A Life of William Shakespeare with portraits and facsimiles. Sir Sidney Lee
that Shakespeare knew no language but his own, and owed whatever knowledge he displayed of the classics and of Italian and French literature to English translations. But several of the books in French and Italian whence Shakespeare derived the plots of his dramas—Belleforest’s ‘Histoires Tragiques,’ Ser Giovanni’s ‘Il Pecorone,’ and Cinthio’s ‘Hecatommithi,’ for example—were not accessible to him in English translations; and on more general grounds the theory of his ignorance is adequately confuted. A boy with Shakespeare’s exceptional alertness of intellect, during whose schooldays a training in Latin classics lay within reach, could hardly lack in future years all means of access to the literature of France and Italy.
The poet’s classical equipment.
With the Latin and French languages, indeed, and with many Latin poets of the school curriculum, Shakespeare in his writings openly acknowledged his acquaintance. In ‘Henry V’ the dialogue in many scenes is carried on in French, which is grammatically accurate if not idiomatic. In the mouth of his schoolmasters, Holofernes in ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ and Sir Hugh Evans in ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ Shakespeare placed Latin phrases drawn directly from Lily’s grammar, from the ‘Sententiæ Pueriles,’ and from ‘the good old Mantuan.’ The influence of Ovid, especially the ‘Metamorphoses,’ was apparent throughout his earliest literary work, both poetic and dramatic, and is discernible in the ‘Tempest,’ his latest play (v. i. 33 seq.) In the Bodleian Library there is a copy of the Aldine edition of Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ (1502), and on the title is the signature Wm. She., which experts have declared—not quite conclusively—to be a genuine autograph of the poet. [15] Ovid’s Latin text was certainly not unfamiliar to him, but his closest adaptations of Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ often reflect the phraseology of the popular English version by Arthur Golding, of which some seven editions were issued between 1565 and 1597. From Plautus Shakespeare drew the plot of the ‘Comedy of Errors,’ but it is just possible that Plautus’s comedies, too, were accessible in English. Shakespeare had no title to rank as a classical scholar, and he did not disdain a liberal use of translations. His lack of exact scholarship fully accounts for the ‘small Latin and less Greek’ with which he was credited by his scholarly friend, Ben Jonson. But Aubrey’s report that ‘he understood Latin pretty well’ need not be contested, and his knowledge of French may be estimated to have equalled his knowledge of Latin, while he doubtless possessed just sufficient acquaintance with Italian to enable him to discern the drift of an Italian poem or novel. [16]
Shakespeare and the Bible.
Of the few English books accessible to him in his schooldays, the chief was the English Bible, either in the popular Genevan version, first issued in a complete form in 1560, or in the Bishops’ revision of 1568, which the Authorised Version of 1611 closely followed. References to scriptural characters and incidents are not conspicuous in Shakespeare’s plays, but, such as they are, they are drawn from all parts of the Bible, and indicate that general acquaintance with the narrative of both Old and New Testaments which a clever boy would be certain to acquire either in the schoolroom or at church on Sundays. Shakespeare quotes or adapts biblical phrases with far greater frequency than he makes allusion to episodes in biblical history. But many such phrases enjoyed proverbial currency, and others, which were more recondite, were borrowed from Holinshed’s ‘Chronicles’ and secular works whence he drew his plots. As a rule his use of scriptural phraseology, as of scriptural history, suggests youthful reminiscence and the assimilative tendency of the mind in a stage of early development rather than close and continuous study of the Bible in adult life. [17a]
Withdrawal from school.
Shakespeare was a schoolboy in July 1575, when Queen Elizabeth made a progress through Warwickshire on a visit to her favourite, the Earl of Leicester, at his castle of Kenilworth. References have been detected in Oberon’s vision in Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (II. ii. 148–68) to the fantastic pageants and masques with which the Queen during her stay was entertained in Kenilworth Park. Leicester’s residence was only fifteen miles from Stratford, and it is possible that Shakespeare went thither with his father to witness some of the open-air festivities; but two full descriptions which were published in 1576, in pamphlet form, gave Shakespeare knowledge of all that took place. [17b] Shakespeare’s opportunities of recreation outside Stratford were in any case restricted during his schooldays. His father’s financial difficulties grew steadily, and they caused his removal from school at an unusually early age. Probably in 1577, when he was thirteen, he was enlisted by his father in an effort to restore his decaying fortunes. ‘I have been told heretofore,’ wrote Aubrey, ‘by some of the neighbours that when he was a boy he exercised his father’s trade,’ which, according to the writer, was that of a butcher. It is possible that John’s ill-luck at the period compelled him to confine himself to this occupation, which in happier days formed only one branch of his business. His son may have been formally apprenticed to him. An early Stratford tradition describes him as ‘a butcher’s apprentice.’ [18] ‘When he kill’d a calf,’ Aubrey proceeds less convincingly, ‘he would doe it in a high style and make a speech. There was at that time another butcher’s son in this towne, that was held not at all inferior to him for a naturall witt, his acquaintance, and coetanean, but dyed young.’
The poet’s marriage.
At the end of 1582 Shakespeare, when little more than eighteen and a half years old, took a step which was little calculated to lighten his father’s anxieties. He married. His wife, according to the inscription on her tombstone, was his senior by eight years. Rowe states that she ‘was the daughter of one Hathaway, said to have been a substantial yeoman in the neighbourhood of Stratford.’
Richard Hathaway of Shottery. Anne Hathaway.
On September 1, 1581, Richard Hathaway, ‘husbandman’ of Shottery, a hamlet in the parish of Old Stratford, made his will, which was proved on July 9, 1582, and is now preserved at Somerset House. His house and land, ‘two and a half virgates,’ had been long held in copyhold by his family, and he died in fairly prosperous circumstances. His wife Joan, the chief legatee, was directed to carry on the farm with the aid of her eldest son, Bartholomew, to whom a share in its proceeds was assigned. Six other children—three sons and three daughters—received sums of money; Agnes, the eldest daughter, and Catherine, the second daughter, were each allotted £6 13s. 4d., ‘to be paid at the day of her marriage,’ a phrase common in wills of the period. Anne and Agnes were in the sixteenth century alternative spellings of the same Christian name; and there is little doubt that the daughter ‘Agnes’ of Richard Hathaway’s will became, within a few months of Richard Hathaway’s death, Shakespeare’s wife.
Anne Hathaway’s cottage.
The house at Shottery, now known as Anne Hathaway’s cottage, and reached from Stratford by field-paths, undoubtedly once formed part of Richard Hathaway’s farmhouse, and, despite numerous alterations and renovations, still preserves many features of a thatched farmhouse