Second Glance: The Privy Mark of Irony

Now considered one of the greatest dramatic comedies of Renaissance England, Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle began its theatrical run sometime in 1607—and concluded it, an abject failure, almost immediately.I’ve read the play more times than I can count, and I’ve never understood that short run. The Knight of the Burning Pestle is a hilarious post-Modern, meta-theatrical romp. It is also deeply satirical, poking fun at citizens, merchants, gallants, the gentry, actors, theatre-goers, and both writers and readers of chivalric romance. In the prologue to the play's second printing, Beaumont insists that his comedy wasn't meant to cast aspersions on anyone in particular:

THE PROLOGUEWhere the bee can suck no honey, she leaves her sting behind; and where the bear cannot find origanum to heal his grief, he blasteth all other leaves with his breath. We fear it is like to fare so with us, that seeing you cannot draw from our labours sweet content, you leave behind you a sour mislike and with open reproach blame our good meaning because you cannot reap the wonted mirth. Our intent was at this time to move inward delight, not outward lightness; and to breed (if it might be) soft smiling, not loud laughing; knowing it to the wise to be as great pleasure to hear counsel mixed with wit, as to the foolish to have sport mingled with rudeness. They were banished the theatre of Athens, and from Rome hissed, that brought parasites on the stage with apish actions, or fools with uncivil habits, or courtezans with immodest words. We have endeavoured to be as far from unseemly speeches to make your ears glow, as we hope you will be free from unkind reports, or, mistaking the author's intention, (who never aimed at any one particular in this play), to make our cheeks blush. And thus I leave it, and thee to thine own censure, to like, or dislike. Vale.

This cannot be taken quite literally given the rowdiness and naughtiness that follow; and scolding those who have misunderstood his intent rather undermines his sincerity. But it does seem that Beaumont "never aimed at any one particular." Further, the play was staged at Blackfriars, a small theatre celebrated for its "intimate satire." Still, something about this satire led to its death shortly after it was "begot and born"; something made the publishers of the 1613 play text include not only the above Prologue, but also two additional pieces of alternately apologetic and dismissive front matter designed to dispose readers in its favor.In his introduction to the first printing, publisher Walter Burre blames the play's stage failure on "the wide world...not understanding the privy mark of irony." In "TO THE READERS OF THIS COMEDY," we are reassured, Beaumont "had no intent to wrong anyone." Dedications and explanations of this sort are fairly common in early printings of English drama, but the sheer volume of damage control here speaks to the “sour mislike and open reproach” of the play-going, and it was obviously feared, the play-reading, public.Burre was right to be worried; it was entirely rejected by the thriving, seething Renaissance theatrical world that gave birth to it. To a modern reader accustomed to snark, irony, and post-modern playfulness, this play's failure makes no sense, and there is almost no evidence to explain it. I have an idea or two.

"Plot me no plots"The Knight of the Burning Pestle begins as a city comedy, a light, humorous piece focused on London's merchant class. But before the boy delivering the prologue completes even three lines, he is interrupted:

[InductionGENTLEMEN seated upon the stage. The CITIZEN [George], his WIFE [Nell], and RAFE below among the audience.]Enter PROLOGUE[PROLOGUE]From all that's near the court, from all that's greatWithin the compass of the city-walls,We now have brought our scene—Enter CITIZEN [from audience below]CITIZENHold your peace, goodman boy.PROLOGUEWhat do you mean, sir?CITIZENThat you have no good meaning. This seven years there hath been plays at this house, I have observed it, you have still girds at citizens; and now you call your play The London Merchant. Down with your title, boy, down with your title!PROLOGUEAre you a member of the noble city?CITIZENI am.PROLOGUEAnd a freeman?CITIZENYea, and a grocer.PROLOGUESo, grocer, then, by your sweet favour, we intend no abuse to the city.CITIZENNo, sir! Yes, sir! If you were not resolved to play the jacks, what need you study for new subjects, purposely to abuse your betters? Why could not you be contented, as well as others, with The Legend of Whittington, or The Life and Death of Sir Thomas Gresham, with the Building of the Royal Exchange, or The Story of Queen Elinor, with the Rearing of London Bridge upon Wool-sacks?PROLOGUEYou seem to be an understanding man. What would you have us do, sir?CITIZENWhy, present something notably in honour of the commons of the city.PROLOGUEWhy, what do you say to The Life and Death of Fat Drake, or the Repairing of Fleet-privies?CITIZENI do not like that; but I will have a citizen, and he shall be of my own trade.PROLOGUEOh, you should have told us your mind a month since. Our play is ready to begin now.CITIZEN'Tis all one for that; I will have a grocer, and he shall do admirable things.

