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THE DRAMATURGICAL AND THEATRICAL HERITAGE Mum. Swounds, I could bite my toung in two for anger: For Gods sake name your selfe some proper name. King: Call me Tresillus: Ie call thee Denapoll. Mum. Might I be made the Monarch of the world, I could not hit upon these names, I sweare. King. Then call me Wiil, ile call thee Jacke. Mum. Well, be it so, for I have wel deserv’d to be cal’d Jack.’ As the OED explains, “Jack” in the late sixteenth early seventeenth centuries denoted “a man of the common people; a lad, fellow, chap; esp. a low-bred or ill-mannered fellow, a ‘knave.”!** Thus, Mumford’s pseudonym refers to his lower-class origin on the one hand, yet as the explanation for the phrase “play the jack” shows, this word is also associated with the idea of doing tricks. Moreover, the dual meaning of this name becomes theatrically embodied in the character of Falstaff, both a clown and a vice figure, who in Shakespeare’s Lancastrian tetralogy is often called "Jack." In addition to Mumford, the character of the Messenger is also worth mentioning. Ragan hires him to kill Leir, but instead of a murderer he turns out to be a caricature of the hesitant, unprofessional killer.!** Moreover, even the moment when Leir wakes up and confronts his murderer turns into an instance of “comic indignation, and a joke for the English audience at French expense”:’”” “Leir. Camst thou from France, of purpose to do this? Mes. From France? zoones, do I looke like a Frenchman? / Sure I have not mine owne face on; some body hath chang’d faces / with me, and I know not of it: But Iam sure, my apparell is all / English. Sirra, what meanest thou to aske that question?”!”® As Ioppolo observes, the main function of such comic elements in the anonymous play is to “deconstruct anything taken too seriously or tragically.”!”° Nevertheless, this type of comic relief greatly differs from the folly of the interlude, as foolishness does not manifest itself in the dramatic persona of one particular character who could accompany the protagonist. Moreover, the 122 Anonymous: The True Chronicle, sig. C1v. 122 Cf. “Jack, n!” John A. Simpson—Edmund S. C. Weiner (eds.): The Oxford English Dictionary. OED Online, Oxford University Press, 1989, http://dictionary.oed.com, (accessed 15 July 2009). 5 Cf. for example Henry V’s claim: “I am no proud Jack, / like Falstaff” (HIV, Part I. 2.4.995— 996) or Falstaff’s rhetorical question “what should poor Jack / Falstaff do in the days of villany?" (HIV, Part I. 3.3.2174-2175) My citations are from the following edition of the play: William Shakespeare: The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works. Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, ed. Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson, David Scott Kastan, London, Cengage Learning EMEA, 2000. Anonymous: The True Chronicle, sig. Flr. Ioppolo: A Jointure, 175. Anonymous: The True Chronicle, sig. F2v. Ioppolo: A Jointure, 174. 126 12 a 12. æ 12! e
