Free Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer Page A

William has daredto woo his mistress quite aggressively and has been demoted to the scullery for his pains, a punishment which he bears in good part because he truly loves her. Widow Farmer invites her friends and suitors to dinner. All her other menservants are called to the table, only to be dismissed for their cockiness and insolence when they refuse the menial job of fetching the oysters. Up from the scullery with the oysters comes William in his greasy work clothes. Widow Farmer takes his grubby hand in hers, kisses him and presents him to the company as her chosen husband.
    Then did she set her black man by her white side and, calling the rest of her servants (in the sight of her friends) she made them do reverence unto him, whom they for his drudgery scorned so much before. So, the breakfast ended, she willed them all next morning to bear him company to the church, against which time William was so daintily tricked up, that all those which beheld him confessed he was a most comely, trim and proper man, and after they were married, they lived long together in joy and prosperous estate. 17
    In another of Deloney’s novellas, Jack of Newbury , Jack begins life as John, servant to a wealthy widow who is being courted by three men of substance. She tells John that she loves another, who is none of the three, and he advises her: ‘For your body’s health, your heart’s joy and your ears’ delight, delay not the time, but entertain him with a kiss, make his bed next yours and chop up the match in the morning.’ 18 The widow, piqued, responds that if he had announced to her that he wanted to marry, she would not be so indifferent. He gives the answer that Will might have given if Ann had directly or indirectly proposed to him:
    It is not wisdom for a young man that can scantly keep himself to take a wife; therefore I hold it the best way to lead a single life, for I have heard say that many sorrows follow marriage, especially where want remains, and beside, it is a hard matter to find a constant woman, for as young maids are fickle, so are old women jealous. 19
    Winter comes and with it a hard frost; the widow sups with John and gives him sack to drink; then she puts him to bed in his master’sfeather bed, slips in beside him and stays all night. In the morning she bids him fetch a link and light her way to the chapel, where she is to meet a bridegroom. As he stands with her in the winter-dark chapel John realises that the expected bridegroom is none other than himself. The widow gently reminds him: ‘Stand not strangely, but remember that you did promise me on your faith not to hinder me when I came to the church to be married, but rather to set it forward: therefore set your link aside and give me your hand’. 20 After some only-to-be-expected vicissitudes, ‘they lived long together in most godly, loving and kind sort, till in the end she died, leaving her husband wondrous wealthy’. Sir Sidney Lee might be shocked by the widow’s forward behaviour but Shakespeare and his contemporaries were by no means so hidebound. The extraordinary career of theatrical impresario Philip Henslowe was made possible only by his marrying in 1577 the widow of the Earl of Montague’s bailiff, whose servant he had been. 21
    In The Two Gentlemen of Verona we do not know how old Silvia is, or how young Valentine might be, but we do know that Silvia, besides being Valentine’s social superior, is maturer and wiser than he, whether she is chronologically older or not. As even his servant Speed can figure out, Sylvia teaches Valentine how to woo her.
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    My master sues to her, and she hath taught her suitor,
    He being her pupil, to become her tutor…
    Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.
    (II. i. 129–30, 158)
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    Rosalind too, in As You Like It , undertakes to teach the boy Orlando how to love her.
    In Twelfth Night , the ‘youth’ Cesario is sent