The admirable grocer will be played by Rafe, the Citizen's apprentice, who is immediately brought on stage to "kill a lion with a pestle." Rafe performs many brave deeds, most of which replicate scenes from either Don Quixote or the chivalric romances Cervantes was mocking.The interrupted play-within-the play—The London Merchant—is the story of star-crossed lovers Jasper and Luce. Together, they cook up a complicated escape plot when Luce's father (also Jasper's employer), Venturewell, forbids the marriage and fires Jasper. Venturewell insists that Luce marry a gentlemanly dunderhead of his choosing, Humphrey. The plot of The London Merchant incorporates standard elements of both romance and the city comedies George objects to, and would be entirely forgettable if it weren't contained within Beaumont's larger dramatic shenanigans.What follows this opening scene comprises the “real” actors trying to get through The London Merchant while also accommodating George and Nell's increasingly ridiculous demands for Rafe's participation. For example, in the spirit of Señor Quixote, Rafe frees some "prisoners" (of a barber-surgeon treating them for the pox), and makes a princess fall in love with him, but then refuses her because she's Roman Catholic.The action of The London Merchant isn't unique, but it is often delivered with the full force of Beaumont's comic genius. Humphrey woos Luce in a delightfully choppy mixture of bawdiness and elevated Petrarchan adoration gone to mercantile seed:

HUMPHREYFair Mistress Luce, how do you? Are you well?Give me your hand, and then I pray you tellHow doth your little sister and your brother,And whether you love me or any other.LUCESir, these are quickly answered.HUMPHREYSo they are,Where women are not cruel. But how farIs it now distant from the place we are in,Unto that blessed place, your father's warren?LUCEWhat makes you think of that, sir?HUMPHREYEven that face;For, stealing rabbits whilom in that place,God Cupid, or the keeper, I know not whether,Unto my cost and charges brought you thither,And there began—LUCEYour game, sir.HUMPHREYLet no game,Or any thing that tendeth to the same,Be ever more remembered, thou fair killer,For whom I sate me down, and brake my tiller.

Poor Humphrey—"love hath tossed [him] / In furious blanket like a tennis-ball," leaving him "Roaring and bellowing [his] own disquiet!" But Luce abuses Humphrey's adoration, convincing him to elope with her to Waltham Forest, where Jasper waits to abscond with her.While Beaumont casts his satirical net wide, most of The Knight of the Burning Pestle's comic scenes are directed at citizen play-goers. Rafe, while initially forced to interrupt The London Merchant by his employers, does so with great gusto and complete lack of compunction. His greatest moment, and one of the funniest moments in all of English Renaissance drama, occurs near the play's conclusion. Satisfied that Rafe has braved it enough, Nell and George demand that he “come out and die.” In spite of the player's objection that "Twill be very unfit he should die, sir, upon no occasion, and in a comedy too," they will have their ghost speech (humorously reminiscent of scenes from Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare's Macbeth):

Enter RAFE, with a forked arrow through his head.RAFEWhen I was mortal, this my costive corpseDid lap up figs and raisins in the Strand,Where sitting, I espied a lovely dame,Whose master wrought with lingel and with awl,And under ground he vamped many a boot.Straight did her love prick forth me, tender sprig,To follow feats of arms in warlike wiseThrough Waltham Desert, where I did performMany achievements....After ... I preferred was,And chosen city captain at Mile End,With hat and feather and with leading-staff,And trained my men, and brought them all off clear.(Save one man that berayed him with the noise.)But all these things I Rafe did undertakeOnly for my beloved Susan's sake.Then coming home, and sitting in my shopWith apron blue, Death came into my stall...CITIZEN'Tis a pretty fiction, i'faith.RAFEThen took I up my bow and shaft in hand,And walked into Moorfields to cool myself:But there grim cruel Death met me again,And shot this forked arrow through my head,And now I faint. Therefore be warned by me,My fellows every one, of forked heads.Farewell, all you good boys in merry London;Ne'er shall we more upon Shrove Tuesday meetAnd pluck down houses of iniquity;—My pain increaseth.—I shall never moreHold open, whilst another pumps both legs,Nor daub a satin gown with rotten eggs;Set up a stake, oh, never more I shall.I die; fly, fly, my soul, to Grocers' Hall!Oh, oh, oh, etc.

If a soliloquy like this couldn't make the play a success, it was doomed for reasons more irresistible than either great writing or inspired comic vision.

