18– 19). The angels could evoke the Italian putti, those that adorned Tudor monuments such as on Henry VII’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. This reference is all the more ironic as these conceits signified resurrection. The other references to the word ‘monument’ (5.2.23 and 5.3.127) enable the spectator to understand where the scene takes place. 149

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When Romeo arrives in the churchyard, he is shown on stage opening the tomb and then discovering Juliet’s lifeless body, probably lying in the discovery space, the same place in which her bed was located in Act 4. Thus the metaphorical assocation of the bed and the tomb is visualized on stage in the same place. The presence of the tiring-house façade above the discovery space heightens the visual similarity with monuments. In ANT, Cleopatra’s monument plays a crucial role in the death of the two lovers and symbolizes the turning point taken on by the unfolding of the tragic plot from Act 4. First, Cleopatra tricks Antony into believing that she is dead and lying in her monument (4.13.3, 6, 10). However, when Antony is dying, Diomedes reveals to him that Cleopatra is merely ‘locked in her monument’ 4.14.122). In the following scene, Cleopatra is standing in the gallery, above the stage, accompanied by her maids. Diomedes’ remark (‘look out o’th’other side your monument’ 4.15.8) indicates that Cleopatra is standing on top of it. Then, Antony is heaved up onto the gallery (4.15.32) and dies in Cleopatra’s arms (4.15.65), on her monument. The union of the lovers in death within the monument reaches its highest point when Cleopatra, locked up within (5.1.53) stages her death, wearing her royal attires and applying the snakes to her breast. The presence of the tiring-house façade in the background, reminiscent of the arches on Elizabethan monuments, visually strengthens the subtle dramatization of death devised by the Queen of Egypt. (C) Shakespeare’s contemporaries lampoon the style and fashion of monuments. Hall (1597) criticizes the colossal dimensions of monuments, some being ‘half acre tombs’, according to Donne (1633) in The Canonization. Webster (1614) ridicules semireclining effigies on monuments, looking as if they were suffering from tooth-ache (The Duchess of Malfi, 4.2.153–9). The first English historian to provide an account of Elizabethan and Jacobean monuments is Weever (1631) who studied ancient and contemporary monuments. Right from the first page, he brings to the fore the social role played by monuments in Tudor and Stuart England with this general definition: ‘A monument is a thing erected, made, or written, for a memoriall of some remarkable action, fit to bee transferred to future posterities’ (p. 1). For more contemporary historical and social studies on the aesthetics and style of funerary monuments as well as the role they played in early modern England, Esdaile’s pioneering work (1927 and 1946) is invaluable. Panofsky’s study of monuments (1964) in Renaissance Europe is regarded as major reading in art history. See also Whinney (1964), Kemp (1985), Llewellyn (1991) and Mowl (1993). For the motif of the transi in Renaissance tombs see Cohen (1973). Esdaile (1946) underlines the presence of candles lighting up monuments in Tudor England as is testified by the monument to Assheton in the chapel of Saint John’s College in Cambridge (1516). Mercer (1962) contends that the Elizabethan obsession with over-sized monuments stemmed from a society still deeply rooted in ‘feudalism’. Llewellyn (1990) shows that monuments play a political role at the beginning of James I’s reign when the latter decided to have monuments carved for Queen Elizabeth and his mother Mary Stuart, strategically positioned in the same room in Westminster Abbey in 1606. These monuments aimed to justify the succession between the dead queen and her 150

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nephew, hence reinforcing the continuity of royal power. See also his book on funerary monuments (2000). Sherlock (2008) provides a groundbreaking account of funerary monuments, highlighting the religious elements of tombs. Regarding the dramatization of monuments on stage, Henslowe (1576) indicates the existence of three props representing tombs. Wilson (1995) provides a fascinating and innovative study of the interrelation between drama and funerary monuments. After pointing out the geographical proximity between dramatists and sculptors whose workplaces were located in the same area, mainly Blackfriars, she contends that both arts shared similar features, such as the presence of the curtain on stage and on monuments, the extensive use of dramatization, and the tiring-house façade on stage which strikingly resembles the arches adorning monuments. On the one hand, she argues that early modern monuments were ‘frozen, eternal dumb-shows’, and that the aesthetic codes used by carvers can provide information on theatrical ‘practices’ on the stage (p. 82). On the other hand, she underlines that dramatists referred many times to monuments and their features, even suggesting that the tiring-house façade was used to visualize monuments both in ROM and ANT. Blum (1990) explores the relation between the female body and monuments in Shakespeare. See also Newcomb (2001) for her reading of monument in WT. Bowers (1983) suggests that the contrasting descriptions of Cleopatra’s decayed body and the metaphorical depictions of her marble body are evocative of doubledecked monuments, typical in the fifteenth century. See also Hosley (1964). Neill (1997) states that Cleopatra’s dramatization of her own death within her monument relies on the finis coronat opus conceit, echoing Seneca’s philosophy of the ‘good death’. Laoutaris (2007) explores the connection between maternity and monuments in ANT. In his study of immortality in Shakespeare, Calderwood (1987) argues that the poetic monument described in Sonnet 81 is aimed at ‘preserving’ ‘Shakespeare’s voice’ and name rather than the beauty of the young man (p. 171). motion (A) The ability of the human body to move caused debates among artists in the Renaissance as they paradoxically tried to represent and reproduce the movements of a body in a fixed material, whether on canvas or in a block of stone or marble. The myths related to artists animating works of art such as Pygmalion, Prometheus or Hephaistos who all gave life to statues, both fascinated and frightened the Elizabethans (see Pygmalion). In Italy, Michelangelo’s statue of the Night in Florence was admired for its lifelike appearance (see Gross, 1992, p. 92). (B) In the opening scene of TIM, the poet praises the skill of the painter for imitating nature while underlining the limits of pictorial art in surpassing nature insofar as the portrait only seems animated thanks to the beholder’s imagination: ‘How big imagination/Moves in this lip! To th’ dumbness of the gesture/One might interpret’ (1.1.33–5). This view of art as imitation of nature is echoed in CYM when Iachimo depicts the sculptures adorning the chimney-piece in Imogen’s room: ‘the cutter/Was as another Nature, dumb; outwent her,/Motion and breath left out’ (CYM 2.4.83–5). 151

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Nevertheless, in MV, Bassanio is confused by the lifelike effect of Portia’s portrait which was preserved in the leaden casket: ‘Fair Portia’s counterfeit! What demigod/ Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?/Or whether riding on the balls of mine/ Seem they in motion?’ (3.2.115–18). The shadow of Portia seems as real and alive as the Portia standing on stage. The illusion created by the painter consists in making the beholder believe that the portrait is animated and the eyes of the painted character actually look at the beholder. Or, as Bassanio suggests, the impression of movement stems from the beholder’s gaze. The best-known example of an animated work of art remains the statue of Hermione. When Leontes discovers the supposedly artistic copy of his dead wife, he perceives movement in the stony motionless eyes of the statue: ‘the fixure of her eye has motion in it,/As we are mocked with art’ (5.3.67–8). The role of imagination in the perception of a work of art plays a crucial role again in this play when Paulina prepares to draw the curtain in case her guests imagine that they see the statue move: ‘No longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your fancy/May think anon it moves’ (5.3.60–1). Once Leontes and his daughter are ready for the miracle of the animation of the statue, Paulina orders the work of art to move to the sound of music (‘Music, awake her; strike!/’Tis time, descend; be stone no more; approach’ 5.3.98–9) The presence of music during the apparent metamorphosis of stone into flesh is reminiscent of the myth of Orpheus who could give life to stones thanks to music. (C) Gross (1992) provides a detailed account of the image of the animated statues in the Renaissance, focusing on WT. Barkan (1981, 1995) is invaluable reading on the subject. motley (A) This term calls to mind Will Sommers’s multicoloured clothes – King Henry VIII’s jester – who is the best-known fool in Renaissance England. He is pictured in Henry VIII’s family portrait Henry VIII and His Family (1545). Fools were professional entertainers who could play music, juggle, perform clowning and tell riddles. Although Will Sommers could be recognized in court thanks to his yellow garment, fools were traditionally clad in multicoloured coats. This mixing of often bright colours usually worn on a coarse fabric can signify a cluster of ideas lacking coherence in figurative contexts. (B) Clowns and jesters are popular characters in Elizabethan drama, particularly in Shakespeare’s plays which feature a variety of clowns and jesters such as Touchstone in AYL, the Fool in KL and Feste in TN. In TN, Feste reminds Olivia that the diversity of colours on his clothes does not reflect his inner self: ‘I wear not motley in my brain’ (1.5.53–4). In KL, the character of the fool is defined by the colours he wears: ‘The sweet and bitter fool will presently appear,/The one in motley here, the other found out there’ (1.4.139–40). In the prologue to H8, the audience is warned that the play they are about to see is not a comedy as it does not feature ‘a fellow/In a motley coat guarded with yellow’ (15–16). The idea of fickleness is suggested in Sonnet 110 where the poet apologizes to the youth for dedicating his affection to someone else: ‘Alas, ‘tis true, I have gone here and there,/And made myself a motley to the view’ (1–2). The longest 152

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exchange devoted to the motley coat of the fool occurs in AYL where Jaques, the character symbolizing melancholy, a bodily humour associated with black, has been impressed by his encounter with a ‘motley fool’, namely Touchstone. To him, ‘motley’s the only wear’ (2.7.34) and he is ‘ambitious for a motley coat’ (2.7.43). (C) Hotson (1952) contends that the Elizabethan fool’s motley coat was not multicoloured. Laroque (1998) provides a thorough account of the symbolism of motley in AYL, arguing that the structure of this play resembles Touchstone’s garment. See also his book (1991). Meagher (2003) suggests that the colours of the costumes worn by the fools must have been similar to the ones chosen by Queen Elizabeth for her own fools. Bell (2010 and 2011) studies the different characters of the fool in Shakespeare. Linthicum (1936) also discusses this term. move see motion

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N nature see art nighted This synonym for the colour black is used twice by Shakespeare either to signify the mourning clothes worn by the young Prince of Denmark, and probably his cheerlessness (‘Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off’ HAM 1.2.68) or to describe blindness (‘Edmund, I think, is gone/In pity of his misery to dispatch/His nighted life’ LR 4.5.13–15). This adjective is spelt nightly in the First Folio text of HAM. Niobe (A) In Greek mythology, Niobe, Tantalus’ daughter, offended Leto when she boasted of her fourteen children. To punish her excessive pride, Leto sent her two children, Artemis and Apollo, to kill all Niobe’s children. Overwhelmed by an intolerable grief, she was gradually petrified while tears still ran along her stony cheeks. (B) At the end of TRO, Troilus uses this myth to depict the grief of Trojans when they hear of Hector’s death (‘There is a word will Priam turn to stone/Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,/Cold statues of the youth’ 5.11.18–20). The Prince of Denmark depicts his mother, the bereaved widow, as a weeping Niobe on the day of his father’s funeral: ‘she followed my poor father’s body,/ Like Niobe, all tears’ (HAM 1.2.148–9). (C) The story of the ‘weeping stone’ appears in Homer’s Iliad, Pausanias’ Graeciae descriptio, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the Renaissance, Niobe was regarded as the embodiment of human pride (Dante, Purgatory) as well as the symbol of bereavement (Boccacio, De Claris Mulieribus; Montaigne, Essays). For emblems on Niobe see Alciati (1550), Salomon (1583) and Whitney (1586). In his analysis of HAM, Bachelard develops his theory related to what he terms ‘Ophelia’s complex’, claiming that tears were associated with women in Shakespeare while men remained ‘dry’ (1947, p. 113). Bate (1993) extends his reading of Niobe to TN and LR. numbness This state of near lifelessness when movement and sensation are non-existent is usually related to petrifaction. Hence, when Marcus depicts his extreme grief at the sight of the mutilated Lavinia, his body is somehow paralysed and deprived of any sensation, making him look like a statue: ‘and thy brother, I,/Even like a stony image, cold and numb’ (TIT 3.1.258–9). Similarly, when the statue of Hermione comes back to life, her stony torpor belongs to the realm of death: ‘nay, come away;/Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him/Dear life redeems you’ (WT 5.3.101–3).

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O oblivion see tomb ocular This adjective related to visual perception is mentioned only once in Shakespeare. When Iago accuses Desdemona of being unfaithful to Othello, the Moor of Venice demands evidence: ‘Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore,/Be sure of it, give me the ocular proof’ (OTH 3.3.362–3). Adams (1964) has studied the source of this image. Diehl (1997) devotes a chapter to the dramatization of the ocular proof in OTH. See also Freeman (2004) and Knapp (2011). oily This substance (oil) sometimes used in painting is mentioned in the final scene of WT when Paulina forbids Leontes to kiss the statue of Hermione since the painting is not yet dry: ‘You’ll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own/With oily painting’ (5.3.82–3). This detail is reminiscent of the Elizabethan taste for painted statues and monuments insofar as colours were considered as a way of making images look real. The oil could also refer to the make-up worn by the actor to impersonate the character of Hermione, standing still on stage to represent a statue. The kiss could reveal to Leontes that the work of art is not stony and cold, but warm and alive. optic see perspective orient As an adjective, this term describing the radiance and luminosity of a pearl is sometimes used by Shakespeare. In ANT, Alexas presents Cleopatra with an ‘orient pearl’ that Antony kissed (1.5.42–3), a symbol of his love and his attachment to the East. The clearness and probably white colour of the pearl provides a contrast with Cleopatra’s complexion. In MND, Oberon gives a poetical depiction of the dew ‘which sometime on the buds/Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls’ (4.1.52–3). In R3, Richard cynically mocks the female characters’ grief by distorting the poetical comparison of tears to pearls into an economic bargain: ‘The liquid drops of tears that you have shed/ Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl,/Advantaging their love with interest/Of ten times double gain of happiness’ (4.4.321–4). ornament (A) This term referring to decoration or embellishment can take on different meanings in the Renaissance in that it can signify a decorative object, a quality related to beauty, a show or rhetorical conceits. Puttenham (1589) compares the colours of 157

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rhetoric to ornaments that poets should use in a ‘discreet’ manner: ‘This ornament we speake of is given . . . by figures and figurative speaches, which be the flowers as it were coulours that a Poett setteth upon his language by arte’ (p. 150). (B) In the opening scene of TIT, Bassanius sets forth Lavinia’s beauty comparing her to ‘Rome’s rich ornament’ (1.1.55). Apart from this example, the term ornament is more often than not related to shallowness and deceit in Shakespeare. The most scathing diatribe against the allurements of ornamentation is voiced by Bassanio in MV when, faced with the three caskets, he delivers a moralizing speech against deceitful ‘outward shows’: ‘The world is still deceiv’d with ornament’ (3.2.74). After criticizing law, he disapproves of the hypocritical use of religious texts: ‘In religion,/What damned error but some sober brow/Will bless it and approve it with a text,/Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?’ (3.2.77–80). He then moves on to the subject of beauty using the image of the Golden Fleece he had drawn on in the opening act (1.1.168–70) to justify his conquest of Portia. Ironically enough, Bassanio denounces the deadly fascination for beauty which is compared to ‘crisped snaky golden locks’ (3.2.92). Stunning as it might be, beauty can be as petrifying as the Gorgon’s gaze and as dead as the artificial hair on wigs and on skulls: ‘To be the dowry of a second head,/The skull that bred them in the sepulchre’ (3.2.95–6). Hence, since he concludes that beauty is deceitful (‘Thus, ornament is but the guiled shore/To a most dangerous sea’ 3.2.97–8), he decides to choose the unattractive leaden casket where fair Portia’s portrait turns out to be contained. Ornament is often associated with rhetoric and the artificial literary conceits used in love sonnets inspired by Petrarchan poetry. In LLL, the Princess is horrified to hear her ladies’ praise of the King’s noblemen: ‘God bless my ladies! Are they all in love,/ That every one her own hath garnished/With such bedecking ornaments of praise?’ (2.1.77–9). Beyond its meaning of decoration, the term ‘ornament’ echoes Puttenham’s definition of the colour of rhetoric in this case. In TGV, Valentine picks up Silvia’s glove and adores it in a rather fetishistic way: ‘sweet ornament that decks a thing divine’ (2.1.4). This gesture is reminiscent of the posture of the Petrarchan lover who relates any item belonging to the beloved to divinity. Likewise, when Romeo expresses his love to Juliet by means of rhetoric, namely the poetical blazon (‘and that thy skill be more/ To blazon it’ ROM 2.6.25–6), Juliet gently rejects this linguistic embellishment, preferring ideas to shallow words: ‘Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,/Brags of his substance, not of ornament’ (2.6.30–1). Friar Laurence also rejects wit, regarding this linguistic conceit as ‘that ornament to shape and love’ (3.3.129). The Sonnets also take part in the refusal of stereotyped Petrarchan images and glittering rhetoric. In the earlier sonnets the poet challenges the feminine figure of the cruel and beautiful Laura by asserting that the addressee of his sonnets is to be a man, the youth who is the ‘world’s fresh ornament/The only herald to the gaudy spring’ (SON 1.9–10). In Sonnet 21, Shakespeare criticizes the traditional rhetorical conceits used in love sonnets inspired by Petrarchan poetry: ‘So is it not with me as with that Muse,/Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,/Who heaven itself for ornament doth use’ (1–3). The poet mocks the Petrarchan comparisons of Laura’s eyes to stars or the praise of her heavenly nature. The 158

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use of the word ornament in this context suggests the meaning used by Puttenham in his depiction of the colours of rhetoric, a reference heightened by the metaphor of painting which is evocative of rhetoric, but also of a false and deceiving speech resembling cosmetics. outlive Some sonnets by Shakespeare explore the necessity to preserve the youth’s memory through words so that the image drawn by the poet will outlast the model eternally. Sonnet 55, built upon the conceit of ut pictura poesis which dramatizes the rivalry between the sculptor and the poet, forms part of a series of sonnets where the poet vindicates the superiority of words to preserve the memory of the youth. While Sonnet 54 is centred on the fragility of the rose, ending on the power of verse (‘When that shall vade, by verse distils your truth’ 13–14), Sonnet 55 opens with the conventional Horatian image of the power of words over monuments: ‘Not marble, nor the gilded monuments/Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme’ (1.2). In Sonnet 101, hinging upon a conversation between the poet and the Muse, the latter rejects the poet’s attempt to preserve the youth’s memory since ‘Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed’ (6). Despite this warning against the powerlessness of the colours of rhetoric or eloquence, the poet summons his Muse to inspire him in the writing of the sonnet as the youth’s memory deserves better than a funerary monument: ‘for’t lies in thee/To make him much outlive a gilded tomb’ (10–11). According to Booth (1977) Sonnet 55 was probably inspired by the classical poets Ovid (Metamorphoses, Bk 15) and Horace (Odes III, 30 ‘exegi monumentum aere perennius’) who praise poetry for its power to confer eternity (pp. 71–2). See also Leishman (1961). overpicture see painting, picture (A) According to the OED, the first recorded use of this verb was by Shakespeare who probably invented it. It implies that a verbal description is superior to the object depicted. (B) In the ekphrastic description of the first encounter between Antony and Cleopatra on the Cydnus river, Enobarbus adds that the Queen of Egypt in her purple and golden barge was far more beautiful than the picture representing the goddess of love: ‘she did lie/In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue/O’erpicturing that Venus where we see/The fancy outwork nature’ (ANT 2.2.208–11). (C) The comparison of Cleopatra to a painting or a statue of Venus was mainly inspired by Plutarch’s description of the encounter between Cleopatra and Antony in The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (1579): ‘she was laid under a pavillion of cloth of gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the goddess Venus commonly drawn in picture’ (p. 981). The famous description of the Queen of Egypt in her barge was barely altered in Shakespeare’s text, except for the phrase ‘commonly drawen in picture’ which was translated by the hyperbolic verb ‘overpicture’. Pliny (1601) may have been another source of inspiration as he also mentions a picture of Venus drawn by the famous Apelles (Bk 35, ch.10). There is a controversy among critics as to whether Shakespeare alluded to a particular painting of Venus or no particular work of art. Heckscher (1970) 159

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and Tassi (2005) contend that Apelles’ Venus Anadyomene (as described by Pliny) was Shakespeare’s model. Tassi (‘O’erpicturing’ 2005) ranges exhaustively through the diverse meanings of the term ‘overpicturing’ in ANT, arguing that it exposes the competition between the painter and the dramatist.

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P paint see limn, painting, picture, portrait, shadow (A) This word is first and foremost related to pictorial art since it can be both understood as the material brushed onto a canvas as well as the action of representing an object or a person in colours. Elizabethan painters drew either full-length pictures or miniature portraits (see picture). In the Renaissance, the act of painting could be interpreted in different ways insofar as it not only alluded to the artist’s work, but it was also synonymous with verbal embellishment. The art of rhetoric, taught in schools, universities and Inns of Court, was then associated with pictorial art, more precisely with colores rhetorici, the colours of rhetoric (see colour). For ancient thinkers such as Quintillian, eloquence could rely upon images – a good speaker was advised to paint with words and colourful metaphors. However, the English Renaissance writers were still influenced by Plato’s ambivalence towards rhetoric and these kinds of verbal portrayals could arouse suspicion in that rhetorical devices could be used to deceive or flatter the audience. This sceptical attitude towards verbal painting was fuelled by the polysemy of this word which could also be evocative of cosmetics in Shakespeare’s time. The use of cosmetics was condemned by Puritans, and anti-cosmetics writers such as Stubbes (1583) who reproached English women with altering God’s work: ‘Doo they think thus to adulterate the Lord his woorkmanship, and to be without offence?’ (p. 64). He even warned them that on the last judgement God will not recognize women indulging in cosmetics: ‘those which paint or collour themselves in this world otherwise than GOD hath made them, let them feare, lest when the day of judgement commeth, the Lord will not knowe them for his Creatures’ (p. 66). Even artists worried about such practices in that women, and sometimes men, would hide their emotions under coats of paint that were, in fact, gradually killing them as they used hazardous products such as mercury or ceruse normally applied to canvas. Lomazzo (1585), translated into English by Haydocke in 1598, gives a detailed list of toxic products and their dangerous effects on human skin (pp. 130–3), claiming that, in resorting to products used by painters, women ‘in steede of beautifying, they doe most vilely disfigure themselves. The reason whereof is, because they are ignorant of the natures and qualities of the ingredients’ (p. 129). (B) The verb paint alludes to pictorial art in Shakespeare’s text, whether in poetry or in drama. After praising the skill of the painter who can imitate nature (VEN 289–94), the poet in VEN turns to the famous example of Zeuxis’ painting which ‘poor birds deceived with painted grapes’ (601), thus highlighting the painter’s art of surpassing the work of nature and playing tricks on the beholder. In LUC, the verb ‘paint’ is mostly 161

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found in the ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy, except when Lucrece, in her monologue after the rape, shares the blame for this horrifying deed: ‘My sable ground of sin I will not paint/To hide the truth of this false night’s abuses’ (1074–5). Although paint can be interpreted in this passage as the colour of rhetorical speech, the heraldic connotations conveyed by the term ‘sable’ both conjure up and anticipate the pictorial conceits explored throughout the poem. When Lucrece imagines the picture of the destruction of this city, she believes that the image acts as a sort of mirror reflecting her inner grief (‘To this well-painted piece is LUCRECE come,/To find a face where all distress is stelled’ 1443–4; ‘Here feelingly she weeps TROY’s painted woes’ 1492). She is so absorbed by the illusions created in the painting that she believes she can alter some painted details such as Priam’s wounds: ‘I’ll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue/And drop sweet balm in PRIAM’s painted wound’ (1465–6). She finally grows aware that the ‘painted images’ are no comfort to her (1577–80). In the induction to SHR, the servant describes different pictures to Christopher Sly such as ‘Adonis painted by a running brook’ (Ind 2.48) or Io ‘lively painted as the deed was done’ (Ind 2.54). These pictures remain purely rhetorical and virtual as they are not to be shown on stage since Sly, and the spectators, are presented instead with the colourful and visual comedy of the Shrew which is indeed painted to the life (‘Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment,/Are come to play a pleasant comedy’ Ind 2.125–6). In ANT, Cleopatra draws a perspective portrait of Antony, exposing his ambivalent nature: ‘Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,/The other way’s a Mars’ (2.5.116–17). In MAC, Lady Macbeth reminds her frightened husband who has just killed Duncan that the dead are nothing but lifeless ‘pictures’: ‘The sleeping and the dead/Are but as pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood/That fears a painted devil’ (2.2.54–6). The painted devils may refer to the motionless painting of a dead corpse or, as Lady Macbeth conjures up childhood memories, this image might call to mind religious representations that ornamented churches prior to the Reformation. In HAM, the pictorial metaphor is used to depict a motionless Pyrrhus, who is nearly turned into a statue or a lifeless painting (‘So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood’, 2.2.418). In Sonnet 16, the poet encourages the young man to have children who will be a more perfect image of himself than any ‘painted counterfeit’ (8), which takes the shape of a picture or a flattering verbal portrait. In TIM, the verb paint refers to an actual piece of painting when Timon praises the picture made by the painter (‘Wrought he not well that painted it?’ 1.1.200). However, paint takes on negative connotations when Flavius berates flatterers: ‘Who would be so mocked with glory, or to live/But in a dream of friendship –/To have his pomp and all what state compounds/But only painted, like his varnished friends?’ (4.2.33–6). This reversal in the praise of pictorial art, which is equated here with an art of deceiving surfaces, adumbrates Timon’s metamorphosis at the end of the play when he mocks the painter’s skills that fascinated him in the opening scene: ‘Exellent workman, thou canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself’ (5.1.29–30). In H5, Fluellen describes Fortune with her usual attributes: ‘Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify you that Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the 162

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moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation’ (3.6.29– 34). Even though the verb paint clearly suggests that the image of Fortune can take the form of a painting, a tapestry, or even an engraving, Fluellen’s deciphering of the image is reminiscent of emblems as he describes and analyses the moral intent of the picture. Hence, his speech sounds closer to the technique of emblems, mingling word and image, visuality and morality, than the rhetorical exercise of ekphrasis. Shakespeare also mentions other visual and decorative items such as painted cloths which were low-value tapestries that adorned houses, taverns and theatrical stages. In AYL, Orlando compares Jaques to a ‘painted cloth’ (3.2.266). In LLL, Costard mentions the Nine Worthies that were a familiar feature of painted cloths (5.2.571). In 1H4, an arras is used on stage so that Falstaff can hide away (2.4.485–516). This visual property, probably appearing as richly ornamented, is ironically subverted in Falstaff’s derogatory description of the ‘ensigns, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies’ who look like ‘slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth’ (4.2.23–5). Another reference to a biblical episode, a common feature of tapestries and arrases, is made by Falstaff in his mention of the story of the Prodigal son (Luke 15.11–32) as represented on ‘fly-bitten tapestries’ (2H4 2.1.147). While Tarquin ponders about the devastating consequences of his desire for Lucrece, he strives to forget about the moral implications of his lust, symbolized by the moral maxims often found on painted cloths: ‘Who fears a sentence or an old man’s saw/Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe’ (LUC 244–5). This reference to a visual object anticipates the painting of Troy explored after the rape. In TRO, Pandarus also alludes to the moralistic comments in painted cloths: ‘Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths’ (5.11.45). In the description of the triumphant Bolingbroke riding through the streets, the walls of the city are compared to animated ‘painted imagery’ that is about to speak (R2 5.2.16). This painting might refer to the painted cloths that could be used to ornament civic pageants. Paint is also usually connected with colour since pictorial art was primarily regarded as an art of colour. More often than not, this verb conjures up the colour of blood. In the garden scene of 1H6 where each side picks up a white or a red rose, Somerset warns Vernon to pluck the white rose carefully ‘lest, bleeding, you paint the white rose red’ (2.4.50). This pictorial metaphor is resumed by York in 3H6 when he describes Edward’s ‘purple falchion painted to the hilt/In blood of those that had encountered him’ (1.4.12– 13). Likewise, in KJ, Hubert promises the king that he is sincere as his hand is ‘not painted with the crimson spots of blood’ (4.2.253), the word ‘paint’ alluding first to the red colour of blood, but also to the more negative moral connotations of cosmetics and deceit. In COR, Cominius delivers a highly colourful account of Coriolanus’s prowess on the battlefield as when ‘from face to foot/He was a thing of blood’ and ‘alone he entered/The mortal gate of th’ city, which he painted/With shunless destiny’ (2.2.106–7/108–10). In the opening scene to TRO, Troilus refers to the blood shared in wars such as the one triggered by Helen’s beauty: ‘Helen must needs be fair,/When with your blood you daily paint her thus’ (1.1.86–7). In TIM, the eponymous character advises Alcibiades to go on with his war to shed more blood: ‘Follow thy drum,/With 163

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man’s blood paint the ground gules, gules’ (4.3.59–60). The heraldic term ‘gules’ signifies red (see gule). Paint can sometimes be used to describe other colours such as yellow. In the spring song concluding LLL, the change in colour connotes a general change in mood: ‘And lady-smocks all silver-white/And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue/ Do paint the meadows with delight,/The cuckoo then on every tree/Mocks married men’ (5.2.883–7). The union of the lady-smock and the cuckoo is visually signified by a change in colour in the landscape while filling the atmosphere with the joy of adultery, one of the symbols of yellow (see yellow). In MND, the ‘painted butterflies’ described by Titania probably refers to the colour of their wings (3.1.164). In Sonnet 53, the colour of theatrical costume is conjured up when the poet praises the youth’s beauty for being superior to mythical beauties: ‘On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set/And you in Grecian tires are painted new’ (7–8). Although the initial line of Sonnet 20 is imbued with the negative connotations associated with painting, the rather neutral description of the ‘woman’s face’ might suggest that paint refers to her natural colours: ‘A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,/Hast thou’ (1–2). Paint often refers to cosmetics as in ANT where Iras advises Charmian to use cosmetics when she grows old (‘No, you shall paint when you are old’ 1.2.20). Likewise, in TGV, a comedy revolving around the portrait of the fair Silvia, Speed warns Valentine that his lover’s beauty is artificial as Silvia wears make-up: ‘Marry, sir, so painted to make her fair that no man counts of her beauty’ (2.1.55–6). In HAM, the Prince of Denmark denounces women for altering the natural colour of their faces with cosmetics: ‘I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another’ (3.1.141–3). He draws on the hypocrisy of cosmetics when he addresses Yorick’s skull in the graveyard scene: ‘Now get you to my lady’s table and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come’ (5.1.182–4). In this context, painting resonates with the image of poisoning that Puritans associated with cosmetics – and which was true – while conflating death and eroticism since make-up was also related to prostitutes, as is suggested by Claudius (‘the harlot’s cheek beautied with plastering art’ 3.1.50). In his short celebration of the beauty of black, the Moor Aaron denounces the hypocrisy of white people who are not better than ‘white-limed walls’, ‘alehouse painted signs’ (TIT 4.2.100). The image of lime, used for plastering, is evocative of a deceptive coat of paint to conceal a devilish and black soul. In MM, Lucio refers to the cosmetics used by prostitutes (‘Does Bridget paint still, Pompey?’ 3.2.76). In SHR, Katharina mentions the cosmetics used by fools to mock Gremio (‘Iwis it is not half-way to her heart:/But if it were, doubt not her care should be/To comb your noddle with a three-legged stool/And paint your face and use you like a fool’ 1.1.62–5). When Helena compares Hermia to a ‘puppet’ (MND 3.2.288) to mock Hermia’s height, the latter replies that her beauty is fake as she is nothing more than a ‘painted maypole’ (296). ADO refers to the new fashion for men of wearing cosmetics. While Leonato admires Benedick’s young appearance thanks to the shaving of his beard (‘Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard’ 3.1.44–5), Don Pedro adds that his look may be improved by the use of cosmetics: ‘Yea, or to paint himself? For the which 164

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I hear what they say of him’ (3.1.52–3). After this light exchange, Don John enters the stage to inform Claudio that Hero is unfaithful: ‘the word is too good to paint out her wickedness’ (3.1.100–1). Although the term paint mainly refers to Hero’s nature, the previous discussion of cosmetics may suggest that the scene narrated by Don John is not only false, as it distorts reality, but also potentially poisonous, as this suspicion is slanderous and leads to Hero’s false death at the end of the play. Paint can sometimes suggest the art of rhetoric as in Sonnet 21 where the young man can be moved by a ‘painted beauty’ created by words (2). Similarly, in Sonnet 47, devoted to the war between the poet’s eye and heart, the poet strives to create a peaceful harmony between the two, especially for the contemplation of the youth’s image: ‘With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,/And to the painted banquet bids my heart’ (5–6). The verb paint can be interpreted as an imaginary representation of the youth’s beauty shaped by the mind’s eye or as a verbal portrait since the word picture encompasses a wide range of meanings (see picture). Paint is equated with flattery and deceitful rhetoric in LLL. The Princess rejects Boyet’s artificial praise of her beauty which is shaped by the shallow and dubious colours of rhetoric: ‘Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,/Needs not the painted flourish of your praise./Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,/Not uttered by base sale of chapmen’s tongues’ (2.1.13– 16). The verbal association between painting and mercantile activities (‘base sale of chapmen’s tongues’ 2.1.16) is materialized on stage in Act 4 scene 1 when the Princess gives money to the forester who hesitated between flattering her or telling the truth about her hunting skills: ‘Nay, never paint me now./Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow./Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:/ [She gives him money]’ (4.1.16–9). Likewise, in his apology for black beauty, Berowne rejects conventional rhetoric to depict female beauty (‘Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not’ 4.3.235). HAM brings to the fore the moral depravity of rhetoric when Polonius encourages his daughter to play the role of a pious woman (see colour). In an aside, Claudius confesses that his lies are similar to the make-up used by a prostitute (‘the harlot’s cheek beautied with plastering art,/Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it/Than is my deed to my most painted word’ (3.1.50–2). In H8, Gardiner refers to Cranmer’s heretical beliefs as being visible for men who are not blinded by his glittering rhetoric: ‘My lord, my lord, you are a sectary./That’s the plain truth. Your painted gloss discovers,/To men that understand you, words and weakness’ (5.2.104–6). Despite all the negative aspects of the art of eloquence, the action of painting can sometimes signal a visual rhetorical conceit close to ekphrasis which is used to paint a character to the life, as exemplified by Menenius’ brief visual description of Coriolanus’ speech. After depicting his gestures, attitude, and complexion, Menenius makes it clear that he ‘paint[s] him in the character’ (5.4.26) and that his report is faithful to reality. Paint can sometimes apply to some elements of the theatrical stage such as the actors’ stage clothes or the playhouse decoration. Hence, the costume worn by the actor impersonating Rumour in the Prologue to 2H4 is depicted as ‘painted full of tongues’. When Julius Caesar depicts the universe on stage (‘the skies are painted with unnumbered 165

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sparks’ JC 3.1.63), the actor not only delivers a conventional speech on the macrocosm, but also gestures towards the cosmos painted under the canopy set above the actors on stage. (C) For a study of the relationship between rhetoric and painting in the Renaissance, see Lichtenstein (1993) and Skinner (1996). Plett (2004) provides a thorough account of ut pictura rhetorica. Shickman (1977) reads the perspective painting in ANT as a ‘turning picture’. Regarding the references to painted cloths in Shakespeare, Ronayne (1997) and Keenan and Davidson (1997) give a synthetic analysis of their role on the Elizabethan stage. Watt (1991) draws a parallel between the painted cloth of Lazarus in 1H4 and the parable of the ‘Dives and Lazarus’ which was a common painted image in taverns and alehouses (p. 209). Hamlin (2013) mentions that the image of the painted cloth of Lazarus in 1H4 is reminiscent of two panels depicting scenes from Lazarus at Pittleworth Manor (1580) (p. 23). Salingar (1986) contends that the image of the painted devil in MAC ‘harks back to some early experience of fascinated terror, conceivably before something like the wall painting of the Last Judgment in the Stratford-upon-Avon Guild Chapel’ (p. 11). Kiefer (2003) provides full insight into the staging of the character of Rumour in 2H4. Tassi (2005) and Meek (2009) are invaluable reading to understand the ambiguity of painting in Shakespeare’s plays and poems. Karim-Cooper (2006) states that the image of the ‘painted maypole’ in MND ‘draws attention to Helena’s tallness and her painted face. “Painted maypole” would also call to mind festive rites in Elizabethan England. During the May festivals children danced around a maypole, which was usually painted with red and white stripes’ (p. 142). Findlay (2010) provides a full analysis of the painted figure of Fortune in H5. painter see paint, painting, portrait, portraiture (A) In contrast to Continental European artists, Elizabethan painters were considered rather as artisans, craftsmen or workmen. Painters were usually members of the London Painters-Stainers Company which was granted a royal charter by Queen Elizabeth in 1581. Although the Tudor and Stuart periods are dominated by foreign artists who visited the royal courts or settled in England, such as Holbein, Eworth, Vandyck, Rubens or Isaac Oliver, native English painters contributed some of the finest paintings of the time, such as George Gower who served as a Serjeant Painter from 1581 to 1596, or Nicholas Hilliard, Queen Elizabeth’s royal limner, famous for his delicate miniature portraits. Since the break with Rome, no religious paintings had been commissioned. Painters mainly produced portraits and large-scale pictures ordered by the aristocracy and the rising middle-class to adorn houses both in and outside London. This position was far from being prestigious as patrons were not very generous and the painters’ reputation had been greatly lowered in a Protestant society, still struggling with iconoclastic outbursts. Perceived as artificers, they could be criticized for their lasciviousness, their deceitful and cunning nature, and their idolatry. The figure of the English painter stands in sharp contrast with their European counterparts since the Renaissance is seen as a turning point for the perception of the 166

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artist by society. While in the Middle Ages, painting, and even sculpture, were regarded as artes mechanicae, in the sixteenth century, these two visual arts were promoted to the rank of liberal arts, in the same category as architecture and music, at least in Europe, but not in England. This change partly paved the way for the Italian artistic debate known as the paragone, or ‘comparison’, the strongest rivalry being the one between painting and sculpture. Although native English painters were not involved in any kind of dispute related to the different merits of these arts, Elizabethans were familiar with the Italian artistic controversy devoted to them through the English translations of some key Italian treatises, such as Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (1527, trans. 1561) and Lomazzo’s Trattato della Pittura (1585, trans. 1598). Moreover, the artistic paragone is connected to another literary debate named ut pictura poesis (‘as is painting, so is poetry’) which opposes the figure of the poet to the painter, and sometimes the poet to the sculptor. This controversy is thought to have originated with Horace and Simonides, being extended by Plutarch, and adapted to the English canon by Sidney in his Apology for Poetry (1579). According to him, poetry is a ‘speaking picture’ as it ‘is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word μιμησιζ [mimesis], that is to say, a representing, counterfetting, or figuring foorth: to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture: with this end, to teach and delight’ (p. 25). (B) Shakespeare alludes to only one contemporary painter, namely the Italian artist Giulio Romano, who becomes a sculptor in WT. One painter character appears on stage in the opening scene of TIM, under the generic name Painter. He competes with the character called Poet to attract Timon’s attention and favours. Timon seems to prefer the painter’s work which is shown on stage (‘painting is welcome’ 1.1.160) to the poet’s unfinished poem. However, Apemantus mocks Timon’s choice since the painter’s creation is far below God’s: ‘He wrought better that made the painter, and yet he’s but a filthy piece of work’ (1.1.201–2). Later on, Apemantus criticizes the painter and the poet: ‘Yonder comes a poet and a painter. The plague of company light upon thee!’ (4.3.350–1). These two characters are shown on stage a second time in 5.1. This time, Timon ironically praises the painter for his skill in making deceitful and cunning images: ‘Good honest men! [to Painter] Thou draw’st a counterfeit/Best in all Athens; thou’rt indeed the best,/Thou counterfeit’st most lively’ (5.1.78–80). He then gives gold to both of them, calling them ‘slaves’ (‘There’s gold – you came for gold, ye slaves!’ 5.1.110) and comparing the painter he originally admired and praised to an alchemist (‘You are an alchemist, make gold of that’ 5.1.112). This negative portrait of the painter in drama is echoed by the metaphor of the spider used by Bassanio in MV when the latter finds Portia’s portrait in the leaden casket – he compares the painter to a spider trapping the beholders into an enticing web represented here by the lady’s golden hair: ‘Here, in her hairs,/The painter plays the spider and hath woven/A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men/ Faster than gnats in cobwebs’ (MV 3.2.120–3). Likewise, in ROM, the servant comically inverts the professions of fisherman and painter (‘it is written that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard . . . the fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets’ 1.2.38–40), the association with the nets hinting that the painter entraps 167

