An Unfrequented Place, an Idle Cell

Oxfordians are quite familiar with Edmund Spenser’s verses from Teares of the Muses, 1591 and their reference to “Pleasant Willie,… ah is dead of late.” The common interpretation is that, ‘Pleasant Willie” (Shakespeare) has withdrawn to an “idle cell” from his theatrical activities” deaded and in doleur drent, “ in an apparent melancholic or depressed state.

Stratfordians do not uniformly accept that Spenser is referencing William Shaksper of Stratford, as that threatens their timeline of the author’s development. Just another example of the tourist interests trumping primary source evidence.

Here are the relevent stanzas from Teares of the Muses.

“All these, and all that else the Comic Stage,
With seasoned wit and goodly pleasance graced,
By which man’s life in his likest image
Was limned forth, are wholly now defaced;
And those sweet wits which wont the like to frame
Are now despised and made a laughing game.

“And he the man whom Nature’s self had made
To mock herself and truth to imitate,
With kindly counter under Mimic shade,
Our pleasant Willie, ah! is dead of late. 
With whom all joy and jolly merriment 
Is also deaded and in doleur drent.

“But that same gentle spirit from whose pen
Large streams of honey and sweet nectar flow,
Scorning the boldness of such base-born men,
Which dare their follies forth so rashly throw,
Doth rather choose to sit in idle cell, 
Than so himself to mockery to sell.”

We now turn to the opening of Act III of The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll, the anonymous play from 1600. We noted in our previous post on this play that earl Lassinbergh, ‘a painter by day, an earl by night’ assumes a fake identity “Cornelius” so he can pursue his muse, Lucilia.  Lucilia stands for the theater in this allegory. We also demonstrated how the anonymous author linked Lassinbergh with Shakespeare.

Earlier in the play, the earl’s love for Lucilia (theater) was forbidden. Now it has been sanctified with marriage. But  as Act III opens he wishes to leave her. The participants describe his melancholic state and he says he’s headed for an “unfrequented place.”   Read on….

HAUNCE: Well mistress god give you more joy of your husband
Then your husband has of you.

DOCTOR: Fie, too too bad by my fait, vat, my Lord
melancholie, and ha de sweete Bride, de faire Bride, de verie
fine Bride, o monsieur, one, two, tree, voure, vive, with
de brave capra, heigh.

HAUNCE: O the Doctor would make a fine frisking
Usher in a dauncing-schoole.

DOCTOR: O by garr, you must daunce de brave galliarr,
A pox of dis melancholie. … [III.1.10]

CASSIMERE: My Lord, your humors are most strange to us,
The humble fortune of a servants life,
Should in your carelesse estate so much displease.

LASSIN: Quod licet ingratum est, quod non licet acrius urit.
[trans -“We take no pleasure in permitted joys.
But what’s forbidden is more keenly sought” – Ovid]

FLORES: Could my child’s beautie, moove you so my lord,
When Lawe and dutie held it in restraint,
And now (they both allowe it) be neglected?

LASSIN: I cannot relish joyes that are enforst,
For, were I shut in Paradice it selfe,
I should as from a prison strive t’escape. … [III.1.20]

LUCILIA: Haplesse Lucia, worst in her best estate.

LASSIN: Ile seeke me out some unfrequented place,
Free from these importunities of love,
And onelie love what mine owne fancie likes.

LUCILIA: O staie my Lord.

FLORES: What meanes Earle Lassinbergh?

CASSIMERE: Sweete Earle be kinder.

LASSIN: Let me go I pray.

DOCTOR: Vat you go leave a de Bride, tis no point good
fashion; you must stay be garr. … [III.1.30]

LASSIN: Must I stay sir?

DOCTOR: I spit your nose and yet it is no violence, I will
give a de prove a dee good reason, reguard, Monsieur,
you no point eate a de meate to daie, you be de empty,
be gar you be emptie, you be no point vel, you no point
vel, be garr you be vere sicke, you no point leave a de
provision, be garr you stay, spit your nose.

LASSIN: All staies have strength like to thy arguments.

CASSIMERE: Staie Lassenbergh.

LUCILIA: Deare Lord. … [III.1.40]

FLORES: Most honord Earle.