Rafe gets a great deal of stage time, but Nell and George are the stars of the play—and this is the problem. No scene is either begun or concluded without their constant interjections, directions, or objections:

RAFEMy beloved squire Tim, stand out. Admit this were a desert, and over it a knight errant pricking, and I should bid you inquire of his intents, what would you say?TIMSir, my master sent me to know whither you are riding?RAFENo, thus: "Fair sir, the Right Courteous and Valiant Knight of the Burning Pestle commanded me to inquire upon what adventure you are bound, whether to relieve some distressed damsel, or otherwise."CITIZENWhoreson blockhead, cannot remember!WIFEI'faith, and Rafe told him on't before; all the gentlemen heard him.—Did he not, gentlemen? did not Rafe tell him on't?

The frequency and intensity of such interruptions only increase as the play proceeds; indeed, Nell and George actually threaten the players when they protest: "Plot me no plots. I'll ha' Rafe come out; I'll make your house too hot for you else."Their taste for "huffing" stage action also becomes increasingly unchecked, and at one point, Nell roars for Rafe and company to "Cut him i'th'leg, boys, cut him i'th'leg!" Rafe's brilliant death scene would not be so surprising, therefore, to an audience already overwhelmed by George and Nell's constant interference. A young man with an arrow through his head lamenting his dead body's constipation would probably, as improbably as it seems, be neither a relief nor a delight at this late stage.

All the forked arrows in the world cannot sweeten this little satireWhile I've studied English Renaissance drama in depth, I've never seen a production of The Knight of the Burning Pestle; it doesn't get staged much now. No doubt this is part of why I've never understood why it wasn't a success in its original context; in fact, no one really knows exactly why this play failed. In Playgoing in Shakespeare's London, Renaissance scholar Andrew Gurr speculates that "there were too many citizens present to enjoy such an anti-citizen joke, though other views are possible...[for example that]...the mockery of citizens was not savage enough to satisfy an exclusively 'gentle' audience. More evidence is needed."A few years ago, I had the opportunity to engage in a practical test of at least one aspect anyway of what makes The Knight of the Burning Pestle so unusual: I included it on the syllabus of a university course devoted to non-Shakespearean Renaissance drama. In a moment of pedagogical ingenuity (and perhaps recklessness), I recruited three students to interrupt my lecture on the play. They were to interrupt when and how they saw fit—it was essential that I be as surprised as possible by their intrusion.This experiment brought home to my students something I'd been harping on—that these works were intended for performance first, and reading second. It also brought home to me just what it means to have that fourth wall broken. I was merrily nattering on about the boy players of the Blackfriars Theatre when one student roared out “This is stupid and boring!! I want to talk about Grey's Anatomy!” I knew an interruption was coming but I was nonetheless stunned into silence when it happened; I even felt a little nauseated! I tried to respond but was promptly cut off by the other two students; my three co-conspirators took over the class in a manner that would have done George and Nell proud. The room erupted into chaos, but not the chaos of merriment, laughter, and pleasure—the others were confused, some quite upset. I let the farce continue until one young woman cried out, truly distressed, “What is going on here!?” I winked at my fiendishly effective actors and together we applauded our performance until the rest of the class joined us—in sheer relief.For the original spectators of The Knight of the Burning Pestle, what happened to their pleasure and their sense of their own position in the theatre once they realized the joke being played on them? I had thought that they must surely have relaxed and enjoyed the insane festival of hilarity building towards what is arguably one of the best sight gags to grace the stage in any century or country: “Enter RAFE, with a forked arrow through his head.”Part of the play's failure must have been the result of the kind of shock my students experienced. That there was a joke being played on the Blackfriars audience likely wouldn't have been immediately obvious, first because spectators regularly sat on stage in English Renaissance theatres, and Blackfriars was no different. Second, the lighting in Blackfriars was notoriously bad; so, while a boy would have played Nell, the combination of impaired vision, make-up, and costuming probably would have obscured his gender and age at least long enough for the initial intrusion to be actually shocking.And, of course, heckling and other interjections were common. But the sheer aggressive persistence and the volume of the intrusion here would have far outstripped the kind of everyday rudeness the actors and spectators were likely used to taking in stride. (And George and Nell do even not begin on stage! They move up onto the stage from the cheaper seats below soon after they demand Rafe's participation.) Their disruption gleefully casts aside all considerations of both theatrical and class boundaries.While there is a real lack of hard evidence about what precisely went wrong during that first doomed run in 1607 (it was revived, with some success, in 1635), a fatal combination of misreading an audience and unusually disruptive theatrics seem reasonable. In any case, it's unlikely the audience couldn't detect "the privy mark of irony" in Beaumont's play. The real problem was that for them—gentleman and citizen alike—it stank to high heaven.____Colleen Shea is a freelance writer and recovering bookstore owner living in Toronto. She blogs at Jam and Idleness.