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beholders. In TGV, Julia cannot refrain from arguing that the painter who drew the face of her rival was a flatterer (‘And yet the painter flattered her a little’ 4.4.184). Shakespeare’s poetry hinges upon a more ambivalent attitude towards the painter, wavering between admiration for his skill in improving nature’s work on a canvas and spite towards his ability to deceive human vision by using tricks of perspective. In the description of the painting of a horse in VEN, the poet underlines the painter’s skill to draw a picture that looks more real than Adonis’ horse: ‘Look when a painter would surpass the life/In limning out a well-proportioned steed/His art with nature’s workmanship at strife,/As if the dead the living should exceed.’(VEN 309–12). In the long section devoted to the painting of Troy in LUC, Lucrece comments on the technical skills of the painter and his gift for stimulating the beholder’s imagination when she describes him as ‘conceited’ (1371). She proceeds with neutral remarks (‘And here and there the painter interlaces/Pale cowards marching on with trembling paces’ 1390–1) while gradually exposing the duplicity of the artist. The painter’s technique is compared to the science of anatomy (‘In her the painter had anatomized/Time’s ruin, beauty’s wrack and grim care’s reign’ 1450–1) as if the painter could draw Hecuba’s grief on the surface of the canvas. Despite these qualities, Lucrece reproaches the painting with being solely a silent picture to which she wishes to lend a voice: ‘The painter was no god to lend her those,/And therefore LUCRECE swears he did her wrong/To give her so much grief and not a tongue’ (1461–3). The last two comments revolve around the traditional criticism of the painter as a deceiver in the passage related to the ambivalent figure of Sinon in whom ‘the painter laboured with his skill/To hide deceit, and give the harmless show’ (1507–8), hence reflecting Tarquin’s ‘hiding base sin in pleats of majesty’ (93). Lucrece criticizes the artist for tricking the eye of the beholder: ‘This picture she advisedly perused,/And chid the painter for his wondrous skill’ (1527–8). Sonnet 24 resonates with the paragone debate as the poet seems to compete with the painter by offering two different kinds of images, the painter’s deceiving picture which only projects a flat image of the lover while the poet’s imagination draws a more genuine image within his heart: Mine eye hath played the painter, and hath steeled Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart; My body is the frame wherein ‘tis held, And perspective it is best painter’s art; For through the painter must you see his skill, To find where your true image pictured lies, Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still, That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes. (SON 24: 1–8) (C) In terms of art history, Strong is still the leading scholar in the study of Elizabethan and Jacobean painting. For a general overview of the historical context see Strong (1969, 1990, 1996, 1999). For detailed accounts of the works of Nicholas Hilliard see 168

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Auerbach (1961), Strong (1975), Costa de Beauregard (1991) and Hearn (2005). See also Cooper (2012) and Tittler (2013) for other painters. Hulse (1981) considers VEN and LUC as ‘a painter’s poems’ (p. 143), drawing parallels between these two narrative poems and Italian paintings. In a later work (1990), he argues that the paragone debate staged in TIM in 1605 ‘coincides’ with the experiments of Serlian staging in England, which had been inspired by Alberti’s theories on perspective. Blunt (1939) is the first critic to have pointed out that Shakespeare dramatized the Italian paragone in the opening scene of TIM. See also Merchant (1955) Hagstrum (1958), Leslie (1985) and Bevington (1984). Hunt (1988) provides a thorough analysis of the paragone debate in TIM. See also the complete study of TIM by Nuttall (1989). Tassi (2005) also explores the character of the painter in TIM from the perspective of iconoclasm. Grady (2003) analyses the rivalry between the poet and the painter in TIM in the light of an economic struggle, suggesting that their artistic productions are turned into mere commodities when they compete with the merchant and the jeweller (p. 435). Meek (2009) is invaluable, especially for his acute analysis of the narrative poems. Salkeld (2011) explores the paragone debate mainly in LUC and the Sonnets. For a detailed study of Sonnet 24 see Mead (2012). painting see paint, picture, portrait, portraiture, shadow (A) Although today painting immediately signifies a work of art painted by an artist either in full length or on a smaller scale, like a portrait, in Elizabethan English, this term was also used for other types of work. According to the often-quoted definition given by Peacham (1606) in The Arte of Drawing with the Pen, ‘painting’ is defined as follows: ‘Pictura, or painting in generall, is an art which either by draughte of bare lines, lively colours, cutting out or embossing, expresseth anything the like by the same’ (B1). This noun was also imbued with moral connotations since it was interpreted as the cosmetics that women (including the Queen) and also men applied to their faces or their hair. The term cosmetics is never used in Shakespeare, partly because, the first author to use such a word was Bacon in 1605 in The Advancement of Learning (Karim-Cooper, 2006, p. 36). Furthermore, the polysemy of the term ‘painting’ mingling pictorial art and make-up gave the opportunity for criticism of the visual arts as Puritans harshly condemned any form of painting. According to anti-cosmetic writers, women who fell for the craze of wearing make-up were guilty of altering the face that God had given them while concealing their emotions behind an artificial mask, thus lying to others. In A Treatise Against Painting and Tincturing of Men and Women, Tuke (1616) compares women wearing make-up to amateurs awkwardly trying to improve the perfect creation shaped by God: ‘sure there is a wrong done to God, whose workmanship they would seeme to mend, being discontented with it’ (p. 2). They also associated cosmetics with death and poisoning, an image that was close to reality as the make-up used at the time actually contained toxic products such as ceruse to whiten the complexion. Lomazzo (1598) warns women against the devastating effects of such a product normally used in painting 169

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on their skins: ‘So that those women which use it about their faces, doe quickly become withered and gray headed, because this doth so mightely drie up the naturall moysture of their flesh’ (Bk 3, p. 130). Furthermore, anti-cosmetic writers linked this fashion to the theatrical world, reminding their readers that actors wore make-up to deceive spectators as they were hypocrites and, could even be transvestites in the case of boyactors impersonating female characters. In his Anatomie of Abuses, Stubbes (1583) berates actors’ practices: ‘And doe these mockers and flowters of his Maiesty, these dissembling Hipocrites, and flattering Gnatoes, think to escape unpunished? Beware therefore you masking Players, you painted sepulchres, you doble dealing ambodexters, be warned betymes’ (p. 141). Painting could also be done with words since rhetoric was perceived at the time as an art of embellishing reality with fine words (see paint). Among the figures of rhetoric taught in schools and universities was ekphrasis which consisted in depicting a work of art with words so that the beholder could imagine what it looked like. This literary conceit was highly fashionable among poets and dramatists, and Shakespeare resorted to it many times (see Introduction). (B) Painting first and foremost alludes to a work of art in Shakespeare’s text. In LUC, this term signals the beginning of the ekphrasis, namely the long and detailed description of the painting of Troy (‘At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece/Of skilful painting made for PRIAM’s TROY’ 1366–7; ‘She throws her eyes about the painting round’ 1499). In the opening scene of TIM, painting is associated with pictorial art. The Painter defends his art when he argues that he can draw ‘a thousand moral paintings’ (1.1.92). When he offers the picture to Timon (1.1.158–9), the latter praises the technical skill of the artist who can almost imitate nature: ‘Painting is welcome./The painting is almost the natural man’ (1.1.160–1). In LLL, Moth gently mocks his master Armado by comparing his attitude to an ‘old painting’, maybe to suggest his old-fashioned manners with ladies (‘your hands in your pocket like a man after the old painting’ 3.1.18–19). In ADO, Borachio describes the deformity of thieves as ‘Pharaoh’s soldiers in the reeky painting’ (3.3.129–30). In the final scene of WT, Paulina warns Leontes that he will ‘mar’ Hermione’s statue if he kisses her as the ‘oily painting’ (5.3.82–3) covering the work of art is not yet dry. This detail is evocative of the Elizabethan practice of painting statues with diverse colours so as to make them look alive – sculpture was then regarded as an art of colour in the same way as painting. The polysemy inherent in this word could also mingle the two visual arts or could function as a metadramatic reference to the cosmetics used by actors, especially boy actors who impersonated female characters. In COR, Marcus describes his wounded and bleeding body as a visual icon in red: ‘If any such be here/(As it were sin to doubt) that love this painting/Wherein you see me smeared’ (1.6.67–9). Painting focuses here on the colour of the blood covering the actor’s body that is visualized on stage by means of cosmetics or animal blood, a natural make-up actors used at that time. Sometimes painting can be synonymous with an illusion projected by a tormented mind. After mocking her husband for fearing ‘painted devils’ (MAC 2.2.56), Lady Macbeth uses the pictorial metaphor to warn her husband 170

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that his vision of Banquo’s ghost is nothing but hallucination shaped by his emotions: ‘this is the very painting of your fear’ 3.4.58). More often than not, the word painting conjures up the art of cosmetics in Shakespeare and is endowed with varying degrees of moralizing commentaries. In his apology for black beauty, Berowne disparages the hypocrisy of fair-skinned women who conceal their true nature by dying their hair and applying cosmetics to their faces: O, if in black my lady’s brows be decked, It mourns that painting and usurping hair Should ravish doters with a false aspect; And therefore is she born to make black fair. Her favour turns the fashion of the days, For native blood is counted painting now. (LLL 4.3.254–9) While Berowne’s speech is imbued with Puritanical condemnation, the lascivious Pompey openly utilizes the negative associations of cosmetics with courtesans in MM: ‘Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery’ (4.2.36–8). The fiercest attack against make-up is voiced by Hamlet. While Claudius and Polonius have advised Ophelia to play a role by pretending she is reading a book (HAM 3.1.43–5) so as to know why Hamlet is so tormented, the latter rejects Ophelia (‘get thee to a nunnery’ 3.1.120) by denouncing the hypocrisy of women: ‘I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another’ (HAM 3.1.141–3). Hamlet’s remark is imbued with Puritanical echoes evoking some preachers’ claims that women were altering the creation of God, hence transgressing His rules. The rest of Hamlet’s speech also brings to the fore the association of cosmetics with female sexual desire (144), thus echoing Claudius’ comparison of Ophelia’s role to ‘the harlot’s cheek beautied with plastering art’ (3.1.50), another synonym for make-up. Hamlet’s reaction sounds all the more ironical as the boy actor impersonating Ophelia on stage is wearing make-up to look like a woman, thus changing his face. The discrepancy between inner feelings and outward appearance is taken up again by Claudius who asks Laertes if he is sincere: ‘Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,/A face without a heart?’ (HAM 4.7.106–7). In CYM, Imogen alludes to the fashion and the cosmetics of prostitutes: ‘Some jay of Italy,/Whose mother was her painting, hath betrayed him’ (3.4.49–50). In Norfolk’s ekphrastic description of the encounter between King Henry VIII and Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, women are mocked for their unusual complexion as if they had applied cosmetics to their fair-skinned faces (‘The madams too,/Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear/The pride upon them, that their very labour/Was to them as a painting’ H8 1.1.23–6). In PP, the poet warns the reader that make-up cannot hide wrinkles: ‘So beauty blemish’d once, for ever lost,/In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost’ (13). While combining the artistic and moral readings of the term painting, the Sonnets explore the rhetorical aspect implied by this word (see paint). In Sonnet 146, the poet 171

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addresses his ‘poor soul’ which hides itself behind ornaments and cosmetics instead of turning to meditation on death: ‘Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,/Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?’ (SON 146.3–4). Sonnet 67 focuses on the powerlessness of pictorial art to depict the real beauty of the young man insofar as a picture remains lifeless: ‘Why should false painting imitate his cheek/And steal dead seeing his living hue?’ (SON 67.5–6). In Sonnet 62, the poet plays on the ambivalence of painting as cosmetics and the rhetorical art to embellish reality with words. In this poem centred on self-love, the final lines act as a mirror where the poet acknowledges that his own beauties only exist vicariously, as reflections of those of the young man: ‘ ’Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise,/Painting my age with beauty of thy days’(13–14). Sonnets 82 and 83, structured as a diptych, warn the young man against excessive rhetoric used by some poets to flatter his beauty: ‘And their gross painting might be better used/Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused’ (SON 82.13–14). The first two lines of Sonnet 83 take up in a mirror-like effect the last two lines of Sonnet 82 in order to convince the young man that his beauty does not need any ornament: ‘I never saw that you did painting need,/And therefore that your fair no painting set’ (SON 83.1–2). (C) Regarding the anti-cosmetic writings in Tudor and Jacobean England, the main authors are Stubbes (1583), Tuke (1616), Prynne (1628) and Brathwait (1631). The second Book of Homilies (1563) also contains exhortations against cosmetics (An Homily against Excess of Apparel). For general studies of the controversy regarding painting and cosmetics on Elizabethan and Jacobean stages, see Drew-Bear (1994) and Karim-Cooper (2006). These two authors provide useful analyses of cosmetics in Shakespeare. Tassi (2005) has written an impressive study of the Puritans’ prejudice toward pictorial art in Renaissance England and its impact on the dramatization of this visual art. She has devoted a chapter to the interrelation between painting and drama in Shakespeare, focusing particularly upon SHR, TGV, TN, HAM, TIM and WT. Her main point is that Shakespeare, like his fellow dramatists, had an ambivalent relation to visual arts, hesitating between iconophobia and admiration. Salkeld (2011) re-appraises the presence of pictures in Shakespeare’s work by emphasizing the role of silence in the dramatization of paintings. Many critics have focused on the role of ekphrasis in LUC: see Hulse (1978), Vickers (1985), Dundas (1993), Roberts (1998), Quinn (2004), Meek (2006, 2009) and Belsey (2012). Sillars (2015) argues that the painting of Troy is an example of ethopoeia, a rhetorical exercise taught in Elizabethan schools (p. 91). Barkan (1995) has highlighted the role of ekphrasis in CYM and HAM. Truax (1980) draws a parallel between the painting of Troy in LUC and the works of art that Henry VIII bought for his palaces, following the style of the School of Fontainebleau. Harvey (2010) analyses the relationship between colour and pictorial art in the Sonnets. Regarding visual sources for VEN, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene contains an ekphrastic description of tapestries dramatizing the story line (Bk III, canto 1, stanzas 34–8). Panofsky (1969) suggests that Titian’s painting of the story of Venus and Adonis 172

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(c.1555) might have inspired Shakespeare for his narrative poem (pp. 153–4). According to Hulse (1981), this painting was known in Tudor England as it was shipped to Philip II in 1554. Many engravings representing Titian’s version of the story also circulated at the time. See also Doebler (1982). Meek (2009), however, considers there is no clear evidence that Shakespeare wrote this poem after seeing actual works of art. Shakespeare’s knowledge of art was more likely built upon literary sources rather than on direct visual experiences of paintings or statues. Sillars (2015) has drawn parallels between Titian’s representations of this story and Shakespeare’s ‘visual design’ of this myth in his narrative poem (pp. 58–61). pale see red, white (A) As an adjective, this term is related to an individual’s complexion which may be white, sometimes ashy, following a shock or a visual sign of extreme emotions such as fear or anger. It can sometimes signify light in shade or can connote a lack of vigour. In his Art of Love, Ovid says that pallor can be defined as one of the symptoms of love. Paleness is also related to the theory of humours as phlegmatic humour can give rise to a pale complexion. However, according to Iyengar (2011), ‘Shakespeare has little interest in phlegmatic characters’ (p. 253). (B) In the narrative poems, paleness is embedded into the rhetorical white and red pattern that structures them both, but in different ways. In the opening stanzas of VEN, Adonis’ lips are described as both ‘red and pale with fresh variety’ (21), hence initiating the chromatic intertwining of red and white that reaches its climax with Adonis’ death and his metamorphosis into a bi-coloured flower. Venus experiences such strong emotions when confronted by Adonis’ disdain that her complexion is dominated by red and white : ‘To note the fighting conflict of her hue,/How white and red each other did destroy!/But now her cheek was pale, and by and by/It flashed forth fire, as lightning from the sky’ (345–8). When she hears that Adonis wants to hunt the boar, the pallor of fear prevails over the red freshness of her cheeks, hence adumbrating the colour of death (‘ “The boar!” quoth she, whereat a sudden pale,/Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,/Usurps her cheek’ 589–91). When she discovers Adonis’ dead body, Venus perceives the mask of death that has taken over the young man’s face: ‘She looks upon his lips, and they are pale’ (1123). The poem closes onto the fatal coalescence of red and white as a flower grows from Adonis’ blood: ‘And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled/A purple flower sprung up, chequered with white,/Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood/Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood’ (1167–70). Unlike VEN, paleness does not stand as a simple variation of white in the dual-colour pattern of LUC (see red), but signifies the metamorphosis of whiteness and its early meanings in the context of the rape. Paleness signifies a different shade of white, setting aside the symbols of innocence and purity explored before (see white). In his premeditation of the rape, Tarquin is described as ‘pale with fear’ (183) at the thought of the horrifying deed he is about to commit. When Lucrece wakes up and faces Tarquin, her face goes through strong emotions, the same way as Venus (VEN 345–8): ‘Thus he replies: ‘The colour in thy face,/That even for anger makes the lily pale/And the red 173

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rose blush at her own disgrace,/Shall plead for me’ (477–80). In the painting of Troy, pallor is related both to cowardice (‘And here and there the painter interlaces/Pale cowards marching on with trembling paces’ 1390–1) and duplicity in the case of Sinon (‘Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so/That blushing red no guilty instance gave,/Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have’ 1510–12). At the end of LUC, paleness is associated with the extreme grief experienced by Collatine who marks his white face with Lucrece’s blood, hence sealing the pattern of red and white in the same tragic manner as in VEN: ‘And then in key-cold LUCRECE bleeding stream/He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,/And counterfeits to die with her a space’ (1774–6). The intertwining of red and white takes a tragic turn in ROM where paleness is first related to the Petrarchan literary conceit of the hard-hearted lady that Mercutio mocks at the beginning of the play (‘Why, that same pale, hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,/ Torments him so’ 2.4.4–5). Love is further associated with death when Juliet already perceives Romeo as a dead man in the second balcony scene: ‘Methinks I see thee now, thou art so low,/As one dead in the bottom of a tomb./Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale’ (3.5.55–7). This symbolism is endowed with the utmost expression of tragedy when Romeo misunderstands the signs of life and death on Juliet’s face when red signals that she is slowly waking up: ‘Beauty’s ensign yet/Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,/And death’s pale flag is not advanced there’ (5.3.94–6). When Friar Laurence enters the tomb, Romeo’s death is signified by his pallor: ‘Romeo! O, pale!’ (5.3.144). See also TRO (5.3.81), TIT (5.3.152). Paleness is sometimes invoked to signify the unhealthy appearance of the lover, following Ovid’s description of the symptoms of love. Hence, in ADO, Don Pedro gently mocks Benedick’s wish to remain a bachelor (‘I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love’ 1.1.233). In AYL, Corin describes the love scene between Silvius and Phoebe in the traditional colours of red and white: ‘If you will see a pageant truly played/ Between the pale complexion of true love/And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain’ (3.4.48–50). In the H6 trilogy, pale is equated with the white rose. In the Temple scene, where each side chooses either a red or a white rose, the chromatic conflict visualized on stage is imbued with legal rhetoric as shown by Vernon who blends law, beauty and colour to justify his choice: ‘Then, for the truth and plainness of the case,/I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,/Giving my verdict on the white rose side’ (1H6 2.4.46– 8). The legal quibble is heightened by Richard’s use of the colours of rhetoric as he warns the rival side that the white rose stands for the truth (‘Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our roses;/For pale they look with fear, as witnessing/The truth on our side’ 2.4.62–4) or that he will take revenge (‘And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,/As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate’ 2.4.107–8). Later on, Vernon complains that the white rose is regarded by some as the sign of cowardice: ‘Pronouncing that the paleness of this flower/Bewrayed the faintness of my master’s heart’ (1H6 4.1.106–7). Paleness resurfaces in the tragic dramatization of the War of the Roses that Henry witnesses when he sees fathers and sons killing each other: ‘The red rose and the white are on his face,/ The fatal colours of our striving houses:/The one his purple blood right well resembles,/ 174

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The other his pale cheeks methinks presenteth’ (3H6 2.5.97–100). Interestingly enough, paleness is understood once as a lack of colour when Bassanio, faced with the three caskets, claims that he is not fascinated by the glittering rhetoric of gold and silver, but is drawn by the plain colour of lead: ‘Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence’ (MV 3.2.106). (C) Iyengar (2005) analyses whiteness and pallor as sexual colours in VEN. Patience see monument (A) Patience is one of the four cardinal virtues which is also mixed with Fortitude along with Prudence, Temperance and Justice. These virtues could sometimes ornament Elizabethan and Jacobean funerary monuments as is the case with William Cordell’s tomb (1580, Long Melford Church) or Robert Cecil’s monument. (B) Shakespeare alludes to statues of Patience in TN when Viola compares her imaginary sister to ‘Patience on a monument/Smiling at grief’ (TN 2.4.114–15) and in PER where Marina is said to ‘look/Like Patience gazing on king’s graves and smiling/ Extremity out of act’ (5.1.128–30). Othello ironically equates Desdemona to visual icons of innocence and virtue when he asks her to show her true nature: ‘Turn thy complexion there,/Patience, thou young and rose-lipped cherubin’ (4.2.63–4). (C) Berry (1965) provides a throrough analysis of the statue of Patience in TN (pp. 76–85). Teague (1991) explores the dramatization of petrified bodies in TN through the metaphor of the statue of Patience. Elam (2008) draws a parallel between the figure of Patience in TN and the emblem ‘Patience on a monument’ published in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (1593). pencil (A) This item alludes to the brush used by painters to lay down colours on a canvas or draw lines. It can also metaphorically signify the act of writing or the colours of rhetoric. (B) In the opening scene of TIM where the poet and painter compete with each other to gain Timon’s favour and money, the latter is won over by the qualities of the picture and the skill of the painter: ‘Painting is welcome./The painting is almost the natural man,/For since dishonour traffics with man’s nature,/He is but outside; these pencilled figures are/Even such as they give out’ (1.1.160–4). As Lucrece feels frustrated that the painting of Troy is silent, she decides to lend her voice to the dumb images of pain: ‘So LUCRECE, set a-work, sad tales doth tell/To pencilled pensiveness and coloured sorrow;/She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow’ (LUC 1496– 8). These lines exemplify the traditional Horatian statement that painting is dumb poetry, one of the elements of the ut pictura poesis debate (see Introduction). By lending her voice to the mute painting, Lucrece seems in return to absorb the picturesque nature of the painted character, hence literally fashioning herself into a ‘speaking picture’. In ROM, the servant comically inverts the professions of fisherman and painter so as to suggest that the painter plays tricks on the eyes of the beholders to entrap them: ‘it is written that the shoemaker should meddle with his yard . . . the fisher with 175

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his pencil, and the painter with his nets’ (1.2.38–40). In JN, the painter’s tool is metaphorically turned into a weapon where red blood is figured as the paint of vengeance: ‘Heaven knows, they were besmear’d and over-stain’d/With slaughter’s pencil, where revenge did paint/ The fearful difference of incensed kings’ (3.1.162–4). In Sonnet 16, the poet warns the youth against a ‘painted counterfeit’ (8) which can take the form of a portrait drawn by an artist or a verbal picture relying on the colours of rhetoric. The poet urges the young man to marry and have children since procreation is regarded as the only way of recreating perfect images of the young man, unlike a ‘painted counterfeit’: ‘So should the lines of life that life repair,/Which this, time’s pencil or my pupil pen,/Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,/Can make you live yourself in eyes of men’ (9–12). The passage of Time is compared to the painter’s tool, probably hinting that painting is evanescent, as are the lines drawn by the poet with his pen. In the dialogue between the poet and the Muse, the poet imagines that the Muse tells him that beauty needs no ornament: ‘Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,/ Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay’ (SON 101.6–7). These lines summarize the standpoint of the Muse who claims that the colours of rhetoric or the ornaments of eloquence symbolized by the painter’s brush, are useless to praise the youth’s beauty. However, the poet requires that his Muse should ‘make him much outlive a gilded tomb’ (11). (C) Dundas (1993), Meek (2009) and Belsey (2012) give interesting insights into the representation of the act of painting in Shakespeare. perform This verb which can be used in a theatrical context to describe a dramatic performance is used to signify the completion of the statue of Hermione by the Italian artist Giulio Romano in WT. Before the statue scene, the Steward mentions that the work of art ‘is in the keeping of Paulina – a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master Giulio Romano’ (5.2.93–5). While the verb ‘to perform’ primarily refers to the work carried out by the artist, the dramatic setting of WT might well suggest that the statue supposedly carved by Romano and standing on stage is merely a spectacle, a play within the play ‘performed’ by the stage director and patron Paulina as well as the boy actor impersonating the role of Hermione who has to remain motionless until Paulina orders the statue to move. perspective see painting, picture (A) As was the case in Shakespeare’s time, this pictorial technique encompasses a wide range of meanings. In addition to being a synonym for a point of view or an idea revealing a different vision of an issue, perspective is primarily understood as linear perspective, this pictorial illusion extensively used in Italian Renaissance paintings, which aimed at making a flat object on a canvas appear three-dimensional. Although Elizabethans and Jacobeans grew more and more familiar with this conceit, very few artists experimented with it in their paintings. Hilliard (1601) was opposed to this illusionistic art which, he believed, deceived the beholder and did not give access to the truth: ‘For perspective, to define it briefly, is an art taken from or 176

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by the effect or judgment of the eye, for a man to express anything in shortened lines and shadows, to deceive both the understanding and the eye’ (p. 51). Perspective also included optical devices and anamorphoses which drew more attention in Renaissance England. Anamorphic art, a perspectival technique, consists in having one image appear when viewed directly – that is when the beholder stands in front of the painting – while another image emerges when the beholder moves to the side and observes the work indirectly. The best-known example for English Renaissance is Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533, National Gallery, London). Although there is no evidence that Shakespeare actually saw Holbein’s painting, Lukacher (1989) contends that he probably had direct access to the anamorphic painting of Edward VI by William Scrots (1546, National Portrait Gallery, London): ‘Scrots’ portrait hung in Whitehall Palace during the 1590s when Shakespeare’s company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, played there; this portrait was to be viewed through a viewing hole drilled through a screen off to the side of the painting’ (p. 873). (B) The last scene of H5 exemplifies the optical trick which enabled two different images to be presented when the painting is turned upside down: ‘Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls that no war hath entered’ (5.2.316–18). This optical illusion is comically dramatized in TN when Orsino meets Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother: ‘One face, one voice, one habit and two persons:/A natural perspective, that is and is not’ (5.1.212–13). In R2, one of the most-quoted examples when it comes to perspective, Bushy explains to the Queen that grief can have ‘twenty shadows’ (2.2.14), meaning different points of view: For Sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears, Divides one thing entire to many objects, Like perspectives, which, rightly gazed upon, Show nothing but confusion; eyed awry, Distinguish form. ( R2 2.2.16–20) Shakespeare intermingles two aspects of perspective since the emergence of ‘many objects’ (17) is evocative of optical devices while the adverbs ‘rightly’ and ‘awry’ (18– 19) are reminiscent of anamorphic paintings such as Holbein’s Ambassadors or Scrots’ portrait of Edward VI in so far as the image of the sitter is completely distorted or ‘show[s] nothing but confusion’ (19) when viewed directly. Perspective is associated with deceit when Bertram relates how he was tricked by a woman’s beauty: At first I stuck my choice on her, ere my heart Durst make too bold a herald of my tongue: Where, the impression of mine eye infixing, Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,

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Which warp’d the line of every other favour Scorn’d a fair colour, or express’d it stol’n Extended or contracted all proportions To a most hideous object. (AWW 5.3.44–52) Interestingly enough, this comedy ends as it started, with portraits. While Helena depicts the imaginary portrait she drew of Bertram (see draw), concentrating on the art of the miniature, Bertram conjures up the pictorial metaphor to express his disillusion. The use of technical words such as ‘line’, ‘colour’, ‘proportion’ or ‘contracted’ makes his speech analogous to an art treatise condemning linear perspective in the fashion of Hilliard’s treatise. The analogy with pictorial art reaches its highest point in SON 24 where the ‘eye’ of the poet ‘hath played the painter’ (1). Despite the praise of this artistic conceit (‘And perspective it is best painter’s art’ 4), the poet laments that the image of the youth is only an opaque surface that does not enable to delve into his beloved’s inner self (‘they [eyes] draw but what they see, know not the heart’ 14). Although the word perspective is not used directly, Cleopatra’s portrait of Antony’s ambiguous personality clearly alludes to the art of perspective: ‘Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,/The other way’s a Mars’ (ANT 2.5.116–17). (C) Baltrušaitis (1969) gives insight into the art of anamorphoses. Lacan (1979) and Greenblatt (1980) offer different points of view on The Ambassadors by Holbein. Gilman (1978) has written a pioneering study of perspective in early modern literature, and remains invaluable reading for his analyses on perspective in R2, TN and MND. Shickman (1977 and 1978) has studied perspective paintings in R2 and ANT. He considers that the perspective painting in ANT is a ‘turning picture’ (1977). Wigginton (1980) gives insight into the double figure of Gorgon/Mars in ANT while Bate (1993) offers a reading of the mythical aspect of this perspective painting. McMillin (1984) and Pye (1988) have studied anamorphosis in R2. Roston (1987) explores the dramatization of perspective in R2. According to him, ANT ‘reveals a commitment to mannerist perspective and sensibility’ (p. 271). Payne (2011) gives a thorough analysis of the use of perspective in R2. Adelman (1973) analyses perspective in ANT. Thorne (2001) provides a thorough account of the use of perspective in Elizabethan England. She explores this issue specifically in HAM and TRO. Berton (2009) has drawn parallels between the Unton portrait (see Figure 2) and R2. Sillars (2015) also explores perspective in R2 while offering innovative and invaluable insights into visual echoes between other works of arts such as the Wilton’s Diptych (1390s) or the portrait of Richard II’s coronation (Richard II Enthroned, 1395) and the dramatization of some pivotal scenes in this play. Many critics have argued that the image of perspective in Sonnet 24 alludes to the technique of anamorphosis: see Gilman (1978), Smith (1981) and Booth (1977). Nordlund (1999) challenges this reading and suggests that the word perspective should be construed literally: ‘the poet refers to the vision that is offered as a perspective; a 178

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painting which creates the effect of seeing through (perspicere) its two-dimensional surface’ (p. 237). According to him, Shakespeare refers to the perspective box that was popular in his lifetime. Mead (2012) is invaluable for his illuminating readings of Sonnet 24, HAM and LR. Sillars (2015) contends that Sonnet 24 shows ‘an awareness of the varieties of visual representation available at the time, the close relationship between painting, engraving and drawing, and the presentation of completed works within frames and in stationers’ windows’ (p. 73). Although the word is not explicitly mentioned in the following works, some critics have investigated the use of perspective in Shakespeare’s writing – Calderwood (1991) explores perspective in MND, Cuvelier (1983) in WT and Belsey (1995) in VEN. peruse This verb which suggests a close reading, an attempt to decipher and examine an item, is in most cases used by Shakespeare to mention a close inspection of letters or other written documents, except in two instances when it is used in the context of visual arts. When she identifies the ambiguous character of Sinon pictured on the painting of Troy, Lucrece strives to understand the hidden meanings behind this representation of duplicity: ‘This picture she advisedly perused,/And chid the painter for his wondrous skill’ (LUC 1527–8). Similarly, Ophelia describes Hamlet’s strange behaviour when he scrutinized her face as if he was about to paint it: ‘He falls to such perusal of my face/ As he would draw it’ (HAM 2.1.87–8). physiognomy In the ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy, Lucrece admires the skill of the painter to draw the features of the character’s faces on the canvas: ‘O, what art/Of physiognomy might one behold!/The face of either ciphered either’s heart’ (1394–6). Baumbach (2008) has devoted a monograph to physiognomy in Shakespeare. picture see paint, painting, portrait, portraiture, shadow (A) Although this word alludes today to a painted work of art, such as a portrait or a landscape painting, or a drawing, Elizabethans used this term in broader contexts. A picture encompassed any visual representation, ranging from a miniature portrait or a statue to a tapestry, and even an emblem. To some extent, this noun encapsulates what contemporary critics call ‘visual culture’ (see Introduction). Despite England’s religious context where Protestantism is perceived as less favourable to visual arts, pictures played a key role in early modern society, and primarily for royal propaganda. In the early years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the painting Elizabeth and the Three Goddesses (1569, Hans Eworth, Royal Collection, Windsor Castle) celebrated her beauty through classical mythology while the family portrait The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of Succession (1572, Lucas de Heere, National Museum, Cardiff) visually re-affirmed Anne Boleyn’s daughter’s lineage. Many portraits of the Queen were painted by Nicholas Hilliard, her royal limner from 1581 to 1596, who laid emphasis on her rich jewellery and powerful symbols, such as the Phoenix in The Phoenix Portrait (1575, National Portrait Gallery, London). Hilliard was also renowned for his miniature portraits which were painted for 179

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private purposes. They could be set in richly decorated jewels that enabled the lover to contemplate the beloved’s face. The famous Drake jewel that the Queen presented to Sir Francis Drake after the defeat of the Spanish Armada contains a miniature portrait of the Queen at the back (Victoria and Albert Museum). Aristocrats and the rising middle-class commissioned many portraits and funerary monuments to preserve their memory after their death or show their lineage to the outside world. The Unton Portrait exemplifies these two trends (National Portrait Gallery, see Figure 2). This picture was commissioned by Lady Unton in 1596 after her husband’s death, in order to celebrate his life for posterity. It is structured as a visual narration starting with his biography (from his birth to his marriage), depicting his social status (he was a soldier and a diplomat, and his coat of arms evinces his nobility) and ending in a dramatic way with his death, funeral and his funerary monument which was built ten years after the portrait. Dramatists and poets also commissioned portraits as testified by the portrait of John Donne (unknown English artist, 1595, National Portrait Gallery). Picture could sometimes refer to a verbal portrait structured according to the rules of rhetoric (see paint). (B) Unlike its near counterpart ‘painting’, the term picture usually indicates the presence of a portrait used as a stage property in Shakespeare’s text. In TGV, after meeting Silvia and listening to Valentine’s praise of her beauty, Proteus falls in love with this ideal image: ‘Tis yet but her picture I have yet beheld,/And that hath dazzled my reason’s light’ (2.4.206–7). Bewitched by Silvia’s different pictures – Valentine’s verbal portrait and the image projected by the boy actor on stage – Proteus sings under her balcony to try and convince her to give him her real portrait as she refuses to love him: ‘Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,/Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,/The picture that is hanging in your chamber’ (TGV 4.2.116–18). This scene is put into perspective by Julia, Proteus’ former lover, who witnesses this scene, hidden behind one of the pillars on stage. Julia, disguised as a page named Sebastian, plays the role of the go-between when Proteus asks her/him to exchange Silvia’s portrait for a ring and a letter (‘Tell my lady/I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.’ 4.4.84–5). After being given the portrait by Silvia’s attendant (4.4.115–16), Julia examines the object on stage (‘Here is her picture. Let me see’ 4.4.182) and compares herself to the painted image in a blazon-like manner. In MV, a picture has a crucial role in the different casket scenes (2.7; 2.9; 3.2). Ironically, Portia, on her first appearance on stage, compares one of her potential suitors, Falconbridge, to a mute and shallow painting: ‘he is a proper man’s picture, but, alas, who can converse with a dumb-show?’ (1.2.67–9). In the first casket scene, when the Prince of Morocco comes to woo her, Portia indicates that her portrait is locked in one of the three caskets: ‘The one of them contains my picture, prince./If you choose that, then I am yours withal’ (2.7.11–12). The aforementioned picture remains unknown to the Prince of Morocco who finds a skull in the golden casket. In the following scene (2.9), Arragon picks the ‘portrait of a blinking idiot’ (2.9.53) out of the silver casket. The stage picture is probably a miniature portrait. Likewise, Portia’s picture that Bassanio has won by unlocking the leaden casket in 3.2 is a miniature portrait (see also counterfeit, shadow). 180

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In HAM, the Prince of Denmark mocks the courtiers who would be ready to pay a fortune to buy the latest miniature portrait of the king: ‘It is not very strange, for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mouths at him while my father lived give twenty, forty, fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little’ (2.2.300– 3). This comparison between the pictures of the dead king and the new king of Denmark anticipates the closet scene in which Hamlet shows to his mother Gertrude two portraits of the aforementioned characters. This scene is put into perspective by the presence of Polonius hidden behind an arras and listening to, but not seeing directly, what is going on: ‘Look here upon this picture, and on this,/The counterfeit presentment of two brothers’ (3.4.51–2). Hamlet regards both paintings as mirrors when he demonstrates to his mother that they reflect the inner qualities of the sitters. The choice of the neutral term ‘picture’ for his dead father, heightened by a hyperbolic description of the painting, stands in sharp contrast with the ambivalent term ‘counterfeit’, imbued with moral connotations, chosen to point to Claudius’ portrait. Despite Hamlet’s efforts to endow the paintings with meaning, Claudius, when depicting Ophelia’s madness, reminds the audience that pictures are flat senseless surfaces: ‘poor Ophelia/Divided from herself and her fair judgement,/Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts’ (4.5.84–6). When he manages to enter Imogen’s chamber, Iachimo tries to write down all the minute details of the room to use the information as evidence against her. He notices that her room is adorned with ‘such, and such pictures’ (CYM 2.2.25). Even though he describes tapestries, and later on some sculptures (2.4.80), it is likely that paintings were hanging in Imogen’s room. One can infer that in this particular scene, pictures are probably standing on stage, maybe in the discovery space where Imogen’s bed could be placed. When Iachimo confesses his plot against Imogen, he admits that he was jealous of the verbal portrait (‘his mistress’ picture’ 5.5.175) that Posthumus drew of her beauty, and that he decided to use the ‘pictures’ (5.5.204) he saw in her room as ‘simular proof’ of her unfaithfulness. In TNK, Emilia is shown alone on stage (4.2), hesitating between two stage pictures representing the two rival cousins, Palamon and Arcite. In a long monologue of more than 50 lines, she describes, in a kind of ekphrasis, the features of the sitters’ faces, trying to guess their inner qualities. In the opening scene of TIM, a painting is shown on stage to prove the painter’s skill to achieve his work (‘Painting is welcome./The painting is almost the natural man’ 1.1.160–1). The comparison with the poet paves the way for an artistic and literary competition between these two characters (see painter, painting). Some pictures are mentioned, but never shown on stage as in the induction to the SHR. While Sly is still asleep on stage, the Lord asks his attendants to carry him to ‘my fairest chamber,/And hang it round with all my wanton pictures’ (Ind 1.45–6). The presence of pictures in a bedroom testifies to the practice of adorning houses with paintings and sculpture while the adjective ‘wanton’ hints that these images are to be looked at in private. The Lord’s order arouses the audience’s interest and curiosity towards these pictures. However, this voyeuristic enticement is delayed, and even postponed in the second induction – while Sly is pampered in the Lord’s chamber, the 181

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second serving man announces that ‘pictures’ are going to be ‘fetched’ (Ind 2.47). The erotic paintings inspired by Ovid and detailed by the serving man on stage (Ind 2.48–58) are never to be shown to the spectators as the latter are invited to imagine them through a verbal picture. Likewise, in LUC, the term ‘picture’ is used several times to indicate the imaginary painting of Troy that Lucrece pictures in her mind (‘This picture she advisedly perused’ 1527; ‘the picture was belied’ 1533). This word is also synonymous with image or icon when the poet reminds the reader that the eponymous character of the poem is ‘the picture of pure piety’ (542). In 1H6, the Countess, who keeps Talbot as her prisoner, relishes seeing Talbot in the flesh having previously seen his image in one of the paintings adorning her gallery: ‘Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me;/ For in my gallery thy picture hangs’ (2.3.35–6). In Act 4, picture is synonymous with image when Sir William Lucy is enraged by Talbot’s death: ‘Were but his picture left amongst you here/It would amaze the proudest of you all’ (4.4.195–6). In ADO, Benedick claims that he will fetch Beatrice’s picture (‘I will go get her picture’ 2.3.253– 4), but the object is never shown on stage. In one of his poems dedicated to Rosaline, Orlando uses the literary cliché of the comparison between painting and the young lady’s natural beauty: ‘All the pictures fairest lined/Are but black to Rosalind’ (AYL 3.2.89–90). Similarly, in LLL, the pedant Armado indulges in another cliché of the lover when he vows in a letter that he worships his beloved’s painting: ‘Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture and my heart on thy every part’ (4.1.82–4). If the image of Armado contemplating his lady’s shadow is reminiscent of Proteus’ idolatry for Silvia’s picture in TGV, his last words reverse the image of adoration into an image of fornication. In Sonnet 24, built upon the comparison between poetry and pictorial art, the poet claims the superiority of his poem since the youth’s image is faithfully represented by his eye and imagination: ‘For through the painter must you see his skill,/To find where your true image pictured lies’ (5–6). Sometimes, this term can signify wood-cuts or illustrations adorning ballads as is exemplified in 2H4: ‘ I will have it in a particular ballad else, with mine owne picture on the top on’t, Coleville kissing my foot’ (4.2.46–8). One of the main thematic lines of TN is visual art with its varied references to painting, perspective, emblem and sculpture. Olivia’s theatrical presentation to Viola/ Cesario connects pictorial art and the human face, a conventional association in the Renaissance: ‘Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face? You are now out of your text. But we will draw the curtain and show you the picture. [Unveils] Look you, sir, such a one I was at this present. Is’t not well done?’ (1.5.224– 8). This revelation reverses the mirror effect between Olivia and Viola as the latter, who is disguised as a man, keeps her identity secret. This image sounds all the more ironical as curtains covering pictures were part of a joke a few scenes before: ‘are they like to take dust, like Mistress Mall’s picture?’ (1.3.121–2). This comical treatment of images is resumed by Feste in his enigma of the ‘picture of the “we three”’ (2.3.16), a familiar inn sign at the time. Olivia’s metaphorical picture of herself is represented on stage when she gives to Viola/Cesario a jewel containing her portrait, probably one of the 182

