Monday, October 23, 2006
(In)corrupting Shakspere’s Text
Re-reading Twelfth Night in my Arden edition (ed. J.M. Lothian and T.W. Craik), I became very suspicious of three words in this passage:
MALVOLIO: Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him. I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play with my [ Touching his chain ] – some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there to me –
(2.5.58-62)
In this passage, Malvolio is daydreaming that his employer, the countess Olivia, has married him. He deludes himself that she rather fancies him, and takes comfort from the knowledge that there are cases where a wealthy aristocratic woman has married a servant. Malvolio is blissfully unaware that Olivia harbours no romantic affection for him whatsoever and has already become infatuated with Cesario, who only the audience knows is actually Viola disguised as a young man.
The comic absurdity of Malvolio’s daydreams is made funnier still by the presence of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek who, unseen by Malvolio, have to listen to his disdain and contempt for them and his fantasies about how he will treat Sir Toby once he is master of the household. The comedy is deepened by their obligation to remain silent in the face of Malvolio’s insolence. If they were to respond to his unflattering words they would ruin the plan to fool Malvolio with Maria’s bogus letter (which purports to be a declaration of love from Olivia). Seething with fury, they remain in hiding. The audience roars with laughter at the multiple comic dimensions of this scene.
The passage in question unfolds Malvolio’s fantasy that he has just ordered the servants to go and find “my kinsman Toby”. While he waits for Sir Toby to be brought to him (in order, as we later learn, to tell him to cut down on his drinking), he kills time. And how does he imagine himself killing it?
Firstly, he frowns. Frowning is a fundamental aspect of Malvolio’s character and his role. He is a humourless Puritan, who disapproves of drinking and high spirits and fun. The comic sub-plot involving Maria’s fake letter exposes Malvolio’s vanity and hypocrisy. He is a moralist who exempts himself from his own moral standards. (The name, I suppose, contains a pun on “malevolence”.) Maria plays on his weaknesses and later tricks him into smiling. And the audience laughs.
Secondly, Malvolio imagines himself winding up his watch. The watch may be imaginary – a symbol of his raised status as Olivia’s new husband. But it is a symbol perfectly in keeping with his morality, which it is concerned with order and power. A timepiece allows an artificial structure to be imposed on the day. Malvolio, we can imagine, is someone who would be obsessed with punctuality.
Thirdly, he imagines himself playing with something. But what is it he plays with? The text doesn’t tell us. Or rather, the Arden Shakspere text does: Touching his chain. Would that be a watch chain? Perhaps not. The Cambridge University Press edition of the play (1930; 1970) states in parentheses touches his steward’s chain an instant. My Penguin edition (1973), ed. M. M. Mahood, states in parentheses fingering his steward’s chain of office.
Now it seems to me fairly obvious that if Malvolio’s hand strays anywhere at this point it isn’t to his chest. For confirmation of my lewd suspicion I reached for my facsimile copy of the First Folio to check. There, the passage reads as follows:
Seauen of my people with an obedient ftart, make out for him . I frowne the while, and perchance winde vp my watch, or play with my fome rich Iewell: Toby approaches; curtfies there to me.
The only authoritative text that we have for Twelfth Night is the one published in the First Folio – a text which Mahood describes as “very accurate and carefully-punctuated”. She concludes that it is based on the original promptbook: “This is evident from the theatrical practicality of the text as it stands. Actors’ entrances are given at the point where they must begin to move on to the stage.” (p. 185)
Therefore modern editors are wrong to add interpolations of the sort I have identified. They have no authority to do so. Worse, in my opinion they have wilfully misunderstood the text at this point and then superimposed their own misreading of the text on to it, in turn misleading generations of readers as to the meaning of this passage.
Shakspere’s text reads “or play with my fome rich Iewell”. The actors didn’t need a hyphen or a prompt between “my” and “some” to understand what is happening here. The joke is a simple one. Shakspere is indicating to his audience that Malvolio is a wanker. Both in a literal and a figurative sense.
