The Monkswell Hillbilly
The two scenes discussed in the the first post here showed certainly point to Medice alluding to William Shakespere. There’s another scene that points quite specifically towards Shakspere. In act five, Medice tries to kill Vincentio (offstage). Poggio enters to report this event.
“Poggio. Oh, my lord, my lord Vincentio,
Is almost kill’d by my lord Medice…..
Strozza. What tale is here ? Where is this mischief done ?
Poggio. At Monkswell, my lord; I’ll guide you to him presently.” (V, iii, 66-80)
A fourth strong connection in this allusion is the slight change in spelling of the names. At the end of the play, Medice is exposed as being a man named Mendice, which means beggar. Medice, is cognate with Medici, i.e. a leader. With a slight change of spelling, he went from a beggar to a lord. The slight change in spelling from Shakspere to Shakespeare accomplished a similar transformation for William from Stratford.
In the first two posts here, we’ve looked at four different aspects of Medice’s story, each one seems a specific allusion to William Shakspere. I think the collective result of this evidence is the certain identification of Mendice/Medice as Shakspere/Shakespeare.
October 3, 2013 No Comments