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fashionable miniature portraits: ‘Here, wear this jewel for me: ‘tis my picture’ (3.4.203). Similarly, in TRO, Cressida is introduced to Troilus, wearing a veil. As the two young people hesitate, Pandarus encourages Cressida to ‘draw the curtain’ to ‘see your picture’ (3.2.45). The artistic meaning of picture is reversed by Thersites who exposes the deceitful nature of painting to insult Achilles: ‘Why, thou picture of what thou seemest and idol of idiot-worshippers’ (5.1.6–7). This puritanical condemnation of pictorial art is resumed a few lines later when he mocks Agamemnon’s brother by comparing him to the statue of a bull (‘the primitive statue and oblique memorial of cukolds’ 5.1.53–4). As with its synonym painting, picture is also endowed with negative connotations, but to a lesser extent. In OTH, Iago contemptuously compares women, including Desdemona, to ‘pictures out of doors’ (2.1.109), suggesting that they are silent images, probably beautified by cosmetics. In MAC, Lady Macbeth reminds her frightened husband who has just killed Duncan that the dead are nothing but lifeless ‘pictures’ (‘The sleeping and the dead/Are but as pictures; ’tis the eye of childhood/That fears a painted devil’ 2.2.54–6). This fear emerges again when Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost. Lady Macbeth once again uses the pictorial metaphor to describe her husband’s hallucination (‘this is the very painting of your fear’ 3.4.58). The spiteful Venus mocks Adonis’ coldness by drawing a parallel with a ‘lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone’ (VEN 211). The word picture alludes here both to pictorial art and sculpture as it could be a variation on the term image. Likewise, Hermione’s statue is referred to as ‘the queen’s picture’ (5.2.174) before the statue scene. The choice of this word could be interpreted as a fusion of painting and sculpture, maybe in order to hint at the artist who supposedly carved the statue, namely the multi-talented Giulio Romano. Or Shakespeare could simply have resorted to this term as a synonym for statue, an object that was considered, at the time, as an art of colour. However, in the previous scene, picture is used as a synonym for resemblance when Paulina asks Leontes not to get married again ‘unless another/As like Hermione as is her picture/Affront his eye’ (5.1.73–5). Even though in this scene, picture alludes to the funerary monument raised for Hermione after her supposed death (3.2.235–7), hence anticipating Paulina’s description of the statue as a funerary effigy (5.3.14–17), the sense of ‘natural’ image or resemblance is probably suggested by Shakespeare as the statue coming to life in the final scene is not an effigy but the same actor who has impersonated Hermione throughout the play. The term ‘picture’ can also signify rhetorical portraits as in LLL when Rosaline criticizes Berowne’s artificial praise of her beauty by resorting to a pictorial metaphor: ‘O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter.’ (5.2.38). In KL, Gloucester swears that he will send a written description of Edgar all over England to have him arrested: ‘Besides, his picture,/I will send far and near, that all the kingdom/May have due note of him’ (2.1.81–3). In PER, the colours of eloquence are used to comical ends as Boult, who has praised Marina’s qualities over the market to sell her for a good price, is disappointed to hear that he was unsuccessful: ‘I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn her picture with my voice’ (4.2.86–7). Picture is also analogous to the word 183

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image in the Sonnets. In Sonnets 46 and 47, structured as a diptych, the eye and the heart of the poet are ‘at a mortal war’ (SON 46.1) where the heart rejects the young man’s ‘picture’ projected by the eye (SON 46.3). However, Sonnet 47 presents the end of the conflict by highlighting the power of vision which makes ‘love’s picture’ present to the eye (SON 47.5). Then, the picture drawn by the poet’s inward eye enables him to see his lover when he is away or in his sleep (SON 47.9, 13). (C) For an overview of the art of portraits in early modern England, Strong is invaluable whether for a general view of the art of painting in Shakespeare’s time (1969, 1999, 2004) or his studies of the art of the miniature portrait (1975, 1999). Mercer (1962) devotes a chapter to painting and another one to the art of miniatures. Tittler’s work on portraits (2007 and 2013) highlights new aspects of portraiture in Elizabethan England. Cooper (2006 and 2012) provides further insight into the role of pictures in Renaissance England. Bentley-Cranch (2004) has written a comparative study of French and English portraits in the Renaissance. Doebler (1974) argues that the casket scene in MV symbolizes the ‘triumph of art’ (p. 49). Tassi (2005) asserts that TGV encapsulates the iconoclastic vision of pictorial art in early modern England since Proteus’ infatuation for Silvia’s portrait leads him to idolatry. She shows that in the induction to the SHR, painting is associated with eroticism. She also gives detailed analyses of MV, HAM, TIM, TN and WT. Sprague (1948) suggests that the pictures used by Hamlet in the closet scene are miniature portraits whereas Orgel (1999) argues that this scene relies more on a verbal picture than a visual one. Felperin (1977) suggests that the closet scene where Hamlet confronts his mother with the two pictures of his father and his uncle is imbued with a medieval and moralistic vision of art. Whall (1994) analyses the relation between miniature pictures and HAM. Costa de Beauregard (1989) draws parallels between the art of the miniature portrait and oil painting and the theatrical use of pictures in HAM. Meek (2009) devotes a chapter to the analysis of pictorial art in HAM. Richardson (2011) affirms that Hamlet presents his mother with a miniature portrait, relating this idea to the broader theme of secrecy and interiority. She also explores Viola’s symbolic portrait in TN, focusing on the relation between clothing and the female face. She delves further into the casket scene in MV by highlighting the economic value of objects in early modern England. Potter (1997) suggests that the pictures held by Emilia in TNK are miniatures. Elam (2008) gives many insights into the role of pictures in TN. Elam (2010) suggests that the pictures shown on stage in TGV and TIM are probably smallsized portraits, similar to miniatures. As for the erotic paintings described to Sly in the induction to SHR, but never shown on stage, he argues that they are more akin to ‘small engravings’ than wall paintings (p. 65). In another article (2014), he gives insight into the role of ‘wanton pictures’ in SHR, highlighting connections with Italian arts. Although there is no direct allusion to any precise work of art in the pictures described in the second induction to SHR, Sillars (2015) contends that the subjects presented in the paintings ‘are thus as much a conspectus of the tastes of the connoisseur as a direct visual allusion, an early demonstration of the dramatist’s awareness of the painterly 184

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traditions and visual tastes of his age’ (p. 40). Dundas (1993) explores the duality of eyes and heart in the contemplation of the youth’s picture in sonnets 46 and 47. piece see painting, statue, tapestry (A) This polysemous term which refers to one part of an item, can sometimes be synonymous with a work of art, whether it be a painting, a tapestry or a statue. According to the OED, the meaning of a dramatic work was first recorded in 1616 with Ben Jonson in Epicene. (B) In LUC, the painting of Troy is twice alluded to by the term piece which functions as a variation of the word picture (‘At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece/Of skilful painting made for PRIAM’s TROY’ 1366–7; ‘To this well-painted piece is LUCRECE come,/To find a face where all distress is stelled’ 1443–4). In the opening scene of TIM, the painter’s production is described as a piece, first to refer to the stage property held by the artist (‘Upon the heels of my presentment, sir./Let’s see your piece’ 1.1.28–9; ‘ ’tis a good piece’ 1.1.30). Later on, the painter rivals the other courtiers, namely the poet and the jeweller, to present Timon with his production (‘A piece of painting, which I do beseech/Your lordship to accept’ 1.1.158–9). The philosopher Apemantus mocks the painter for being an artificer who cannot rival God. He cunningly resumes the term ‘piece’ which has so far been used for pictorial art to apply it to the painter himself who is, according to him, a bad production: ‘He wrought better that made the painter, and yet he’s but a filthy piece of work’ (1.1.201–2). In CYM, Iachimo describes the tapestry adorning Imogen’s room as ‘a piece of work/So bravely done, so rich that it did strive/In workmanship and value’ (2.4.72–4). In WT, the statue of Hermione which is in the possession of Paulina is alluded to as a piece of work: ‘No, the princess hearing of her mother’s statue which is in the keeping of Paulina, a piece many years in doing and now newly performed by that rare Italian master Giulio Romano’ (5.2.92–5). The choice of the verb ‘to perform’ could well hint at the dramatization of the statue in the final scene which is not merely a visit to Paulina’s gallery, but a play within a play ‘performed’ this time by Paulina as the work of art is impersonated by a boy actor playing the role of Hermione and standing still on stage. Even though the term ‘piece’ was not yet endowed with the meaning of a dramatic work, Shakespeare had already used it in the context of a play within the play in one of his early comedies. In SHR, Christopher Sly depicts the play he has just attended as ‘a very excellent piece of work’ (1.1.251). In the statue scene, Leontes amusingly addresses the work of art as if it was a person, thinking that the statue standing before him seems alive through magic: ‘O royal piece,/There’s magic in thy majesty’ (5.3.38–9) (C) Dundas (1983) contends that the painting of Troy described in LUC is a wall painting while other critics suggest it is a tapestry (see tapestry). pipe see statue plaster This material, originally used in medical treatment to fix bandages, is also found in architecture where sand, water and lime are mixed to cover and protect walls. In 185

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MND, Bottom suggests the use of plaster on the actor impersonating the wall to make him look more realistic, hence turning him into a stage property: ‘Some man or other must present Wall: and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify wall’ (3.1.63–5). This hilarious reference to the construction of a prop could also signify the cosmetics used by actors on stage. This pejorative association appears in HAM when Claudius mentions the cosmetics worn by prostitutes: ‘The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plast’ring art’ (3.1.51). portrait see painting, picture, shadow (A) This word can be a visual representation of a person, especially the face, created by a painter or a sculptor. This term is also used for lively verbal depictions. Portraits played an important role in Elizabethan society (see picture). (B) This term appears only once in Shakespeare. In the casket scene, Arragon, the second suitor of Portia, opens the silver casket and discovers ‘the portrait of a blinking idiot/Presenting me a schedule’ (2.9.54–5). Portia’s portrait, which is presented as a prize to allow the winner to marry her, is referred to either by the word ‘picture’ in the first casket scene (2.7.11–12) or ‘counterfeit’ and ‘shadow’ in Bassanio’s description of Portia’s portrait which was enclosed in the leaden casket (3.2.115–29). (C) Doebler (1974) interprets the portraits in MV in the light of ars moriendi since the diverse pictures are locked in caskets which are reminiscent, according to him, of coffins. Tassi (2005) analyses the role of the portrait in MV. See also Shell (1988) and Elam (2014). portraiture see painting, picture, portrait (A) This term can either signify pictorial art or be synonymous with portrait. (B) This term is used only once in HAM when the Prince of Denmark compares Laertes’ situation to his: ‘But I am very sorry, good Horatio,/That to Laertes I forgot myself;/For by the image of my cause I see/The portraiture of his’ (5.2.75–8 Folio). Even though portraiture echoes the varied references to pictorial art in this tragedy (see counterfeit, paint, painting), it is used, in this context, as a synonym of image in the sense of reflection. (C) Meek (2009) has a chapter on painting in HAM. presentment see counterfeit, picture This term, primarily used to signify a speech or a statement uttered in a court of law, can also refer to a visual representation, either a portrait or a dramatic performance. In the closet scene, Hamlet shows to Gertrude the portraits of her dead husband and Claudius so as to oblige her to search her soul: ‘Look here upon this picture, and on this,/The counterfeit presentment of two brothers’ (3.4.51–2). This apparent synonym for the word ‘picture’ which draws attention to the visual item exposed on stage, is invested with slightly different connotations. It might echo Olivia’s pictorial dramatization of her face when she compares herself to a ‘picture’ hidden behind a ‘curtain’ (TN 1.5.226). She amusingly indicates the date of composition: 186

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‘Look you, sir, such a one I was this present’ (1.5.227). Elam (2008) suggests that ‘I was this present’ was a direct reference to ‘the inscription frequently found on Renaissance portraits, aetatis suae (of her or his age)’ (p. 37). Hence, Hamlet may hint at this type of inscription. The legal connotation inherent in this word may imply that the Prince of Denmark uses the portraits as evidence of his father’s innocence and his uncle’s evil nature especially as his following speech lays emphasis on the brothers’ opposed personalities (3.4.55–88). proportion (A) Finding the perfect symmetry and the proper dimensions of the object or figure to be painted has always been regarded as one of the fundamenal techniques of pictorial art, but also of other forms of arts such as sculpture or architecture. In his general definition of painting, Lomazzo (1598) reminds his readers that colour is not the only element in a painting: ‘Painting is an arte, which with proportionable lines, and colours answerable to the life, by observing the perspective light, doeth so imitate that nature of corporall thinges’ (p. 13). Hilliard (1600) also points out that drawing a face relies both on ‘fair and beautiful colour’ as well as ‘good proportion’ (p. 55). (B) Although it cannot be demonstrated that Shakespeare had read Lomazzo when writing VEN since the English translation was published after his poem, the ekphrastic description and aesthetic commentary on the painting of a horse reveals a certain degree of knowledge in arts: ‘Look when a painter would surpass the life/In limning out a wellproportioned steed’ (VEN 289–90). The following stanza (295–300) surveying the different parts of the horse heightens the sense of harmonious symmetry searched for by the artist. Conversely in AWW, Bertram suggests that the art of perspective questions proportions as painted figures are distorted to look different from what they are in reality: At first I stuck my choice on her . . . Where, the impression of mine eye infixing, Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me, Which warp’d the line of every other favour Scorn’d a fair colour, or express’d it stol’n Extended or contracted all proportions To a most hideous object. (AWW 5.3.44–5/47–52) Bertram comments on the main ingredients of a painting using technical words such as ‘line’, ‘colour’, ‘proportion’ or ‘contracted’, making his speech analogous to an art treatise condemning linear perspective as advocated in Hilliard’s treatise (C) Sillars (2015) discusses the aesthetic issues of representing the right proportion of a horse in pictorial art in connection with VEN. purple see crimson, red, ruby, scarlet, white (A) Although purple is nowadays regarded as a shade of violet, in the Renaissance it was perceived as a hue of crimson 187

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red. In ancient Rome, this colour was generally worn by emperors and kings while in the Roman Catholic church, it was a distinctive shade of scarlet for cardinals’dress. Purple was also associated with the colour of blood. (B) In accordance with most hues of red, purple is summoned up to describe blood as in ROM (‘What ho, you men, you beasts,/That quench the fire of your pernicious rage/With purple fountains issuing from your veins’ 1.1.81–3). Lucrece’s blood stemming from her wounds is depicted in this deep shade of red (‘And from the purple fountain BRUTUS drew/The murd’rous knife’ LUC 1734–5). Echoing Bolingbroke’s promise to initiate a ‘crimson tempest’ over England (3.3.45), King Richard is appalled to hear that Bolingbroke is ready to break the unity of the two houses: ‘He is come to open/The purple testament of bleeding war’ (R2 3.3.93–4). In 3H6, purple is used as a variation of blood red. In the first act, the defeated Duke of York remembers his brave actions on the battlefield when he was supported by Edward and his sword stained with his enemies’ blood: ‘And full as oft came Edward to my side,/With purple falchion painted to the hilt/In blood of those that had encountered him’ (1.4.11–13). King Henry laments the killing of a son by his own father in the midst of the civil war, perceiving in the image of the father carrying his son’s dead body the bloody lines of the War of the Roses: ‘The red rose and the white rose are on his face,/The fatal colour of our striving houses:/The one his purple blood right well resembles,/The other his pale cheeks methinks presenteth’ (2.5.97–100). Near the end of 3H6, Gloucester stabs King Henry to death; the blood on his sword symbolizes the future blood that the new dynasty is ready to shed to protect its power: ‘O may such purple tears be always shed/From those that wish the downfall of our house’ (5.6.64–5). The representation of blood on stage brings to the fore the horrifying spectacle of Caesar’s wounded body as Antony discovers that the blood staining the conspirators’ hands and sword is still warm: ‘whilst your purple hands do reek and smoke,/Fulfil your pleasure’ (JC 3.1.158–9). The blood shed in war is epitomized by the recurrent image of the blood-stained hands, symbolizing the victory of the English army in KJ: ‘Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,/Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes’ (2.1.322–3). This adjective is also expressive of the natural colours of the lover’s face in poetry. After comparing his lover to a violet whose sweet smell conjures up in the poet’s mind his beloved’s breath, the poet builds up his poetical blazon by playing on the shades of red and violet inherent in purple to describe his lover’s cheeks (‘The purple pride/ Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells/In my love’s veins thou has too grossly dyed’ SON 99.3–5). The red of the cheek reverberates in the lover’s blood, probably hinting at the inner passion felt by the latter (see symbolism of red). VEN opens onto to bright shades of red as Adonis’ ‘rose-cheeked’ complexion (3) is reflected by the sun’s ‘purple-coloured face’ (1). This deep red emerges again in the tragic depiction of Adonis’ bleeding wounds (‘Upon the wide wound that the boar had trenched/In his soft flank, whose wonted lily white/With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drenched’ (1052–4). The contrast between red and white implied in the description of Adonis’ 188

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dead body and recurrent throughout the poem (see red) reaches its climax in the young man’s metamorphosis into a purple and white flower: By this the boy that by her side lay killed Was melted like a vapour from her sight, And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled A purple flower sprung up, chequered with white, Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood. (VEN 1165–70) In MND, the magic flower used by Oberon to trick Titania into falling in love with the first person she sees when she wakes up, is described as ‘before, milk-white; now purple with love’s wound’ (2.1.167). The traditional symbols of Cupid’s arrow and of red as the colour of passion are once again conflated when Oberon uses the nectar of the flower upon Demetrius’ eyes: ‘Flower of this purple dye/Hit with Cupid’s archery,/Sink in apple of his eye’ (3.2.102–4). When discussing the colour of the beard he should wear to impersonate Pyramus, Bottom, who is a weaver, depicts a wide spectrum of red shades, ranging from ‘orange-tawny beard’ to a ‘purple-in-grain beard’ (1.2.86–8). Purple is nearing violet in Titiana’s description of the ‘purple grapes’ she wants to offer to her new lover (3.1.162). Similarly, in PER, purple is the colour of violets: ‘the yellows, blues,/The purple violets and marigolds/Shall as a carpet hang upon the green’ (4.1.13–15). In 1H4, Falstaff compares Bardolph’s red nose to the ‘Dives that lived in purple’ (3.3.31–2). In keeping with her rank and status, the barge Cleopatra is sitting in when she first met Antony was decorated with ‘purple’ sails (ANT 2.2.203), highlighting the authority of the Queen of Egypt. (C) The detail of the purple sails in ANT was borrowed directly from North’s translation of Plutarch (1579). In Ovid’s version of the myth of Adonis (Metamorphoses, 1597, Bk 10), the young man is turned into a red flower. Price (1945) suggests that Shakespeare may have been inspired by Bion’s elegy where Adonis is transformed into two flowers, one red and the other white. He also reminds us that for botanists, the anemone is described as a purple and white flower. Other critics have focused more on the motif of red and white than the choice of this variety of red. Hulse (1978) reads the conflation of red and white in the flower as a symbol of reconciliation of the Houses of Lancaster and York. See also Kahn (1981). Wells (1967) suggests that the change in the colour of the flower, from white to purple, could have been suggested by Ovid’s story of Pyramus and Thisbe, the story underlying this poem. The mulberry, originally white, is said to have been changed into a purple red with Pyramus’ blood. Costa de Beauregard (1992) gives an insight on the eloquence of purple in 1H4. Pygmalion see statue (A) Although the legend of Pygmalion is originally Greek, the well-known story of the sculptor who falls madly in love with the statue he has carved was probably shaped by Ovid. 189

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(B) The only direct reference to this myth in Shakespeare’s text is to be found in MM: ‘What, is there none of Pygmalion’s images newly made woman to be had now?’ (3.2.43–5). Many critics agree that the statue scene in WT was partly influenced by this Ovidian myth since the statue of Hermione, supposedly carved by Giulio Romano, is brought back to life in the final scene. (C) In Golding’s translation of Metamorphoses (1567), Pygmalion is said to have been horrified by the lascivious Propetides who were turned into statues, and decided to lock himself up in his studio to carve the perfect and pure woman. As Venus was sensitive to the sculptor’s unrequited love for his ivory maiden, she turned the statue into a living woman (Bk 10). In the Middle Ages, the figure of Pygmalion epitomizes lust, vice and even sloth in Gower (1390). See also Pizan (1460). In Meung (c. 1440), Pygmalion epitomizes self-love like Narcissus. See also Montaigne (1603). In one of his poems, Garter (1566) describes an imaginary competition between the painter Apelles and Pygmalion in the manner of the paragone. Marston (1598) has written a satirical poem on Pygmalion’s delusion and foolish idolatry. Daniel (1592) and Griffin (1596) have written poems on this figure. Miller (1998) explores the different aspects of Pygmalion. Stoichita (2006) provides a thorough and updated reading of the reception of this myth in literature and arts from its origins to contemporary arts, and even photography, including analyses on WT. Even though Pygmalion is not directly mentioned in WT, many critics have explored the implicit presence of this mythical sculptor in this play. Roche Rico (1985) summarizes the main readings of this myth in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and throws light upon its varied meanings in both MM and WT. Barkan is one of the most prolific academics writing on the relationship between Pygmalion and Shakespeare’s text. In one of his articles (1981), he shows the parallels between Ovid’s text and WT. In his book (1986), he argues that Pygmalion embodies the creative power of art, a pivotal aspect of the myth structuring the final scene of WT. In his thought-provoking study on animated statues, Gross (1992) devotes a chapter to the reception of Pygmalion in the Renaissance and its dramatization in WT. Bate (1993) is invaluable for his detailed analysis of the reworking of Pygmalion in WT. Nuttal (2000) argues that there is a textual connection between Leontes and Pygmalion in 5.3.4–8 when the former tries to kiss Hermione’s statue. See also Martindale (1990) and Enterline (2000). Brown (2013) explores the homoerotic dimension of Pygmalion in Ovid and WT. Grundy (1962) considers that Shakespeare, the sonneteer, suffered from a Pygmalion’s complex.

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R rainbow see colour (A) This natural phenomenon where spectral colours emerge when sunlight is reflected in drops of rain was not considered to be scientific evidence of our perception of colours in early modern England as the Elizabethans were still influenced by Aristotleian theories (see colour). The rainbow features in Queen Elizabeth’s political propaganda as is clear in the famous Rainbow Portrait (see Figure 5). Surprisingly enough, this natural phenomenon is represented as a transparent arch. Lee and Fraser (2001) suggest that ‘Elizabeth personifies the rainbow’s required sunlight of temporal power, divine grace, or of a dawning age’ (p. 67). (B) Shakespeare uses this polychromus bow as a metaphor to highlight certain colours. While Lucrece is dressed in ‘mourning black’ (LUC 1585), the colour of her eyes betrays her grief: ‘And round about her tear-distained eye/Blue circles streamed, like rainbows in the sky’ (LUC 1586–7). In WIV, Falstaff compares his bruises to a rainbow: ‘What tellst thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow’ (4.5.107–8). See also WT (4.4.206) and KJ (4.2.14). (C) Hilliard (1600) considers the colours in the rainbow as mixed: ‘As for the mixture of colours, if you will see fine variety, behold the rainbow, and therein shall you find an excellent mixture of all the transparent colours’ (p. 81). Yates (1975), Strong (1977) and Erler (1987) have given different interpretations of The Rainbow Portrait. raven see black, dark (A) This black bird sometimes regarded as a messenger of bad news is often used to describe a certain type of deep black as in the phrase raven-black. (B) If Ulysses underlines the colour of the raven (‘The raven chides blackness’ TRO 2.3.208), its blackness is used to describe black characters in Shakespeare. In TIT, Lavinia compares the dark-skinned Aaron, Tamora’s lover, to a ‘raven-coloured love’ (2.2.83) while Titus directly addresses him by associating him with the bird: ‘O gentle Aaron!/Did ever raven sing so like a lark/That gives sweet tidings of the sun’s uprise?’ (3.1.158–60). Not only does Titus underline Aaron’s complexion, but he also focuses on his role as the emperor’s gloomy messenger since Aaron informs him that the emperor wants his hand chopped off. Similarly, in the first sonnet addressed to the Dark Lady, the poet praises his lover’s black eyes: ‘Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black’ (SON 127.9). Juliet’s poetical soliloquy on the coming of night seen as a time of reunion for the lovers is built upon the oxymoronic association of black and white: ‘Come, night, come, Romeo, come, thou day in night,/For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night/Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back’ (ROM 3.2.17–19). The paradoxical 191

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image of a bright Romeo illuminating darkness, who is then pictured as little stars (22), may be an erotic reference to the union of Zeus and Danaë. This oxymoron is abruptly inverted into the emblem of deceptive outward appearances when Juliet learns that Tybalt has been killed by Romeo: ‘Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,/Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb’ (3.2.75–6). The layer of white covering the blackness of the raven to make it more beautiful is a deceitful conflation as the white colour of the dove conceals the true nature of the raven’s dark heart. This image is also found in TN when Orsino alludes to Olivia’s double personality: ‘I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,/To spite a raven’s heart within a dove’ (5.1.126–7). The contrast between the white dove and the black raven is invoked by Lysander when comparing the beauty of Hermia and Helena: ‘Not Hermia but Helena I love:/Who will not change a raven for a dove?’ (2.2.119–20). (C) According to Elam (2013), the image of the dove and the raven in TN can be given two interpretations – either Viola, despite her outward beauty, has a cruel heart, a traditional image suggested by the blackness of the raven, or her cruelty stands in sharp contrast to Cesario’s gentleness. red see black, colour, coral, crimson, damask, incarnadine, purple, ruby, ruddy, russet, scarlet, vermillion, white (A) This primary colour is usually associated with varied hues ranging from the lively red of blood and cherries to the yellow shades of fire and flames. In early modern England, the chromatic spectrum of red was wider than the contemporary scientific measuring we rely on today. It encompassed tones such as purple, pink or even orange which are now perceived as colours in their own rights. Shades of red were then distinguished by the terms crimson, scarlet, or the natural red of rubies, or coral. As the English Renaissance was still influenced by pre-Newtonian theories of colours (see colour), red was perceived as a colour nearing black. It was also linked to the medical theories of the four humours inherited from Galen. The sanguine humour which was regarded as an excess of blood was unsurprisingly associated with red. Likewise, red was related to the natural colour of the human face, whether it be the lips or the cheeks. Blushing could then take on different meanings and be perceived as a sign of shame or bashfulness. The outward flow of blood was considered a reflection of inward emotions. However, women, even Queen Elizabeth I, fell for the fashion of cosmetics, extensively using rouge to heighten their beauty or look younger. In Renaissance society, colours were codified by sumptuary laws (see colour) allocating distinct colours to different social classes. Red embodied first and foremost the colour of royal power and authority. Although Queen Elizabeth’s court was dominated by black and white, she wore red in royal ceremonies, as shown by her portrait attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1585–1590, Helmingham Hall) where she appears dressed in her official scarlet Parliament robes. On special occasions, members of the English Parliament could be authorized to wear red. Red could also be worn by other social groups, such as English judges whose red robes contrasted in a 192

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court of law with the lawyers’ black dress. During official ceremonies, courtiers were provided with red garments (see scarlet). In those contexts, red denoted pomp. In the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church, the bright red of the scarlet robe and cap was worn by Cardinals (see scarlet). On an economic level, red remained a precious and expensive dye. The discovery of cochineal by the Spanish colonists in the sixteenth century was a turning point in the history of red. Thanks to this insect, brighter and deeper shades of red could be made. However, the process was still expensive and the commercial routes of cochineal were dominated by the Spaniards. The economic war to obtain cochineal was partly led by pirates working for Holland and England who looted Spanish vessels on their way back to Spain. (B) Red is the colour of human blood. On stage, the redness of blood is both rendered by the make-up – and sometimes animal blood – used by the actors to imitate human blood or wounds, and verbalized through vivid metaphors or descriptions. The conjunction of the word and the image is dramatized in Caesar’s death when, after stabbing him to death, Brutus encourages the conspirators to bathe their swords in the dictator’s wounded dead body lying on stage in order to brandish them in triumph in the streets of Rome: ‘Then walk we forth even to the market-place,/And waving our red weapons o’er our heads/Let’s all cry, “Peace, Freedom and Liberty!”’ (JC 3.1.108–10). In the final act, Cassius’ death is made visual in poetical tones as Titinius draws a parallel between the dying red lights of the sun and the end of Cassius’ life: ‘O setting sun:/As in thy red rays thou dost sink tonight,/So in red blood Cassius’ day is set’ (JC 5.3.60–2). Likewise in MAC, red is visualized on stage when Macbeth enters with blood-stained hands after killing the king. While Lady Macbeth takes the blood-stained daggers to make the sleeping guards look guilty, Macbeth realizes that his guilt cannot be removed: ‘No, this my hand will rather/The multitudinous Seas incarnadine,/Making the green one, red’ (2.2.60–2). The mirror effect between Macbeth and his wife is heightened when she comes back on stage with her hands also covered in blood (‘my hands are of your colour’ 2.2.65). In its escalating spectacle of horror, the violence of Lavinia’s mutilation is heightened by the pervading red of the blood escaping from her cut tongue and hands. This icon of red is turned into a bleeding statue: ‘As from a conduit with three issuing spouts,/Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan’s face/Blushing to be encountered with a cloud’ (TIT 2.3.30–2). In VEN, red features in the description of the blood of innocent Adonis killed by the boar ‘whose frothy mouth, bepainted all with red,/Like milk and blood being mingled both together’ (901–2). The young man’s blood is then metamorphosed into a purple flower (see purple). Likewise, after Lucrece’s rape, red epitomizes blood and death. The long passage devoted to the painting of Priam’s Troy (LUC 1365–1575) is pivotal for the understanding of the chromatic spectrum of red in this poem. Throughout the painting, red is invariably associated with blood and war, echoing the military vocabulary of the opening stanzas. The horror of the war and the grief experienced by the vanquished are expressed in blood red: ‘The red blood reeked, to show the painter’s 193

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strife,/And dying eyes gleamed forth their ashy lights,/Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights’ (1377–9). This colour is used by the painter to strengthen the atmosphere of war: ‘And from the strand of DARDAN where they fought/To SIMOIS’ reedy banks the red blood ran’ (1436–7). Red also points to Lucrece’s extreme grief (‘Her eyes, though sod in tears, looked red and raw,/Her lively colour killed with deadly cares’ 1592–3). The sparkling beauty initially praised in the poem is partly restored in the representation of Lucrece’s death. After stabbing herself to death, Lucrece’s body becomes like a fountain (1733–4) from which her blood gushes forth: ‘Some of her blood still pure and red remained,/And some looked black, and that false TARQUIN stained’ (1742–3). Despite the blackness tainting Lucrece’s inner beauty and virtue, red still runs pure (‘And blood untainted still doth red abide,/Blushing at that which is so putrified’ 1749–50). Emotions such as anger or shame, and sexual desire are often embodied by red, thus suggesting the sudden rush of blood running through the body. In TRO, the passionate love of the god Mars for the goddess Venus is depicted in the most traditional way: ‘Ay Greek, and that shall be divulged well/In characters as red as Mars his heart/Inflamed with us’ (5.2.170–2). The fiery red of lust and passion echoes the portrait that Venus draws in VEN when she boasts to the indifferent Adonis how she tamed the besotted Mars: ‘Thus he that overruled I overswayed,/Leading him prisoner in a red-rose chain’ (109–10). In the opening lines of this narrative poem, red encapsulates the contrasting emotions felt by the passionate and lusty Venus and the chaste Adonis whose glowing cheeks betray his repulsion for the goddess of love: ‘She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,/He red for shame, but frosty in desire’ (35–6). Further on, Adonis’ emotions are pictured in white and red, bringing to the fore the complexity of his emotions: ‘ ’Twix crimson shame and anger ashy pale./Being red, she loves him best, and being white,/ Her best is bettered with a more delight’ (76–8). The lusty Venus tries to lure Adonis into kissing her by playing on the eroticism of her red and attractive lips: ‘Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine – /Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red’ (115– 16). All her tricks and suggestions are to no avail. After comparing Adonis to a statue, she is besieged by strong emotions which are once again painted in red: ‘This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue/And swelling passion doth provoke a pause;/ Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong’ (217–19). In AYL, Phoebe comments on the varied hues and symbols of red when describing her beloved’s face in a blazonlike manner – sexual desire is openly expressed in the red of the lips while cheeks are endowed with a more subdued tone of red: ‘there was a pretty rednesse in his lip,/A little riper and more lusty red/Than that mixed in his cheek. ‘Twas just the difference/Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask’ (AYL 3.5.121–4). The association of red and fire or flames underlines the anger of some characters as in KJ (‘Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,/With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire’ 4.2.162–3) or COR (‘I tell you, he does sit in gold, his eye/Red as ‘twould burn Rome’ 5.1.63–4). Sometimes red eyes can represent sadness as in LUC (1592) or in a more comical tone in 1H4 when Falstaff wants to have reddish eyes to make 194

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people believe he has been crying: ‘Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red’ (2.4.374–5). Red can also describe the colour of wine, as in MV (‘there is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet and ivory, more between your bloods than there is between red wine and Rhenish’ 3.1.34–6), in H8 where ‘the red wine first must rise/In their fair cheeks, my lord; then we shall have’em/Talk to silence’ (1.4.43–5) or in 2H4 when red cheeks are a sign of drunkenness: ‘Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red any rose, in good truth’ (2.4.21–3). Red is associated twice with disease in COR (‘now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome/And occupations perish!’ 4.1.13–14) and TMP (‘The red plague rid you/For learning me your language’ 1.2.365–6). For Elizabethan readers and spectators, red conjured up the Wars of the Roses, an historical event that Shakespeare dramatized in many of his historical plays. In the highly chromatic scene of the Temple garden in 1H6 (2.4), this pivotal, yet fictitious episode presents the origin of the rivalry between the two houses of Lancaster and York, epitomized by the red rose and the white rose. Set within one of the Inns of Court where would-be barristers learnt the tricks and colours of rhetoric (see colour), the rivalry between Richard Plantagenet who picks the white rose (2.4.30) and Somerset who chooses the red one (2.4.33) paves the way for the tragic confrontation between the two sides. The discrepancy between red and white which could contaminate each other (‘Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,/Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red/And fall on my side’ 2.4.49–51) is heightened by the king’s awkward decision to take sides with one of the groups: ‘let me be umpire in this doubtful strife. [Takes the red rose from Basset.]/I see no reason, if I wear this rose,/That any one should therefore be suspicious/I more incline to Somerset than York’ (4.1.151–4). This virtual competition leads the way to the bloodiest civil war on English soil that Shakespeare chose to dramatize in 3H6. King Henry witnesses the utmost expression of horror in the image of the son bearing the father that he killed while another father holds in his arms the body of the son he has also slain. Henry describes this scene in chromatic terms: ‘The red rose and the white are on his face,/The fatal colours of our striving houses:/The one his purple blood right well resembles,/The other his pale cheeks methinks presenteth’ (3H6 2.5.97–100). The struggle between the two houses reaches its highest point in R3 when Tyrrel pictures the death of the two children in the Tower of London, contrasting white and red: ‘Thus, thus’, quoth Forrest, ‘girdling one another/Within their innocent alabaster arms./Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,/And in their summer beauty kissed each other’ (4.3.10–13). The unification of the roses is to be embodied by Henry VII (Richmond) who announces the end of the civil war in the last act of R3: ‘And then, as we have ta’en the sacrament,/We will unite the white rose and the red’ (5.5.18–19). The contrast between red and white is often endowed with poetical and literary tones in Shakespeare. In Elizabethan England, these two colours had become a rhetorical pattern inherited from Petrarchan poetry where Laura’s beauty was repeatedly pictured through a set spectrum of colours. Her blonde hair was invariably heightened by her 195

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white skin and her red lips and cheeks. White and red then epitomized key features of conventional feminine beauty. This chromatic pattern is recurrent throughout Shakespeare’s work, sometimes taking on ironical tones. The narrative poems seem to have complied with the rhetorical scheme imposed by Petrarch. It is particularly striking in LUC as the first portrait of the eponymous character is described in terms of heraldry (‘This heraldry in LUCRECE’ face was seen’ 64), hence overtly echoing the literary trope of the poetic blazon in which each part of a woman’s body was described and portrayed in highly flattering terms. The combination of red with white, sometimes oxymoronic, sometimes complementary, turns out to be one of the rhetorical patterns structuring both narrative poems. More often than not compared to roses and lilies, red and white happen to be the conventional colours to describe beauty and virtue. Both poems open with the colour scheme of white and red, explicitly positioned in their second stanzas (‘The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare,/Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,/More white and red than doves and roses are’ VEN 8–10) and ‘To praise the clear unmatched red and white/Which triumphed in that sky of his delight’ LUC 11–12). Despite other references to white and red in VEN (77–8 and ‘To note the fighting conflict of her hue,/How white and red each other did destroy!’ 345–6), the first part of LUC hinges on these two contrasting colours. Four stanzas (50–77) relating the initial encounter between Tarquin and Lucrece are structured around an extended oxymoron where red and white fight against each other – Tarquin immediately perceives the rivalry of virtue and beauty on Lucrece’s face (‘When virtue bragged, beauty would blush for shame;/When beauty boasted blushes, in despite/Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white’ 54–6). These two colours are depicted as rivals fighting an imaginary war on Lucrece’s face (‘the red should fence the white’ 63). In the blazon of Lucrece’s face, red represents beauty while virtue is symbolized by white (‘This heraldry in LUCRECE’ face was seen,/Argued by beauty’s red and virtue’s white’ 64–5), reaching a climax with the ‘silent war of lilies and of roses’ (71). Even though Sonnet 130 is well known for its anti-Petrarchan tone and the poet’s refusal of the chromatic codification of beauty (‘Coral is far more red than her lips’ red; . . . I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,/But no such roses see I in her cheeks’ 2, 5–6), the pattern of red and white is ridiculed in many of Shakespeare’s plays. In TN, when Olivia lifts her veil to show her face to Viola and asks her to comment on the ‘picture’ (1.5.227) she sees, the latter answers by using the codified red and white to describe female beauty: ‘Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white/Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on’ (1.5.231–2). This conventional wooing plays on the colours used in pictorial art and the colours of poetical rhetoric as codified by Petrarchan poetry. Olivia challenges this chromatic codification in an anti-blason, suggestive of Sonnet 130: ‘I shall be inventoried and every particle and utensil labelled to my will, as, item, two lips, indifferent red’ (1.5.232–3). This Petrarchan conceit is also parodied in MND when Flute as Thisbe addresses his lover, drawing on conventional metaphors: ‘Most radiant Pyramus, most lily white of hue,/Of colour like the red rose on triumphant briar’ (3.1.86–7). Similarly, in the course of the education of 196

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Katherina, Petruchio describes Vincentio, an old man, as a beautiful young lady, ironically using the traditional tropes of Petrarchism: ‘Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman,/Such war of white and red within her cheeks!’ (SHR 4.5.30–1). A special expression of anti-Petrarchanism is voiced by Moth in LLL. When Armado decides to depict his love for Jaquenetta in the traditional colours of red and white (‘My love is most immaculate white and red’ 1.2.87), his page Moth throws light upon the negative aspect of this literary pairing through an antonym (‘Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours’ 1.2.88). According to him, a woman’s white skin and red lips and cheeks can result from a trick of perspective devised by the artificial use of cosmetics: If she be made of white and red, Her faults will ne’er be known, For blushing cheeks by faults are bred, And fears by pale white shown. (LLL 1.2.94–7) Moth’s parodic poem is tinged with Puritanical tones as he criticizes white powder and rouge as deceitful substances used by women to conceal their real emotions. He concludes his poem with a warning against the Petrarchan codification of colours: ‘A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red’ (1.2.102–3). While Florizel associates red with human joy (‘let’s be red with mirth’ WT 4.4.54), white and red are conjured up in Autolycus’ song about the return of spring: ‘When daffodils begin to peer,/With heigh, the doxy over the dale,/Why then comes in the sweet o’ the year,/ For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale’ (4.3.1–4). The association of red and white foreshadows the ruddiness of the statue, a sign that human blood is running through its seemingly alabaster skin. After Emilia has scrutinized the two portraits of the cousins, commenting upon the features of their faces in a blazon-like manner, Pirithous gives another ekphrastic description of the two young men, focusing on their complexions. Hence, Palamon’s fair skin is depicted in the conventional colours of feminine beauty, in white and red: ‘In his face/The livery of the warlike maid appears,/Pure red and white’ (TNK 4.2.105–7). The seemingly chastity of Palamon is metamorphosed into the colour of sensuality when Pirithous adds that ‘his red lips, after fight, are fit for ladies’ (4.2.110). (C) Treatises on art turn out to be an interesting source of information on the symbolism and the role of colours in Renaissance England. In the English translation of Lomazzo (1585), the Italian writer refers to red as the conventional symbol of both courage and sacrifice. He adds that cardinals are traditionally dressed in red to show charity. He also suggests that red nearing purple was associated with emperors and kings. The English painter Hilliard (c.1600) provides a detailed account of the different techniques to obtain different shades of red. He is fascinated with the similarity of red with ruby. In a few chapters of his impressive study on the symbolism of colours in art, Gage (1999) explores the codification of the varied shades of red in medieval and 197

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Renaissance visual arts. Costa de Beauregard (2000) devotes an extensive chapter to the use and symbols of red in Elizabethan painting and in Shakespeare. Drew-Bear (1994) explores the moral, social and religious interpretations of the extensive use of make-up, especially rouge, in Elizabethan society. In her study of the use of cosmetics on English Renaissance stage, Karim-Cooper (2006) explores the chromatic codification of female beauty, mainly relying on red and white. Schneider (2000) outlines the main economic and social aspects of red in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. See also Chenciner (2000). Butler Greenfield (2006) provides a thorough and enthralling account of the discovery and fledgling trade of cochineal, offering details about the varied and delicate dying processes to obtain the best reds in the Renaissance. Although primarily addressing the linguistic intricacies of naming red in French, Mollard-Desfour’s dictionary devoted solely to red (2009) is invaluable on the subtle variations of red, the metaphors woven around this colour which turn out to be similar in the English language. In his brief semantic survey of key words describing colours in Shakespeare’s texts, Bloch (1984) indicates that red appears 96 times. According to him, this hue mainly symbolizes movement, facial emotions and is related to the historical context of the Wars of the Roses dramatized in the Henry VI trilogy. The literary conceit of associating white and red can be traced back to the Song of Solomon (2:1). Petrarch (1327–1368) has resorted to these two colours to depict Laura’s beauty. Woodbridge (1987) remains invaluable for understanding the connections between red, white and black. She provides the reader with an impressive study of these three colours not only in Shakespeare’s works – focusing particularly on poetry, WT and R2 – but also in medieval and early modern poetry. She also draws parallels between the literary uses of these colours and fertility rites. For other studies of the pattern of red and white in VEN, see Hulse (1978), Uhlmann (1983) and Duncan-Jones (1993). Vickers (1986) explores the complexity of the pairing of white and red in LUC. Matthis (1988) analyses the rhetoric of colours, mainly red and white, in VEN and LUC. According to Fineman (1989), the war of red and white is structured in the same way in both narrative poems. Risden (2003) investigates the impact of the Wars of the Roses on the two narrative poems. rose see damask, lily, red, white (A) This highly symbolic flower, which was mainly known through the variety of damask rose and eglantine in Elizabethan England, is endowed with a puzzling diversity of connotations in Shakespeare’s time. Praised for its different hues ranging from deep red to pink and white and its powerful smell, the rose has been constantly associated with feminine beauty, probably beginning with the Song of Solomon where the conflation of the lily with the rose is presented as the main feature of beauty: ‘I am the Rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley’ (2.1). Hence, in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the rose became a metaphor for a pink, slightly red complexion which is contrasted with the paleness of the lily. The medieval Romaunt of the Rose (c. 1440), translated by Chaucer, had a great impact on early modern literature 198