The textual extract in question is preceded by Malvolio’s fantasy that he is a wearing a “branched velvet gown, having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping”. In other words, Malvolio fantasizes that he has fucked Olivia to the point of exhaustion. Naked, he then slips on a sensuous, lavishly embroidered velvet gown. His imagination is pornographic – or at any rate, masturbatory. But after sexual pleasure, comes a different sort of thrill – the power of dominance and punishment. Having dominated his mistress, Malvolio looks forward to chastising Sir Toby, who he imagines having to curtsy to him. And he is no longer Sir Toby but merely Toby. And in making a knight curtsy, Malvolio removes his masculinity and feminizes him. Malvolio isn’t just a wanker, he’s also a proto-fascist. Susan Sontag’s brilliant essay on Leni Riefenstahl is pertinent here: fascist aesthetics, argues Sontag, is preoccupied, among other things, with situations of control and submissive behaviour.
In this extract Shakspere indicates that Malvolio is a wanker in three ways. Firstly, Malvolio dreams that he will “perchance wind up my watch”. To wind up an old-fashioned watch was to cup it in your hand and twist a knob. It meant clutching it, manipulating it. It involved friction and the use of a hand. In short, it was the perfect symbol of male masturbation. Malvolio’s mind is running wild with dreams of sex and power and it seems reasonable to suppose that as the actor playing the part spoke these words about winding up a watch, he would begin to make motions with his hands, probably in the region of his groin, which would set the audience sniggering.
The analogy between winding up a watch and masturbating is then reinforced by the words “or play with my”. Malvolio’s thoughts unconsciously turn to his penis and the actor’s hands, whether or not they have done so before, now move to his crotch. Aware of where his thoughts have led him, Malvolio then gasps “some rich jewel”. He is anxious to shift his train of thought away from the uncomfortable reality that he is none of the things he has imagined but just a lonely, repressed sexual fantasist. But the audience’s laughter now reaches, so to speak, a climax – because what else is a man’s penis but “some rich jewel”?
It makes no sense to suggest that the passage requires Malvolio to imagine himself fiddling with his chain of office, because in his fantasy he is Olivia’s husband, not her steward. As her husband he would no longer be wearing a chain.
The Cambridge edition blandly asserts that “Twelfth Night remains the politest of Shakespeare’s Comedies.” This interpretation rests on ignoring or not understanding all the play’s jokes about cunts, wankers, pricks, fucking and Olivia’s prodigious pissings.
MALVOLIO: Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him. I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play with my [ Touching his chain ] – some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there to me –
(2.5.58-62)
In this passage, Malvolio is daydreaming that his employer, the countess Olivia, has married him. He deludes himself that she rather fancies him, and takes comfort from the knowledge that there are cases where a wealthy aristocratic woman has married a servant. Malvolio is blissfully unaware that Olivia harbours no romantic affection for him whatsoever and has already become infatuated with Cesario, who only the audience knows is actually Viola disguised as a young man.
The comic absurdity of Malvolio’s daydreams is made funnier still by the presence of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek who, unseen by Malvolio, have to listen to his disdain and contempt for them and his fantasies about how he will treat Sir Toby once he is master of the household. The comedy is deepened by their obligation to remain silent in the face of Malvolio’s insolence. If they were to respond to his unflattering words they would ruin the plan to fool Malvolio with Maria’s bogus letter (which purports to be a declaration of love from Olivia). Seething with fury, they remain in hiding. The audience roars with laughter at the multiple comic dimensions of this scene.
The passage in question unfolds Malvolio’s fantasy that he has just ordered the servants to go and find “my kinsman Toby”. While he waits for Sir Toby to be brought to him (in order, as we later learn, to tell him to cut down on his drinking), he kills time. And how does he imagine himself killing it?
Firstly, he frowns. Frowning is a fundamental aspect of Malvolio’s character and his role. He is a humourless Puritan, who disapproves of drinking and high spirits and fun. The comic sub-plot involving Maria’s fake letter exposes Malvolio’s vanity and hypocrisy. He is a moralist who exempts himself from his own moral standards. (The name, I suppose, contains a pun on “malevolence”.) Maria plays on his weaknesses and later tricks him into smiling. And the audience laughs.
Secondly, Malvolio imagines himself winding up his watch. The watch may be imaginary – a symbol of his raised status as Olivia’s new husband. But it is a symbol perfectly in keeping with his morality, which it is concerned with order and power. A timepiece allows an artificial structure to be imposed on the day. Malvolio, we can imagine, is someone who would be obsessed with punctuality.
