'my lord chamberlens menns plaies,' to the effect that As You Like It, together with Henry the Fifth, Every Man In His Humour, and Much Ado about Nothing, are to be staied.' This entry may be assigned to the year 1600, for later on in the same month of that year the three latter plays were entered again; moreover the previous entry bears the date May 27, 1600. The Sources. The plot of As You Like It was in all probability* directly derived from a famous novel by Shakespeare's contemporary Thomas Lodge, entitled "Rosalynde, Euphues' Golden Legacie; found after his death in his cell at Silexedra; bequeathed to Philautus' sons nursed up with their father in England: fetcht from the Canaries by T. L. Gent." The first edition of the book appeared in 1590, and many editions were published before the end of the century (cp. Shakespeare's Library, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, Vol. II., where the 1592 edition of the novel is reprinted). Lodge's Rosalynde is in great part founded upon the old 'Tale of Gamelyn,' formerly erroneously attributed to Chaucer as the Cook's Tale,' but evidently it was the poet's intention to work up of Marlowe's lovers and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The passage in Marlowe immediately follows the line quoted in As You Like It; cp.:'He kneel'd: but unto her devoutly prayed: Chaste Hero to herself thus softly said, "Were I the saint he worships, I would hear him." ... Cp. Romeo and Juliet's first meeting, where Romeo ('the pilgrim') comes to 'the holy shrine' of Juliet: 'palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss,' etc. (Act I. v. 102). If in this case there is any debt at all, it must be Marlowe's. * Some have supposed that there was an older drama intermediate between As You Like It and Lodge's Rosalynde; there is absolutely no evidence to support such a supposition. the old ballad into 'the Yeoman's Tale'; none of the black-letter editions of Chaucer contains the Tale, which was not printed till 1721; Lodge must therefore have read it in manuscript;* (cp. The Tale of Gamelyn, ed. by Prof. Skeat, Oxford, 1884). The story of Gamelyn the Outlaw, the prototype of Orlando, belongs to the Robin Hood cycle of ballads, and the hero often appears in these under the form of ‘Gandeleyn,'' Gamwell'; Shakespeare himself gives us a hint of this ultimate origin of his story:-' They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry men with him ; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England' (I. i. 120-2). † The Tale of Gamelyn' tells how 'Sire Johan of Boundys' leaves his possessions to three sons Johan, Ote, and Gamelyn; the eldest neglects the youngest, who endures his ill-treatment for sixteen years. One day he shows his prowess and wins prizes at a wrestling match: he invites all the spectators home. The brothers quarrel after the guests have gone, and Johan has Gamelyn chained as a madman. Adam the Spencer, his father's old retainer, releases him, and they escape together to the woods; Gamelyn becomes king of the outlaws. Johan, as sheriff of the county, gets possession of Gamelyn again; Ote the second brother * Harleian MS. 7334 is possibly the first MS. that includes Gamelyn; it is quite clear in the MS. that the scribe did not intend it to be taken for the Cook's Tale (cp. Ward's Catalogue of British Museum Romances, Vol. I. p. 508). + 'Arden' has taken the place of 'Sherwood'; but this is due to Lodge, who localises the story; the Tale of Gamelyn, however, gives no place at all. The mere phrase 'a many merry men' suggests a reminiscence of Robin Hood ballads on Shakespeare's part. 'Robin Hood plays' were not uncommon at the end of the sixteenth century, e.g. George-A-Green, Downfall and Death of Robert, Earl of Huntington, &c. To the abiding charm of Robin Hood and Maid Marian we owe the latest of pastoral plays, Tennyson's Foresters. bails him out; he returns in time to save his bail; finally he condemns Johan to the gallows. There is no element of love in the ballad; at the end it is merely stated that Gamelyn wedded 'a wyf bothe good and feyr.' This perhaps suggested to Lodge a second plot-viz., the story of the exiled King of France, Gerismond; of his daughter Rosalynd's love for the young wrestler; of her departure (disguised as a page called 'Ganimede ') with Alinda (who changes her name to Aliena) from the Court of the usurper King Torismond; and of the story of Montanus, the lover of Phoebe. The old knight is named by Lodge Sir John of Bordeaux,' and the sons are Saladyne, Fernandine, and Rosader. Adam Spencer is retained from the old Tale.