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as the rose is depicted both as the emblem of beauty and the loss of maidenhood at the end. The model of feminine beauty set by Petrarch and widely imitated in the Renaissance codified the rose as a metaphor for the colour of a woman’s cheeks. French poets like Pierre de Ronsard dwelt upon the rose as the emblem of transience in his famous ode ‘Mignonne, allons voir si la rose’ (1550). The image of the rose with thorns has been regarded in Christianity as the emblem of the fall of man insofar as, according to the Bible, thorns started growing on roses after the original sin while Adam and Eva could contemplate roses without thorns in Paradise (Genensis 4.18). This flower has always conjured up one of the bloodiest periods in English history which Shakespeare dramatized in his history plays. This war of succession, better known today as the Wars of the Roses (1455–1485), is featured in his two tetralogies, starting with the murder of Richard II in 1399 and ending with the accession of Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather Henry VII in 1485, who is pictured as a pacifier between the two houses in the final scene of RIII. The famous, yet fictional, scene in the Temple Garden in 1H6 has inspired many artists, such as Henry Payne with The Plucking of the Red and White Roses in the Temple Garden, a well-known painting commissioned in 1908 as part of a series of wall paintings to decorate the Palace of Westminster. This political symbol played an important role in Queen Elizabeth’s personal propaganda. The conflation of the white and red roses present in many of her official portraits aimed at stressing her legitimacy as a monarch, recalling her Tudor lineage. In the early portrait of the Queen, Mildmay Charter of Emmanuel College at Cambridge (1584), the monarch is depicted with the usual symbols of royalty, such as the globe and the sceptre, while the unified white and red roses are featured on top of her throne. Furthermore, this symbol of beauty and purity strengthened her image as the Virgin Queen. In Nicholas Hilliard’s miniature Young Man Among Roses (c. 1585–1595 Victoria and Albert Museum, see Figure 4), a young courtier dressed in black and white, the Queen’s favourite colours, is surrounded by white eglantines which were associated with the monarch. This chromatic codification, the use of the rose and other elements have been interpreted as a declaration of love to the Queen (Strong, 1977). This flower is also related to the world of drama since one of the most popular playhouses in Shakespeare’s time was given this name. This playhouse was built by Philip Henslowe in 1587 on the south bank of the Thames. Excavations carried out in 1989 helped to discover its actual site. (B) The two narrative poems explore the literary symbolism of the rose in different ways. While LUC relies on the traditional metaphors of the rose, VEN reverses and challenges the rhetoric of love poetry. Right from the opening stanzas of VEN, the beauty of the young Adonis is set forth by the conventional Petrarchan conceits for female beauty, hence inverting gender roles. Venus, playing the role of the Petrarchan poet, praises the exceptional beauty of ‘rose-cheeked Adonis’ in rhetorical terms: ‘The field’s chief flower . . . /More white and red than doves or roses are’ (VEN 3, 8/10). Upset by his reluctance to kiss her, the goddess of love boasts that she triumphed over Mars, the god of war, whom she led ‘prisoner in a red-rose chain’ (VEN 110). When she 199

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Figure 4 Young Man Among Roses, by Nicholas Hilliard, Victoria and Albert Museum

finally tricks Adonis into kissing her, the image of the pristine beauty of the rose takes on sexual connotations as the thorns appear on the flower once it has been plucked: ‘Such nectar from his lips she had not sucked . . . /What though the rose have prickles? Yet ’tis plucked’ (572/4). When she discovers Adonis’ lifeless body, Venus berates death for ravishing the young man whose ‘breath and beauty set/Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet’ (935–6). LUC lays emphasis on the colour of the rose to set forth the contrast between white and red. The blazon of Lucrece’s face, structured around set codes of colours, opens with the ‘silent war of lilies and of roses’ (71). Likewise, when Tarquin discovers Lucrece fast asleep in her chamber the lily and the rose are once again drawn upon to depict her perfect beauty: ‘Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under’ (LUC 386). The rose is further conjured up to describe the changing complexion of Lucrece when frightened (‘O, how her fear did make her colour rise!/First red as roses lawn we lay,/Then white as lawn, the roses took away’ (257–9)/‘Thus he replies: ‘The colour in thy face,/That even for anger makes the lily pale/And the red rose blush at her own disgrace’ (477–9). The Sonnets open with the emblem of the rose and conflate its varied symbolisms: ‘From fairest creatures we desire increase,/That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,/But as the riper should by time decease/His tender heir might bear his memory’ (SON 1.1–4). The emblem of beauty, but also of female genitalia

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(Duncan-Jones, 2013, p. 112), and desire is mingled with the contrasted image of transience and death as the poet warns the addressee of the Sonnets that his beauty will fade if he does not get married and produce an heir, despite the poet’s efforts to preserve his beauty in his verses. The youth is also addressed as ‘my rose’ in one sonnet, (SON 109.14). Sonnet 54 draws the youth’s attention to deceptive appearances when the poet reminds him that there are two types of flower, the rose and the canker bloom, which despite their similar looks, represent different virtues: ‘the rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem/For that sweet odour which doth in it live;/The canker blooms have full as deep a dye/As the perfumed tincture of the roses . . . /But for their virtue only is their show’ (SON 54.3–6/9) (see also SON 67). Sonnets 98 and 99 which depict the poet’s suffering at his separation from the youth, comparing it to winter, explore the rhetorical aspect of the rose. Despite the arrival of spring, the poet cannot contemplate the use of traditional rhetorical devices to draw beauty in the youth’s absence: ‘Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,/Nor praise the deep vermillion in the rose;/They were but sweet, but figures of delight,/Drawn after you, you pattern of all those’ (SON 98.9–12; see also SON 99.8–10). The rose is mentioned only once in the sonnets addressed to the Dark Lady when the poet mocks and challenges Petrarchan rhetorical devices, particularly the metaphor of the rose to describe the complexion of the lady: ‘I have seen roses damasked, red and white,/But no such roses see I in her cheeks’ (SON 130.5–6). Roses play a pivotal role in the H6 trilogy where Shakespeare combines the imagery of the rose with his stage craft. Shakespeare presents the origin of the aristocratic feud in a spectacular and chromatic scene set in the Temple Garden (1H6 2.4), one of the Inns of Court where future barristers studied law and also performed plays. White and red roses are used as stage properties in this scene where Shakespeare dramatizes in contrasted chromatic tones the supposed origins of the Wars of the Roses. As is indicated by Richard’s remark (‘From off this briar [I] pluck a white rose with me’ 2.4.30), the roses are shown on stage as growing on a brier. The rivalry between the House of York and House of Lancaster is embodied in these colourful props as each character chooses in turn between the two roses. Richard, later Duke of York, is the first one to pluck a white rose while Somerset chooses the red one (‘Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,/But dare maintain the party of the truth,/Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me’ 2.4.31–3). Warwick takes sides with Plantagenet (‘I love no colours: and, without all colour/Of base insinuating flattery,/I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet’ 2.4.34–6) and so does the character of the lawyer (‘In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too’ 2.4.58). The whole scene proceeds through the rhetorical contrast between red and white as each character picks a rose to wear. The legal terminology is mingled with pictorial art: Vernon:

Then, for the truth and plainness of the case, I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here, Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

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Somerset:

Prick not your finger as you pluck it off, Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red And fall on my side so, against your will. (1H6 2.4.46–51)

The quibble is turned into a battle of words as the chromatic debate gathers momentum: Richard: Somerset: Richard:

Somerset:

Richard: Somerset: Richard: Somerset:

Richard:

Now, Somerset, where is your argument? Here in my scabbard, meditating that Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red. Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our roses; For pale they look with fear, as witnessing The truth on our side. No, Plantagenet: ‘Tis not for fear, but anger, that thy cheeks Blush for pure shame, to counterfeit our roses – And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset? Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet? Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth, Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood. Well, I’ll find friends to wear my bleeding roses That shall maintain what I have said is true, Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand, I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy. (1H6 2.4.59–76)

The debate on the colour of the true rose conflates the vocabulary related to painting (‘counterfeit’, ‘dye’), female beauty with the blush on the cheeks and the image of the ‘maiden blossom’, while the presence of the canker and the thorn endows the imagery with sexual connotations in a context of deceit. This scene closes with the prophetic words uttered by Warwick: ‘And here I prophesy: this brawl today,/Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,/Shall send between the red rose and the white/A thousand souls to death and deadly night’ (2.4.124–7). The rivalry between the two sides is heightened by the King’s awkward decision to take sides with one of the groups : ‘Let me umpire in this doubtful strife./ [Takes the red rose from Basset]/I see no reason, if I wear this rose,/That anyone should therefore be suspicious/I more incline to Somerset than York’ (4.1.151–4). This chromatic and rhetorical quibble paves the way for the bloodiest war on English soil. The virtual rivalry visualized in red and white in 2.4 is expanded into the opening scene of 3H6 where the two sides fight for power on stage. The roses are once again used as telling chromatic stage properties – Plantagenet and his men are all wearing white roses on their hats (‘Enter the Duke of York, Edward, Richard . . . .,

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[with white roses in their hats] and soldiers’ 1.1). A few lines after, King Henry enters the stage below with all his men wearing red roses on their hats (‘Enter King Henry . . .,[with red roses in their hats] and the rest’ 1.1.50) After York’s death, the rivalry between the red and the white is turned into a civil war that Shakespeare dramatizes in the tragic scene in which King Henry witnesses the horror of the son bearing the corpse of the father that he killed while another father holds in his arms the body of the son he has slain. Henry depicts this scene in chromatic terms: ‘The red rose and the white are on his face,/The fatal colours of our striving houses:/ The one his purple blood right well resembles,/The other his pale cheek methinks presenteth’ (3H6 2.5.97–100). The struggle between the two houses reaches its highest point in R3 when Tyrrel pictures the death of the two children in the Tower of London, contrasting white and red: ‘Thus, thus’, quoth Forrest, ‘girdling one another/Within their alabaster innocent arms./Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,/And in their summer beauty kissed each other’ (4.3.10–13). The unification of the roses is to be embodied by Henry VII who announces the end of the civil war in the last act of R3: ‘And then, as we have ta’en the sacrament,/We will unite the white rose and the red’ (5.5.18–19). Comedies investigate the beauty of the rose, and sometimes its potential sexual connotations. Although the name of Rosalind in AYL was inspired by Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynd, Eupheus Golden Legacie (1590), it is highly evocative of the flower cherished by Queen Elizabeth. Celia addresses Rosalind as ‘my sweet Rose, my dear Rose’ (1.2.22). The fool Touchstone gives an erotic reading to Orlando’s poem, mocking pseudo-Petrarchan poets: ‘he that sweetest rose will find/Must find love’s prick – and Rosalind’ (3.2.108–9). Likewise, the character of Rosaline in LLL echoes the name of the flower and is related to the debate on her unusual dark beauty (see black). In the last scene, after the masque in which the male characters are ridiculed, Boyet compares all the female characters to roses on the verge of blooming if they accept their inner feelings for the men they have mocked: ‘Fair ladies masked as roses in their bud;/Dismasked, their damask sweet commixture shown,/Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown’ (5.2.295–7). In MND, the rose is conjured up in Flute’s hilarious pastiche of love poetry when describing Pyramus’ beauty: ‘Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,/Of colour like the red rose on triumphant briar’ (3.1.87–8). In TGV, Julia criticizes her fading beauty as she has neglected to protect her skin from the sun: ‘the air hath starved the roses in her cheeks/And pinch’d the lily-tincture of her face,/That now she is become as black as I’ (4.4.152–4). TN focuses on the symbol of transience (‘for women are as roses, whose fair flower/Being once displayed, doth fall that very hour’ (2.4.38–9). In TNK, Emilia who discusses flowers with her woman claims that roses are ‘the very emblem of a maid’ since their redness recalls a woman’s blushes, a sign of chastity: ‘For, when the west wind courts her gently,/How modestly she blows and paints the sun/With her chaste blushes’ (2.2.138–40). Juliet’s remark ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other word would smell as sweet’ (ROM 2.2.43–4) is probably the best-known quotation on roses 203

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in Shakespeare’s tragedies. This flower is mentioned again by Friar Laurence who describes the effect of the potion that is to make Juliet look dead: ‘the roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade/To wanny ashes’ (4.1.99–100). The discolouring effect of death upon human complexion turns out to be the tragic twist in the final scene when Romeo fails to decipher the revival of red on Juliet’s face (‘Beauty’s ensign yet/Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks’ 5.3.94–5). Likewise, in OTH, the rose is related to sensuality when Othello refers to Desdemona’s hypocrisy: ‘Turn thy complexion there,/Patience, thou young and rose-lipped cherubin,/Ay, here look grim as hell’ (4.2.63–5). The oxymoronic conflation of virtue, represented by the Cherubin, and wantonness, expressed by the ruby lips, is used to expose Desdemona’s supposed infidelity. The image of the rose appears again in the final scene when Othello compares Desdemona’s life to a rose that he is about to cause to die: ‘When I have plucked the rose/I cannot give it vital growth again’ (OTH 5.2.13–4). Rose can sometimes be used as a verb as in H5 when the Duke of Burgundy describes virginity (‘being a maid yet rosed over with the virgin crimson of modesty’ 5.2.292–3). In TIT, this past participle is used to describe Lavinia’s bleeding mouth and the rape of her beauty and innocence: ‘Like to a bubbling fountain stirred with wind,/Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips’ (2.3.23–4). (C) In their dictionary devoted to plants in Shakespeare, Thomas and Faircloth (2014) have inserted an entry on roses. Tigner (2012) has devoted a book on the representation of gardens in early modern literature, including Shakespeare. VEN and Marlowe’s Hero and Leander, which both explore the power of illusionistic art, resort to analogous metaphors such as ‘rose-cheeked Adonis’ (Hero and Leander, l.93). Although there is no evidence to show which poem inspired the other first, Logan (2007) contends that this image was a traditional metaphor for poems written in the Ovidian style (p. 78). Cantelupe (1963) has drawn a parallel between the image of Mars being a ‘prisoner in a red-rose chain’ in VEN with the representation of The Triumph of Venus in Francesco Cossa’s frescoes in the palace of Schifanoia in Ferrara. Risden (2003) studies the motif of the Wars of the Roses in LUC and VEN. Duncan-Jones (1995) has explored the image of the canker bloom in the Sonnets. Her edition of the Sonnets (2013) is replete with invaluable references to this flower. Ivy (1958) has a detailed analysis of the image of the ‘rose-lipped cherubin’ in OTH. Belsey (1998) and Lucking (2007) give insight into the symbol of the rose in ROM. Burns (2000) provides analyses of the motif of the rose in 1H6, suggesting that the conflation of the white and red roses could be related to alchemy (pp. 57–60). rosy see rose ruby see crimson, purple, red, scarlet (A) This deep-red gem is part of the four precious stones including sapphire, emerald and diamond. In Petrarchan poetry, Laura’s lips were regarded as brighter than rubies. (B) In accordance with the Petrarchan tradition, Iachimo describes Imogen’s lips as precious stones: ‘That I might touch,/But kiss, one kiss! Rubies unparagoned/How 204

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dearly they do’t’ (CYM 2.2.16–18). In its ironical reversal of roles, VEN diverts this literary conceit when Adonis’ lips are depicted as a ‘ruby-coloured portal’ (451). This shade of red can sometimes signify a woman’s ruddy complexion. Macbeth is horrified to see that his wife has shown no emotion when Banquo’s ghost appeared before their eyes: ‘When now I think you can behold such sights/And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks/When mine is blanched with fear’ (3.4.112–14). Ruby is occasionally used to describe bleeding wounds. In his monologue when he weeps over Caesar’s bleeding body, Antony compares the red wounds to ‘ruby lips’ ready to speak (JC 3.1.260). In MM, Isabella compares the wounds she would be prepared to suffer with gemstones that might decorate her body: ‘were I under the terms of death,/The impression of keen whips I’ld wear as rubies’ (2.4.100–1). ruddy see red (A) This shade of red traditionally describes a healthy complexion or the reddish light of sunset. (B) In keeping with the traditional symbol of red, the adjective ‘ruddy’ refers to the colour of blood in JC: ‘You are my true and honourable wife,/As dear to me as are the ruddy drops/That visit my sad heart’ (2.1.287–9). When Leontes discovers the statue of his deceased wife, the resemblance between the copy and the supposedly dead Herminone is so striking that he is tempted to kiss the statue. So as to avoid the collapse of the illusion, Paulina forbids him to do so: ‘Good my lord, forbear;/The ruddiness upon her lip is wet./You’ll mar it if you kiss it, stain your own/With oily painting’ (WT 5.3.80–3). In the statue scene, the noun ruddiness combines the red colour of the painting covering the lips of the statue and Hermione’s natural reddish complexion, reinforcing the ambiguous nature of the work of art standing before Leontes. russet (A) Originally describing a brownish/greyish coarse garment worn by people living in the countryside or coming from a lower class, this term generally refers to a shade of brown tinged with yellowish or reddish tones. (B) Russet is the hue chosen to depict dawn in Horatio’s poetical description of sunrise: ‘But look, the morn in russet mantle clad/Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill’ (HAM 1.1.165–6). When Puck describes the reaction of Bottom’s company to his metamorphosis into an ass, he mockingly compares them to ‘russet-pated choughs’ (MND 3.2.21) in order to point out their foolishness. In LLL, russet does not indicate any type of colour, but takes on the original meaning of rustic or simple: ‘Henceforth my wooing mind shall be expressed/In russet yeas and honest kersey noes’ (5.2.412–13). (C) Hilliard (1573) gives a definition of this colour in his treatise.

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S sable see black (A) This term is the English name given to the animal named Martes zibellina which was highly sought after for its valuable black fur. In the Middle Ages, sable was chosen as the heraldic term for black (see heraldry). When used in the plural, this noun is synonymous with the black clothes worn in mourning. (B) In LUC, sable is identified with the negative connotations inherent in the colour black as it suggests terrifying darkness (‘Till sable Night, mother of dread and fear’ 117) and brings to the fore the ‘sable ground of sin’ (1074). In the Sonnets, sable is used to describe the passage of time: ‘sable curls’ are ‘all silvered o’er with white’ (SON 12.4). Likewise, when Horatio describes the ghost he has seen, he mentions that his beard was ‘sable silvered’ (HAM 1.2.240). This heraldic term is used again in the tale of Aenas and Dido when black symbolizes Pyrrhus’ evil mind: ‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,/Black as his purpose, did the night resemble’ (2.2.390–1). Before the performance of his play, Hamlet is still surprised by his mother’s merriness despite her recent widowhood. As Ophelia reminds him that his father died two months ago, Hamlet gives a rather ironical answer: ‘So long? Nay, then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables! O heavens – died two months ago and not forgotten yet’ (3.2.122–4). The puzzling parallel could signify that even the devil would show more respect than Gertude, the widow who married Claudius very quickly, by wearing black garments. Hamlet keeps his ‘inky cloak’ (1.2.77) despite his mother’s encouragement to lay it aside. saint see image, statue sanguine see red, ruddy (A) Deriving from the Latin sanguineus signifying blood, this term can be used as a synonym for the adjective ruddy to describe a person’s reddish, but healthy complexion. In the Renaissance, this term related to the four bodily humours as described in Galen’s medical theories. A sanguine temperament was thought to be caused by an excess of blood in the body and was perceived as a distinctive feature of cheerful and courageous personalities. It was then believed that this temper prevailed in England. (B) Shakespeare uses this term to depict a shade of red. In 1H6, Basset reports to the King the way a ‘fellow with envious carping tongue’ mocked the red rose he was wearing: ‘saying the sanguine colour of the leaves/Did represent my master’s blushing cheeks’ (4.1.92–3). In CYM, the particular shape of the mole that Iachimo saw on 207

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Imogen’s sleeping body (‘a mole cinque-spotted: like the crimson drops/I’th’ bottom of a cowslip’ 2.2.38–9) is the perfect copy of Guiderius’ mole: ‘Guiderius had/Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star;/It was a mark of wonder’ (5.5.364–6). This birthmark is the chromatic evidence that Guiderius is Cymbeline’s son. In 1H4, the Prince criticizes Falstaff’s temper, and maybe his excessive consumption of wine (‘I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh’ 2.4.238–40). In his violent diatribe against the deceitful nature of white people, Aaron berates their temperament: ‘What, what, ye sanguine, shallowhearted boys’ (TIT 4.2.99). (C) Richmond (2002) draws attention to the sexual innuendo underlying the Prince’s description of Falstaff in 1H4. See also Busse (2006). Iyengar (2001) offers an interesting insight into the textual occurrences of sanguine in Shakespeare. sapphire see blue, heraldry (A) This precious stone of a bright blue colour was also part of heraldic terminology in Elizabethan English as it was used as a synonym for the adjective azure to depict a blue element on a blazon or a crest. (B) As with emerald, sapphire is used in the context of heraldry, as in WIV when Mistress Quickly describes the motto that is to be written on a blazon in ‘em’rald tufts, flowers purple, green and white/Like sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery’ (5.5.70–1). In LC, the young abandoned woman mocks the sonnets written by her former lover which deployed conventional Petrarchan language to describe a blue sky as ‘the heavenhued sapphire’ (215). The relation between each precious stone and ‘wit well-blazoned’ (217) suggests a reference to heraldry and literary conceit (see blazon). In ERR, Dromio of Syracuse compares a woman’s body to a globe, each part representing a country. America is represented by precious stones: ‘upon her nose, all over-embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain’ (3.2.133–5). (C) Scarisbrick (1995) analyses jewellery and precious stones in early modern England, highlighting their role in portraits. For a complete study of precious stones in Shakespeare’s plays and poems, see Kunz (1916). scarlet see crimson, purple, red, ruby, white (A) This adjective is used for one of the numerous variations of bright red produced by the use of kermes or cochineal. The scarlet red pigments were used to dye expensive woollen clothes. The etymology of the term is derived from the Latin scarlatum which described vivid colours, especially in the Middle Ages. In early modern English, this meaning was seldom used because scarlet generally alluded to the brilliant red colours – nearing orange – that were worn by doctors of law, judges, cardinals or even soldiers. According to sumptary laws (see colour), scarlet was also reserved for courtiers who would wear their scarlet garment for ceremonies or other official events. When Shakespeare’s acting company became the King’s Men in 1603, all those with a share in the company, including Shakespeare himself, were raised to the rank of Grooms of the Royal Chambers and were given 208

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money to buy their scarlet royal livery. Shakespeare and his colleagues probably came to James’ royal entry into London in April 1604, dressed in their scarlet cloaks and doublets, proudly displaying their new social status. (B) This shade of red is given the conventional symbolism inherent in this colour (see red). Hence, in LUC, Tarquin’s sexual desire is depicted in red hues (‘His scarlet lust came evidence to swear/That my beauty had purloined his eyes’ 1650–1). In R2, scarlet alludes to the emotions that would make England blush with anger: ‘Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers’ sons/Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,/Change the complexion of her maid-pale face/To scarlet indignation, and bedew/ Her pastures’ grass with faithful English blood’ (3.3.96–100). In ROM, Mercutio uses scarlet to describe Rosaline’s red lips in a conventional blazon of female beauty (‘I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,/By her high forehead and her scarlet lip’ 2.1.17–18). The sexual innuendo pervading this particular shade of red is brought to the fore by the nurse who encourages Juliet to have sexual intercourse with her future husband: ‘Then hie you hence to Friar Laurence’s cell;/There stays a husband to make you a wife:/Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,/They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news’ (2.5.68–71). In Sonnet 142, the poet turns his eyes away from the dark lady since her too frequent kissing has ‘profaned [her] scarlet ornaments [her lips]’ (6). The association of scarlet and sin is further enhanced in some religious contexts. As the traditional colour worn by cardinals in the Roman Catholic church, scarlet implies the hypocrisy and ambition of those religious characters depicted in 1H6 and H8. The costumes worn by the actors in the scenes featuring cardinals were probably dyed this bright shade of red. Accordingly, the rivalry between Gloucester and Cardinal Winchester in 1H6 is represented on stage through the chromatic contrast between the blue coats worn by Gloucester’s men and the cardinal’s scarlet robe, heightened by the tawny colour of his men’s clothes (‘blue coats to tawny coats’ 1.3.47). Gloucester disparages the colour of Winchester’s robe which symbolizes duplicity (‘out, scarlet hypocrite’ 1.3.56). The two references to the cardinal’s scarlet hat (‘I’ll canvas thee in thy broad cardinal’s hat’ 1.3.36 and ‘Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal’s hat’ 1.3.49) may suggest one of the signs that was used for Southwark brothels. This pun on the Roman church and the strumpet is reminiscent of the scarlet whore of Babylon in the Bible, a figure used by Protestants to lampoon the Roman Catholic church. The negative connotations of scarlet in a religious context feature in Shakespeare’s last history play. Cardinal Wolsey’s boundless ambition is once again associated with his rank in the Roman Catholic church (‘Thy ambition/Thou scarlet sin, robbed this bewailing land/Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law’ H8 3.2.254–6). The Earl of Surrey accuses the cardinal, the king’s closest adviser, of deceiving the monarch and his court: ‘If we live thus tamely,/To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,/Farewell nobility: let his grace go forward/And dare us with his cap, like larks’ (3.2.279–82). The verb ‘dare’, a synonym for ‘to dazzle’, plays on the original meaning of the word ‘scarlet’ meaning ‘brightness’. The image of the birds being deceived and trapped by the bright 209

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red of the cardinal’s cap suggests Wolsey’s dubious strategy to manipulate the king through the supposedly honourable appearance of his red robe. (C) The association of scarlet, and other shades of red, with sin is primarily biblical (see Isaiah 1.18, Revelation 17.3). scratch (A) This verb describes an act of damaging an object by lacerating or tearing it with a sharp item. (B) Shakespeare uses this term twice in the context of visual arts. When Julia faces the portrait of her rival Silvia, she is tempted to mar the picture so that Proteus would love her again: ‘I should have scratched out your unseeing eyes/To make my master out of love with thee’ (TGV 4.4.202–3). Likewise, Lucrece is enraged by the limits of pictorial art which cannot give a voice to the painted characters on the painting of Troy, especially Hecuba. She imagines she can take revenge on the Greek army by tearing out their eyes: ‘Poor instrument’, quoth she, ‘without a sound,/I’ll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue . . . And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes’ (LUC 1464– 5/1469). A few lines further, Lucrece destroys one part of the painting as ‘she tears the senseless SINON with her nails’(1564). (C) These passages have been interpreted in the light of icononoclasm: see Siemon (1985), Dundas (1993) and Tassi (2005) sculpture see carve, grave, image, insculp, statue Although this word has been used in English since the late sixteenth century, it never appears in Shakespeare’s text. see see behold, eye, gaze, look, sight (A) The experience of seeing cannot be restricted solely to the physical perception of reality since this verb encompasses imagining objects or understanding ideas or the truth. It can also signify a closer look at an item so as to scrutinize details and can be used to denote the experience of a spectator attending a play. In Shakespeare’s time, visual perception was still apprehended using Aristotelian concepts (see eye). (B) While VEN makes consistent use of the imperative form of the verb ‘to look’, urging the reader to visualize metaphors or paintings through ekphrasis (see look), LUC – which relies on it less – uses the verb ‘to see’ so as to urge the reader to take a look at some details of the painting of Troy, often through the modal ‘might’. The narrator introduces the main ekphrasis of this poem by praising the power of sight over hearing: ‘To see sad sights moves more than hear them told’ (1324). In contrast with VEN, the rhetorical device of captatio benevolentiae (‘winning of goodwill’) takes on a suggestive form in LUC as the narrator invites the reader to behold one particular detail in the painting: ‘There might you see the labouring pioneer/Begrimed with sweat and smeared all with dust’ (1380–1). This focus on a particular detail of the picture guides the reader’s gaze towards the Trojans ‘gazing upon the GREEKS’ (1384) with eyes through ‘loop-holes thrust’ (1383). These embedded gazes lead the reader to see the true meaning of the painting – he or she can both perceive the painter’s trompe-l’oeil and 210

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understand the emotions of the painted figures that surface at the end of the stanza, one of which closes with the same invitation to see as at the beginning: ‘Such sweet observance in this work was had/That one might see those far-off eyes look sad’ (1385– 6). This rhetorical technique is resumed a few stanzas later when the narrator draws the reader’s attention to another detail: ‘There, pleading, might you see grave NESTOR stand’ (1401). This verb can also signify the direction of the painted figures’ gaze as they look at other figures in the painting: ‘And from the walls of strong-besieged TROY . . . /Stood many TROJAN mothers, sharing joy/To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield’ (1429/1431–2); ‘Look, look, how list’ning PRIAM wets his eyes/To see those borrowed tears that SINON sheds!’ (1548–9). Sonnet 24 also relies on the imperative form of the verb ‘to see’ to attract the reader’s attention: ‘Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done’ (8). Elsewhere the poet points to the limits of sight as eyes can ‘draw but what they see, know not the heart’ (14). Some of the sonnets devoted to the Dark Lady question human sight since it can be blinded by love: ‘Thou blind fool love, what dost thou to mine eyes,/That they behold, and see not what they see’ (SON 137.1–2). See also SON 148. TGV challenges the reliability of human sight in that this early comedy hinges upon different distorted images of Silvia, either projected by the mind of her lover Valentine, and then by Proteus, or by the flattering picture drawn by a painter. Speed, Valentine’s servant, strives to make his master understand that his sight has been infected ever since he fell in love with Silvia: ‘You never saw her since she was deformed’ (2.1.59). According to Speed, Valentine perceives Silvia as fairer than she actually is, suggesting that she uses cosmetics to enhance her natural beauty: ‘so painted to make her fair that no man counts of her beauty’ (2.1.55–6). After describing Valentine’s love as a disease that can only be cured by a doctor (‘that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady’ 2.1.36–8), Speed calls upon the well-known motto that love is blind: Valentine: Speed: Valentine: Speed:

I have loved her ever since I saw her, and still I see her beautiful. If you love her, you cannot see her. Why? Because Love is blind. (TGV 2.1.62–6)

The verb ‘to see’ resurfaces when Julia holds Silvia’s picture and decides to examine all the details before handing it to Proteus: ‘Here is her picture. Let me see’ (4.4.182). Not only is this a flattering, hence ‘deformed’, image of Silvia (‘And yet the painter flattered her a little’ 4.4.185), but Julia’s vision of the features of the painted Silvia is as distorted as Valentine’s, though in her case by jealousy. In MV, Bassanio comments on the painter’s technique for capturing Portia’s gaze on a canvas: ‘But her eyes!/How could he see to do them?’ (3.2.123–4). WT conflates the different meanings inherent in the act of seeing explored in earlier works. Before the statue scene, the steward asks Rogero if he was present at the scene of reunion between Leontes and Polixenes: ‘Did you see the meetings of the two kings?’ 211

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(5.2.39). However trivial that simple question might sound, the choice of the verb ‘to see’ captures several different meanings. While it obviously alludes to the act of looking at something, it also refers to the action of witnessing an event, and might even imply the attendance of a performance, a spectacle, especially since this character then describes a recognition scene which occurs off stage. The visuality of this unseen scene is further heightened by the steward’s next cue when he introduces a brief ekphrastic description of the reunion: ‘Then have you lost a sight which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of’ (5.2.41–2). Despite this paradoxical remark, the steward delivers a verbal depiction of a scene that is not represented. In the statue scene, the verb ‘to see’ is first used to refer to the simple act of discovering the statue of Hermione: ‘But we came/To see the statue of our queen’ (5.3.9–10); ‘we saw not/That which my daughter came to look upon,/The statue of her mother’ (5.3.12–14). When Paulina decides to unveil the statue, she insists upon the ‘realism’, or lifelike aspect of the work of art: ‘prepare/To see the life as lively mocked as ever’ (5.3.18–19). If we bear in mind how the ekphrasis of the recognition scene was worded in the previous scene, Paulina’s seemingly trivial depiction of the object is, in fact, enriched with other connotations. This verb could also hint here at the spectacle imagined by Paulina to reunite Leontes and his wife, and might even refer to the theatrical performance of the boy actor impersonating Hermione since he actually ‘mocks’ a statue by imitating a work of art, standing motionless on stage. When contemplating the statue, Leontes draws Polixenes’ attention to some intriguing features of it such as its appearance of breathing: ‘See, my lord,/Would you not deem it breathed, and that those veins/Did very bear blood?’ (5.3.63–5). The prologue to H5 insists upon the vital role of sight during a theatrical performance as when the chorus invites the spectators to imagine the horses of the English army: ‘Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them/Printing their proud hoofs i’th’ receiving earth’ (Prologue 26–7). (C) According to Belsey (2012), the turn of phrase ‘there might you see’ used by Shakespeare to introduce the perspective drawn by the painter in his ekphrasis in LUC echoes the device used by Marlowe in Hero and Leander (1593): ‘There might you see the gods in sundry shapes’ (l.143, p. 200). She mentions that this device is also used by Spenser and Chaucer (pp. 194–5). Despite these echoes, she argues that Shakespeare takes ekphrasis a step further by creating ‘a world so real, so apparently present to the imagination, that we could be there as observers, are there – almost, and for the duration’(p. 195). In relation to the connection between sight and drama, Egan (2001) has shown that there were more references to seeing plays than hearing them in early modern dramatic texts, especially in Shakespeare. senseless Offended as she is by Adonis’ coldness, Venus compares him to a painting or a statue unable to feel or even think: ‘Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone’ (VEN 211). In LUC, Lucrece scratches the painted figure of Sinon represented in the painting of Troy since she cannot accept the fact that the painter did not represent his duplicity: ‘She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails’ (1564). This gesture is evocative 212

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of Puritanical iconoclasm in the destruction of religious works of art. In JC, Murellus berates the people of Rome for being insensitive and forgetful about Pompey’s death: ‘you blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things’ (1.1.36). shadow see counterfeit, image, paint, painting, picture, portrait (A) The first meaning of this term refers to the dark image projected by a body positioned before a source of light. In the Renaissance, the origin of pictorial art is connected with shadows. According to Alberti in De Pictura (1435), the first modern treatise on painting, the myth of Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection in the water partly explains the emergence of visual representation: Consequently I used to tell my friends that the inventor of painting, according to poets, was Narcissus, who was turned into a flower; for, as painting is the flower of all the arts, so the tale of Narcissus fits our purpose perfectly. What is painting but the act of embracing by means of art the surface of the pool? Quintilian believed that the earliest painters used to draw around shadows made by the sun, and the art eventually grew by a process of additions. (p. 61) Hence, the story of Narcissus as well as the anecdote of Quintillian suggests that painting is an art of surfaces, of projections. This vision of pictorial art is deeply ingrained in Elizabethan England as ‘shadow’ could be synonymous with either a reflection, a ghost, an actor or a portrait. Thus theatre and painting were united through one single word. For the Elizabethans, a portrait was a shadow in that it could not possibly be the substance of an object or a person, but was a mere artificial reflection. In his plays Shakespeare hints many times that drama is an illusion and actors are ‘shadows’. For artists, the representation of shadows on a canvas raised many issues. The miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard avoided drawing shadows in his portraits claiming that the Queen herself wished to be portrayed in ‘the open light’: ‘[she] chose her place . . . where no tree was near, nor any shadow at all, save that as the heaven is lighter than the earth, so must there be that little shadow that was from the earth. This Her Majesty’s curious demand hath greatly bettered my judgment’ (p. 67). The oxymoronic pairing of shadow with its antonym ‘substance’, which recalls Plato’s opposition between truth and outward appearances in the Republic, is recurrent through Shakespeare’s works. (B) In MND, the term ‘shadow’ is related to the fairies when Oberon is described as the ‘King of shadows’ (3.2.347). The conflation of dream and drama is made explicit in the epilogue to this play when Puck speaks in the name of the actors who have just performed MND: ‘If we shadows have offended’ (Epilogue 1). The best-known example of ‘theatrical’ shadows is probably Macbeth’s comparison of life with a play: ‘Out, out, brief candle,/Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,/And then is heard no more’ (5.5.22–5). In JC, shadow is analogous to the reflection in a mirror (‘And it is very much lamented, Brutus,/That you have no such mirrors as will turn/Your hidden worthiness into your eye,/That you might see your 213

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shadow 1.2.55–8) and also in R2 (4.1.292–9). Shadow is related to self-love in VEN when the goddess of love, offended by Adonis’ coldness, compares him to Narcissus, the young man who fell in love with his own reflection: ‘Narcissus so himself himself forsook,/And died to kiss his shadow in the brook’ (161–2). Ironically, after this bitter warning, Venus tries a new strategy to arouse the young man’s sexual desire by proposing to cool the heat with the shadow projected by her hair, a powerful erotic symbol of female beauty: ‘I’ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;/If they burn too, I’ll quench them with my tears’ (191–2). This description of Venus’ desperate attempts to move and seduce Adonis closes with her elegy over the young man’s death as she makes use of the image of Narcissus’s death to praise Adonis’ unequalled beauty which Nature, enamoured with his reflection, tried to heighten: ‘When he beheld his shadow in the brook,/The fishes spread on it their golden gills’ (1099–1100). Shadow is commonly related to pictorial art in Shakespeare and frequently explored through its antonym ‘substance’ so as to throw light upon the disjunction between outward, sometimes deceitful, appearances and truth. In LUC, shadow alludes to the technique of antics, painted ornamentations intertwining animals and vegetable: ‘She dares not look; yet winking, there appears/Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes./Such shadows are the weak brain’s forgeries’ (458–60). This term also alludes to the wall painting narrating the fall of Troy in this poem: ‘On this sad shadow LUCRECE spends her eyes’ (1457). The evanescent nature of portraiture is fully explored in two comedies, MV and TGV, and is connected with the thematic lines of love, wooing and idolatry. In MV, Portia’s future marriage depends on a ‘lottery’ devised by her father (1.2.28), relying on three caskets containing a message and a portrait, one of which represents Portia. The suitor who chooses the right casket is to become her future husband. Portia mocks her potential suitors, such as Monsieur le Bon whose shallow character makes him look like a ‘shadow’ (‘fencing with his own shadow’ 1.2.58–9). While the Prince of Morocco has found a skull in the golden casket, teaching him that ‘all that glisters is not gold’ (2.7.65), the Prince of Arragon also fails by picking the silver casket which reveals ‘the portrait of a blinking idiot’ (2.9.53). This visual item is commented upon by a moralizing message in the same fashion as emblems: ‘Some there be that shadows kiss;/Such have but a shadow’s bliss’ (2.9.65–6). The first shadow both alludes to the picture contained in the casket and to deceitful appearances, while the second one underlines the illusion induced by the worship of images. The dialectic between truth and false appearances inherent in the plot of the caskets reaches its highest point in Act 3, scene 2 when Bassanio opens the leaden casket and discovers Portia’s portrait. After being mesmerized by the painter’s talent in making the painting look alive, Bassanio turns his eyes to his future wife: Yet look how far The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow In underprizing it, so far this shadow Doth limp behind the substance. ( MV 3.2.126–9) 214

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‘Substance’ refers to Portia (who is, in fact, a boy actor) while ‘shadow’ points to the vanity of the portrait Bassanio is holding in his hand and to its incorporeality, as the painting merely represents the projection of Portia’s body whose presence is made visible on stage. TGV is structured around the friendship and rivalry between Valentine and Proteus for the fair Silvia. Valentine, who is in love with her, is unable to live without her presence: ‘Unless it be to think that she is by/And feed upon the shadow of perfection’ (3.1.176–7). This image of a lover worshipping the illusion of perfection is magnified by his friend Proteus who, immediately after laying eyes upon Silvia, has forgotten his lover Julia (‘Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,/And that hath dazzled my reason’s light’ 2.4.206–7). To win over his friend’s lover, Proteus sings under Silvia’s balcony while Julia, who is disguised as a man under the name of Sebastian, enters the stage and witnesses her lover begging another woman to give him her portrait: Madam, if your heart be so obdurate, Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love, The picture that is hanging in your chamber. To that I’ll speak, to that I’ll sigh and weep; For since the substance of your perfect self Is else devoted, I am but a shadow, And to your shadow will I make true love. ( TGV 4.2.116–22) Proteus sounds even more ludicrous as he not only sighs and cries when facing this image, but he also intends to speak directly to the portrait. Proteus is also aware that he will have to content himself with the shadow of Silvia. His foolishness is suggested by the antimetabole (‘I am but a shadow,/And to your shadow will I make true love’ 121–2). The perfect symmetry between the two ‘shadows’ – the actor playing the role of Proteus and Silvia’s actual portrait – and Proteus’s self (‘I’) ironically underlines this character’s vanity while revealing his sense of loss. Julia comments and echoes Proteus’s foolish declaration of love by taking up the contrast between shadow and substance: ‘If ’twere a substance you would sure deceive it/And make it but a shadow, as I am’ (4.2.123–4). She questions Proteus’s sincerity in the way that even if the portrait was the real and substantial Silvia, the lady would be turned into a mere illusion, a shadow. Because Proteus is unfaithful and changeable, he would turn his eyes away from her the same way he did with Julia, who is now a shadow to him in the sense that he has forgotten her (‘for now my love is thawed,/Which like a waxen image ’gainst a fire/ Bears no impression of the thing it was’ 2.4.197–9) and she was obliged to turn into a new shadow by disguising herself as Sebastian. Silvia is not impressed by this shallow character who, to her, does nothing more than ‘worship shadows and false shapes’ (4.2.127). This new type of Narcissus is doomed to gradually vanish by contemplating 215

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the counterfeited shadow of a woman. The discrepancy between ‘shadow’ and ‘substance’ reaches its highest point in Act 4, scene 4 when Silvia gives her portrait to Sebastian who is, in fact, Julia: Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up, For ‘tis thy rival. [Looks at the picture] O thou senseless form, Thou shalt be worshipped, kissed, loved, and adored; And were there sense in his idolatry My substance should be statue in thy stead. ( TGV 4.4.195–9) The first shadow (‘Come, shadow, come’ 195) refers to Julia as the character of Sebastian. By choosing to disguise herself as a man, Julia is only the shadow of herself and hides the substance of her true self behind a mask. The second ‘shadow’ (‘and take this shadow up’ 195) refers to the portrait she is holding in her hands. The conceit between shadow and substance is resumed to highlight the rivalry between Julia and Silvia, the statue and the portrait. First, Julia underlines Proteus’ foolishness since he falls in love with a shadow. This worship of a ‘senseless form’ is nonsensical since the substance, the statue or Julia, is within reach. Furthermore, Julia’s monologue in Act 4, scene 4, verbalizes what was shown in Act 4, scene 2. While Proteus declares his love to Silvia who is standing on her balcony in Act 4, scene 2, Julia witnesses Proteus’s foolishness, disguised as Sebastian. The actor is probably standing still and silent, hidden behind a pillar. Visually, the shadow of Julia, that is to say Sebastian, turns into a statue as the actor on stage is as speechless and motionless as a petrified body. In this scene, Julia already embodies substance while Proteus, a protean shadow, is worshipping his double, Silvia’s shadow. The reverberation between Act 4, scene 2 and Act 4, scene 4 is ironically extended through the slow disappearance of Silvia – her shadow in Act 4, scene 2 (that is to say the boy actor playing the role of Silvia) is turned into a portrait, a mere copy of the true Silvia in Act 4, scene 4. This succession of ‘shadows’ throughout the play points to the loss of the self. The linguistic game on shadow and substance is also utilized in the history plays. Shakespeare pushes this conceit to its limit in 1H6 when the Countess rejoices at the prospect of keeping Talbot as her prisoner: Countess:

Talbot:

Countess:

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Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me; For in my gallery thy picture hangs. But now the substance shall endure the like, And I will chain these legs and arms of thine [. . .] I laugh to see your ladyship so fond To think that you have aught but Talbot’s shadow Whereon to practise your severity. Why? Art not thou the man?