Thirdly, he imagines himself playing with something. But what is it he plays with? The text doesn’t tell us. Or rather, the Arden Shakspere text does: Touching his chain. Would that be a watch chain? Perhaps not. The Cambridge University Press edition of the play (1930; 1970) states in parentheses touches his steward’s chain an instant. My Penguin edition (1973), ed. M. M. Mahood, states in parentheses fingering his steward’s chain of office.
Now it seems to me fairly obvious that if Malvolio’s hand strays anywhere at this point it isn’t to his chest. For confirmation of my lewd suspicion I reached for my facsimile copy of the First Folio to check. There, the passage reads as follows:
Seauen of my people with an obedient ftart, make out for him . I frowne the while, and perchance winde vp my watch, or play with my fome rich Iewell: Toby approaches; curtfies there to me.
The only authoritative text that we have for Twelfth Night is the one published in the First Folio – a text which Mahood describes as “very accurate and carefully-punctuated”. She concludes that it is based on the original promptbook: “This is evident from the theatrical practicality of the text as it stands. Actors’ entrances are given at the point where they must begin to move on to the stage.” (p. 185)
Therefore modern editors are wrong to add interpolations of the sort I have identified. They have no authority to do so. Worse, in my opinion they have wilfully misunderstood the text at this point and then superimposed their own misreading of the text on to it, in turn misleading generations of readers as to the meaning of this passage.
Shakspere’s text reads “or play with my fome rich Iewell”. The actors didn’t need a hyphen or a prompt between “my” and “some” to understand what is happening here. The joke is a simple one. Shakspere is indicating to his audience that Malvolio is a wanker. Both in a literal and a figurative sense.
The textual extract in question is preceded by Malvolio’s fantasy that he is a wearing a “branched velvet gown, having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping”. In other words, Malvolio fantasizes that he has fucked Olivia to the point of exhaustion. Naked, he then slips on a sensuous, lavishly embroidered velvet gown. His imagination is pornographic – or at any rate, masturbatory. But after sexual pleasure, comes a different sort of thrill – the power of dominance and punishment. Having dominated his mistress, Malvolio looks forward to chastising Sir Toby, who he imagines having to curtsy to him. And he is no longer Sir Toby but merely Toby. And in making a knight curtsy, Malvolio removes his masculinity and feminizes him. Malvolio isn’t just a wanker, he’s also a proto-fascist. Susan Sontag’s brilliant essay on Leni Riefenstahl is pertinent here: fascist aesthetics, argues Sontag, is preoccupied, among other things, with situations of control and submissive behaviour.
In this extract Shakspere indicates that Malvolio is a wanker in three ways. Firstly, Malvolio dreams that he will “perchance wind up my watch”. To wind up an old-fashioned watch was to cup it in your hand and twist a knob. It meant clutching it, manipulating it. It involved friction and the use of a hand. In short, it was the perfect symbol of male masturbation. Malvolio’s mind is running wild with dreams of sex and power and it seems reasonable to suppose that as the actor playing the part spoke these words about winding up a watch, he would begin to make motions with his hands, probably in the region of his groin, which would set the audience sniggering.
The analogy between winding up a watch and masturbating is then reinforced by the words “or play with my”. Malvolio’s thoughts unconsciously turn to his penis and the actor’s hands, whether or not they have done so before, now move to his crotch. Aware of where his thoughts have led him, Malvolio then gasps “some rich jewel”. He is anxious to shift his train of thought away from the uncomfortable reality that he is none of the things he has imagined but just a lonely, repressed sexual fantasist. But the audience’s laughter now reaches, so to speak, a climax – because what else is a man’s penis but “some rich jewel”?
It makes no sense to suggest that the passage requires Malvolio to imagine himself fiddling with his chain of office, because in his fantasy he is Olivia’s husband, not her steward. As her husband he would no longer be wearing a chain.
The Cambridge edition blandly asserts that “Twelfth Night remains the politest of Shakespeare’s Comedies.” This interpretation rests on ignoring or not understanding all the play’s jokes about cunts, wankers, pricks, fucking and Olivia’s prodigious pissings.
# posted by Ellis : 11:09 AM
