Antony Scoloker: Friendly Shakespeare and Mad Hamlet

In 1604 Antony Scoloker published Daiphantus, or The Passions of Love.  It can be found repirnted in Some Longer Elizabethan Poems, edited by that pillar of English Renaissance studies, Arthur Henry Bullen (1903).  The poem interests us little, but the remarkable thing about it is a reference to both "friendly" Shakespeare himself and his then recent creation Hamlet in the introductory epistle to the reader, which begins, fanciful flush with the printer's art:

The epistle to the reader, it turns out, deals with epistles to readers.  Eschewing the overwrought first paragraph (that can be read at the source) Scoloker moves on to more interesting matter:

"It [the introductory epistle] should be like the never-too-well-read Arcadia, where the Prose and Verse, Matter and Words, are like his [SIDNEY'S] Mistress's eyes! one still excelling another, and without corrival! or to come home to the vulgar's element, like friendly SHAKE-SPEARE'S Tragedies, where the Comedian rides, when the Tragedian stands on tiptoe. Faith, it should please all, like Prince HAMLET ! But, in sadness, then it were to be feared, he would run mad. In sooth, I will not be moonsick, to please ! nor out of my wits, though I displease all ! What ? Poet ! are you in Passion, or out of Love ? This is as strange as true !" (p. 367)

The interest for us is the mention of "friendly Shake-speare's tragedies" in the year 1604.  It tells us that his tragedies were, first of all, not regarded as high poetry, certainly not beside Spenser's Arcadia, but rather as part of "the vulgar's element," though the "wiser sort" to use Gabriel Harvey's phrase (perhaps excluding Scoloker), found more in them than vulgarity.

Secondly, it tells us that Shakespeare was not, in public perception, an august figure, but rather "friendly" Shakespeare.  The same sort of testimony we invariably get when he is mentioned.  He was a popular, friendly, sociable, gentle man, with many friends.  A man who was approachable, as we was in discussing the Richard Quiney letter to Shakespeare.

Thirdly this brief paragraph tells us that Hamlet could be mentioned as a byword for a) a pleasing play; and b) one who is mad, or "moonstruck."  Hamlet as play and character must have entered the common parlance--the common cognitive awareness--shortly after its first production, perhaps in 1601, and remained there for some time.  Harvey refers to it but we cannot be certain of the date of his "wiser sort" reference, some time between 1602 (Hamlet was entered in the Starioners' Register July 26, 1602) and 1606 most likely.  We also know that Hamlet was performed onboard a ship of the East India Company, captained by William Keeling, off the coast of Sierra Leone, in 1607.  So, for the first decade of the 17th century it would be fair to say it was a very popular and well known play.

Scoloker's poem itself also makes reference to Hamlet in the context of the lunacy of love.  Here are the verses:

His breath, he thinks the smoke ! his tongue, a coal!
Then runs for bottle-ale to quench his thirst;
Runs to his ink-pot, drinks ! then stops the hole !
And thus grows madder than he was at first.
TASSO he finds, by that of HAMLET thinks
Terms him a madman, then of his inkhorn drinks!

Calls players "fools! The Fool, he judgeth wiseth,
Will learn them action out of Chaucer's Pander,
Proves of their poets bawds, even in the highest,
Then drinks a health! and swears it is no slander."
Puts off his clothes! his shirt he only wears !
Much like mad HAMLET, thus, as Passion tears! (p. 393)

Hamlet's personation of madness and his advice to the players were obviously the salient points made upon Scoloker by the play.

Comments

[Vladimir]

Is it impossible that Hamlet was paied by Captain Keeling's sailors off the island of Socotra in 1604, isn't it? The right year of the event, that Dr. Bryan Loughrey has said about in his lecture at the British University in Dubai early this year (http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/02/29/10193730.html),is 1607?
And does it mean that the "Red Dragon" visited Socotra in 1607 for aloe after Sierra Leone?