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Talbot: Countess: Talbot:

Talbot:

I am indeed Then have I substance too No, no, I am but shadow of myself: You are deceived, my substance is not here [. . .] Winds his horn. Drums strike up. A peal of ordnance. Enter Soldiers How say you, madam? Are you now persuaded That Talbot is but shadow of himself? These are his substance, sinews, arms and strength. (1H6 2.3.35–8/44–51/60–2)

The first two shadows obviously correspond to the picture or portrait displayed in the Countess’ gallery whereas substance equates with the individual represented in the painting. The pictorial metaphor is turned into a theatrical one from line 49 when substance is synonymous with the physical presence of the actor on stage while shadow (50) refers both to the actor and to the image that Talbot projects of his own person. His true substance is embodied by his army (63). In R2, the disjunction between inner feelings and the way one shows them is used in the passage on perspective paintings where Bushy explains to the queen that grief is merely a trompe-l’oeil: ‘Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,/Which shows like grief itself but is not so’ (2.2.14–15). Showing grief is likened to a perspective portrait and, to a certain extent, dramatic art, since when perspectives are beheld directly, they show ‘nothing but confusion’ (2.2.19) while, when ‘eyed awry,/[they] Distinguish form’ (2.2.19–20). Hence, according to Bushy, ‘your sweet majesty,/Looking awry upon your lord’s departure,/Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail,/Which, looked on as it is, is nought but shadows/Of what is not’ (2.2.20–4). This visual antithesis between within and without is expanded in the mirror scene where Richard, after looking at his own reflection in a mirror, dashes it to the ground: Bolingbroke: Richard:

The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed The shadow of your face. Say that again! The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let’s see. ’Tis very true, my grief lies all within; And these external manners of laments Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul. There lies the substance. (R2 4.1.292–9)

The first shadow can be read as the image, the exterior projection of grief while the second shadow alludes to Richard’s reflection in the mirror. The third shadow underlines the contrast between outward appearances and the innermost self, namely the substance. This dialogue sounds all the more ironical as it is delivered by shadows ‘fretting’ on the 217

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stage. In R3, the evanescence of pictorial art and the status of the actor is intertwined in Margaret’s spiteful description of Elizabeth: ‘I called thee then, poor shadow, painted queen,/The presentation of but what I was’ (4.4.83–4). This disjunction is also invoked in TIT (‘He takes false shadows for true substances’ 3.2.81). This conceit takes on sexual connotations in 2H4 when Falstaff asks a soldier named Shadow who his mother is. His answer ‘my mother’s son’ (3.2.129) triggers a series of innuendos: ‘Thy mother’s son! Like enough, and thy father’s shadow. So the son of the female is the shadow of the male; it is often so indeed – but much of the father’s substance’ (3.2.130–3). The Sonnets explore the diverse aspects of shadow drawn on in the plays in the sonnets devoted to the youth. In Sonnet 27, the poet relishes the image of the youth that his imagination can shape when the latter is absent: ‘Save that my soul’s imaginary sight/Presents thy shadow to my sightless view’ (9–10). Despite his absence, the image of the youth that appears in the poet’s dream illuminates his nights: ‘Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright,/How would thy shadow’s form form happy show/To the clear day with thy much clearer light,/When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so?’ (SON 43.5–8). This paradoxical vision of an evanescent and dark image emitting light praises both the radiant beauty of the youth and the poet’s powerful imagination. However, the poet rebels against these apparitions in his sleep: ‘Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken/While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?’ (SON 61.3–4). Despite all these comforting illusions, the poet confesses that in the youth’s absence, he contemplated other substantial images of his beauty: ‘Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,/As with your shadow I with these did play’ (SON 98.13–4). The conceit on shadow and substance, briefly alluded to in Sonnet 37 (10), structures the neo-platonic Sonnet 53 praising the youth’s archetypal beauty: ‘What is your substance, whereof are you made,/That millions of strange shadows on you tend?’ (1–2). The shadows imitating the essence of his beauty can take on the form of a painting or a poetical image such as the representation of Adonis (‘Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit/Is poorly imitated after you’ 5–6), (C) For a thorough linguistic study of the term ‘shadow’, see Gash who lists ten different meanings, indicating the ‘astonishing breadth of its reference’ in Elizabethan English (1988, p. 629). Even though the conceit on ‘shadow’ and ‘substance’ is reminiscent of the parable of the cave in Plato’s Republic, it is impossible to prove that Shakespeare directly read Plato. In An Apology for Poetry (1595), Philip Sidney takes up this opposition to explain imitation in poetry, and draws a parallel with painting and acting: ‘whatever is like another object, must necessarily be inferior to the object of its imitation, just as the shadow is inferior to the substance, the portrait to the features it portrays, and the acting of the player to the feelings he endeavours to reproduce’ (10.2.11). Other Jacobean dramatists explore the antithesis between shadow and substance, relating it to visual arts – see the opening scene of George Chapman’s Bussy d’Ambois (1604). Stoichita (1997) explores the evolution of shadows in Western culture, drawing parallels with visual arts. Kapitaniak (2008) has written the most complete and up-to218

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date study of shadows and ghosts, with reference to Shakespeare. The confusion between ‘shadow’ and actors has been explored by Gash (1988). Cutts (1968) shows the impact of the conceit on shadow and substance on TIT. In TGV, Proteus’s shallow and narcisistic infatuation with Silvia’s portrait dramatizes a ‘secular idolatry’, enabling Shakespeare to divert the public’s attention from the puritans’ attacks on drama (Tassi 2005). In MV, Tassi suggests that Bassanio’s claim for the superiority of substance over shadow is tinged with iconophobia. For an analysis of all the references to shadow and substance in Shakespeare, see Kermode’s recent book (2011). shape see proportion (A) Representing the outward appearance of an object or a person partly relies on the observation of the external outline and the proportion of its form and/or body. (B) In the ekphrastic description of the painter’s technique and skill to paint a ‘wellproportioned’ horse (VEN 290) that ‘surpasses’ nature, the narrator enumerates the visual elements that must be taken into account: ‘So did this horse excel a common one/ In shape, courage, colour, pace and bone’ (293–4). While gazing at the painting of Troy, Lucrece identifies herself with the pain and suffering pictured on the canvas, as if she endeavoured to project and frame her inner grief onto an external object: ‘On this sad shadow LUCRECE spends here eyes,/And shapes her sorrow to the beldame’s woes’ (1457–8). This conflation between inwardness and visual representation leads Lucrece to criticize the way the painter painted Sinon’s body, the representation of which does not reflect his evil mind: ‘This picture she advisedly perused,/And chid the painter for his wondrous skill,/Saying some shape in SINON’s was abused’ (1527–9). In Sonnet 24, structured around the comparison between painting and poetry, the meaning of the term shape is closer to that of image or picture than the external outline of a person (see OED): ‘Mine eyes have drawn thy shape’ (10). In TGV, Silvia mocks Proteus’s irrational idolatry when he decides to worship her portrait: ‘I am very loth to be your idol, sir./But, since your falsehood shall become you well/To worship shadows and adore false shapes,/Send to me in the morning, and I’ll send it’ (4.2.125–8). The evanescent nature of this type of image is also drawn on by Bushy in his description of tricks of perspective: ‘So your sweet majesty,/Looking awry upon your lord’s departure,/Find shapes of grief, more than himself to wail,/Which, looked on as it is, is naught but shadows/Of what it is not’ (R2 2.2.20–4). shield see blazon, heraldry (A) This protective armour used by soldiers in battlefields in the Middle Ages was also related to the art of heraldry where armories or coats of arms were sculpted and painted on shields according to a strict chromatic codification. In a literary context, the image of the shield is evocative of the literary conceit of the blazon. (B) In PER, during the procession of knights presenting their shields, Thaisa gives detailed descriptions of the coats of arms where an image is related to a motto, such as in the first shield: ‘A knight of Sparta, my renowned father,/And the device he bears 219

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upon his shield/Is a black Ethiope reaching at the sun,/The word, Lux tua vita mihi’ (2.2.18–21). In LUC, the image of the shield connects the military metaphor of conquest initiated in the opening stanzas with the literary art of heraldry, namely the blazon, which is developed in the red and white celebration of Lucrece’s beautiful face: ‘Then virtue claims from beauty beauty’s red,/Which virtue gave the golden age to gild/ Their silver cheeks, and called it then their shield’ (59–61). (C) Saunder (1981) and Pastoureau (1997) are useful on the role and function of shields in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Vickers (1985), Iselin (1999), Williams (2004) and Ritscher (2009) explore the image of the shield and blazons in LUC from different approaches. shop This word is given the meaning of a painter’s studio only once, in Sonnet 24. In this sonnet partly hinging upon the imagery of painting, the poet compares his heart to a studio where his eyes play the painter (1): ‘to find where your true image pictured lies,/Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still’ (6–7). Dundas (1993) suggests that the poet ‘keeps a picture gallery in his heart where the beloved may find his own portrait’ (p. 59) sight (A) Not only is this visual term synonymous with a spectacle or a view, but it also refers to the human capacity of seeing. In the English Renaissance, the act of seeing was still understood through the classical theories of extramission and intromission (see eye). Seeing was also imbued with negative connotations as Puritans contended that human sight corrupted the mind (see Hakewill 1606). (B) In the two narrative poems full of references to seeing, looking and to visual arts, sight encapsulates the circularity and complexity of human gaze, especially in VEN. After introducing the initial ekphrasis by summoning the reader to look (‘Look when a painter would surpass the life/In limning out a well-proportioned steed’ VEN 289–90), the narrator uses another literary conceit to draw the reader’s attention to his own chromatic picture of Venus’ emotions painted in red and white: ‘O, what a sight it was, wistly to view/How she came stealing to the wayward boy!/To note the fighting conflict of her hue,/How white and red each other did destroy!’ (343–6). This spectacle is repeated in the stanza devoted to Adonis’ narcissistic gaze as he ‘beheld his shadow in the brook’ and ‘fishes spread on it their golden gills’ (1099–1100) while the birds brought the young man ‘ripe-red cherries’ so that ‘he fed them with his sight, they him with berries’ (1103–4). Unlike the first verbal spectacle offered to the reader’s imagination where colours fade away and sight is directed one way, the verbal portrait of narcissism relies on the circularity of the human gaze where Adonis projects to others and contemplates colourful images of his own self that seem to satisfy the beholders (here the fish and birds) as well as his vital needs (he is fed with berries) unlike the ‘poor birds’ painted by Zeuxis (601) and the dissatisfied Venus (603–6). Sight also alludes to the faculty of seeing as when Venus discovers Adonis’ wounded body (‘Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly/That her sight, dazzling, makes the wound seem three’ 1063–4; 220

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see also 822 and 1166). LUC challenges the capacity of seeing and deciphering visual signs. When Lucrece first encounters Tarquin, she can hardly perceive his real intentions as ‘he [is] coloured with his high estate,/Hiding base sin in pleats of majesty’ (92–3) while she is unable ‘to moralize his wanton sight’ (104) since she ‘that never coped with stranger eyes/Could pick no meaning from their parling looks’ (99–100). Likewise, when Tarquin enters Lucrece’s bedroom, he is momentarily blinded by the light coming from the chamber (374–8). This passage is introduced by a simile: ‘Look as the fair and fiery-pointed sun/Rushing from forth a cloud bereaves our sight’ (372–3). The summons to look here addressed to the reader sounds ironic as the narrator describes the emblem of blindness, inviting the reader to ponder on the unsettling of senses and reason induced by lust. When Lucrece wakes up and discovers Tarquin in her room, her sight is distorted when ‘dreadful sights’ (462), such as ‘quick-shifting antics’ (459), appear to her eyes. The term sight is used in the long ekphrastic description of the painting of Troy which is introduced by the celebration of the superiority of sight over hearing: ‘To see sad sights moves more than hear them told,/For then the eye interprets to the ear/The heavy motion that it doth behold’ (1324–6). This comforting vision of the faculty of sight is enhanced by Nestor’s powerful rhetoric pictured in the painting when he is shown ‘encouraging the GREEKS to fight,/Making such sober action with his hand/That it beguiled attention, charmed the sight’ (1402–4). The Sonnets explore the visions shaped by the mind’s eye or imagination. In Sonnet 27, when the poet is away from the youth, his imagination projects images of the young man that he can contemplate even in the dark: ‘Save that my soul’s imaginary sight/ Presents thy shadow to my sightless view’ (9–10) (see also SON 43.12). In Sonnet 46, the poet’s eye and heart are ‘at a mortal war’ (1) as ‘mine eye, my heart thy picture’s sight would bar’ (3). However, in the following sonnet, the harmony between eye and heart has been restored as both offer images of the youth, especially the heart or imagination, as when both eye and heart sleep, ‘thy picture in my sight/Awakes my heart to heart’s and eye’s delight’ (SON 47.13–14). Nonetheless, in one sonnet dedicated to the Dark Lady, the poet elaborates on the well-known theme of love causing blindness to condemn his passion for her and his distorted vision: ‘O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,/Which have no correspondence with true sight!’ (SON 148.1–2). This conflation between sight as the faculty of seeing and sights as visions created by imagination features again in the nearly ekphrastic description of the Dover cliffs made by the disguised Edgar to the blind Gloucester in KL. Edgar claims to be so absorbed by his description of the dazzling cliffs as a perspective picture, that his faculty of seeing is blurred by this imaginary spectacle: ‘I’ll look no more,/Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight/Topple down headlong’ (4.6.22–4). In the scene prior to the statue scene in WT, the Steward cleverly stimulates the spectators’ imagination by drawing their attention to a scene that occurred off stage and can be neither seen nor told, but will eventually be pictured in the audience’s mind’s eye through ekphrasis: ‘Then have you lost a sight which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of’ (5.2.41–2). In the statue scene, looking at a stony effigy is thought to be able to contaminate human sight and turn the 221

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spectator into a block of stone. Paulina thinks this might happen to Leontes, who remains motionless and speechless before Hermione’s statue: ‘If I had thought the sight of my poor image/Would thus have wrought you – for the stone is mine – / I’d not have showed it’ (5.3.57–9). In MAC, human sight is threatened by the horrifying spectacle of the dead body of Duncan which recalls the Gorgon, the mythical creature whose sight could petrify onlookers: ‘Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight/With a new Gorgon’ (2.3.71–2). Similarly, Macbeth is bewildered by his wife’s lack of emotion when Banquo’s ghost appears before his eyes: ‘When now I think you can behold such sights/And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks/When mine is blanched with fear’ (3.4.112–14). Similarly, in OTH, Desdemona’s lifeless body is turned into an appalling spectacle: ‘Poor Desdemon, I am glad thy father’s dead . . . /Did he live now/This sight would make him do a desperate turn’ (5.2.202/204–5). When Othello grows aware that his own sight was fooled by Iago’s manipulation of ‘ocular proof’ (3.3.363), his vision of Desdemona is restored, but to no avail: ‘Cold, cold, my girl,/Even like thy chastity. O cursed, cursed slave!/Whip me, ye devils,/From the possession of this heavenly sight!’ (5.2.273–6). The play closes with the final image of lifeless bodies lying on Desdemona’s bed, a spectacle that ‘poisons sight’ (5.2.362). (C) Egan (2001) has shown that there were more references to seeing plays than hearing them in early modern dramatic texts, especially in Shakespeare. Baker (1987) explores sight in OTH. Knapp (2011) is invaluable reading on vision and sight in Shakespeare, especially his chapter on OTH. silence The only reference to the absence of noise or speech which is used by Shakespeare in the context of visual arts is to be found in WT. After drawing the curtain to reveal the statue of Hermione, Paulina remarks that her guests are speechless as if they had been turned into statues: ‘I like your silence; it the more shows off/Your wonder’ (5.3.21–2). silver see white (A) This valuable metal was used mainly for jewellery and miniature painting in early modern England. Thanks to his training as a goldsmith, the painter Nicholas Hilliard was well known for using gold and silver to convey highlights in his miniatures though they are no longer visible today because of the oxidization of silver with time. In the art of heraldry, it was the linguistic variation of white as was gold for yellow. In his treatise on heraldry, Herald of Sicily (1528) ranks silver second after gold, the prime colour because it signifies purity and innocence. (B) In the narrative poems, silver is mostly associated with white. The hands of Venus and Adonis are described as white through a series of conventional metaphors (‘a lily prisoned in a gaol of snow/Or ivory in an alabaster band’ VEN 363–4). This ‘beauteous combat’ turns them into ‘two silver doves that sit a-billing’ (365–6). The shining light of moonshine is also depicted as silver: ‘Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:/Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine’ (727–8). The poetic blazon of Lucrece’s face, described in the text as ‘heraldry’ (64), uses some of the chromatic 222

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codifications of armory. In the battle between white and red, white is symbolized by its heraldic counterpart: ‘When virtue bragged, beauty would blush for shame;/When beauty boasted blushes, in despite/Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white’ (LUC 54–6). The reference to heraldy is made more explicit in the following stanza when gold and silver are combined with the image of the shield: ‘Then virtue claims from beauty beauty’s red,/Which virtue gave the golden age to gild/Their silver cheeks, and called it then their shield’ (59–61). The luminosity of the silver shine on Lucrece’s cheeks is shadowed by the darkness of Tarquin’s evil mind. As he enters her room, the light of the ‘silver moon’ bathing the room is concealed by a curtain (371). This metaphorical gesture adumbrates the rape which is compared to a stain on Lucrece’s spotless purity: ‘The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,/And unperceived fly with the filth away;/But if the like the snow-white swan desire,/The stain upon his silver down will stay’ (1009–12). Similarly, Macbeth describes Duncan’s dead body using heraldic colours: ‘his silver skin laced with golden blood’ (MAC 2.3.113). Although gold was not directly associated with red, it was sometimes regarded as the equivalent of this colour (see red). In CYM, Imogen’s room is to be imagined as glittering with silver and gold, as the tapestry telling the story of the encounter between Cleopatra and Antony is woven with ‘silk and silver’ (2.4.69), the andirons standing near the chimney-piece are ‘two winking Cupids/Of silver’ (2.4.89–90) whilst the cherubins on the ceiling are ‘golden’ (2.4.88). The radiance of these decorative objects sets forth Imogen’s chastity and innocence. Likewise, in Enobarbus’s ekphrastic description of the encounter between Cleopatra and Antony on the Cydnus river in ANT, the oars of Cleopatra’s barge are made of ‘silver’ (2.2.204). These lavish descriptions that could perhaps have been represented on stage in CYM 2.2 when Iachimo is actually in Imogen’s room are explicitly staged in H8. The opening of Katherine’s trial features a display of pomp by the prosecution whose many members carry a silver object or are dressed with some silver material: ‘then two priests, bearing each a silver cross; then a Gentleman Usher, bare-headed, accompanied with a Sergeant-at-arms, bearing a silver mace, then two Gentlemen, bearing two great silver pillars’ (2.4.0). The most spectacular dramatization of a silver item may be the silver casket in MV. In order to find the right husband for his daughter, Portia’s father has concealed her portrait in one of three caskets which are made of gold, silver and lead (1.2.29–30). These caskets are hidden behind a curtain which is opened each time a suitor comes to propose to Portia. Each casket bears a message, the silver one being ‘Who chooseth me, shall get as much as he deserves’ (2.7.7). The Prince of Morocco is tempted by the colour of silver which exemplifies chastity: ‘What says the silver with her virgin hue?’ (2.7.22). This interpretation is reminiscent of the readings found in treatises of heraldry. The Prince of Arragon is the one who chooses the silver casket which contains the picture of a fool heightened by a message: ‘There be fools alive iwis/Silvered o’er, and so was this’ (2.9.68–9). Silver can sometimes symbolize old age as do white and grey. See H5 (‘your fathers taken by the silver beards’ 3.3.36) or 2H6 (‘Old Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair’ 223

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5.1.162; ‘To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve/The silver livery of advised age’ 5.2.47). In JC, silver symbolizes gravity (2.1.143–8). spider This insect, well-known for spinning webs to catch its prey, is related to the art of tapestry in classical mythology. Arachne, a young woman talented at weaving, challenged the goddess Athena in a weaving contest and was turned into a spider. In Shakespeare, the spider is related to manipulation, plotting and predation. In one of his soliloquies, the Duke of York exposes his Machiavellian nature: ‘My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,/Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies’ (2H6 3.1.338–9). In R3, Queen Margaret warns Elizabeth against Richard’s evil mind: ‘Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune,/Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled spider,/Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?’ (1.3.240–2). In MV, the spider epitomizes the deceitful nature of pictorial art when Bassanio, suspicious of ornaments, deciphers the portrait of Portia which he has found in the leaden casket: ‘Here, in her hairs,/The painter plays the spider, and hath woven/A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men/Faster than gnats in cobwebs’ (3.2.120–3). Pictorial art and the art of weaving are perhaps conflated through the figure of the spider, which might suggest Arachne who had depicted colourful stories on her tapestries. However, this rather negative statement about the painter as a manipulator is reminiscent of the poor reputation of these artists in Shakespeare’s time (see painter). The image of the lady’s hair as a snare was invoked by Bassanio a few lines earlier when he compared golden hair to the Gorgon’s fascinating snaky locks (3.2.92) (see golden, ornament). spout see conduit, fountain (A) A spout can refer to a pipe or a tube set in a fountain to carry and discharge water. (B) In TIT, the bleeding veins of the mutilated Lavinia are likened to fountain spouts gushing forth blood: ‘As from a conduit with three issuing spouts,/Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan’s face,/Blushing to be encountered with a cloud’ (2.3.30–2). Likewise, in Calphurnia’s prophetic dream of Caesar’s death, the bleeding statue is dramatically adorned with several pipes: ‘She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,/Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,/Did run pure blood . . . Your statue spouting blood in many pipes’ (JC 2.2.76–8/85). In WT, Antigonus narrates his vision of Hermione’s ghost who resembled a garden statue: ‘and, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes/ Became two spouts’ (WT 3.3.24–5). (C) Tigner (2006), Maisano (2007) and Kolb (2011) have highlighted the connection between Hermione’s statue and garden automata. stare see look, see (A) This verb alludes to a long and fixed gaze, especially when someone is astonished or amazed at seeing something. (B) Shakespeare uses this term to depict vivid emotions capable of leaving the beholders speechless, and even motionless, as is the case in R3 when Buckingham describes the response of the people to his speech that seemed to turn them into blocks 224

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of stone: ‘They spake not a word,/But like dumb statues or breathing stones/Stared each on other, and looked deadly pale’ (3.7.24–6). In OTH, Bianca’s fixed and horrified gaze at Cassio’s wounds is manipulated by Iago to seem like evidence of her guilt: – Look you pale mistress? Do you perceive the gastness of her eye? – Nay, if you stare we shall hear more anon.– Behold her well, I pray you, look upon her: Do you see, gentlemen? nay, guiltiness will speak Though tongues were out of use. (OTH 5.1.104–10) Similarly, in CYM, Imogen realizes that Pisanio is hiding something from her by observing his fixed gaze: ‘What is in thy mind/That makes thee stare thus?’ (3.4.4–5). In the painting of Troy, Hecuba’s ‘distress’ is visible through her fixed gaze, ‘staring on PRIAM’s wounds with her old eyes’ (LUC 1448). Likewise, Collatine is amazed at seeing his wife’s metamorphosis upon his return: ‘Which when her sad beholding husband saw,/Amazedly in her sad face he stares:/Her eyes, though sod in tears, looked red and raw’ (1590–2). See also WT 5.2.12 statua see statue statue see alabaster, Colossus, Giulio Romano, image, marble, monument, picture, stone (A) As opposed to two-dimensional and flat paintings, a statue is primarily a three-dimensional faithful or abstract representation of one individual or a group of people, or non-human beings. A statue can be carved out of alabaster, ivory, marble, stone or wood and can be cast in bronze or brass or any other hard material (see gold). In Shakespeare’s lifetime, religious statuary as well as paintings were removed from churches, to be replaced by written quotations from the Bible. Most of the medieval statues that used to adorn churches are lost today; in the wake of Henry’s schism, many sacred images were destroyed by iconoclasts or stolen. This destruction was so intense that in 1560, Queen Elizabeth signed a proclamation to stop iconoclasts from destroying funerary monuments (‘A proclamation against breaking or defacing of Monuments of Antiquitie, being set up in churches, and other publicke places, for memory, and not for superstition’). In Renaissance England, most of the statues that were carved or cast were funerary effigies of the dead to ornament tombs and monuments. Demand for this type of sculpture was steadily increasing at that time as the aristocracy and the rising middleclass were constantly eager not only to commemorate and preserve the memory of their ancestors, but also to display their social rank and success. In Elizabethan England, sculptors were still painting funerary effigies in rather garish colours, and sculpture was then regarded as an art of colour. The wall monument devoted to Shakespeare in Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church is probably one of the best-known examples of painted funerary monuments. Statues were also used in gardens, mainly as ornamentation for 225

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fountains. The example of the Grove of Diana, built in Nonsuch garden, epitomizes the role of statues in Elizabethan gardens. This fountain, carved out of a rock, represented the episode of Diana bathing and being spied on by Acteon. Under King Henry VIII a new type of garden statuary was created, in the form of topiaries, that is to say statues carved not in marble or stone, but in shrubs or bushes. Gigantic statues, resembling the one in Pratolino garden as well as automata, adorned Jacobean gardens. In Elizabethan English, a statue could also be described by the polysemous words image, which meant statue up to the late 1620s, picture, or even painting. In WT, the statue of Hermione is depicted as ‘the queen’s picture’ (5.2.171). (B) In Shakespeare’s drama, statues are used as theatrical props only once, in JC where Pompey’s statue is probably standing on stage (‘How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport/That now on Pompey’s basis lies along’ 3.1.114–15). The term basis indicates that after being stabbed by the conspirators, the actor impersonating Caesar falls in front of Pompey’s statue. Hermione’s statue in WT cannot be regarded as a prop in the sense that the actor impersonating Hermione probably stands motionless on stage. Most of the verbal references to statues in Shakespeare’s text are either metaphoric or mythical (see Colossus, Niobe, Pygmalion). WT is probably the only play by Shakespeare in which the term statue can be interpreted as describing a work of art presumably carved by Giulio Romano (5.2.95): O Paulina, We honour you with trouble. But we came To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery Have we passed through, not without much content In many singularities, but we saw not That which my daughter came to look upon, The statue of her mother. (WT 5.3.8–14) The gallery mentioned by Leontes may suggest that the statue is akin to these works of art that an increasing number of aristocrats exhibited in the galleries of their houses in Tudor and early Jacobean England. One such was Lord Arundel, who was portrayed in his gallery of statues by Daniel Myrtens in 1618. After forbidding Leontes to kiss the statue which she has revealed, Paulina warns her guests to prepare themselves for what is to come: ‘Either forbear,/Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you/For more amazement’ (5.3.85–7). If Hermione’s statue is standing in a chapel, this figure may suggest the tomb that Leontes had had made after the death of his wife and son (‘Once a day I’ll visit/The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there/Shall be my recreation’ 3.2.235–7). This interpretation is corroborated by Paulina’s ekphrastic description of the statue before unveiling it: ‘But here it is: prepare/To see the life as lively mocked as ever/Still sleep mocked death’ (5.3.18–20). The paradoxical association of life and death and the resemblance of death and sleep are traditional features of English Renaissance monuments where effigies looked alive (see monument). The presence of 226

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the curtain hiding the statue is also reminiscent of another aesthetic feature adorning monuments, as open curtains ornamented tombs to signify resurrection whereas closed curtains meant death (see curtain, tomb). This stage property, also present in other Shakespeare plays to hide or cover other works of art such as pictures (TN 1.3.122–3; 1.5.224–8) or caskets containing portraits as in MV (2.7, 3.2), enhances the miraculous dramatization of the moving statue while pointing up its theatricality and artificiality; the statue is nothing more than an actor wearing make-up, standing motionless on stage. Paulina’s remark about the painting covering the statue (‘O patience!/The statue is but newly fixed; the colour’s/Not dry’ 5.3.46–8) not only refers to the Elizabethan fashion of painting funerary effigies, but also points to the cosmetics worn by the actor as the lips of the statue are red (‘The ruddiness upon her lip is wet’ 5.3.81), a conventional feature of female beauty (see red). ROM closes with the image of golden statues that are to be erected to commemorate Juliet and Romeo. As Montague claims that he ‘will raise her statue in pure gold’ (5.3.299), Capulet promises that Romeo’s statue is to be placed next to Juliet’s (‘As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie’ 5.3.303). If gold can be construed as a symbol of purity and eternity, the colour of this material might recall the brass monuments that were made in Tudor England for royalty and the nobility as exemplified by Henry VII’s tomb (1512–18, Westminster Abbey, London). Statues are also related to memory in PER (‘to remember what he does/Build his statue to make him glorious’ 2.0.13–14). This ‘glorious’ celebration of the power of statues to preserve memory stands in sharp contrast with SON 55 where the poet vindicates the power of poetical writing over sculpture: ‘Not marble, nor the gilded monuments/Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme . . . When wasteful war shall statue overturn . . . Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire, shall burn/The living record of your memory’ (1–2/5/7–8). This sonnet, inspired by Horace’s Ode ‘exegi monumentum aere perennius’ (III.30) in which poetry is turned into an everlasting monument to preserve fame and posterity, draws on the rhetoric of the literary paragone between visual arts and poetry (ut pictura poesis, see Introduction). TGV exemplifies another aspect of this literary debate when Julia compares herself to a substantial statue as opposed to the evanescent portrait of her rival Silvia: ‘O thou senseless form,/Thou shalt be worshipped, kissed, loved, and adored;/And were there sense in his idolatry/My substance should be statue in thy stead’ (TGV 4.4.196–9). Shakespeare sometimes refers to religious sculpture, especially in his early plays. A religious statue is ironically mentioned in 1H6 when Charles, mesmerized by Joan of Arc’s triumph over English troops, dreams of adorning a church with a statue of Joan: ‘We’ll set thy statue in some holy place/And have thee reverenced like a blessed saint’ (3.3.14–15). This statement, tinged with iconophobia for an Elizabethan audience, undoubtedly aims to satirize the French characters in the play as well as Catholics, especially since Joan of Arc was regarded as a witch. In 2H6, Queen Margaret harshly criticizes the King’s new devotion to ‘brazen images of canonized saints’ (1.3.61). When Gloucester dies, she mocks the King’s extreme grief as he seems to turn away from her again to cry over a different type of image: ‘Is all thy comfort shut in 227

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Gloucester’s tomb?/Why then Queen Margaret was ne’er thy joy./Erect his statue and worship it,/And make my image but an alehouse sign’ (3.2.78–81). She implies an ironic parallel between her husband and the stony representations of aggrieved widows adorning monuments (see monument), suggesting that she will end up as a mere painted sign in a tavern despite her royal status. In 1H4, the army of the Prince of Wales is compared to golden statues (‘glittering in golden coats like images’ 4.1.99). There is a direct reference to iconoclasm and the destruction of statues in R3 when the king laments that some ‘vassals’ ‘defaced/The precious image of our dear Redeemer’ (2.1.123–4). In TRO, Agamemnon disparagingly compares his brother to the statue of a bull (‘the primitive statue and oblique memorials of cuckolds’ 5.1.53–4), a remark imbued with puritanical connotations. Idolatry is mentioned in COR when a messenger describes the popularity of Coriolanus: when walking to the capital to become a consul – even nobles ‘bended’ to him ‘as to Jove’s statue’ (2.1.259–60). Statues also turn out to be symbols of silence, as in R3 when Richard’s horrifying words petrify his people (‘They spake not a word,/But, like dumb statues or breathing stones/Stared each on other, and looked deadly pale’ 3.7.24–6). In ANT, Cleopatra’s rival, Antony’s new wife Octavia, is disparagingly compared to a silent, motionless and senseless woman (‘She shows a body rather than a life,/A statue than a breather’ 3.3.20–1). Likewise, Venus bitterly compares the cold and senseless Adonis to a statue (‘well-painted idol, image dull and dead,/Statue contenting but the eye alone’ VEN 212–13). In H8, Wolsey mocks the motionlessness of the characters on stage in these terms: ‘We should take root here where we sit,/Or sit state-statues only’ (1.2.87–8). Extreme grief can also turn some characters into senseless statues as in TRO: ‘There is a word will Priam turn to stone/Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,/Cold statues of the youth’ (5.11.18–20). JC teems with references to statues in the first half of the play. Statues are related to Caesar and play a key role in his dramatization of political propaganda. The first two acts hinge on offstage statues, such as those decorated for the feast of Lupercal and mentioned by Flavius in the opening scene (‘Disrobe the images/If you do find them decked with ceremonies’ 1.1.63–4; ‘let no images/Be hung with Caesar’s trophies’ 1.1.67–8), and ‘imaginary’ statues, for example the mythical Colossus (1.2.135–8) and the bleeding statue that Calphurnia sees in her prophetic dream (‘She dreamt tonight she saw my statue/Which like a fountain with an hundred spouts/Did run pure blood’ 2.2.76–8). The superimposition of verbal and visual representations of statues tends to heighten the sacralization of Caesar. The fusion of religious rituals and Caesar’s political agenda is violently rejected right from the opening scene. Flavius orders Murellus to remove any ornament from the statues that had been decorated with diverse military ‘trophies’ and ‘ceremonies’ for the feast of Lupercal (1.1.63–8). The bleeding statue is turned into a kind of emblem where two different interpretations compete: while Calphurnia sees a foreboding of her husband’s death, Decius, one of the conspirators, interprets the bleeding statue as a symbol of renewal since ‘the statue spouting blood in many pipes’ ‘signifies that from you [Caesar] great Rome shall suck/Reviving blood’ 228

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(2.2.84/87–8). Nevertheless, the presence of Pompey’s statue on stage, beneath which the fallen Caesar lies (3.1.115) abruptly shatters the majestic imagery built around statues prior to Caesar’s murder. The vision on stage of Caesar bleeding ‘in sport/That now on Pompey’s basis lies along/No worthier than the dust’ (3.1.114–16) signifies the fall of the Colossus of Rome. Ironically enough, some of the plebeians, inspired by Brutus’s rhetorical justification of Caesar’s assassination, enthusiastically demand a new statue for this conspirator (‘Give him a statue with his ancestors’ 3.2.42). (C) The fashion of colouring funerary statues, common in medieval sculpture, seems to have disturbed some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Sir Henry Wotton (1624) describes this fashion as an ‘English barbarism’. The use of painting was intended to make effigies look more alive (see Souriau, 1990, p. 1280). But, as John Lyly ironically states in Campaspe (1584): ‘Sepulchres have fresh colours, but rotten bones’ (2.2.56). The most ferocious attack on funerary effigies is probably that on the Duchess in John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi (1614) (4.2.153–9). For historical studies on statues and iconoclasm see Philips (1973), Aston (1988) and Duffy (1992). Some art historians give detailed accounts of the history of Elizabethan and Jacobean sculpture. Despite Esdailes’s pioneering work on funerary monuments (1927, 1946), Whinney (1964), in her very detailed and learned study, disparages early modern English sculpture, resuming the negative image shaped by critics working on the interrelation of art and literature, such as Fairchild (1937). Gent (1981) shares Whinney’s negative vision. Nevertheless, there was a turning point in the 1980s and 1990s, with excellent studies such as Kemp (1985), Llewellyn (1990) and Mowl (1993). For a specific account of garden statuary, see Bacon’s Essays (1625) and Strong (1979). In JC, the detail of the decorated statues in Act 1, scene 1 is to be found in Plutarch (1579, p. 791). The metaphor of the bleeding statue is not mentioned by Plutarch who writes that Calphurnia dreamt that Caesar died in her arms (p. 793). Shakespeare could have been inspired by the Niobe fountain described in stanza 6 in George Chapman’s Ovid’s Banquet of Sense (1595). In ANT, the analogy between Octavia and a statue is related to an emblem of virtue (Sabatier, 2000). For comments on Cleopatra’s metamorphosis into a funerary statue, see marble, monument. The most discussed statue in Shakespeare is that of Hermione in the final scene of WT. Regarding the type of statuary that was displayed on stage, Wickham (1973) considers that the boy actor was embodying a funerary effigy, probably standing on a tomb. Smith (1985) argues that Hermione’s statue was inspired by tomb sculpture. Belsey (1999) draws many parallels between the statue scene and early modern English funerary sculpture and, to a lesser extent, to art collection. She contends that the statue as a stage property may have been presented to the audience as a funerary effigy (112). Tigner (2006) suggests that the statue of Hermione was more reminiscent of a ‘garden automaton’. See also Sokol (1989). The dramatization of a moving statue was no novelty in 1611. In The Honourable Story of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1589?), a head made of brass is able to speak 229

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on stage. In John Lyly’s The Woman in the Moon (1597), the clay statue of Pandora comes to life. In the anonymous play The History and Triall of Chevalry (1605), one of the characters stands motionless on stage to embody a funerary effigy and pretends to come back to life to win over the lady with whom he has fallen in love. Greek and Latin mythology featured stories of animated statues, such as those carved by Prometheus, Vulcan, and above all Pygmalion, whose story became popular in early modern England through Arthur Golding’s English translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1576). Many studies have interpreted the reworking of Pygmalion’s myth in WT (see Pygmalion). Barkan (1981) quotes the story of the young man wedded to a statue of Venus, which was popular in the Middle Ages. Descriptions of statues waking from their marble slumber could also be read in Francesco Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia, translated into English by Robert Dallington (The Strife of Love in a Dream 1592). For a detailed and thorough work on the figure of moving statues see Gross (1992). Dewar-Watson (2009) analyses the parallels between Euripides’ Alcestis and the animation of the statue in WT. Pitcher (2010) highlights new parallels with Euripides’ text. See also De Benedictis (2011). Walter (2014) examines the statue scene from the point of view of female patronage. Many critics have argued that the statue scene was not included in the first performances of the play. Mayer (2002) observes that Simon Forman, who attended one of the earlier performances of WT at the Globe on 15 May 1611, made no mention of a statue. Nor does one appear in Robert Greene’s Pandosto, the Triumph of Time (1588), the main source of WT. Most critics tend to agree that the moving statue was added in later performances. Bergeron (1978) argues that Shakespeare could have been inspired by the royal pageant Chruso-Thriambos: The Triumphs of Golde by Anthony Munday, performed on 29 October 1611. The members of the procession saw an actor impersonating Nicholas Farringdon, one of London’s Mayors in the fourteenth century, rising out of a tomb. Laroque (1989) draws a parallel between the myth of Deucalion and the moving statue. Bate (1993) observes that in Thomas Campion’s The Lord’s Maske, performed on 14 February 1613, to celebrate the wedding of Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine, golden statues carved by Prometheus are metamorphosed into women. Tigner (2006) notes that the 1613 performance of WT for the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth probably echoed Samuel Daniel’s Thetys, Queen of Nymphs and Rivers (1610). In this masque, Princess Elizabeth and other maskers impersonated garden automata, the kind of statuary displayed in Queen Anne’s garden at Somerset. For a study of the metamorphoses of Hermione from flesh to stone, see Barkan (1981 and 1986) and Gurr (1983). Traub (1987) explores the meaning of the statue in WT through feminist concepts. Mueller (1971) focuses on the meaning of the wrinkles of the statue. Some critics have regarded the moving statue in WT as a resurrection scene, e.g. Wickam (1973), Neill (1997), Nuttall (2000) and Benson (2009). stell This verb is a synonym for ‘delineate’. Lucrece tries to find in the painting of Troy a reflected image of her inner grief which she can contemplate through the representation 230

