Passages in Shakespeare relating to Wit, Comedy, Satire, and Clowns
From Love's Labor's Lost At the last moment, when the ladies are about to depart for the year, there is a farewell between Berowne and Rosaline (forerunners of Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing); Berowne has fallen in love with Rosaline and asks her to "Impose some service on me for thy love." Here is the ensuing dialogue:
ROSALINE
Oft have I heard of you, my lord Berwone,
Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue
Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,
Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
Which you on all estates will execute
That lie within the mercy of your wit.
To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
And therewithal to win me, if you please,
Without the which I am not be be won,
You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
Visit the speechless sick and still converse
With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
With all the fierce endeavor of your wit
To enforce the pained impotent to smile.
BEROWNE
To move wild laughter in the throat of death?
It cannot be; it is impossible.
Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.
ROSALINE
Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,
Whose influence is begot of that loose grace
Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it. Then, if sickly ears,
Deaf'd with the clamors of their own dear groans,
Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
And I will have you and that fault withal;
But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
And I shall find you empty of that fault,
Right joyful of your reformation.
BEROWNE
A twelvemonth! Well, befall what will befall,
I'll jest a twelvemonth in a hospital.
[5.2.836-867]
From The Taming of the Shrew
At the end of the second and last scene of the Induction, Sly, the drunken tinker, has been convinced that he is a great lord who has spent years dreaming that he is a drunken tinker. He wants to go to bed with his new-found wife (a mischievious Page in drag), but is talked out of it on the grounds that having sex might result in a return of his delusion that he is a drunken tinker. Just then, a messenger announces that there is a play in the offing:Messenger
Your honor's players, hearing your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.
SLY
Marry, I will, let them play it. Is not a comonty a
Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?
PAGE
No, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.
SLY
What, household stuff?
PAGE
It is a kind of history.
SLY
Well, we'll see 't. Come, madam wife, sit by my
side and let the world slip; we shall ne'er be younger.
[Induction.2.129-144]
From A Midsummer Night's Dream In the last act, Philostrate, master of revels to Theseus, reads a list of proposed entertainments. The one which Theseus picks is "A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus / And his love Thisby; very tragical mirth." First Philostrate and then Hippolyta object, on the grounds of the total incompetence of the "Hard-handed" men who are to perform. Theseus responds with an explanation of how "Love . . . and tongue-tied simplicity / In least speak most, to my capacity."
The play concludes with Puck's epilogue, in which he delivers a light-hearted apology for "we shadows."
From As You Like It In Act 2, Scene 7, Jacques, by temperment melancholy and satirical, returns to his companions in the forest and delivers news that has made him look merry for once. He reports on what made him laugh "sans intermission / An hour by his dial." He then exclaims that he wants to have the privileges of a fool, "To speak my mind, and I will through and through / Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world, / If they will patiently receive my medicine."
From Twelfth Night The Clown, who delivers wisdom wrapped in wit, prays to Wit just before an encounter with his patroness, Olivia, who is displeased with him. When Olivia enters she is in a bitter mood, but the Clown stays true to his calling by talking her out of her melancholy and proving to her that she is the true fool.After singing a song for Duke Orsino, who entertains a hopeless love for the Lady Olivia, the Clown makes a few foolish-wise remarks about the Duke's extreme love melancholy
At the opening of 3.1. the Viola and the Clown have a witty dialogue, after which Viola reflects on the difficulties of the Clown's craft.
As an epilogue, the Clown sings a song about how life gets harder the older you get, and about how the rain comes down every day, and about how the world is very old. And then he sings, "But that's all one, our play is done, / And we'll strive to please you every day."
From Hamlet In giving his advice to the players, Hamlet says,38 And let those that play
39 your clowns speak no more than is set down for
40 them; for there be of them that will themselves
41 laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators
42 to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some
43 necessary question of the play be then to be
44 considered: that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful
45 ambition in the fool that uses it.
[3.2.38-45]