26 January, 1997

Began more detailed work on the script tonight. Worked on half of I,2 and all of I,1.

Finally got down to brass tacks on the language. Chepe had the actors read the scenes through, then re-read the scene, paraphrasing (or translating) the Elizabethan English into modern idiom. This is inclined to get silly at times: "How now, my wanton calf?" became "How now, my cow?" and Archidamus is I,1 became "Archie." But it's a good way to wrap one's mind around the complicated metaphors, puns, and allusions.

Can thy dam?--may't be?--
Affection! thy intention stabs the centre:
Thou dost make possible things not so held,
Communicatest with dreams;--how can this be?--
With what's unreal thou coactive art,
And fellow'st nothing: then 'tis very credent
Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost,
And that beyond commission, and I find it,
And that to the infection of my brains
And hardening of my brows.

Kindra also brought in a few costumes. We have a pretty red velvet gown/robe thing for Hermione that might do well for her maternity dress, and a couple of costumes for the Clown. One of the latter is a heavy tapestry-cloth tunic with ludicrously long sleeves (believed by Chepe to have come from the 1980 BakerShake Romeo and Juliet) which might be used to humorous effect in V, 2; the other is a rather ghastly but appropriately rustic shade of greenish yellow, and might do for the sheep-shearing feast scenes.

Notes from Chepe Lockett

First, re: the costume. I don't know about the long-sleeved horror, but as for the other one, check out: [this pic from R&J].

Anything look familiar? There's our Clown's sheep-shearing garb, if we go for that outfit. Amazing how well it's weathered these 17 years. Again, probably just no-one wanted to wear it. :-)

As for the paraphrase out of the Arden of this "passage which no one has been able to read" (C.D. Stewart, Some Textual Difficulties in Sh., 1914, pp. 96-109), here it is (p. 166):

"The speech might be paraphrased: 'Can your mother (be faithless)? Is it possible? Lustful passions: your intensity penetrates to the very heart and soul of man. You make possible things normally held to be impossible just as dreams do [communicate = partake of the nature of. O.E.D. 5]. How can this be? Lust causes one to associate in the mind with persons who are purely imaginary, who do not exist at all, therefore it is very credible that the most unthinkable lustful association can take place between real people: and lust, you have brought it about in this case, going beyond what is lawful -- and I am the sufferer to such an extent that I am losing my senses and grow cuckold's horns.'

H.G. Goddard (The Meaning of Sh., 1951, 651.) considers that Leontes diagnoses his own case in this passage: 'emotion, he declares, brings within the realm of possibility things non-existent. But, continuing, he hopelessly confuses cause and effect. Since emotion can give reality to "nothing", he argues, it is very credible that "nothing" should join on to "something" in the external world (that the idea of a faithless Hermione should fit Hermione herself). And that thought, he confesses, infects his brain. But the truth of course is the other way around: it is the infection of the brain that has fitted the fantasy to the present instance.'

Whatever interpretation is adopted, 'infection' is a key word....."

The yellowish tunic is definitely Paris's from 1980: you can get an even better view, which I first thought portrays the "what, goodman boy!" from the Capulet feast -- but I'll point out a Tybalt shot in the next paragraph. (I do note that their Romeo and Paris looked an awful lot alike – intentional casting, or just the similarity of late-70's men's hairstyles?)

Nothing for the long-sleeved one, but the _style_ evidently was used in 1980's production -- witness Tybalt menacing peaceful Benvolio in this shot . (Hmm... the picture's washed out enough, I wonder if it is the same?)