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of Hecuba’s grief: ‘To this well-painted piece is LUCRECE come,/To find a face where all distress is stelled’ (LUC 1443–4). The interpretation of Sonnet 24 is more ambiguous as the verb ‘to stell’ is spelled ‘steel’: ‘Mine eye hath played the painter, and hath steeled/Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart’ (1–2). Duncan-Jones (2013) notes that although she chose ‘steeled’ (for ‘steeled’ in Q), Capell emended the word to ‘stell’d’, hence echoing LUC (p. 158). Sillars (2015) gives insight into the varied meanings of ‘stell’ in LUC and Sonnet 24 (pp. 71–2). still Before unveiling the statue of Hermione to her guests, Paulina describes the work of art as a funerary monument: ‘Prepare/To see the life as lively mocked as ever/Still sleep mocked death’ (WT 5.3.18–20). The comparison of death to sleep was very common in the Renaissance, probably stemming from the Old Testament: ‘And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake’ (Daniel. 12.2). The fusion of life and death is also reminiscent of the style of funerary effigies that were represented as if they were alive or simply asleep, unlike the medieval effigy designed to remind the beholder of his death (see monument). Before animating the statue of Hermione, Paulina asks her guests to stand motionless on stage: ‘Then all stand still’ (5.3.95). Hence, the actors on stage are seen as a mirrored image of the statue. The adjective can also signify silent as suggested by Boyet’s paradoxical reference to rhetoric: ‘If my observation, which very seldom lies/By the heart’s still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,/Deceive me not now’ (LLL 2.1.227–9). stone see alabaster, marble, monument, statue (A) This solid mineral substance can be found in rocks or mines. In Elizabethan England, stone could be used to carve funerary effigies, often painted so as to make statues look alive or conceal imperfections. It was also used for garden statuary, being less expensive than imported marble and more resistant than alabaster. The image of the stony heart recurrent in Shakespeare originally appears in the Book of Ezekiel: ‘I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them an heart of flesh’ (10.283–6). This metaphor was endowed with different meanings in the Renaissance, especially by Dante. According to English antitheatricalists, drama had the power to turn spectators into statues: ‘Shall wee that vaunte of the law, of the Prophets, of the Gospel, of God himselfe, so looke, so gaze, so gape upon plaies, that as men that stare on the head of Maedusa & are turned into stones, wee freeze unto yse in our owne follies?’ (Gosson, 1582, p. 180). (B) Shakespeare sometimes alludes to precious stones as in R2 (2.1.46) or in LC where diamonds, emeralds and sapphires are used to expose the deceitful ornaments of Petrarchan poetry (‘each several stone/With wit well-blazoned smiled, or made some moan’ 216–17). See also MV (2.8.20, 22). This word usually signifies sculpture and is often used as a metonym to depict a statue. In TRO, this material turns out to be a powerful metaphor to describe the petrifying effect of grief. Troilus compares the Trojans to a group of statues when they hear of Hector’s death:

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There is a word will Priam turn to stone, Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives, Cold statues of the youth, and, in a word, Scare Troy out of itself. (TRO 5.11.18–21) Likewise, in TIT, the aggrieved Marcus describes his inner petrifaction at the sight of the mutilated and raped Lavinia and the death of his nephew: ‘and thy brother, I,/Even like a stony image, cold and numb’ (3.1.258–9). In R3, Buckingham reports to Richard that the people were struck dumb when he declared that the latter was their new king: ‘They spake not a word,/But, like dumb statues or breathing stones/Stared each on other, and looked deadly pale’ (3.7.24–6). This passage highlights the petrifying nature of language and rhetoric, also used in the opening scene of JC. Murellus, one of the conspirators, is disgusted with the people’s celebration of Caesar since, according to him, they have forgotten the dead Pompey too quickly: ‘You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!/O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,/Knew you not Pompey?’ (1.1.36–8). This metaphor, which highlights the Romans’ short memory, is taken up by Antony, who, after the murder of Caesar in 3.1, encourages the people of Rome to rebel against the conspirators. Unlike Murellus, Antony sees the Romans as human beings with a heart of flesh: ‘you are not wood, you are not stones, but men’ (3.2.143). He concludes his speech by revivifying the breathing statues of Rome, ordering them to wake up and condemn the conspirators: ‘In every wound of Caesar that should move/The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny’ (3.2.222–3). Stone can sometimes refer to funerary monuments as in Sonnet 55 (‘You shall shine more bright in these contents/Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time’ 3–4) or in ROM when Juliet’s tomb is compared to a ‘canopy’ of ‘dust and stone’ (5.3.13) or represented by ‘the stony entrance of this sepulchre’ (5.3.141). In HAM, Ophelia’s lyrics suggest some features of funerary monuments: ‘At his head a grass-green turf,/At his heels a stone’ (4.5.31–2). The detail of the stone set at Polonius’ feet may recall the stony pillows or animals upon which the feet of funerary effigies rested. In the final scene of WT, the word stone alludes to the statue of Hermione and functions as a metonym. Once the stony image of the dead Queen has been unveiled to Paulina’s guests, Leontes addresses the statue of his dead wife by highlighting the material it is supposedly made of: ‘Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed/Thou art Hermione’ (5.3.24–5). This reference to the minerality of the copy of Hermione shows that he is deceived into believing the apparent work of art is actually alive. Furthermore, Giulio Romano’s ‘piece of work’ seems to act as a mirror reflecting the beholder’s inner feelings: ‘Does not the stone rebuke me/For being more stone than it?’ (5.3.37–8). The stony image mirrors the cruelty Leontes has shown in the first three acts while anticipating his petrifaction on stage as he remains silent for nearly 20 lines (43–59). However, Leontes observes that Perdita is also motionless (‘standing like stone with thee’ 5.3.42). This may suggest that a kind of visual petrifaction takes place on stage in 232

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the silent and still responses of the characters to the sight of the ‘royal piece’ (5.3.37). This interaction between flesh and stone reaches its highest point when Paulina, as it were, brings Hermione back from the dead. She orders the other characters to be motionless on stage, thus resembling statues: ‘then all stand still’ (5.3.95)/‘No foot shall stir’ (5.3.98). Once again, a visual chiasmus takes shape on stage as the characters in flesh are momentarily petrified while the statue is turned from stone into flesh. Paulina endows the statue of Hermione with life through her use of music, which is reminiscent of the power of Orpheus: ‘Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach./Strike all that look upon you with marvel’ (5.3.99–100). The image of the ‘hard-hearted’ lady features in works that play with Petrarchan literary conceits. The literary figure of the donna de pietra (stony lady) recurrent in Petrarch’s Canzoniere was inspired by Dante’s literary conceit of the heartless donna de pietra which inspired him to write the rime petrose (stony rhymes), a particular poetic form where patterns of rhymes are repeated. This fixed metaphor is ridiculed in VEN when the goddess of love fails to move the young Adonis: ‘Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?/Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth’ (199–200)/‘Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone’ (211). The comparison of Adonis to a hard-hearted man is reminiscent of the Petrarchan stony lady and shows the reversal of roles at play in this narrative poem. This pejorative comparison to an insensitive woman reinforces the feminization of Adonis. This device is also drawn on in ROM (‘Why, that same pale, hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline’ 2.4.4) and TN (‘Sir, I will not be so hard-hearted’ 1.5.236). The image of the heart of stone can take on more tragic connotations as in OTH. When Iago manipulates the apparent evidence of Desdemona’s infidelity (her handkerchief), Othello is metamorphosed into a heartless man (‘No, my heart is turned to stone’ 4.1.179–80). When he confronts Desdemona with the evidence of her infidelity in the final scene, Othello accuses her of turning his heart to stone: ’O perjured woman, thou dost stone my heart’ (5.2.63). The folio reads ‘my’ heart, thus highlighting Othello’s petrifaction. However, the quarto reads ‘thy’ (‘thou dost stone thy heart’ see p. 310). This reading would reinforce Desdemona’s metamorphosis into a funerary monument (see alabaster), a projection of Othello’s mind as he discovers his wife fast asleep. (C) Forrest (1973) investigates the metaphor of stones in JC. Waage (1980) gives a thorough account of petrifaction in WT. Smith (1985) is invaluable for understanding all the references to stone and sculpture in Shakespeare. Teague (1991) investigates the metaphors related to stone in Shakespeare and also focuses on the dramatization of petrified bodies on stage. Waldron (2012) highlights the intricate relationship between liveliness and petrifaction mainly in WT and OTH. Her book (2013) examines the religious dimension of the concept in Protestant England as reflected in Shakespeare’s texts. substance see shadow superstition see kneel 233

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surpass see art swart, swarthy see black (A) This adjective is synonymous with black and is generally used to describe someone’s complexion. (B) Despite Julia’s perfect yellow hair (4.4.186), Proteus’ infatuation for Silvia, his ‘celestial sun’ (2.6.10), distorts his vision of the two women: ‘And Silvia – witness heaven that made her fair – /Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope’ (TGV 2.6.25–6). When Joan of Arc introduces herself to Charles and Reignier, she narrates her spiritual vision of Mary the Virgin by focusing on her metamorphosis from ‘a black and swart’ woman into a being of light (‘With those clear rays which she infused on me,/That beauty am I blest with, which you may see’ 1H6 1.2.84–6). Swart is also related to human complexion in ERR (3.2.102), JN (2.2.45) and TNK (4.2.25–28). In TIT, Bassanius warns Tamora that her infatuation for the moor Aaron, her ‘swart Cimmerian’ (2.2.72) tarnishes her reputation.

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T table (A) Nowadays, a table signifies a piece of furniture used in dining rooms or offices, but its primary meaning was a flat-surfaced item on which a text such as the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament could be engraved. This original meaning has been extended to visual arts where a table can sometimes signify a kind of canvas on which a picture is painted. (B) In Sonnet 24, which is built around the extended imagery of pictorial art, the poet compares his heart to a canvas where the image of the youth is represented: ‘Mine eye hath played the painter, and hath steeled/Thy beauty’s form in table of mine heart’ (1–2). Likewise, when Helena describes her imaginary portrait of Bertram, she draws a parallel between her heart and the canvas: ‘to sit and draw/His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls/In our heart’s table – heart too capable/Of every line and trick of his sweet favour’ (AWW 1.1.94–7). (C) Lecercle (1989) and Dundas (1993) analyse this image in Sonnet 24 and AWW. tapestry see arras, hanging (A) This refined and richly decorated textile, woven in vivid colours, often made of wool, could take on different forms in early modern England, whether as wall-hangings to ornament houses and protect their occupants from cold and humidity, or as seat or book covers. Episodes drawn from the Bible or classical antiquity were woven in tapestries, often to moralizing ends. In Elizabethan England, many tapestries were manufactured in the Sheldon workshops, located in Warwickshire. According to Evett (1990), tapestries were extremely popular in England as this type of visual art ‘may have benefited from the tendency to apply Protestant iconoclasm less rigorously to utilitarian than to purely ornamental items’ (pp. 29–30). Painted cloths were a cheaper type of arras, reproducing the designs of tapestries, and were used to decorate taverns or modest houses (see cloth). Even though tapestry and arras are used as interchangeable terms in English according to the OED, Olson (2010) contends that Shakespeare uses them for different purposes (see arras). (B) All the references to tapestries are verbal and not visual in Shakespeare while the word arras is used to signify the visual presence of a tapestry as a stage property (see arras). Most tapestry is mentioned as a decorative item, as in ERR (‘the desk/that’s cov’d o’er with Turkish tapestry’ 4.1.104–5), MAN (‘the shaven Hercules in the smirched worm-eaten tapestry’ 3.3.132–3) and SHR (‘My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry’ 2.1.353). Tapestries and arrases play an important part in the two parts of H4. While the 235

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arras is used as a stage property in a comical way in 1H4 (2.4.486–516), tapestry is mentioned in 2H4 as a useless domestic object: Hostess: Falstaff:

By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking; and for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting in waterwork, is worth a thousand of these bed-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. (2H4 2.1.140–7)

This verbal depiction of a visual item draws on the narration of moralizing episodes, here the story of the Prodigal son drawn from Luke (15,11–32). This echoes the story of Lazarus mentioned by Falstaff in 1H4 (4.2.25) as represented on a painted cloth. The change from arras to tapestry is echoed in CYM where Iachimo, having seen the arras adorning Imogen’s chamber, gives a detailed description of all the artistic objects adorning her room to support his story of her infidelity: ‘it was hang’d/With tapestry of silk and silver’ (2.4.68–9). (C) Humphreys (1920) and Mercer (1962) provide invaluable information on Elizabethan tapestries. Campbell (2007) analyses the tapestries acquired by King Henry VIII that were passed on to his heirs. In his study of green, Smith (2009) analyses the role of colours in tapestries. Levenson (1976) studies the relationship between the narration of the story of Troy on tapestries and TRO. Rivère de Carles (2003) explores the role of tapestries in 1H4 and 2H4, claiming that Shakespeare uses both real and ‘verbal’ tapestries. Frye (2000) has shown that women’s bodies in CYM and OTH are associated with textiles which become inseparable from their identities (p. 221). Olson (2010) interprets the change in terminology, from arras in CYM 2.2 as a stage property visible on stage to tapestry in 2.4 as a verbal description of a non-visible visual item, such as ‘Imogen’s eventual transformation via boy’s clothing, when she leaves herself behind to venture forth as Fidele’ (p. 52). She also has a monograph on the role of tapestry in early modern drama (2013). tawny see black, brown (A) This adjective refers to a shade of brown dominated by red and yellow tones that was traditionally worn by servants. According to sumptuary laws, dyers specialized in blue were not allowed to produce tawny colours. In Elizabethan England, this colour could also describe a dark complexion. (B) Shakespeare refers to the dye of servants’ clothes only once, in order to visually highlight the rivalry between the Duke of Gloucester and Cardinal Winchester in 1H6. Winchester dressed in scarlet (‘thy scarlet robes’ 1.3.42) is accompanied by his servants dressed in tawny coats, while Gloucester is followed by his men wearing blue, another colour reserved for servants (see blue). The confrontation gathers momentum when Gloucester orders his men to chase the cardinal’s men (‘blue coats to tawny coats’ 1.3.47). When they are gone, the cardinal and his servants are reduced to visual icons (‘Out, tawny coats – out, scarlet hypocrite’ 1.3.56). 236

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Except for H5 (3.6.160), all the other references to tawny are related to the complexion. In the opening scene of ANT, Cleopatra’s forehead is said to be ‘tawny’ (1.1.6) while she describes herself as ‘black’ in another scene (1.5.29). Likewise, in LLL the pedant Armado’s complexion is supposed to be different from the other fair-skinned characters as the King describes him as ‘a knight/From tawny Spain’ (1.1.170–1). See also TIT 5.1.27 and MND 3.2.264. tear see scratch tinct, tincture see colour, dye, hue Tinct is a synonym for colour and is used as such in Shakespeare. After looking at the two portraits of Claudius and her late husband, Gertrude searches her guilty soul: ‘and there I see such black and grieved spots/As will not leave their tinct’ (HAM 3.4.87–8). In CYM, the colour of Imogen’s blue eyes highlights her celestial purity: ‘To see th’enclosed lights, now canopied/Under these windows, white and azure laced/With blue of heaven’s own tinct’ (2.2.21–3). At the end of her trial, Hermione swoons and is carried out. Paulina comes back to announce she is dead since ‘tincture, or lustre in her lip, or eye’ have disappeared (WT 3.2.202). However, tincture can sometimes refer to non-visual elements such as odour or flavour as is exemplified by Sonnet 54 where the dog-rose, despite its beautiful colour, is still inferior to the rose whose purity is evidenced by its perfume: ‘The canker blooms have full as deep a dye/As the perfumed tincture of the roses’ (5–6). tomb see grave, monument (A) Primarily alluding to a receptacle excavated in the ground to bury a corpse as in a grave, tomb has come to signify more generally a monument built to preserve the dead body and celebrate its memory for posterity. In the Renaissance, tombs were no longer regarded as memento mori reminding the living how death would transform their bodies, but were perceived as highly ornamented signifiers of their social position and/or their deeds during their lifetime (see monument). (B) In keeping with Renaissance funerary rituals and the social codifications pervading Elizabethan society, tombs are primarily presented in Shakespeare’s text as sacred places intended to preserve, honour and remember the dead. In 1H6, Lord Talbot describes the future monument to Lord Salisbury as a receptacle for his deeds and bravery: ‘within their chiefest temple I’ll erect/A tomb wherein his corpse shall be interred’ (2.2.12–13). The opening lines of LLL encapsulate the social and ontological role of tombs: ‘Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,/Live registered upon our brazen tombs/And then grace us in the disgrace of death’ (1.1.1–3). Tombs are sometimes presented on stage as in funeral scenes or when a character needs to remember a loved one. TIT opens with a funeral where a coffin is brought on stage. The coffin is deposited in the family’s tomb which is opened on stage according to the stage directions (‘they open the tomb’1.1.92). The monument is presented on stage by means of the trapdoor through which the coffin is lowered. In PER, the eponymous character is shown lamenting over Marina’s tomb (4.4) on which an 237

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epitaph is carved ‘in glittering golden characters’ (4.3.43). The most spectacular dramatization of a tomb on stage is to be found in ROM. In this tragedy mingled with comical features, life and death are constantly intertwined as Friar Laurence recalls in his soliloquy outlining the cycle of life and death: ‘The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb,/What is her burying grave, that is her womb’ (2.3.5–6). The blurred line between life and death is here reinforced by the well-known rhyme between womb and tomb, which is recurrent in Shakespeare. In the second balcony scene, Juliet already perceives Romeo as dead – the stage where he stands is likened to a tomb: ‘O God, I have an ill divining soul!/Methinks I see thee now, thou art so low,/As one dead in the bottom of a tomb’ (3.5.54–6). This image foreshadows the tragic end of the two lovers when Juliet wakes up and actually sees Romeo dead, lying next to her in her ancestors’ tomb. The final scene is structured around the Capulets’ monument which is presented on stage in different ways. First, Paris enters the churchyard and leaves flowers on Juliet’s tomb (‘Paris strews the tomb with flowers’ 5.3.11). Then Romeo enters the stage and is seen opening the tomb (5.3.44) possibly represented by the trapdoor. After fighting with Paris whom he stabs to death, Romeo discovers Juliet who is apparently dead. It is possible that the actor lies down on a bed set in the discovery space and hidden behind curtains opened to signify the inside of the monument (see grave). Tombs can sometimes be featured in comedies as in MND and ADO. In the play performed by Bottom and his company in MND, the tragic plot of Pyramus and Thisbe revolves around Ninus’ tomb where the two lovers have planned to meet (5.1.137). When Thisbe finds Pyramus dead, she calls for his tomb: ‘Dead, dead? A tomb/Must cover thy sweet eyes’ (5.1.323–4). The repetition of ‘dead’ creates a comical distance with the tragic scene of the lovers’ death which brings to mind the final scene of ROM. After being falsely accused of infidelity by her future husband, Hero makes him believe that she is dead, lying ‘buried with her ancestors – /O, in a tomb where never scandal slept’ (ADO 5.1.69–70). She appears to him, wearing a veil in a mock-resurrection scene (5.4). In the sonnets praising procreation as a possible way to defy death and preserve posterity, the poet warns the youth that he is building his own tomb by delaying marriage. His narcissism turns him into a funerary statue (‘Or who is he so fond will be the tomb/ Of his self-love, to stop posterity?’ SON 3.7–8), and he is wasting his beauty: ‘Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,/Which used, lives th’executor to be’ (SON 4.13–14). The last sonnet dedicated to this thematic line reverses the image of selfentombment to suggest the Horatian literary conceit of the power of poetry to create a monument to preserve the youth’s memory: ‘Who will believe my verse in time to come/If it were filled with your most high deserts?/Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb,/Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts’ (SON 17.1–4). However, in Sonnet 83, the poet reminds the youth that the ornaments of rhetoric can be powerless when applied falsely, since they produce empty tombs: ‘For I impair not beauty, being mute,/When others would give life, and bring a tomb’ (83.12–13). See also Sonnets 101.11 and 107.14. 238

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(C) For an historical overview of tombs in the Renaissance, Panofsky (1964) and Ariès (1983) are useful. Many art historians have explored the aesthetic and social role and codifications of early modern English tombs – Esdaile (1926 and 1947), Mercer (1962), Whinney (1964), Kemp (1985), Llewellyn (1991 and 2000), Mowl (1993) and Sherlock (2008). Smith (1985) explores the dramatization of funerary statues in Shakespeare. Teague (1991) analyses the dramatization of ‘petrified’ bodies in Shakespeare’s plays. Wilson (1995) brings to the fore the interrelations between tombs and Elizabethan drama, highlighting visual and dramatic parallels between funerary statuary in ROM and ANT. Neill (1997) contends that the final scene of ROM re-enacts the motif of the visitatio sepulchri when the women visit Christ’s tomb in the Bible. Duncan-Jones (2013) explains the Horatian literary tradition of poetry as a monument explored in the Sonnets. tongue-tied This image evoking silence or speechlessnes is used twice by Shakespeare. When Capulet discovers his daughter’s lifeless body in her room, he describes the devastating effect of grief, a traditional image for extreme suffering: ‘Death that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail,/Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak’ (ROM 4.5.31–2). In WT, Leontes remarks on his wife’s silence after his conversation with Polixenes, already perceiving her as a statue or a silent picture: ‘Tongue-tied, our queen?’ (WT 1.2.27). She ironically confirms that his words are endowed with the power to petrify or freeze the people he speaks to (‘You, sir,/Charge him too coldly’ 1.2.29–30). Felperin (1985) and Enterline (2000) have explored this image in Shakespeare. tutor see art

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V varnish see gloss, lustre (A) In pictorial art, varnish is a transparent and resistant product usually spread over a canvas so as to protect a picture, especially its colours and pigments. In figurative contexts, it equates with a glittering and embellished but shallow surface and can sometimes be imbued with negative connotations to signify deceit. (B) In LLL, the pedant Armado unwittingly describes himself as a shallow man when Moth depicts him as both a ‘gentleman and a gamester’: ‘I confess both. They are both the varnish of a complete man’ (1.2.42–3). In MV, Shylock forbids his daughter Jessica to look at the masquerade that is to take place in the streets of Venice: ‘Clamber not you up to the casements then,/Nor thrust your head into the public street/To gaze on Christian fools with varnished faces’ (2.5.30–2). This scene is followed by the entrance of the masquers where the gloss of their masks is visualized on stage. Jessica, disguised as a boy, mixes with the ‘varnished faces’. The presence of masks on stage, as well as the theme of disguise, re-creates the atmosphere of the Carnival of Venice. This visual dramatization of deceitful outward appearances is further explored in the casket scenes, especially when the Prince of Morocco is deceived by the glitter of the golden casket (2.7). Arragon resumes this word just before opening the silver casket to describe merit: ‘how much honour/Picked from the chaff and ruin of the times/To be new varnished’ (2.9.46–8). The coat of varnish spread over forgotten actions is ironic as Arragon picks up the wrong casket containing the ‘shadow’ of a ‘blinking idiot’. Varnish is analogous to a deceiving gloss in HAM (4.7.130) and TIM (4.2.36). vault (A) This architectural feature, usually in the shape of an arch, is used as a roof to protect a room or sometimes a funerary monument. It can also appear in a burial chamber built underground. In figurative meanings, it alludes to the sky, or the ‘celestial vault’ that was painted on the ceiling of the roof covering the stage in Elizabethan open theatres. (B) While Shakespeare alludes many times to the poetical aspect of the vault to describe the sky (‘the grey vault’ 2H4 2.3.19; ‘the heaven’s vault’ KL 5.3.257; ‘the azured vault’ TMP 5.1.43), the funerary architecture of this element is fully explored in ROM where it is synonymous with a tomb. Friar Laurence describes the grave where Juliet’s seemingly dead body is supposed to lie: ‘thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault/Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie’ (4.1.111–12). When the latter drinks the potion made by the Friar, she tries to imagine the inside of the tomb 241

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where she will rest for a few hours before waking up. She fears she might not be able to breathe inside (‘Shall I not then, be stifled in the vault’ 4.3.33), but is even more frightened at the thought of the skulls and bones still present there: ‘As in a vault, an ancient receptacle/Where for this many hundred years the bones/Of all my buried ancestors are packed’ (4.3.39–41). After drinking the potion, she lies down on her bed and the curtains are closed, a symbol of death (‘She falls upon her bed within the curtains’ 4.3.58). After the burial, Romeo looks for Juliet’s tomb at night and perceives light coming out of the burial chamber which is probably signified on stage by a trap door: ‘I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave./A grave – O, no, a lantern, slaughtered youth,/For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes/This vault a feasting presence full of light’ (5.3.83–6). (C) Laroque (1992) suggests that the lantern referred to by Romeo in 5.3 is reminiscent of the lantern for the dead carved on some funerary monuments. The monument to Antony Mildmay (1617), visible in Apethorpe, Northampshire, is a good example of this motif. veil see curtain vein (A) These vessels carrying blood within the body are usually perceived as blue when they appear as lines under the skin, while the blood issuing from veins becomes red when it is in contact with air. This term is also used in geology to signify a crack in rocks or the naturally coloured lines appearing on materials such as marble. (B) The colour of veins can be related to both blue and red in Shakespeare, either to signify a range of different emotions and inner metamorphoses, or to highlight the changing perceptions of human bodies. When Tarquin enters Lucrece’s room, he describes every part of her body in the manner of a blazon, associating each one with a specific colour – her veins are described as ‘azure’ (LUC 419), a term used in heraldry to refer to blue. This poetical variation also sets out the heavenly, almost sacred nature of Lucrece’s body which is on the verge of being desecrated by Tarquin’s lust. A few lines later, the blue veins take on an erotic connotation as Tarquin is tempted to conquer his victim’s body: ‘On her bare breast, the heart of all her land,/Whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale,/Left their round turrets destitute and pale’ (439–41). Nevertheless, after the rape, Lucrece notices that in the painting of Troy, Hecuba’s grief is signified by a change in the colour of her blood (‘Her blue blood changed to black in every vein’ 1454), a chromatic metamorphosis which adumbrates the corruption of Lucrece’s innocence as her blood partly turns into black after her suicide (see black, red). In CYM, Imogen’s blue veins are compared to the ‘azur’d harebell, like thy veins’ (4.2.222), the flowers that Arviragus uses to adorn her tomb. In WT, Leontes is deceived by the perfect illusion created by the Italian sculptor Giulio Romano who managed to make the natural veins of marble look like human veins so that the beholder could easily mistake the ‘statue’ of Hermione for a living human body: ‘Would you not deem it breathed, and that those 242

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veins/Did verily bear blood?’ (5.3.64–5). However, his perception is not at fault as the artistic illusion is created by the actual veins of the actor standing still on stage to impersonate a statue. Red is used to suggest blood issuing from veins as in ROM (‘What ho, you men, you beasts,/That quench the fire of your pernicious rage/With purple fountains issuing from your veins’ 1.1.81–3) or to reveal love as in the Sonnets: ‘The purple pride/Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells/In my love’s veins thou has too grossly dyed’ (SON 99.3–5). The red of the cheek reverberates in the lover’s blood, hinting at an inner passion (see red). See also SON 67.10. The change in the veins can also symbolize the progress of an inner chill, adumbrating death. In ROM, the Friar warns Juliet about the freezing effect of the potion he is about to give her to make her body seem lifeless: ‘When presently through all thy veins shall run/A cold and drowsy humour, for no pulse/Shall keep his native progress, but surcease’ (4.1.95–7). Before drinking the potion, Juliet is conscious of this sensation: ‘I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,/That almost freezes up the heat of life’ (4.3.15–16). The conflation of petrifaction and the process of freezing is highly reminiscent of Ovid. In Book 2 of the Metamorphoses (1567) translated by Golding, the description of Aglauros’s transformation into a stony body suggests ROM: ‘Hir hamstrings and hir knees were stiffe, a chilling cold had got/ In at hir nayles, through all hir limmes, and eke hir veynes began/For want of bloud and lively heate, to waxe both pale and wan’ (p. 61). vermillion see red, white The colour of this pigment, obtained from cinnabar and close to scarlet, has been mostly used for cosmetics and pictorial art. Shakespeare uses this particular shade of red only once, in Sonnet 98 to draw a sharp contrast between red and white, an opposition which is echoed in the following sonnet (see red): ‘Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white/Nor praise the deep vermillion in the rose’ (9–10). view see look, see (A) This visual term encompasses different aspects of the act of seeing: it primarily alludes to a close examination of an object, but can be synonymous with looking at something or can describe a vision either real or imaginary. (B) In VEN, the verb to view functions as its synonym ‘to look’ as it can sometimes take on the rhetorical form of captatio benevolentiae, a device often used in this poem by the narrator to attract the reader’s attention to his own verbal portraits, such as the chromatic picture of Venus’ emotions painted in red and white: ‘O, what a sight it was, wistly to view/How she came stealing to the wayward boy!/To note the fighting conflict of her hue,/How white and red each other did destroy’ (343–6). When she discovers the boar ‘bepainted all with red’ (901), Venus’s eyes seem to be reflected in her tears and vice versa: ‘Her eye seen in the tears, tears in her eye:/Both crystals, where they viewed each other’s sorrow’ (962–3). In LUC, the verb ‘view’ describes Tarquin’s close survey of Lucrece’s face as he contemplates the vivid colours setting forth her beauty: ‘This silent war of lilies and of roses/Which TARQUIN viewed in her fair face’s 243

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field/In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses’ (71–3). When he remembers Lucrece’s image, Tarquin grows aware that, unlike him, she will never contemplate his face: ‘Within his thought her heavenly image sits . . . /That eye which him beholds, as more divine,/Unto a view so false will not incline’ (288/291–2). In the Sonnets, the term ‘view’ mostly alludes to the act or the capacity of seeing, as in Sonnet 31: ‘Their images I loved, I view in thee,/And thou, all they, hast all the all of me’ (13–14). See also SON 27.10 and SON 43.2. In the sonnets devoted to the Dark Lady, the poet complains that his sight has been distorted by his heart as it ‘loves what they [eyes] despise,/Who in despite of view is pleased to dote’ (SON 141.3–4). See also SON 148.11. In MV, as the Prince of Morocco tries to choose the casket containing Portia’s portrait, he mentions that the whole world worships her beauty: ‘The Hyrcanian deserts and the vastly wilds/Of wide Arabia are as thoroughfares now/For princes to come view fair Portia’ (2.7.41–3). This celebration of Portia’s unequalled fairness seems to turn her into an object of spectacle as if her portrait and her own self were one. In H8, the ekphrastic description of the encounter between Henry VIII and Francis I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold is also presented as a spectacle not to be missed: ‘Then you lost/The view of earthly glory’ (1.1.13–14). vision see sight (A) Although this term is primarily related to religious or prophetic revelations or to mental creations that are contemplated by the ‘mind’s eye’, or imagination, it can sometimes refer to the capacity of seeing actual items, hence sight. (B) Vision can be associated with prophecy or a religious revelation in Shakespeare. In 1H6, the Bastard of Orleans introduces Joan of Arc as a ‘holy maid’ who had ‘a vision sent to her from heaven’ (1.2.51–2). Then Joan of Arc enters the stage where she delivers a ‘vision full of majesty’ sent by ‘God’s mother’ (1.2.78–9). In H8, the glittering pageant of Anne Boleyn’s coronation is followed by Katherine’s spiritual vision of ‘personages clad in white robes’ who walk over the stage (4.2.82.3). In PER, the goddess Diana appears to Pericles and, after her speech, bids him to wake up ‘and tell thy dream’ (5.1.236). Visions are also conflated with dreams in JC where Calphurnia’s dream of Caesar’s bleeding statue can be interpreted as ‘a vision, fair and fortunate’ (2.2.84). Vision, dream and drama are intermingled in MND. When Oberon grows aware that Puck did not squeeze the flower’s juice in the eyes of the right lover, he orders him to erase this ‘dream and fruitless vision’ from their memory (3.2.371). Titania’s dream is also compared to a vision (‘My Oberon! What visions have I seen!/ Methought I was enamoured of an ass’ 4.1.75–6). This association reaches its highest point in the epilogue when Puck compares the play to a vision: ‘If we shadows have offended,/Think but this, and all is mended,/That you have but slumber’d here/While these visions did appear’ (5.1.417–20). Similarly, in TMP, Ferdinand describes Prospero’s masque as ‘a most majestic vision, and/Harmonious charmingly’ (4.1.118–19) while Prospero reminds him and the other spectators that the actors of the masque ‘were all spirits’ who ‘are melted into air’ (4.1.149–50) and the masque itself was made 244

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of ‘the baseless fabric of this vision’ (4.1.151). The appearance of the ghost in HAM is compared to a vision (1.5.136–7). In MAC, Macbeth’s imagination projects an illusory image of a dagger confusing his sight: ‘Are thou not, fatal vision, sensible/To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but/A dagger of the mind, a false creation,/Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?’ (2.1.36–9). (C) Thorne (2001) is invaluable reading for the treatment of vision in Shakespeare.

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W–Y wanton (A) This polysemous adjective describing a rebellious person can sometimes be synonymous with lewd or sensual and can describe a bright colour. (B) In TNK, after describing the two cousins, the messenger depicts a third man whose hair is a certain type of white, as slightly effeminate: ‘He’s white-haired,/Not wanton white, but such a manly colour,/Next to an auburn’ (4.2.123–5). In the first induction to SHR, the Lord orders his servant to decorate Sly’s future chamber with his erotic pictures: ‘Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,/And hang it round with all my wanton pictures’ (Ind 1.45–6). In the second induction, this term suggests the erotic postures of some of the painted figures: ‘Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight/Adonis painted by a running brook,/And Cytherea all in sedges hid,/Which seem to move and wanton with her breath’ (Ind 2.53–6). (C) Hodgdon (2010) interprets the adjective wanton in SHR as meaning both ‘lively in colour’ and ‘lascivious’. Findlay (2010) has devoted an entry to wantonness in her dictionary on women in Shakespeare. Roberts (2002) contends that the reference to wanton pictures in SHR ‘prepares for sexual themes’ structuring this comedy (p. 60). Elam (2014) provides an illuminating study of the connection between the pictures described in the Induction to SHR and Italian visual arts, including some of Giulio Romano’s works. weave Except for references to the art of weaving mastered by Marina in PER (4.0.21; 4.5.186), this verb describing the action of making a tapestry is only used in the context of story-telling in VEN. At the sight of the boar and after hearing the sounds coming from the hunting, Venus fears that Adonis might be dead. Thinking she bas been misled by her imagination, she decides to forget her foolish thoughts: ‘Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought’ (991). white see alabaster, black, ivory, lily, purple, red, rose (A) Lomazzo’s definition in his Trattato della Pittura (1598) is still valid even for contemporary readers: ‘White, because it is apt to receive all mixtures signifeth simplicity, puritie, and elation of the minde (as some say) of which colour Virgill writing Aen.6. attributeth it to the garmentes of chaste Priestes, good Poets, witty men, and such as defende there countrie’ (Bk 3, p. 114). This ‘non colour’ (just like black) has been the archetypal shade of innocence, purity and chastity for many centuries in Western societies; it is also identified with old age and wisdom. Its transparency has been made analogous to light, the element bringing life according to the Bible (Genesis 1.2–4). In his treatise on The Arte of 247

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Limning (1601), Hilliard points out that white and black are the most widely used colours in painting and relates them to light and darkness: ‘and indeed all painting is performed by lightening and shadowing, which may be termed white and black, for light and darkness, in what colour soever it be’ (p. 69). In the Renaissance, scientific approaches to the perception of colour were still influenced by Aristotle’s theories: colours were inventoried within a spectrum starting from white or light and ending with black or darkness. The intermediary colours were regarded as a gradual combination of white and black, for example yellow being the closest to white while grey was the nearest to black (see colour). In Elizabethan England, white played a key role in royal propaganda as the Queen was often pictured in this colour, as in the Ditchley Portrait (Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, 1592, National Portrait Gallery, London), where the monarch, clad in a richly ornamented white dress, is shown standing on a globe, slightly turning her head towards sunshine emerging from darkness. The painting called Queen Elizabeth going in Procession to Blackfriars in 1600, also known as the Procession Portrait (attributed to Robert Peake, the Elder, 1601) is centred on the triumphant and luminous representation of the Queen also dressed in white, sitting in a chair of state carried by courtiers. Strong (1977) describes this portrait as follows: ‘This is Gloriana in her sunset glory, the mistress of the set piece, of the calculated presentation of herself to her adoring subjects’ (p. 17). The white eglantine, a symbol of beauty and purity, also takes part in the political construction of the image of the ‘Virgin Queen’. In Nicholas Hilliard’s miniature Young Man Among Roses (c. 1585–1595 Victoria and Albert Museum, see Figure 4), a young courtier dressed in black and white, the Queen’s favourite colours, is surrounded by white eglantines, the epitome of virginity and one of the monarch’s favourite flowers. The chromatic contrast between black and white set forth by the green landscape as well as the presence of the white rose have been interpreted as a declaration of love to the Queen (see Strong, 1977). Not only did this icon of chastity heighten the image of the ‘Virgin Queen’, but it was also endowed with political symbolism, since the white rose conjures up the historical Wars of the Roses, followed by the unification of the Houses of Lancaster and York (see rose). The blending of white and red roses, already used by Henry VII and Henry VIII, became one of the many emblems of Queen Elizabeth’s political power as can be seen, for instance, in one of her portraits, The Mildmay Charter of Emmanuel College (Cambridge, 1584). Nevertheless, as perceptions of black were changing in the Renaissance, white started to take on negative connotations becoming gradually associated with deceit. While fairskinned ladies were regarded as the perfect beauty, women attempted to look as fair as the divine Laura depicted by Petrarch in his love sonnets. The cosmetics used by women, including the Queen herself, to whiten their skins were highly toxic since they contained ceruse and even mercury, products that slowly ate the skin away. Despite her efforts to look young, Queen Elizabeth’s face was gradually transformed into what Strong calls ‘the mask of youth’ which is visible in her last portraits (see, for instance, The Ditchley Portrait or The Rainbow Portrait by Isaac Oliver, 1600–1602, Hatfield House, see Figure 5). 248

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Figure 5 The Rainbow Portrait, by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger or Isaac Oliver?, c. 1600, Hatfield House

In later portraits, the Queen’s face was painted according to a set pattern that hardly bore any resemblance with the ageing monarch, showing her as still young, with snowwhite skin. However, the extreme paleness of her skin that we see today is partly due to the gradual fading of the red pigments over time. Furthermore, white eventually became a demonic colour as Puritans linked cosmetics with prostitutes and reproached women with concealing their emotions (pallor or blush) under a thick plaster. In his diatribe against cosmetics, Tuke (1616) contends that ‘the Ceruse or white Lead, wherewith women use to paint themselves was, without doubt, brought in use by the divell, the capital enemie of nature’ (B3r). This association with the devil is reminiscent of the biblical figure of the white devil when Satan is described as taking the guise of ‘an angel of light’ (2 Corinthians 11:14). (B) TIT opens with a violent visual clash between black and white. During the funerals of Titus’ sons, black dominates the stage (see black): there are black curtains, black drapery adorns the coffins and the mourners’ costumes are black. Marcus appears on stage to offer a white robe, the ‘palliament of white and spotless hue’ (1.1.185) to Titus, begging him to rule Rome (‘Be candidatus then and put it on,/And help to set a head on headless Rome’ 1.1.188–9). In HAM, white also stands in sharp contrast with 249

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the colour black, mostly identified with evil in this play. This colour mainly symbolizes Ophelia’s purity, praised in Hamlet’s letter to the young girl (‘in her excellent white bosom’ 2.2.111) and Claudius’s nostalgia for his lost innocence (‘What if this cursed hand/Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood?/Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens/To wash it white as snow?’ 3.3.43–6), while evoking Polonius’ funeral in Ophelia’s ‘unshaped’ dirge (‘White his shroud as the mountain snow’ 4.5.36; ‘His beard was as white as snow’ 4.5.187). Similarly in WT, Antigonus narrates his vision of the dead Hermione ‘in pure white robes,/Like very sanctity’ (3.3.21–2). In H8, Anne Boleyn’s glittering coronation (see golden) is at variance with the private scene of the dying Katherine who has a vision of ‘six Personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of bays, and golden vizards on their faces, branches of bays or palm in their hands’ (4.2.82.1–4). The purity and simplicity of the white robes ironically echo the display of wealth and power in the former scene. In Elizabethan England, white was fraught with historical symbolism since this colour recalled the Wars of the Roses, an event that Shakespeare dramatized in his history plays. In 1H6, the fictitious scene showing the alleged origin of the rivalry between the houses of Lancaster and York in the Temple Garden (2.4), is built upon a chromatic contrast between white and red roses. The beginning of the Wars of the Roses is presented as a legal quibble between two sides, that of Richard Plantagenet, later the Duke of York, and that of the Duke of Suffolk (2.4.5–9). As no one is ready to take sides, Plantagenet decides to pick a white rose from a briar: Plantagenet:

Somerset:

Warwick:

Let him that is a true-born gentleman And stands upon the honour of his birth, If he suppose that I have pleaded truth, From off this briar pluck a white rose with me. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer, But dare maintain the party of the truth, Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me. I love no colours: and without all colour Of base insinuating flattery, I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet. (1H6 2.4.27–36)

‘Briar’ indicates that the stage properties picked up by the actors were probably presented as growing from an artificial tree. The legal terminology is mingled with pictorial art. The whole scene proceeds through the rhetorical contrast between red and white as each character picks a different rose to wear. Law and colour are once again combined: Vernon:

Somerset:

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Then, for the truth and plainness of the case, I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here, Giving my verdict on the white rose side. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,

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Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red And fall on my side so, against your will. (1H6 2.4.46–51) Even the lawyer, who is dressed in black, chooses his side: ‘Unless my study and my books be false,/The argument you held was wrong in you;/In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too’ (2.4.56–8). This fictitious scene closes with the prophetic words uttered by Warwick: ‘And here I prophesy: this brawl today,/Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,/Shall send between the red rose and the white,/A thousand souls to death and deadly night’ (2.4.124–7). The rivalry between the two sides is heightened by the king’s awkward decision to side with one of the groups when he chooses the red rose. This chromatic and rhetorical confrontation paves the way for the bloodiest war on English soil. The virtual rivalry visualized in red and white in 1H6 is expanded into the opening scene of 3H6 where the two sides fight for power on stage. Accompanied by his men who have plucked white roses to wear on their hats, York is shown sitting high on a throne, as indicated by King Henry who has entered the stage along with his men who wear red roses (‘My lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits/Even in the chair of state’ 1.1.50–1). The quibble in 2.4 in 1H6 results in a battle, heightened by the colours red and white in 3H6. The unification of the roses is embodied by Henry VII who announces the end of the civil war in the last act of R3: ‘And then, as we have ta’en the sacrament,/ We will unite the white rose and the red’ (5.5.18–19) (see also red). White is often identified with some of the literary conceits derived from Petrarch’s poetry. In his poems, Laura’s beauty is invariably featured as white (her skin and her hands), black (her eyes) and red (her lips and her cheeks when blushing). Shakespeare uses this literary codification of colours in his plays and poems either to ornament some of his verses or to debunk this literary cliché. White was primarily associated with red to depict the perfect female beauty in Petrarch. Shakespeare seems to comply with this chromatic conceit in both narrative poems where the visual combination of white and red is fully explored in VEN and in the heraldic portrait of Lucrece (see red). VEN hinges upon a chromatic pattern of white and red, starting with Venus’ Petrarchan praise of Adonis’ beauty (‘The field’s chief flower . . . More white and red than doves and roses are’ 8/10) and closing with the young man’s metamorphosis into ‘a purple flower sprung up, chequered with white’ (1168). This visual binary structure ironically suggests Adonis’ rejection of the goddess of love who ‘frets/’Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy pale’ (76). Unfortunately for the young and beautiful hunter, Venus seems to misinterpret these visual signs, as ‘being red, she loves him best, and being white,/Her best is bettered with a more delight’ (77–8). The conflict between these two colours is reflected in Venus’ face when she is angry at Adonis’ spite (‘How white and red each other did destroy!’ 346). Red temporarily vanishes when Venus manages to hold Adonis’ hand: ‘so white a friend engirts so white a foe’ (364). The monochromy of white signifies the physical contact between Venus and the young man. White also symbolizes purity (398) and fear (‘ ’Didst thou not mark my face? Was it not white?/Sawest thou not signs

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of fear lurk in mine eye?’ 643–4). The contrast between white and red is used for the last time to depict Adonis’ death, first through the mixing of ‘milk and blood’ (902) smearing the mouth of the boar, and then on Adonis’ wounded body ‘whose wonted lily white/ With purple tears, that his wound wept, was drenched’ (1053–4). Adonis’ beauty, praised in the opening stanzas (‘The field’s chief flower . . . More white and red than doves and roses are’ 8/10) is bodied forth in the ‘purple flower sprung up, chequered with white,/Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood/Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood’ (1168–70). Although VEN and LUC explore the pattern of red and white in similar ways, as evidenced by the prime position of this chromatic combination in the second stanza of both poems (‘More white and red than doves and roses are’ VEN 10 and ‘to praise the clear unmatched red and white’ LUC 11), the pattern of red and white as well as the codification of colours are developed differently in LUC. Here four stanzas (LUC 50– 77) narrating the first encounter between Tarquin and Lucrece are built upon an extended oxymoron where red, the symbol of beauty, and white, the emblem of virtue, fight against each other: ‘When virtue bragged, beauty would blush for shame;/When beauty boasted blushes, in despite/Virtue would stain that o’er with silver white’ (54–6). White also claims the title of beauty: ‘in that white’ is ‘intitulèd/From Venus’ doves [which] doth challenge that fair field’ (57–8). The war reaches its highest point in the heraldic portrait of Lucrece (65) and in the ‘silent war of lilies and of roses’ (71). After the encounter with Lucrece, Tarquin is tormented by his desire for Lucrece as she embodies innocence and purity (‘Let fair humanity abhor the deed/That spots and stains love’s modest snow-white weed’ 195–6). When he imagines her reaction, the contrast between red and white is used to signify strong emotions (‘O, how her fear did make her colour rise!/First red as roses that on lawn we lay,/Then white as lawn, the roses took away’ 257–9). The second verbal portrait of Lucrece is framed by a contrast between darkness and light, symbolized by Tarquin’s gesture as he opens the curtain to discover Lucrece sleeping on her bed (‘Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun/To wink, being blinded with a greater light.’ 374–5). The radiance of light signals the domination of white in this second ekphrastic portrait of Lucrece, as red recedes into the background. The initial rivalry between red and white metamorphoses into the conflict between light and darkness. In this portrait, colour seems to have been introduced for the sole purpose of heightening white, evidenced by Lucrece’s white hand lying on the ‘green coverlet, whose perfect white/Showed like an April daisy on the grass,/With pearly sweat resembling dew of night’ (394–6). Her fair skin is highlighted in a description resembling the blazon where the female body is anatomized (‘With more than admiration he admired/Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,/Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin’ 418–20). Lucrece’s purity is mirrored by the whiteness of her sheets (‘o’er the white sheets peers her whiter chin’ 472). The primacy of white is further heightened by metaphors such as alabaster (419), lily (386), and ivory (407). On first reading, the predominance of white, suggested by the dazzling light that temporarily blinds Tarquin when he sees Lucrece, symbolizes her purity and virtue which have been praised from 252

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the very first stanzas. Nevertheless, the sculptural metaphor of alabaster (419) as well as the comparison of Lucrece with a funerary effigy (390–1) create a darker pattern heralding the rape and her subsequent death. The desecration of Lucrece’s body takes place at night as Tarquin refuses to see her radiant whiteness (‘he sets his foot upon light,/For light and lust are deadly enemies’ 673–4). The deed is pictured as a burial: ‘Till with her own white fleece her voice controlled/Entombs her outcry in her lips’ sweet fold’ (678–9). After the rape, white gradually disappears and is only suggested through its metaphoric shades, when the conventional blazon of female beauty is tragically metamorphosed into the petrified sorrow of the weeping statue adorning the fountain carved in white and red (‘A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,/Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling./One justly weeps, the other takes in hand/No cause but company of her drops’ spilling’ 1233–6). The Petrarchan conceit of white and red is also debunked in Shakespeare’s early comedies. In TN, Viola, disguised as Cesario, depicts Olivia’s face through the traditional combination of white and red (‘ ’Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white/Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on’ 1.5.231–2), a rhetorical speech rejected by Olivia in her parody of the Petrarchan blazon imagery (1.5.236–40). During the rehearsal of the artisans’ play, Flute, who impersonates Thisbe, uses the Petrarchan metaphor of the lily to depict Pyramus’ skin (‘Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue’ MND 3.1.86). Demetrius, whose vision has been distorted by Puck’s flower juice, sees Helena’s hand as ‘pure congealed white’ (3.2.141) and claims that she is ‘the princess of pure white’ (3.2.144). This play on the formulas of female beauty also appears in SHR when Petruchio celebrates an old man’s beauty through the cliché of white and red (‘Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,/Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?/Such war of white and red within her cheeks?’ 4.5.29–31). LLL, sometimes regarded as a scathing parody of Petrarchanism, debunks the codification of colours by highlighting the ambivalent nature of white and red. After growing aware that green can be an ambiguous ‘colour of lovers’ (see green), Armado turns to the literary cliché of red and white (‘My love is most immaculate white and red’ 1.2.87). However, his page Moth warns him that, like green, white and red are double-sided (‘Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours’ 1.2.88–9). To his mind, a woman’s white skin and red lips and cheeks can be artificially created by the use of cosmetics: If she be made of white and red, Her faults will ne’er be known, For blushing cheeks by faults are bred, And fears by pale white shown. (LLL 1.2.94–7) In this parodic love poem, Moth echoes the Puritans’ diatribes on cosmetics insofar as white powder and rouge are not only helpful for hiding wrinkles or an impure skin, but can also conceal emotions such as ‘blushing cheeks’ or paleness. His warning against the deceitful nature of colours (‘A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white 253

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and red’ (1.2.102–3) seems to go unheard by Berowne. Although this character brilliantly rejects the conventional discourse on female beauty in his apology for black (4.3.244–75), he is still influenced by some of the Petrarchan conceits such as the image of the ‘white hand’. When he sends his love letter to Rosaline, he describes her using the metonymy of her ‘white hand’ (‘Ask for her,/And to her white hand see thou do commend/This sealed-up counsel’ 3.1.162–4), thus ironically utilizing a literary cliché. The whiteness of Rosaline’s hand is, in fact, heightened by the metaphor of snow, another Petrarchan image, as is revealed by the reading of Berowne’s letter by Holofernes: ‘I will overglance the superscript. To the snow-white hand of the beauteous Lady Rosaline’ (4.2.130–1). His speech turns out to be saturated with this conventional Petrarchan metaphor when he calls the Princess, whom he mistakes for Rosaline, ‘whitehanded mistress’ (5.2.230). The literary conceit of the white beauty is also invoked in AYL (3.2.378) and ROM (2.4.14; 3.3.36). In the Sonnets, the poet questions the metaphor of the white lily to praise the youth’s beauty as it is but a ‘figure of delight’ (SON 98.11). See also SON 99. In the overtly anti-Petrarchan Sonnet 130, the poet disapproves of the stereotypical metaphors to depict the beauty of white skin as the Dark Lady’s blackness is superior (‘If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun’ 3) and debunks the archetypal female carnation, a subtle blending of white and red: ‘I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,/But no such roses see I in her cheeks’ (5–6) (see red). White is less often contrasted with black, its traditional opposite, than with red. In MV, the Prince of Morocco, described as tawny, is dressed all in white in the first casket scene (2.1.0). The tragedy of OTH is built upon a stark visual contrast between the fairskinned Desdemona and her black husband, Othello, while showing that the white Iago has a dark soul. The play opens onto Iago’s bawdy announcement of the two lovers’ marriage: ‘an old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe!’ (1.1.87–8). The Duke defends Othello’s honesty when he tells Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, that his ‘son-in-law is far more fair than black’ (1.3.291). However, this positive portrayal of Othello’s pure soul is still influenced by the dichotomy between black as the colour of evil and white as the symbol of purity. The tragic opposition between black and white reaches its highest point in the final scene when Othello’s dark complexion is contrasted on stage with the sleeping Desdemona’s fair skin: ‘Yet I’ll not shed her blood/Nor scar the whiter skin of hers than snow/And smooth as monumental alabaster’ (5.2.3–5) (see black). TIT throws light upon the negative aspect of white which is akin to the colour of corruption according to the moor Aaron: ‘ye white-limed walls, ye alehouse painted signs!’ (4.2.100). There are very few references to white as the colour of old age (CYM 5.3.17 and TIM 4.3.111) and as the symbol of peace (PER 1.4.71). (C) Gage (1999) delves into the different shades of white in Renaissance visual arts. Pleij (2004) highlights the wide range of symbolisms connected with white in the Middle Ages that still permeated the Renaissance. Woodbridge (1987) is invaluable on the symbolism of white in Shakespeare. See also her book devoted to women (1984). Hall (1998) gives a thorough account of what she terms ‘literary whiteness’ which is mostly influenced by racial issues. Her innovative 254

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study is mainly centred on the Sonnets. See also Callaghan (2000). Berry (2004) analyses the theme of chastity in Shakespeare. Royster (2000) investigates the relation between white and Gothic barbarism in TIT. Iyengar (2005) explores the shades of white at play in VEN. In her article on black in HAM, Parker (2003) offers an illuminating analysis of white in Shakespeare, drawing attention to its synonym ‘blank’, a noun that sounds similar to black. Chiari (2011) investigates the diverse meanings of white in WT. For the patterning of red and white in Shakespeare (see red), see Hulse (1978), Uhlmann (1983), Vickers (1986), Matthis (1988), Duncan-Jones (1993), Fineman (1989) and Risden (2003). For studies devoted to white and cosmetics, see Drew-Bear (1994) and Karim-Cooper (2006). wonder (A) This emotion is usually induced by astonishment at the sight of a marvellous object or an extraordinary sight. In the Renaissance, treatises of art highlighted the vital role played by wonder in theatrical performances. It was also thought to be related to artistic creation as shown by Golding’s slight alteration of Ovid’s treatment of the myth of Pygmalion in his translation of the Metamorphoses (1567). While Ovid depicts sculpture as ‘feliciter arte’ (247), Golding rewrites this line in his translation as ‘Now in the wyle by wondrous Art an image he did grave/Of such proportion, shape and grace as nature never gave/Nor can too any woman give’ (10.265–7, 206). The emotion is thus related to artistic creation. Similarly, Pygmalion experiences wonder when gazing at his own creation ‘he woondreth at his Art’ (206), another distorted translation of Ovid’s original text which simply signals that the sculptor looks at his statue (‘miratur’, 252). (B) The best-known occurrence of wonder in Shakespeare is undoubtedly the reactions of the characters in the last scenes of WT. When the gentlemen narrate the scene of reunion between the king and Camillo, they describe a kind of silent picture where the characters are unable either to speak or move, being overwhelmed by emotion: ‘A notable passion of wonder appeared in them’ (5.2.15–16). Leontes experiences the same emotion when Paulina reveals the ‘statue’ of Hermione, the sight of which deprives him of speech and movement:’I like your silence; it the more shows off/Your wonder’ (5.3.21–2). This vivid emotion underlines the mirrored construction between the last two scenes of WT which revolve, on the one hand, around ekphrasis and, on the other, the exhibition of a statue. These two inverted pictures representing a recognition scene suggest that language takes over from vision in Act 5, scene 2, while the final scene prioritizes vision over words. In LUC, Lucrece reproaches the painter with his use of perspective that makes what is ugly or evil appear beautiful: ‘this picture she advisedly perused,/And chid the painter for his wondrous skill’ (1527–8). In the final scene of AYL, the speech uttered by Hymen underlines the importancce of wonder in drama, an emotion that should be balanced with reason: ‘Feed yourselves with questioning,/That reason wonder may diminish/ How thus we met, and these things finish’ (5.3.136–8). (C) Bishop (1996) explores the role of wonder in Shakespeare. According to Spolsky (2007), WT dramatizes a ‘vision of wonder’ for a Jacobean audience which was not used to seeing such visual representations of spirituality (12). 255

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wondrous see wonder work see piece workmanship This term, which can either signify the production of a piece of work or the skill of the workman, is generally used by Shakespeare to refer to works of art. Hence, in CYM, the tapestry adorning Imogen’s room is depicted as a ‘piece of work’ that ‘did strive/In workmanship and value’ (2.4.72/73–4). In VEN, the artist’s attempt to surpass nature is not described as art, but as workmanship (‘His art with nature’s workmanship at strife’ 291). This term stresses craftsmanship rather than artistry, and the status of artist was claimed by Italian painters and sculptors, but not by their English counterparts who perceived themselves rather as craftsmen in Shakespeare’s time (see Introduction). Hence, it is not surprising that the noun ‘workman’ is sometimes used to refer to a painter as in LUC (‘the well-skilled workman this mild image drew’ 1520) or in TIM (‘Exellent workman, thou canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself’ 5.1.29–30). worship see idol, image, statue (A) In Renaissance England, the act of showing devotion or respect to God or a sacred object lay at the heart of the religious controversy between the Catholic Church and the supporters of the Reformation. Following Henry VIII’s schism and the adoption of the Protestant faith in Tudor England, devotional practices were altered, as kneeling before the statue of a saint or praying to an image of Christ was forbidden. The believer was encouraged to focus on the word of the Bible and reject images of devotion. (B) As the staging of religious subjects was forbidden in Shakespeare’s time, the only way to refer to the issue of devotion on a secular stage was either through irony or the subversion of Petrarchanism. Arviragarus’ remark on the corruption of money is imbued with Puritanical connotations: ‘All gold and silver rather turn to dirt!/As ‘tis no better reckon’d, but of those/Who worship dirty gods’ (CYM 3.6.26–8). Similarly, in 1H6 where the French side is portrayed negatively, the first encounter between Charles and Joan of Arc is ironically imbued with Catholic connotations. After losing his fight against a woman, Charles adores a Venus who is perceived as a dangerous witch by the English side: ‘Bright star of Venus, fallen down on the earth,/How may I reverently worship thee enough?’ (1H6 1.2.144–5). This atmosphere of Catholic devotion reaches its climax when Charles offers to raise and adore a statue of Joan (‘We’ll set thy statue in some holy place/And have thee reverenced like a blessèd saint’ 3.3.14–15). Similarly in 2H6, Margaret mocks her husband’s grief over Gloucester’s death: ‘Erect his statue and worship it’ (3.2.80), an image that echoes her scornful remark on the king’s devotion to ‘brazen images of canonised saints’ (1.3.61). TGV intertwines anti-Petrarchanism and iconoclasm to stress the illusionistic power of visual art. At the beginning of the play, the besotted Valentine is portrayed as Silvia’s puppet (2.1.87), blinded as he is by his unrequited love for her. His friend Proteus throws light upon his senseless idolatry to open his eyes: ‘Enough; I read your fortune in your eye./Was this the idol that you 256

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worship so?’ (2.4.141–2). After meeting Valentine’s idol, Proteus is so mesmerized by Silvia’s beauty that he forgets Julia and is ironically metamorphosed into another idolatrous worshipper of Silvia: ‘At first I did adore a twinkling star,/But now I worship a celestial sun’ (2.6.9–10). The comparison of the beloved to the sun is a conventional Petrarchan conceit. As Silvia rejects him, Proteus begs her to give him her picture so that he can adore her shadow. Silvia’s remark on his idolatry echoes the Puritans’ condemnation of adoring sacred images: ‘but, since your falsehood shall become you well/To worship shadows and adore false shapes’ (4.2.126–7). (C) Sichi (1981) gives a structuralist study of the religious imagery in TGV. Tassi (2005) has an acute reading of devotion in TGV. wrinkle see statue wrought see creation (A) This past participle of the verb ‘to work’ alludes to any creative process as well as artistic productions since it can be synonymous with ‘hewn’ or ‘carved’ to describe the shape given to a stone or a jewel, or it can refer to the art of embroidery. (B) Shakespeare sometimes uses this verb in an artistic context to signify the skill of the painter and the weaver or the power of sculpture upon the beholders. In TIM, Timon admires the picture he received from the painter in the opening scene (‘Wrought he not well that painted it?’ 1.1.200) while Apemantus reminds him that the artist cannot surpass the work of God (‘He wrought better that made the painter, and yet he’s but a filthy piece of work’ 1.1.201–2). His scornful remark addressed to the artist suggests the bad reputation of painters in Renaissance England (see painter). In Sonnet 20, the poet describes the reason of the young man’s existence in artistic terms: ‘And for a woman wert thou first created,/Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting’ (9–10). The religious issue of creation is raised in visual terms right from the opening lines of this sonnet since the creation of woman is related to pictorial art and the negative counterpart of cosmetics (‘A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted’ 1), while the young man seems to be endowed with the power of ‘painting’ all the objects he lays his eyes on in gold (‘An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,/Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth’ 5–6). In WT, Paulina suggests that Leontes, who has remained speechless when looking at the statue of Hermione, has been metamorphosed into a statue: ‘If I had thought the sight of my poor image/Would thus have wrought you’ (5.3.57–8). The verb ‘wrought’ may signify ‘carved’ in this context, highlighting the stone-like reflection between husband and wife as if Hermione’s petrifying look had sculpted Leontes’ heart of stone. In CYM, Iachimo expresses his admiration for the skill of the weaver of the tapestry hanging in Imogen’s room, which makes the woven picture of the encounter between Antony and Cleopatra look as if the characters were alive: ‘A piece of work/So bravely done, so rich . . . /which I wonder’d/Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,/Since the true life on’t was’ (2.4.72–3/74–6). At the sight of the boar ‘bepainted with red’ (VEN 901) and after hearing the sounds coming from the hunting, Venus fears that Adonis 257

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might be dead. Thinking she has been misled by her imagination, she decides to forget her foolish thoughts: ‘Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought’ (991). The reference to tapestry is intertwined with the act of story-telling as Venus’ imaginary and tormented vision is described for more than one hundred lines (835–990). (C) Duncan-Jones (2013) interprets the verb ‘wrought’ in Sonnet 20 as a possible reference to the myth of Pygmalion (151). yellow see golden, green, tawny (A) According to Linthicum (1936), yellow was endowed with ‘the most diverse symbolism’ in Shakespeare’s time: ‘treachery – at least in France . . ., heresy, from its connection with the Jews, charity – according to Spenser, youth in its heraldic significance; jealousy, marriage and love, both human and divine’ (p. 47). Pleij (2004) mentions that it also signified death in the Middle Ages (p. 77). Although in heraldry yellow is related to gold, its metal counterpart, this colour has been loaded with many negative connotations whilst gold retained all the positive ones (Pleij, 2004, p. 78) (see golden). Yellow is also a key feature of female beauty since the archetypal woman was supposed to be blonde with brown eyes and black eyebrows, white skin and ruby lips (see fair, red, white). In the Renaissance, women often ‘yellowed’ their hair, or dyed it blonde. Socially, this colour was the lowest in rank and was often worn by pages and jesters. Yellow was also related to non-Christians. After the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, Jews were under the obligation to wear a yellow badge, sometimes a yellow hat. This colour was extended to Muslims, witches and heretics. Yellow was associated with the theory of humours in that a choleric temper was thought to be caused by an excess of yellow bile. Yellow could suggest urine. When combined with green, it signified folly. (B) In Shakespeare, yellow is used to describe natural elements such as ‘Neptune’s yellow sands’ (MND 2.1.126, see also TMP 1.2.376) or the flowers carried by Marina (PER 4.1.11). Yellow leaves signify old age and the end of life as in MAC (‘my way of life/Is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf’ 5.3.22–3) or as in the Lord Chief’s inventory of the physical signs of old age: ‘Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white decreasing leg and an increasing belly?’ (2H4 1.3.180–2). The image of waning youth is more poignant in the Sonnets when the ageing poet fears the young man may distance himself from him: ‘That time of year thou mayst in me behold/When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/Upon those boughs which shake against the cold’ (SON 73.1–3). In Sonnet 104, the poet sets in contrast the ‘yellow autumn’ (5) with the youth’s eternal beauty symbolized by spring and the colour green (‘Since first I saw you fresh, which yet art green’ 8). The starkest aspect of yellow is drawn on in ROM when Juliet imagines she is lying in Tybalt’s vault ‘with reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls’ (4.1.83). Yellow is associated with the colour of gold in TIM (‘Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold?’ 4.3.26). It is related to blonde hair only once when Julia compares herself to Silvia’s beauty as pictured on the portrait she is holding on stage: ‘Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow’ (TGV 4.4.187) (see auburn). The discussion related to the choice of the beard to be worn for the performance of the story of Pyramus and 258

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Thisbe gives way to a comical treatment of yellow and its different shades and combinations: ‘I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow’ (MND 1.2.87–90). Yellow is sometimes associated with treachery and infidelity as in WT where the absence of yellow on the new-born Perdita is interpreted by Paulina as evidence of Hermione’s fidelity (2.3.103–7). In WIV, yellow is linked to Cain (1.4.21). The best-known appearance of yellow in Shakespeare is Malvolio’s stockings in TN. Yellow is invoked by Viola when she describes her imaginary sister’s grief: ‘she pined in thought,/And with a green and yellow melancholy/She sat like Patience on a monument,/Smiling at grief’ (2.4.112–15). The combination of yellow and green, interpreted as a sign of folly, is set in opposition to the redness of Viola’s sister’s cheeks as she ‘let concealment like a worm i’th’bud/Feed on her damask cheek’ (2.4.111–12). The association of yellow with melancholy is unusual since this humour was related to an excess of black bile, not yellow (see black). The presence of green in this unconventional theory of humours might refer to greensickness, a disease affecting young girls, who could be cured by having sexual intercourse within marriage (see green). The confusion in the medical chromatic discourse may endow this picture of melancholic love with sexual innuendo, hence foreshadowing the erotic dimension of Malvolio’s yellow stockings. In the following scene Sir Toby and Fabian wait for Maria’s arrival to witness the outcome of her plan to make a fool of Malvolio by encouraging him to wear yellow stockings to win over Olivia. Sir Toby refers to this jest with a colourful variation of the proverb ‘to beat black and blue’: ‘we will fool him black and blue’ (2.5.9) (see blue). When Maria appears on stage, Sir Toby associates her with yellow when he calls her ‘my metal of India’ (2.5.12), which is an allusion to gold. From their hiding place, Sir Toby and Fabian observe Malvolio’s reaction at reading Olivia’s letter. He is made to believe that she praises his yellow stockings: ‘Remember who commended thy yellow stockings and wished to see thee ever crossgartered’ (2.5.149–50). Malvolio interprets these words as evidence of Olivia’s love: ‘She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being crossgartered, and in this she manifests herself to my love’ (2.5.161–3). Malvolio is to be ridiculed since Maria reveals that Olivia ‘abhors’ yellow (2.5.193). He appears on stage clad in his yellow stockings in Act 3, scene 4, reminding Olivia that he is ‘not black in [his] mind, though yellow in [his] legs’ (3.4.25). By rejecting the black of the melancholic lover, Malvolio is convinced that yellow is the symbol of seduction. When Olivia advises him to ‘go to bed’ (3.4.28) as she interprets his wearing yellow as a sign of lunacy, Malvolio mistakes her words for an erotic invitation (‘To bed? Ay, sweetheart, and I’ll come to thee’ 3.4.29). (C) Hotson (1954) argues that yellow had negative political connotations during Queen Elizabeth’s reign and that she abhorred the colour. Leggatt (1974) and Malcolmson (1991) suggest that yellow is the colour of love. Most critics quoted here agree that yellow symbolizes jealousy and is connected to infidelity. Hickey (2015) analyses yellow in connection with medieval and Elizabethan medical theories. 259

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Linthicum (1936) suggests that Malvolio’s remark about his yellow legs in TN 3.4.25 can be interpreted as an indication that ‘he is a lover, but he is not a black-minded or melancholic lover’ (p. 50). She also mentions that the combination of black and yellow could have been an allusion to a famous musical composition (p. 50). See also her article devoted to Malvolio’s yellow stockings (1927). Edgecombe (1997) contends that Malvolio is visually metamorphosed into a bee. The combination of black and yellow in TN has also raised controversy over the religious significance of these colours. Simmons (1972) contends that Malvolio is a Puritan despite his unusual dress code (p. 194) whilst Siegel (1980) and Jones (2004) assert that yellow is a not a proper colour for a Puritan. Giese (2006) throws light upon the sexual connotations of yellow in TN. Draper (1950) and Elam (2008) have highlighted the social implications of yellow in TN.

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Bibliography

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282

Index

1H4 (King Henry IV, Part 1) 19, 45, 53, 61, 65, 68, 98, 100, 119, 163, 166, 189, 194, 208, 228, 236 1H6 (King Henry VI, Part 1) 18, 22, 30, 39, 41, 59, 77, 95, 103, 111, 163, 174, 182, 199, 201, 202, 204, 207, 209, 216, 217, 227, 234, 236, 237, 244, 250, 251, 256 2H4 (King Henry IV, Part 2) 53, 58, 68, 79, 98, 110, 111, 163, 165, 166, 182, 195, 218, 236, 241, 258 2H6 (King Henry VI, Part 2) 25, 35, 42, 45, 57, 59, 67, 69, 72, 101, 103, 107, 113, 119, 120, 127, 223, 224, 227, 256 3H6 (King Henry VI, Part 3) 25, 31, 49, 72, 77, 145, 163, 175, 188, 195, 202, 203, 251 Adams, M. 157 Adelman, J. 35, 178, ADO (Much Ado About Nothing) 19, 37, 40, 41, 42, 45, 49, 56, 170, 182, 238 alabaster 4, 14, 17, 33, 62, 65, 70, 126, 134, 143, 147, 148, 195, 197, 203, 222, 225, 231, 233, 247, 252–3, 254 Alberti, L. 8, 169, 213 anatomize 17, 168, 252 Anderson, M. 86 anamorphosis 178 ANT (Antony and Cleopatra) 28, 31, 32, 38, 43, 44, 52, 56, 61, 62, 72, 73, 95, 96, 101–2, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 123, 124, 139, 144, 145, 149, 150, 151, 157, 159, 160, 162, 164, 166, 178, 189, 223, 228, 229, 237, 239 antics 17–18, 214, 221 ape 18, 21, 26, 44, 124, 148 Apseloff, S. 99 Ariès, P. 239 Ariosto, L. 106 Armistead, D. 111 arras 7, 18–19, 41, 52, 53, 67, 90, 113, 163, 181, 235–6

art 2, 4, 17, 19–21, 27, 34, 51, 55, 60, 75, 81, 85, 91, 95, 120, 129, 130, 133, 138, 152, 165, 168, 169, 171, 178, 179, 186, 187, 213, 248, 255 artificial 21, 35, 37, 90, 120, 130, 139, 146, 158, 164, 169, 183, 213, 250 artist 5–7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 19, 21–2, 26, 43, 47, 51, 62, 66, 70, 74, 82, 95, 98, 99, 120, 124, 130, 146, 147, 148, 151, 161, 166, 167–8, 169, 170, 176, 180, 183, 185, 187, 199, 213, 224, 256, 257 Ashley, M. 62 Aston, M. 120, 229 astonished 22, 27, 76, 96, 139, 218, 224, 255 auburn 22, 45, 56, 88, 247, 258 Auerbach, E. 169 AWW (All’s Well That Ends Well) 22, 72, 73, 75, 76, 80, 81, 113, 178, 187, 235 AYL (As You Like It) 33, 38, 39, 49, 53, 56, 63, 71, 79, 92, 102, 103, 105, 109, 125, 129, 138, 152, 153, 163, 174, 182, 194, 203, 254, 255 azure 17, 22–3, 38, 65, 109, 112, 132, 208, 237, 241, 242, 252 Bachelard, G. 155 Bacon, F. 169, 229 Baker, S. 222 Ball, P. 60 Baltrušaitis, J. 178 Barber, C.L 111 Barish, J. 118 Barkan, L. 43, 76, 99, 130, 152, 172, 190, 230 Baroque 11, 12 Bartels, E. 35 Barthelemy, A. 35 basilisk 25, 82, 83 basis 25, 56, 226, 229, Bate, J. 25, 106, 155, 178, 190, 230 Bath, M. 80 Baumbach, S. 42, 179 Baxandal, M. 13

283

Index

bed 19, 22, 25, 41, 65, 67–9, 72, 87, 90, 104, 107, 108, 125, 133, 135, 138, 149–50, 181, 208, 222, 236, 238, 242, 252, 259 begrime 26, 28, 30, 33, 62, 210 beguile 21, 26, 44, 72, 77, 124, 135, 221 behold 18, 22, 26–8, 36, 40–1, 43, 48, 50, 79, 84, 107, 122, 133–4, 139, 140–1, 179, 191, 205, 210–11, 221, 222, 225, 244, 258 Bell, R. 153 Belsey, C. 1, 9, 13, 74, 86, 124, 172, 176, 179, 204, 212, 229 Bensel Meyers, L. 17 Benson, S. 230 Bentley-Cranch, D. 184 Berek, P. 147 Berger, H. 25 Bergeron, D. 108, 230 Berry, F. 175 Berry, P. 255 Besançon, A. 117 Bevington, D. 169 Bishop, T. 255 black 7, 9–10, 22, 26, 28–36, 39, 44–5, 53–6, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63–4, 71–3, 77, 79, 86, 87–90, 105, 107, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 124, 125, 127, 133, 134–5, 136, 143, 153, 155, 164, 165, 171, 182, 191–2, 193, 194, 198, 199, 203, 207, 220, 223, 234, 236–7, 242, 247–51, 254, 255, 258, 259, 260 Black, J. 108 blanch 36, 38, 205, 222 blazon 22, 23, 29, 30, 36–8, 40, 50, 55, 60, 62, 65, 68, 71, 75, 80, 83, 87, 90, 102, 112, 113, 138, 140, 158, 180, 194, 196, 197, 200, 208, 209, 219, 220, 222, 231, 242, 252, 253 bleach 36, 38 blench 36 blessing 38, 128 Bloch, P. 9, 35, 60, 111, 198 Block 38, 70, 82, 120, 129, 151, 213, 222, 224, 232 blue 9, 10, 22–3, 31, 35, 38–9, 54, 55, 58, 60, 108, 112, 126, 132, 139, 189, 191, 208, 209, 236, 237, 242, 259, Blum, A. 151 Blunt, A. 169 blush 39–42, 54, 57, 58, 63, 64, 66, 67, 77, 87, 101, 115, 138, 173, 174, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 200, 202, 203, 207, 209, 223, 224, 249, 251, 252, 253 284

Boccacio 67, 155 Boldrick, S. 3, 121 Booth, S. 147, 159, 178 Bowers, J. 145, 151 brass 42, 43, 147, 148, 225, 227, 229 Brayton, D. 111 brazen 39, 42–3, 119, 145, 227, 237, 256 brazier 43 breath 20, 21, 26, 43–4, 52, 66, 70, 74, 76, 79, 101, 124, 129, 137, 139, 148, 151, 188, 200, 208, 212, 225, 228, 232, 242, 247 Breiner, L. 25 brown 9, 22, 44–5, 58, 60, 77, 114, 205, 236, 258 Brown, K. 137 Brown, S. 190 Bruckner, L. 111 Buchanan, H. 105 Burrow, C. 141 Busse, B. 208 Butler Greenfield, A. 198 Cairncross, A. 105 Calderwood, J. 151, 179 Callaghan, D. 35, 114, 255 Campbell, T. 236 Cantelupe, E. 204 Caporicci, C. 35, 36, 64, 73, 137 carnation 47, 254 Carnegie, D. 69 Carroll, W. 49 Carter, S. 97 Cartwright, K. 48 carver 44, 47, 52, 70, 143, 145, 147, 151 casket 32, 44, 47–8, 62, 69, 81, 84, 87, 92, 98, 100, 102, 104, 105, 110, 114, 125, 132, 152, 158, 167, 175, 180, 184, 186, 214, 223, 224, 227, 241, 244, 254 Castiglione, B. 8, 167 Catholicism/Catholics 2, 52, 117, 118, 121, 227 ceremonies 48, 120, 192, 208, 228 chameleon 48–9 chapel 49–50, 148, 149, 150, 166, 226 Chapman, G. 92, 218, 229 Chenciner, R. 198 cherry 50, 54, 71 cherubin 50–1, 62, 64, 93, 97, 175, 204, 223 Chiari, S. 10, 61, 78, 255 chimney-piece 5, 14, 17, 20, 51–2, 70, 76, 90, 151, 223 chisel 14, 44, 52, 70, 145

Index

Clark, S. 86 Clay, R. 3, 121 clinquant 52, 97 cloth 3, 9, 10, 18, 51, 52–3, 66, 67, 70, 77, 97, 103, 113, 132, 141, 159, 163, 166, 171, 235, 236, 244 Collinson, P. 3, 120 colly 28, 53 Colossus 61–2, 123, 225, 226, 228, 229 colour 3, 4, 9–10, 11, 14, 18, 22, 23, 26, 28, 29, 30–5, 36, 38, 39–42, 44–5, 47, 48, 49, 50, 54–61, 62–4, 64–5, 66, 67, 69, 71, 73, 74–5, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 83, 87–90, 91, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103–5, 106–7, 108–112, 113, 114, 124, 125, 127, 128, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 138, 141, 143, 145, 152–3, 155, 157, 158, 159, 161–5, 169, 170, 172, 173–5, 176, 178, 183, 187–9, 191, 192–205, 207, 208–9, 219, 220–4, 225, 227, 229, 235–6, 237, 241, 242–3, 247, 248–260 complexion 30, 31, 32, 45, 51, 53, 54, 57, 58, 59, 62–4, 71, 77, 87, 88, 89, 90, 102, 106, 109, 111, 114–5, 134, 136, 138, 157, 165, 169, 171, 173, 174, 175, 188, 191, 197, 198, 200, 201, 204, 205, 207, 209, 234, 236, 237, 243, 253 conceit 1, 9, 10, 20, 23, 26, 34, 37, 40, 43, 50, 52, 64, 72, 73, 74, 76, 83, 84, 86, 89, 90, 96, 97, 106, 108, 119, 122, 124, 130, 135, 139, 140, 145, 147, 149, 151, 157–9, 162, 165, 168, 170, 174, 176, 196, 198, 199, 205, 208, 216, 218, 219, 220, 233, 238, 251, 253, 254, 257 conduit 64, 65, 92, 126, 193, 224, 253 Cook, C. 42 Cooper, T. 4, 7, 169, 184 copy 19, 21, 56, 64, 85, 118, 152, 205, 208, 216, 232 COR (Coriolanus) 22, 45, 71, 72, 163, 170, 228 coral 64–5, 66, 126, 192, 196, 252, 253 Corbett, M. 80 cosmetics 20, 32, 34, 39, 41, 48, 56, 57, 59, 88, 89, 106, 115, 143, 159, 161, 163, 164, 165, 169, 170, 171, 172, 183, 186, 192, 197, 198, 211, 227, 243, 248, 249, 253, 255, 257 Costa de Beauregard, R. 35, 105, 169, 184, 189, 198 Costantini-Cornède, A-M. 111 counterfeit 20, 26, 41, 44, 47, 65–6, 88, 117, 124, 139, 146, 152, 162, 167, 174, 176, 180, 181, 186, 202, 213, 216, 218

Coussement-Boillot, L. 52 crimson 9, 54, 64, 66–7, 125, 163, 174, 187, 188, 192, 194, 204, 208, 251 curtain 30, 47, 49, 63, 67–70, 108, 113, 127, 133, 140, 141, 151, 152, 182, 183, 186, 222, 223, 227, 238, 242, 249, 252 Cust, L. 11 cut 17, 44, 52, 70, 169 cutter 20, 21, 43, 47, 52, 70, 76, 151 Cutts, J. 219 Cuvelier, E. 179 CYM (Cymbeline) 13, 18, 19, 20, 23, 25, 37, 38, 43, 49, 51, 52, 67, 70, 76, 90, 93, 130, 132, 138, 145, 148, 151, 171, 172, 181, 185, 205, 206–7, 223, 225, 236, 237, 242, 254, 256, 257 damask 9, 71, 192, 194, 196, 198, 201, 203, 254, 259 D’Amico, J. 35 Daniel, S. 61, 190, 230 dark 28, 31, 32–4, 44, 45, 53, 55, 58, 62, 63, 64, 71–3, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90, 106, 114, 115, 130–7, 191, 192, 203, 207, 209, 221, 222, 223, 248, 252 Dark Lady 20, 27, 32, 34, 35, 63, 73, 77, 86, 90, 99, 191, 201, 211, 221, 244, 254 Dawson, A. 42 De Benedictis, M. 230 De Grazia, M. 114 deceit 26, 40, 64, 74, 84, 122, 168 deceive 74, 82, 83, 161, 176, 215, 217, 231 deface 2, 74, 84, 119, 228 demi-god 43, 44, 74, 124 Dessen, C. 69 Dewar-Watson, S. 230 Di Miceli C. 62, 145 Diehl, H. 3, 118, 121, 157 discolour 54, 74–5, 204 dislimn 75, 139 disrobe 75, 120, 228 Doebler, J. 12, 48, 173, 184, 186 Dolan, F. 50 Donne, J. 150, 180 Draper, J. 260 draw 28, 47, 53, 63, 66, 68, 69, 75–6, 79, 85, 89, 125, 133, 139, 159, 167, 169, 178, 179, 182, 183, 211, 213, 219, 235 Drew-Bear, A. 172, 198, 255 Duffy, E. 120, 229 285