* The scene is Bordeaux and the Forest of Ardennes. A noteworthy point is the attempt made by a band of robbers to seize Aliena; she is rescued by Rosader and Saladine: this gives some motive for her ready acceptance of the elder brother's suit; the omission of this saving incident by Shakespeare produces the only unsatisfactory element in the whole play. "Nor can it well be worth any man's while," writes Mr Swinburne,+" to say or to hear for the thousandth time that As You Like It would be one of those works which prove, as Landor said long since, the falsehood of the stale axiom that no work of * This is an old tradition preserved by Oldys and Capell that Shakespeare himself took the part of Old Adam. The former narrates that a younger brother of the poet recalled in his old age that he had once seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, "Wherein being to personate a decrepit old man, he wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and drooping and unable to walk, that he was forced to be supported and carried by another to a table, at which he was seated among some company, who were eating, and one of them sung a song." [N.B.-Shakespeare's brothers predeceased him.] † A Study of Shakespeare, p. 151. ̧ man can be perfect, were it not for that one unlucky slip of the brush which has left so ugly a little smear on one corner of the canvas as the betrothal of Oliver to Celia; though with all reverence for a great name and a noble memory, I can hardly think that matters were much mended in George Sand's adaptation * of the play by the transference of her hand to Jaques." Shakespeare has varied the names of the three sons; of the rightful and usurping kings (Duk: Senior and Frederick); Alinda becomes Celia, Montanus is changed to Sylvius. In the novel Alinda and Rosalind go on their travels as lady and page; in the play as sister and brother. The character of Jaques, Touchstone, and Audrey, have no prototypes in the original story. Various estimates have been formed of Lodge's Rosalynde; some critics speak of it as 'one of the dullest and dreariest of all the obscure literary performances that have come down to us from past ages,' others regard it with enthusiasm as informed with a bright poetical spirit, and possessing a pastoral charm which may occasionally be compared with the best parts of Sidney's Arcadia.' Certainly in many places the elaborate euphuistic prose serves as a quaint frame-work for some dainty Sonetto,' 'Eglog,' or 'Song'; the xvith lyric in the "Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics" may at least vindicate the novel from the attacks of its too harsh critics. 6 All the world's a stage. (i.) It is an interesting point that the original of these words, "Totus mundus agit histrionem," was inscribed over the entrance to the Globe Theatre; as the theatre * Mr Swinburne alludes to George Sand's Comine Il Vous Plaira; an analysis of which is to be found in the Variorum As You Like It, edited by H. H. Furness. was probably opened at the end of 1599, the play containing the elaboration of the idea may have been among the first plays produced there. According to a doubtful tradition the motto called forth epigrams from Jonson and Shakespeare. Oldys has preserved for us the following lines : JONSON. SHAKESPEARE. “If, but stage actors, all the world displays, 66 Little, or much, of what we see, we do; The motto is said to be derived from one of the fragments of Petronius, where the words are "quod fere totus mundus exerceat histrioniam." 99 The idea, however, was common in Elizabethan literature, e.g. "Pythagoras said, that this world was like a stage, whereon many play their parts" (from the old play of Damon and Pythias); Shakespeare had himself already used the idea in The Merchant of Venice (I. i.):—"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part." (ii.) It should be noted that Jaques' moralising is but an enlargement of the text given out to him by the Duke: • Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy: This wide and universal theatre Presents more woeful pageants than the scene Now this wide and universal theatre' reminds one strongly of a famous book which Shakespeare may very well have known, viz. Boissard's Theatrum Vita Humana (published at Metz, 1596), the opening chapter of which is embellished with a remarkable * The reading is variously given as histrionem and histrioniam. |