LASSIN: Nothing shall hinder my resolved intent,
But I will restlesse wander from the world,
Till I have shaken off these chaines from me. [Exit Lassinbergh.]

LUCILIA: And I will never cease to follow thee,
Till I have wonne thee from these unkinde thoughts. [Exit Lucilia.]

CASSIMERE: Haplesse Lucilia.

FLORES: Unkinde Lassinbergh.

DOCTOR: Be garr, dis Earle be de chollericke complection;
almost skipshack, be garr: he no point staie for one place. … [III.1.50]
Madam me be no so laxative: mee be bound for no point
moove. sixe, seven, five hundra yeare, from you sweete
sidea: be garr me be es de fine Curianet about your vite
neck: my harte be close tie to you as your fine Buske, or
de fine Gartra bout your fine legge.

HAUNCE: A good sensible Doctor. how feelinglie he talkes.

DOCTOR: A plage a de Marshan, blowe wine.

HAUNCE: You need not curse him sir, he has the stormes
at Sea by this time.

DOCTOR: O forte bien, a good Sea-sick jeast, by this faire … [I.1.60]
hand: blowe winde for mee: puh he no come heere Madame.

FLORES: Come noble Earle, let your kind presence grace
Our feast prepard, for this obdurate Lord,
And give some comfort to his sorrowfull bride,
Who in her pitteous teares swims after him.

The account in Dodypoll of Shakespeare abandoning the theater in a state of deep depression confirms the same account set forth in Spenser’s Teares of the Muses. Spenser’s idle cell is Dodypoll’s unfrequented place. Spenser’s “deaded and in doleur drent” is Dodypoll’s “my Lord
melancholie” and “chollericke complection.”

As we look to solve the Shakespeare puzzle, we are always on the lookout for similar accounts from different authors. One report is hearsay, two is journalism, as I like to say. The Oxfordian reading of Spenser’s Teares  now has strong support from Dodypoll.

But Dodypoll goes much further. There’s quite a bit more detail given here about the events associated with Shakespeare’s withdrawal from the theater.

CASSIMERE: My Lord, your humors are most strange to us,
The humble fortune of a servants life,
Should in your carelesse estate so much displease.

LASSIN: Quod licet ingratum est, quod non licet acrius urit.

Earl Cassimere can’t understand what the attraction of ‘the humble fortune of a servant’s life’ holds for Vere. A theme in this blog from the beginning is that the evidence, first uncovered in The Gentleman Usher, is of Vere posing as his servant, Shaksper, in order to participate in theatrical activities.  We now have specific evidence here supporting our earlier hypothesis that Vere assumed “the humble fortune of a servant’s life.”

Lassinbergh as Vere answers Cassimere with a quote from Ovid, Here’s the translation.

We take no pleasure in permitted joys.
But what’s forbidden is more keenly sought.

Flores, Lucilia’s father, pursues this line of questioning of Lassinbergh.

FLORES: Could my child’s beautie, moove you so my lord,
When Lawe and dutie held it in restraint,
And now (they both allowe it) be neglected?

LASSIN: I cannot relish joyes that are enforst,
For, were I shut in Paradice it selfe,
I should as from a prison strive t’escape. … [III.1.20]

Lassinbergh pursued Lucilia, ‘the theater’ when she was forbidden to him. Now that he is married, he is allowed to have her. He’s lost interest, “what’s forbidden is most keenly sought.”

As an allegory of Shakespeare’s relationship with the theater, something has happened. What was “restrain[ed]” by “Lawe and dutie” is now “allowed.”  He’s seemingly been granted an exemption from the prohibitions of the nobility toward theatrical activity. But what price did he pay for that exemption?  Did he  forfeit his name? I would think that could spur a bout of melancholy.

There are some pointers to King Lear and The Tempest highlighted in green above (and told as a Vere fart joke). Those plays weren’t written by 1600 according to tourist-funded scholars.

I think there’s another account of Vere’s melancholy withdrawal in the literature of the period. And that is the author’s own account in Timon of Athens. Perhaps that will be worth a look at some point.  I’m sure there’s quite a bit more to gloss in this Act III sc 1 of Dodypoll.  But we’ve made a start.