Index

dumb 20, 43, 52, 70, 76, 122, 146, 151, 225, 228, 232 dun 34, 77, 90, 254 Duncan-Jones, K. 35, 73, 78, 98, 198, 201, 204, 231, 239 Dundas, J. 21, 74, 86, 123, 124, 147, 172, 176, 185, 210, 220, 235, 255, 258 Dussinberre, J. 79 dye 29, 32, 54, 55, 59, 63, 66, 77–8, 88, 101, 106, 114, 188, 189, 193, 201, 202, 237, 243, 258 dyer 29, 55, 78, 236 Dyrness, W. 3 ebony 28, 30, 54, 79 Edgecombe, R. 137, 260 Edwards, P. 35 effigy 17, 43, 68, 69, 79, 135, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 183, 221, 229, 230, 231, 253 Egan, G. 212, 222 Eire, C. 118, 120 ekphrasis/ekphrastic 1, 8, 9, 20, 52, 84, 119, 122, 129, 140, 163, 165, 170, 172, 181, 210, 212, 220, 221, 255 Elam, K. 1, 13, 107, 175, 184, 186, 187, 192, 247, 260 Elkins, E. 13 emblem 7, 21, 30, 55, 61, 71, 72, 77, 80, 109, 137, 138, 140, 143, 155, 163, 175, 179, 182, 192, 199, 200, 203, 214, 221, 228, 229, 248, 252 emerald 55, 80, 113, 204, 208, 231 engrave 80, 125, 235 Enterline, L. 44, 190, 239 entombed 80 entrap 81, 104, 167, 175, 224 epitaph 81, 99, 125, 145, 238 Erler, M. 191 ERR (The Comedy of Errors) 106, 132, 208, 234, 235 Esdaile, K. 5, 70, 81, 145, 150, 229, 239 Esrock, E. 26 eternity 21, 26, 34, 43, 44, 81, 108, 124, 145, 149, 159, 227 Evett, D. 17, 18, 21, 235 excel 37, 81, 103, 132, 134, 137, 141, 219 expressly 82 eye 1, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26–8, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 50, 51, 54, 56, 59, 60, 63, 65, 68, 69, 72, 73, 74, 286

75, 76, 79, 80, 82–6, 88, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 105, 106, 107, 109, 110–12, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132–6, 138, 139–41, 146, 147, 148, 152, 158, 162, 165, 168, 170, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 182, 183, 184, 185, 187, 189, 191, 194, 195, 205, 209, 210, 211, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218, 219, 220–2, 224–5, 228, 231, 235, 237, 238, 243–4, 251, 252, 256, 257, 258 fair 20, 28, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 41, 44, 45, 48, 54, 58, 60, 63, 66, 67, 71, 72, 73, 83, 84, 86, 87–90, 96, 97, 101, 104, 115, 123, 131, 132, 134, 136, 137, 140, 152, 158, 163, 164, 165, 171, 172, 176, 178, 181, 182, 187, 194, 195, 197, 200, 201, 203, 211, 215, 221, 234, 237, 243,244, 247, 248, 252, 254, 258 Fairchild, A. 5, 51, 64, 92, 229 fame 42, 90, 145, 227, 237 fancy 53, 69, 75, 90, 96, 121, 123, 152, 159 Felperin, H. 184, 239 Fergusson, A. 114 Fernie, E. 42 figure 10, 11, 19, 52, 66, 90–1, 104, 125, 158, 175, 201, 254 Findlay, A. 166, 247 Fineman, J. 86, 198, 255 Finlay, V. 60 fix 4, 56, 59, 91, 159, 176, 227 fixure 21, 85, 91, 146, 152, flatter 35, 91, 109, 168, 170, 201, 211, 250 Fleck, A. 42 Fleming, J. 7 flesh 10, 21, 37, 47, 91, 110, 117, 125, 126, 127, 152, 163, 170, 182, 195, 208, 230, 231, 232, 233 flint 91, 233 Ford, J. 35 form 91–2 Forrest, J. 233 fountain 20, 64, 65, 92, 126, 143, 188, 194, 204, 224, 226, 228, 229, 243, 253 frame 92–3, 168 Freedberg, D. 2, 129 Freedman, B. 97 Freeman, D. 157 Freeman, R. 80 fretted 51, 93, 105 Freud, S. 48

Index

Frye, N. 111 Frye, R. 12 Frye, S. 236 Fulke, W. 119 Fulton, T. 98 Gage, J. 54, 55, 60, 197, 254 gallery 49, 95–6, 140, 150, 182, 185, 216, 217, 220, 226 Gardner, A. 17 Gash, A. 218, 219 gaze 25, 26, 27, 37, 38, 69, 76, 82, 83, 85, 92, 96–7, 98, 99, 104, 105, 106, 123, 139, 140, 147, 152, 158, 177, 210, 211, 220, 224, 225, 231, 241, 257 Gent, L. 7, 118, 130, 229 Giese, L. 260 gild 83, 88, 97–8, 102, 104, 105, 114, 145, 148, 159, 176, 220, 223, 227, 257 Gilman, E. 178 Girard, R. 118 Giulio Romano 13, 21, 26, 44, 47, 52, 69, 70, 85, 98–9, 120, 124, 130, 147, 167, 176, 183, 185, 190, 225, 226, 232, 242, 247 glance 75, 99–100, 121, 254 gleam 100, 130, 132, 146, 194 glister 100, 104, 214 glitter 52, 81, 88, 97, 100, 102, 104, 119, 132, 141, 158, 165, 175, 223, 228, 238, 241, 244, 250, 258 gloss 101, 165, 200, 241 glow 63, 101–2, 136, 174, 194 Godfrey, D. 111 golden 18, 22, 48, 51, 52, 53, 57, 62, 66, 75, 79, 81, 83, 87, 88, 92, 93, 97–8, 100, 102–5, 109, 113, 119, 125, 158, 159, 167, 180, 203, 214, 220, 223, 224, 227, 228, 230, 238, 241, 250, 258 Goldstien, N. 86 Gombrich, E. 123 Gorgon 22, 104, 105–6, 146, 158, 162, 178, 222, 224 Grady, H. 169 grain 106–7, 189, 259 grave 2, 25, 42, 49, 69, 70, 107–8, 147–9, 164, 175, 210, 211, 237–8, 241, 242 Graziani, R. 86 green 9, 10, 29, 34, 54, 55, 56, 60, 63, 67, 80, 87, 105, 108–11, 113, 117, 125, 148, 189, 193, 208, 232, 236, 248, 252, 253, 258, 259

Greenblatt, S. 87, 178 grey 9, 54, 60, 77, 109, 111–12, 205, 223, 241, 248 Gross, K. 43, 151, 152, 190, 230 Grundy, J. 190 gules 55, 112, 113, 114, 164 Gurr, A. 113, 230 H5 (King Henry V) 25, 27–8, 35, 42, 47, 67, 75, 123, 142, 162, 166, 177, 204, 212, 223, 237 H8 (King Henry VIII, or All is True) 32, 42, 43, 45, 49, 51, 52–3, 60, 69, 77, 80, 95, 97, 100, 103, 132, 138, 144, 152, 165, 171, 195, 209, 223, 228, 244, 250 Hagstrum, J. 169 Hall, K. 35, 73, 90, 254 HAM (Hamlet) 1, 10, 18–19, 30–1, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 49, 51, 54, 59, 63, 66, 76, 77, 79, 86, 92, 98, 105, 106–7, 110, 111, 112, 114, 117, 120, 125, 144, 155, 162, 164, 165, 171, 172, 178, 179, 181, 184, 186, 187, 205, 207, 232, 237, 241, 245, 249–50, 255 Hamlin, H. 166 Hamling, T. 3, 121 hangings 18, 52, 59, 67, 68, 113, 235 hard-hearted 106, 113, 119, 129, 145, 174, 233 Harding, F. 123 Hardman, C. 105 Harris, M. 125 Harvey, E. 10, 35, 47, 172 Hassel, R. 51 Hazard, M. 139 Healy M. 35 Hearn, K. 169 Heckscher, W. 159 Heffernan, J. 8 heraldry 10, 22, 29, 31, 36, 38, 55, 60, 61, 63, 80, 83, 102, 112, 113–14, 196, 207, 208, 219, 220, 222, 223, 242, 258 Hereford, C. 11 Hickey, H. 259 Hieatt, A. 90 Hilliard, N. 7, 29, 55, 60, 75, 82, 84, 127, 131, 138, 141, 166, 168, 176, 178, 179, 187, 191, 197, 199, 200, 205, 213, 222, 248 Hodgdon, B. 247 Holand, P. 61, 91 Holderness, G. 108 Holding, P. 108 287

Index

Holland, P. (2013) 22 Hollander, J. 9 Honigmann, E. 26, 111, 145 Hopkins, L. 35, 105 Horace 8, 108, 145, 159, 167, 227 Hornback, R. 35 Hosley, R. 69, 108, 151 Hotson, L. 153, 259 hue 9, 22, 28, 30, 32, 34, 44, 45, 47, 48, 54, 56, 60, 66, 67, 77, 833, 87, 90, 97, 102, 105, 108, 109, 110, 111, 114–15, 124, 138, 164, 172, 173, 187, 192, 194, 196, 198, 203, 205, 208, 209, 220, 223, 237, 243, 249, 253 Hulse, C. 169, 172, 173, 189, 198, 255 Humphreys, J. 236 Hunt, J. 8, 35, 73, 76, 80, 169 Hunter, G. 35 iconoclasm 2, 3, 14, 119, 120, 121, 169, 213, 228, 229, 235, 256 idol 6, 82, 117–18, 119, 129, 183, 219, 228, 256, 257 idolatry 2, 3, 45, 52, 74, 75, 82, 110, 117, 118, 119, 120, 143, 166, 182, 184, 190, 214, 216, 219, 227, 228, 256, 257 image 1, 2, 30, 4, 6, 7, 9, 14, 18, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26–7, 28, 31, 32, 34, 38, 42, 43, 52, 53, 61, 62, 64, 66, 70, 74, 75, 79, 82, 84, 85, 92, 100, 108, 117, 118–21, 122, 123, 124, 127, 129, 131, 139, 147, 155, 162, 167, 168, 175, 176, 180, 181, 182, 186, 190, 207, 210, 211, 213, 215, 219, 220, 222, 225, 227, 228, 232, 244, 255, 256, 257 imaginary 9, 61, 64, 71, 74, 75, 84, 110, 121, 122, 123, 127, 148, 175, 178, 182, 196, 218, 221, 228, 235, 243, 258 imagination 1, 14, 19, 27, 28, 31, 61, 64, 75, 76, 84, 85, 90, 109, 118, 120, 121–4, 127, 139, 146, 149, 151, 152, 168, 182, 212, 218, 220, 221, 244, 245, 247, 258 imitate 9, 18, 20, 34, 43, 56, 66, 70, 99, 115, 124, 139, 146, 161, 170, 172, 187, 193, 199, 218 incarnadine 124, 125, 192, 193 ink 28, 30, 34, 48, 78, 79, 125, 207 insculpture 125 interlace 93, 126, 168, 174 Iselin, P. 37, 220

288

ivory 9, 17, 38, 64, 65, 87, 126, 127, 190, 195, 222, 225, 247, 252, 253 Ivy, G. 51, 64, 204 Iwasaki, S. 21 Iyengar, S. 36, 42, 62, 64, 90, 111, 173, 175, 208, 255 James, H. 62 JC (Julius Caesar) 22, 38, 42, 57, 61, 67, 92, 101, 120, 142, 166, 188, 193, 205, 213, 224, 226, 228, 229, 232, 233, 244 Jensen, P. 121 jet 9, 28, 30, 57, 126, 127, 195 jewel 7, 30, 47, 48, 88, 98, 102, 103, 104, 126, 127–8, 132, 141, 169, 179, 180, 182, 183, 185, 208, 222, 257 JN (King John) 32, 48, 67, 114, 176, 234 Johnston, A. 65 Jones, A. 9, 14 Jones, E. 35 Jones, G. 260 Jones-Davies, M-T. 111 Kahn, C. 189 Kapitaniak, P. 218 Karim-Cooper, F 48, 64, 90, 138, 166, 169, 172, 198, 255 Keenan, S. 5, 53, 70, 166 Kemp, B. 70, 150, 229, 239 Kermode, F. 219 Kerrigan, J. 81 Kiefer, F. 6, 166 Knapp, J. 7, 86, 121, 157, 222 kneel 31, 38, 128, 233, 256 Knight, L. 10, 110 Kolb, J. 224 Kunz, G. 80, 208 Lacan, J. 178 Lamb, M. 21 Laoutaris, C. 151 Laroque, F. 18, 37, 106, 111, 137, 153, 230, 242 LC (A Lover’s Complaint) 37, 80, 102, 208, 231 Lecercle, A. 25, 76, 235 Lee, R. 191 Leggatt, A. 259 Leishman, J. 159 Lemercier-Goddard, S. 105 Leslie, M. 169 Levenson, Jill 236

Index

Levin, H. 105 Lichtenstein, J. 60, 166 life 9, 20, 21 28, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 52, 67, 69, 72, 74, 75, 82, 84, 91, 108, 117, 124, 126, 128, 129–30, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 138, 139–40, 146, 151, 155, 165, 168, 176, 187, 212, 213, 220, 226, 228, 231, 238, 243, 247, 257, 258 lifeless 21, 33, 38, 44, 50, 68, 83, 108, 118, 130, 148, 149, 150, 155, 162, 172, 183, 200, 212, 222, 233, 239, 243 light 7, 9, 26, 29, 32, 33, 34, 36, 38, 40, 48, 55, 64 68, 71, 72–3, 82, 83, 90, 91, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 106, 111, 130–7, 141, 167, 180, 187, 194, 215, 218, 237, 242, 247–8, 249, 252, 253 Lightbown, R. 80 likeness 82, 96, 117, 137 lily 9, 17, 33, 40, 50, 56, 58, 97, 114, 126, 137–8, 173, 188, 196, 200, 201, 203, 222, 243, 247, 252, 253, 254 limn 20, 55, 74, 75, 79, 129,138–9, 140, 141, 161, 166, 168, 187, 220, 248 Lindberg, D. 86 Linthicum, M. 9, 38, 39, 47, 52, 60, 109, 111, 153, 258, 260 lively 26, 28, 30, 43, 59, 66, 74, 118, 130, 139, 146, 162, 167, 169, 194, 212, 226, 231, 243, 247 Livinsgtone, M. 21 Llewellyn, N. 6, 70, 150, 229, 239 LLL (Love’s Labour’s Lost) 30, 32–5, 36, 41, 42, 47, 53, 56, 59, 61, 63, 72–3, 76, 79, 83, 86, 89–90, 101, 110, 111, 114, 117, 124, 125, 135–6, 137, 138, 145, 158, 163, 164, 165, 170, 171, 182, 183, 197, 203, 205, 231, 237, 241, 253 Lobanov-Rostovsky, S. 25 Logan, R. 204 Lomazzo, G. 6, 8, 9, 40, 60, 95, 99, 130, 131, 161, 167, 169, 187, 197, 247 look 18, 20, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 44, 45, 51, 53, 59, 60, 60, 64, 66, 68, 72, 73, 74, 76, 82, 84, 86, 96, 99, 109, 120, 129, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139–41, 150, 164, 168, 173, 174, 175, 181, 182, 186, 187, 193, 194, 195, 201, 202, 204, 205, 210, 211, 212, 214, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 224, 225, 226, 228, 231, 232, 233, 243, 251 LR (King Lear) 70, 155, 179

LUC (The Rape of Lucrece) 8, 14, 17, 18, 22–3, 26, 27, 31, 35–6, 37, 37–8, 39, 40, 48, 58–9, 64, 65, 67, 68, 72, 74, 82, 83–4, 87, 91, 96, 97, 100, 102, 104, 111, 114, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 126, 129–30, 132, 132–3, 137–8, 140, 141, 146, 147, 148, 161–2, 163, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173–4, 175, 179, 182, 183, 185, 188, 191, 193–4, 196, 198, 199, 200, 204, 207, 209, 210, 212, 214, 219, 220, 221, 223, 225, 230–1, 242, 243–4, 251, 252–3, 255, 256 Lucking, D. 204 Lukacher, N. 177 lustre 44, 91, 97, 100, 101, 132, 141–2, 237, 241 Lyly, J. 3, 4, 43, 49, 74, 229, 230 MAC (Macbeth) 32, 36, 51, 57, 72, 98, 101, 103, 105–6, 106, 125, 135, 145, 162, 166, 170, 183, 193, 205, 213, 222, 223, 245, 258 Maguin, J.-M. 137 Mahood, M. 108 Maisano, S. 224 Malcolmson, C. 259 Mander, N. 53 Mannerism 12 Manning, J. 80 Maquerlot, J.P 12 mar 73, 136, 143, 157, 170, 205, 210 marble 4, 17, 42, 57, 62, 70, 97, 99, 143–5, 146, 147, 148, 151, 159, 225, 226, 227, 229, 230, 231, 242 Marlowe, C. 204, 212 Marrapodi, M. 13 Marston, J. 190 Martindale, M. 190 Martinet, M.-M. 13, 99 Marx, K. 100 mask of youth 56, 248 mason 70, 143, 145–6 masonry 5, 145–6 master 146 Mayer, J.-C. 230 Mazzio, C. 61, 111 McDonald, R. 98 McMillin, S. 178 Mead, S. 169, 179 Meagher, J. 60, 153 Medusa 82, 105, 106, 146 289

Index

Meek, R. 8, 14, 21, 65, 74, 76, 86, 118, 141, 166, 169, 172, 173, 176, 184, 186 Mercer, E. 52, 143, 150, 184, 236, 239 Merchant, M. 169 Miller, J. 190 miniature 4, 7, 29, 68, 69, 75, 79, 127, 132, 138, 141, 146–7, 199, 222, 248 Mitchell, W. 8 MM (Measure for Measure) 45, 121, 164, 171, 190, 205 MND (Midsummer Night’s Dream) 20, 21, 50, 53, 56, 60, 67, 72, 77, 88, 90, 100, 104, 105, 109, 114, 121–2, 138, 157, 164, 166, 178, 179, 186, 189, 196, 203, 205, 213, 237, 238, 244, 253, 258, 259 mock 21, 28, 36, 85, 91, 110, 130, 139, 146–7, 152, 162, 164, 170, 212, 218, 226, 231 Mollard-Desfour, A. 198 Montaigne, M. 155, 190 monument 4, 5, 6, 11, 13, 17, 29, 42, 49, 59, 62, 68, 69, 70, 79, 81, 95, 96, 97, 98, 107–8, 119, 129, 134, 143, 144, 145, 147–51, 157, 159, 175, 180, 183, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 231, 232, 233, 237–9, 241, 242, 254, 259 Moorwood, H. 81 motion 20, 21, 38, 43, 52, 70, 76, 84, 85, 91, 123, 146, 148, 151–2, 153, 162, 176, 212, 216, 220, 221, 222, 224, 226, 227, 228, 230, 231, 232 motley 152–3 Mowl, T. 70, 150, 229, 239 Mueller, M. 230 Mukherji, S. 56 Muñoz Simonds, P. 52, 93 MV (The Merchant of Venice) 17, 32, 43–4, 47–8, 51, 57, 62, 64, 66, 69, 75, 81, 84, 87, 92, 97, 103, 104, 105, 110, 114, 125, 126, 127, 141, 152, 158, 167, 175, 180, 184, 186, 195, 211, 214, 219, 223, 224, 227, 231, 241, 244, 254 Neill, M. 62, 145, 151, 230, 239 Newcomb, L. 151 nighted 59, 155 Niobe 92, 155, 226, 228, 229, 232 Nordlund, M. 86, 178 Nosworthy, J. 105 numb 119, 130, 155, 232 Nuttal, A. 169, 190, 230 290

oblivion 108, 157 O’Connel, M. 86, 118 O’Connor, M. 50 ocular 51, 157, 222 oily 143, 157, 170, 205 Oki-Siekierczak, A. 111 Olson, R. 7, 18, 19, 70, 113, 235, 236 optic 157, 177 Orgel, S. 99, 184 orient 10, 55, 56, 157 ornament 157–9 OTH (Othello) 10, 17, 26, 30 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 51, 54 60, 62, 64, 69, 70, 73, 77, 79, 87, 90, 110, 111, 114, 121, 134–5, 137, 145, 148, 157, 175, 183, 204, 222, 225, 233, 236, 254 outlive 97, 145, 148, 159, 176, 227 overpicture 159–60 Ovid 67, 92, 102, 106, 145, 155, 159, 173, 174, 182, 189, 190, 204, 229, 230, 243, 255 paint 17, 18, 26, 28, 31, 32, 34, 40, 44, 45, 52, 53, 56, 57, 66, 74, 82, 83, 84, 88, 89, 97, 99, 101, 105, 112, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119, 124, 129, 132, 136, 137, 139, 140, 152, 158, 160, 161–6, 175, 176, 178, 179–85, 186, 187, 188, 193, 194, 195, 202, 203, 210, 211, 212, 218, 219, 220, 224, 225, 228, 230–1, 235, 236, 241, 243, 247, 249, 251, 254, 256, 257 painter 4, 6, 7, 12, 14, 17, 21, 26, 27, 38, 40, 43–4, 54, 55, 64, 66, 70, 74, 75, 76, 81, 82, 84, 85, 91–2, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 104, 122, 123, 126, 129–30, 138, 139, 140, 141, 145, 146, 149, 151, 152, 166–9, 174, 175, 176, 178, 179, 186, 187, 190, 193, 194, 197, 210, 211, 212, 214, 219, 220, 221, 231, 235, 255, 256, 257 painting 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 26, 27, 29, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 43, 51, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 64, 65, 66, 68, 74, 75, 76, 79, 82, 83, 84, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 106, 115, 118, 119, 122, 124, 127, 129, 132, 138, 139, 141, 143, 146, 157, 159, 169–3, 174, 176, 177, 178, 179, 185, 186, 187, 193, 199, 202, 205, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 217, 218, 221, 225, 226, 227, 230, 242, 248, 257 pale 36, 39, 40, 41, 57, 58, 63, 67, 76, 102, 105, 114, 115, 126, 137, 138, 148, 168, 173–5, 188, 194, 195, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203,

Index

209, 225, 228, 232, 233, 242, 243, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253 Palmer, D. 106 Panofsky, E. 150, 172, 239 Parker, D. 137 Parker, P. 26, 35, 36, 37, 38, 79, 255 Parry, G. 105 Paster, G. 42 Pastoureau, M. 10, 35, 37, 39, 73, 110, 114, 220 Patience 41, 51, 62, 71, 91, 148, 175, 204, 227, 259 Pausanias 155 Payne, S. 178, 199 Peacham, H. 61, 169 Peake, R. 248 pencil 14, 59, 66, 90, 91, 167, 175–6 PER (Pericles) 13, 21, 32, 48, 50, 81, 95, 100, 102, 104, 123, 132, 175, 183, 189, 219, 227, 244, 247, 254, 258 perspective 7, 9, 10, 12, 20, 21, 34, 37, 64, 74, 84, 91–2, 96, 99, 105, 122, 123, 129, 130, 139, 146, 147, 157, 162, 166, 168, 169, 176–9, 180, 181, 182, 187, 197, 212, 217, 219, 221, 255 peruse 91, 168, 179, 182, 219, 255 Petrarch 9, 13, 83, 103, 106, 137, 198, 199, 233, 248, 251 petrarch(an)ism 22, 34, 37, 56, 62, 65, 71, 77, 83, 86, 87, 89, 111, 117, 118, 119, 124, 129, 133, 135, 158, 174, 195, 196, 197, 201, 203, 204, 208, 231, 233, 253, 254, 256, 257 Peyré, Y. 106 Philips, J. 118, 120, 229 physiognomy 27, 42, 82, 179 picture 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 40, 44, 47, 49, 53, 54, 59, 65, 66, 68, 74, 75–6, 77, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96, 99, 102, 104, 106, 112, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 127, 129, 130, 131–2, 138, 139, 140, 141, 146, 159, 161, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, 175, 176, 178, 179–185, 186, 192, 194, 195, 196, 199, 203, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 223, 225, 226, 227, 233, 235, 239, 241, 243, 247, 248, 252, 255, 257, 258, 259 piece 21, 26, 44, 54, 84, 99, 122, 123, 124, 130, 162, 167, 170, 176, 181, 185, 231, 232, 233, 256, 257 pigment 77, 130, 208, 241, 243, 249

pipe 185, 224, 228 Pitcher, J. 21, 230 plaster 52, 130, 164, 165, 171, 185–6, 249 Pleij, H. 10, 39, 44, 60, 254, 258 Plett, H. 52, 60, 166 Pliny 7, 54, 61, 62, 74, 159, 160 Plutarch 7, 53, 91, 92, 159, 167, 189, 229 Porter, C. 3, 13, 14, 50, 118, 121 portrait 1, 4, 6, 7, 14, 18, 22, 26, 29, 30, 31, 37, 38, 41, 43, 44, 47–8, 50, 52, 65, 66, 68, 69, 75, 81, 82, 84, 86, 88, 92, 95, 100, 102, 104, 105, 106, 112, 114, 118, 123, 124, 125, 131, 136, 138, 139, 141, 146, 151, 152, 158, 161, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181–4, 186, 187, 191, 192, 194, 196, 197, 199, 208, 210, 213, 214, 215–19, 220, 223, 224, 227, 235, 237, 243, 244, 248, 249, 251, 252, 258 portraiture 66, 75, 107, 115, 138, 166, 169, 186, 214 presentment 66, 181, 185, 186–7 Preston, C. 9 Price, H. 189 proportion 9, 11, 20, 74, 129, 138, 140, 168, 178, 187, 219, 220, 255 Protestantism/Protestant 3, 4, 28, 50, 166, 179, 209, 233, 235, 256 Puritan/Puritanism 2, 30, 34, 56, 74, 82, 86, 117, 118, 119, 136, 143, 161, 164, 169, 171, 172, 183, 197, 213, 219, 220, 228, 249, 253, 256, 257, 260 purple 9, 60, 63, 64, 66, 67, 77, 89, 137, 159, 173, 174, 187–9, 192, 193, 195, 197, 203, 204, 208, 243, 247, 251, 252, 259 Puttenham, G. 10, 19, 20, 21, 55, 124, 157, 158, 159 Pye, C. 178 Pygmalion 43, 118, 143, 151, 189–90, 226, 230, 255, 258 Quinn, K. 172 R2 (King Richard II) 18, 33, 35, 43, 57, 67, 92, 96, 98, 103, 163, 177, 178, 188, 198, 209, 214, 217, 219, 231 R3 (King Richard III) 17, 25, 50, 57, 66, 73, 76, 83, 119, 120, 157, 195, 203, 218, 224, 224, 228, 232, 251 rainbow 39, 58, 82, 86, 97, 114, 191, 248, 249 Rasmussen, E. 98 291

Index

raven 30, 32, 86, 191–2 red 9, 10, 22, 29, 31, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 44, 47, 50, 51, 54–5, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64–5, 66–7, 71, 74, 75, 77, 87, 92, 98, 100, 101, 102, 106, 109–10, 112, 113, 114–15, 124, 125, 126, 130, 132, 137, 138, 163, 164, 166, 170, 173–4, 176, 187–9, 192–8, 199, 200–3, 204–5, 207–10, 220, 223, 224, 225, 227, 236, 242, 243, 247, 248, 249, 250–1, 252, 253–4, 255, 257, 259 Reformation 1, 3, 12, 51, 121, 162, 256 Rhodes, E. 96 Richardson, C. 14, 184 Richmond, H. 208 Risden E.L 198, 204, 255 Ritscher, L. 38, 220 Rivère de Carles, N. 7, 67, 70, 236 Roberts, J. 247 Roberts, S. 69, 108, 172 Roche Rico, B. 190 ROM (Romeo and Juliet) 18, 31, 35, 37, 41, 54, 64, 67, 68, 69, 90, 95, 104, 107, 108, 110, 111, 117, 133–4, 137, 149–50, 151, 158, 167, 174, 175, 188, 191–2, 203–4, 209, 227, 232, 233, 238, 239, 241, 242, 254, 258 Romer, E. 62 Ronayne, J. 53, 70, 166 Rosand D. 123 rose 9, 29, 33, 40–1, 50, 51, 56, 58, 59, 62, 67, 71, 75, 77, 83, 101, 102, 114, 124, 137–8, 159, 163, 173, 174, 175, 188, 194, 195–6, 198–204, 207, 237, 243, 247, 248, 250–2, 254 Rosenberg, M. 35 Roston, M. 178 rosy 39, 138, 200, 204 Royster, F. 255 ruby 36, 55, 64, 66, 187, 192, 197, 204–5, 208, 222, 258 ruddy 114, 192, 205, 207 russet 192, 205 Sabatier, A. 36, 137, 229 sable 9, 22, 28, 29, 31, 35, 55, 112, 113, 114, 162, 207 saint 42, 43, 57, 62, 103, 118, 119, 147, 150, 207, 227, 256 Salingar, L. 166 Salkeld, D. 169, 172 sanguine 41, 63, 192, 207–8 292

sapphire 55, 113, 204, 208, 231 Saunders, A. 37 Sawday, J. 37 Scarisbrick, D. 128, 208 scarlet 9, 39, 56, 64, 66, 106, 187–8, 192–3, 204, 208–10, 236, 243 Schneider, J. 10, 35, 198 Schwartz, R. 86 scratch 40, 84, 210, 212, 237 sculpture 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 20, 42, 43, 51, 57, 70, 90, 95, 97, 99, 125, 135, 143, 145, 151, 167, 170, 181, 182, 183, 187, 210, 211, 212, 225, 227, 229, 231, 233, 255, 257 see 19, 20, 22, 26–8, 31, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 51, 53, 57, 59, 60, 63, 67, 69, 71, 72, 75, 79, 80, 82, 89, 95, 96, 101, 102, 107–8, 109, 115, 122, 123, 124, 130, 131, 132, 139–41, 146, 159, 168, 170, 172, 174, 177, 182, 183, 185, 186, 195, 196, 201, 202, 210, 210–12, 213, 216, 217, 218, 220–2, 225, 226, 231, 234, 237, 238, 243, 244, 254 senseless 38, 72, 82, 83, 92, 120, 129, 133, 181, 183, 210, 212–13, 216, 227, 228, 232, 233, 256 shadow 11, 18, 32, 44, 47, 50, 55, 62, 64, 66, 74, 82, 84, 91, 95, 109, 118, 121, 122, 123, 127, 132, 135, 139, 141, 152, 161, 169, 177, 179, 180, 182, 186, 213–9, 220, 221, 223, 233, 238, 241, 244, 248, 257 Shaheen, N. 51 shape 31, 43, 49, 50, 52, 54, 61, 72, 75, 81, 85, 91, 92, 118, 121, 122, 123, 127, 131, 136, 158, 162, 165, 169, 171, 189, 207, 212, 215, 217, 218, 219, 221, 229, 233, 241, 250, 255, 257 Shell, M. 186 Sherlock, P. 151, 239 Shickman, A. 166, 178 shield 8, 36, 112, 113, 219–20, 223 shop 85, 168, 220 SHR (The Taming of the Shrew) 13, 26, 42, 45, 65, 87, 113, 114, 126, 139, 162, 164, 172, 181, 184, 185, 197, 235, 247, 253 Sichi, E. 118, 257 Sidney, P. 8, 76, 124, 130, 140, 167, 218 Siegel, P. 260 Siemon, J. 118, 210 sight 4, 19, 25, 27–8, 36, 43, 51, 57, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 99, 100, 101, 106, 120, 122, 123, 127, 131, 135, 139–40, 155, 174, 189, 205,

Index

210, 211, 212, 218, 220–2, 232, 233, 243, 244, 245, 247, 255, 257 silence 120, 172, 195, 217, 222, 228, 239, 255 Sillars, S. 1, 14, 141, 172, 173, 178, 179, 184, 187, 231 silver 18, 36, 40, 47, 48, 57, 103, 104, 105, 113, 114, 137, 164, 175, 180, 186, 196, 207, 214, 220, 222–4, 236, 241, 252, 256 Simmons, J. 260 Simpson-Younger, N. 37, 38 Skinner, Q. 60, 166 Sklar, E. 105 Smith, B. 10, 13, 60, 69, 107, 109, 110, 229, 233, 236, 239 Smith, H. 178 Sokol, B. 99, 229 SON (Sonnets) 8, 10, 13, 20, 22, 27, 30, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42, 59, 63, 65, 66, 71, 72, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 83, 85, 86, 89–90, 92–3, 97, 98, 99–100, 102, 103, 105, 108, 109, 111, 114, 115, 117, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 138, 144–5, 146, 148, 151, 152, 158, 159, 162, 164, 165, 168, 169, 171, 172, 176, 178, 179, 182, 184, 185, 188, 191, 196, 200–1, 204, 207, 208, 209, 211, 218, 219, 220, 221, 227, 231, 232, 235, 237, 238, 239, 243, 244, 248, 254, 255, 257, 258 Souriau, E. 11, 229 Spencer, T. 99 Spenser, E. 50, 102, 172, 212, 258 spider 81, 104, 167, 224 Spolsky, E. 255 spout 64, 85, 92, 193, 224, 228 Sprague, A. 184 stare 76, 82, 224–5, 228, 231, 232 Starks, L. 62 Starnes, D. 105 statua 225 statuary 4, 5, 13, 17, 20, 42, 51, 64, 70, 92, 124, 143, 146, 226, 229, 230, 231, 239 statue 1, 2, 7, 13, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 38, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49–50, 52, 56, 57, 61–2, 64, 65, 69, 70, 71, 76, 79, 83, 85, 90, 91, 92, 95– 6, 98, 99, 100, 104, 105, 110, 117, 118–21, 123, 126, 128, 129, 130, 135, 137, 140, 143, 145, 146, 147–8, 151–2, 155, 157, 159, 162, 170, 173, 175, 176, 179, 183, 185, 189, 190, 193, 194, 197, 205, 207, 210, 211, 212, 216, 221, 222, 224, 225–30, 231, 232, 233, 238, 239, 242, 243, 244, 252, 255, 256, 257,

stell 92, 162, 185, 230–1 still 22, 27, 96, 130, 132, 137, 145, 146, 157, 168, 216, 218, 220, 226, 231, 233, 243 Stoichita, V. 190, 218 stone 4, 17, 22, 27, 37, 38, 43, 44, 50, 52, 55, 65, 70, 76, 80, 82, 83, 85, 91, 99, 104, 113, 120, 127, 129, 130, 141, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 151, 152, 155, 183, 204, 208, 212–13, 222, 225, 226, 228, 230, 231–3, 257 Stone, J. 48, 105 Stone, L. 114 Strong, R. 4, 6, 7, 30, 35, 36, 82, 86, 92, 128, 143, 168, 169, 184, 191, 199, 229, 248 Stubbes, P. 30, 60, 117, 161, 170, 172 substance 42, 44, 95, 118, 141, 157, 158, 197, 213, 214–19, 227, 231, 233 Sumptuary Laws 10, 29, 38, 56, 102, 192, 236 superstition 2, 3, 119, 128, 233 surpass 13, 20, 37, 74, 129, 138, 140, 168, 187, 220, 234 Suther, J.D. 106 swart 28, 32, 106, 234 swarthy 88, 115, 234 Sypher, W. 12 table 10, 56, 75, 76, 80, 85, 92, 168, 231, 235 Talvacchia, B. 99, 130 tapestry 11, 18–19, 51–2, 67, 113, 126, 130, 163, 179, 185, 223, 224, 235–6, 247, 256, 257, 258 Tassi, M. 14, 44, 62, 66, 99, 106, 118, 121, 124, 130, 160, 166, 169, 172, 184, 186, 210, 219, 257 tawny 28, 32, 39, 60, 62, 64, 73, 75, 89, 109, 189, 209, 236–7, 254, 258, 259 Tayler, E. 21 Teague, F. 175, 233, 239 TGV (The Two Gentlemen of Verona) 8, 22, 26, 33, 34, 48, 49, 57, 60, 74, 88, 91, 92, 98, 104, 112, 117–18, 132, 141, 158, 164, 168, 172, 180, 182, 184, 203, 210, 211, 214, 215, 216, 219, 227, 234, 256, 257, 258 Theis, J. 111 Thomson, L. 69, 108 Thorne, A. 12, 124, 178, 245 Tigner, A. 96, 99, 138, 204, 224, 229, 230 TIM (Timon of Athens) 8, 20, 47, 51, 66, 76, 81, 84, 91, 100, 101, 112, 122, 125, 130, 139, 146, 151, 162, 163–4, 167, 169, 170, 172, 175, 181, 184, 185, 241, 254, 256, 257, 258 293

Index

tinct 23, 32, 38, 54, 77, 86, 107, 114, 132, 237 tincture 33, 44, 77, 142, 169, 201, 203, 237 TIT (Titus Andronicus) 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 57, 64, 66, 92, 100, 109, 111, 115, 119, 127, 148, 149, 155, 158, 164, 174, 191, 193, 204, 208, 218, 219, 224, 232, 234, 237, 249, 254, 255 Tittler, R. 4, 7, 169, 184 TN (Twelfth Night) 37, 38, 54, 56, 68, 79, 106, 107, 110, 112, 127, 141, 148, 152, 155, 172, 175, 177, 178, 182, 184, 186, 192, 196, 203, 227, 233, 253, 259, 260 TNK (The Two Noble Kinsmen) 71, 181, 184, 197, 203, 234, 247 TMP (The Tempest) 22, 51, 60, 65, 100, 101, 103, 109, 111, 195, 241, 244, 258 Tokson, E. 35 tomb 2, 4, 17, 23, 42, 49, 51, 68, 69, 80, 81, 90, 97–8, 99, 107, 108, 119, 134, 135, 143, 144, 145, 147–50, 157, 159, 174, 176, 225–30, 232, 237–9, 241, 242, 253 tongue-tied 239 Traub, V. 230 TRO (Troilus and Cressida) 18, 21, 25, 28, 36, 45, 53, 58, 61, 68, 73, 101, 142, 155, 163, 174, 178, 183, 191, 194, 228, 231, 232, 236 Trompe-l’oeil 14, 21, 84, 96, 129, 146, 210, 217 Truax, E. 172 Tuke, T. 40, 169, 172, 249 tutor 20, 130, 139, 239 Ulhmann, D. 198, 255 Van Norden, L. 35, 73 Vanita, R. 50, 128 varnish 162, 241 Vasari, G. 99 Vaughan, V. 35 vault 22, 109, 134, 149, 241, 258 veil 22, 109, 134, 149, 241–2, 258 vein 17, 23, 31, 38, 39, 44, 63, 65, 77, 110, 117, 188, 212, 224, 242–3, 252 VEN (Venus and Adonis) 12, 17, 20, 21, 40, 57, 65, 67, 72, 74, 79, 81, 83, 86, 100, 101, 104, 114, 118, 118, 119, 126, 129, 132, 137, 138, 139–40, 141, 161, 168, 169, 172, 173–4, 175, 179, 183, 187, 188–9, 193–4, 196, 198, 199–200, 204–5, 210, 212, 214, 219, 220, 222, 228, 233, 243, 247, 251, 252, 256, 257 vermillion 64, 66, 192, 201, 243 294

Vernant, J-P. 106 Vickers, N. 37, 38, 114, 172, 198, 220, 255 view 27, 79, 83, 86, 91, 122, 127, 152, 218, 220, 221, 243–4 vision 244–5 Waage, F. 13, 99, 233 Waldron, J. 118, 233 wanton 13, 33, 34, 38, 71, 73, 75, 88, 104, 119, 133, 135, 136, 139, 181, 184, 204, 209, 221, 247 Watt, T. 3, 53, 166 weave 189, 224, 247, 257, 258 Webster, J. 4, 6, 150, 229 Weever, J. 2, 118, 150 Weinfield, H. 105 Wellek, R. 11 Wells, M. 67 Wells, S. 189 Whall, H. 184 Whinney, M. 5, 6, 70, 150, 229, 239 white 7, 9, 10, 17, 22, 23, 26, 29–36, 38, 39–41, 44–5, 47, 54–5, 56–60, 62–4, 65, 67, 70, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 82, 85, 87–90, 95, 98, 103, 109–10, 111, 114–15, 125, 126, 130, 131–6, 137–8, 143, 148, 157, 163–4, 166, 169, 173–5, 187–9, 191–2, 194–204, 207–8, 220, 222–3, 237, 243, 244, 247–54, 258 Whitney, G. 21, 55, 77, 80, 155 Whittier, G. 37 Wickham, G. 229 Wigginton, W. 106, 178 Williams, G. 3, 37, 38, 121, 220 Wilson, I. 35, 92 Wilson, J. 5, 13, 69, 70, 151, 239 Wilson, R. 50, 128 WIV (The Merry Wives of Windsor) 19, 37, 39, 58, 80, 102, 109, 191, 208, 259 WT (The Winter’s Tale) 13, 20, 21, 25, 26, 28, 41, 44, 47, 49–50, 52, 56, 57, 61, 64, 69, 70, 71, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 85, 86, 91, 95–6, 99, 105, 118, 120, 121, 123, 124, 128, 130, 137, 140, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 151, 152, 155, 157, 167, 170, 172, 176, 179, 184, 185, 190, 191, 197, 198, 205, 211, 221, 222, 224, 225, 226, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 237, 239, 242, 250, 255, 257, 259 wonder 14, 130, 201, 208, 222, 243, 255, 256, wondrous 14, 22, 87, 91, 168, 179, 219, 255, 256

Index

Woodbridge, L. 10, 35, 60, 111, 198, 254 work 6, 20, 26, 28, 40, 42, 53, 64, 74, 84, 122, 130, 175, 185, 211, 232, 256, 257 workman 6, 18, 119, 162, 166, 256 workmanship 20, 81, 129, 130, 168, 169, 185, 256 workshop 5, 70, 235 worship 1, 3, 49, 92, 117, 118, 119, 183, 215, 216, 219, 227, 228, 256–7 wrinkle 47, 56, 120, 171, 230, 253, 257

wrought 120, 130, 162, 167, 185, 222, 247, 257–8 Yates F. 86, 191 yellow 9, 10, 22, 42, 44, 54–6, 60, 63, 88, 100, 108, 110, 114, 148, 152, 154, 164, 189, 192, 205, 222, 234, 236, 248, 258–60 Yoch, J. 86 Ziegler, G. 99

295

296