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Sunday, April 14, 2019

Shakespeare and the Duke of Norfolk’s Lawes.


I am a hare, a beast of little strength,
Yet making sport, of love and gentle gestes,
For running swift, and holding out at length,
I beare the bell, above all other beastes.
George Turbervile's The Noble Arte of Venerie (1576).
Standard Citation: Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. "Shakespeare and the Duke of Norfolk’s Lawes." Virtual Grub Street,  April 14, 2019.  https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2019/04/shakespeare-and-duke-of-norfolks-lawes.html [date last accessed].

It is no secret that William Shakespeare loved the sports of the nobility of his time.  We know this because he constantly wields imagery drawn from them.  The images are fully knowledgeable of the terminology, rules and skills of each.  He makes no mistakes regarding them.

Foremost among them, he loved horsemanship and hawking.  Not far behind, is his attention to the types and training of hunting dogs.  Deer hunting (venery) itself is the source of a great many images.  Each of these pastimes reveals the poet and playwright to us.  In fact, they were clearly part of the formation of his personality.
 
Also part of his sporting experience was “coursing”.  The sport was an early precursor to today’s greyhound racing.  The hare the dogs chased was not mechanical.  The race was not run on a track.  The fastest dog did not necessarily win.  Dogs that could more effectively execute certain moves won more often than not.

While coursing goes back to ancient times, the version practiced by the nobility of England was codified by Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk.[1]  The rules were considered important enough that Norfolk undertook his “lawes of the Leash or Coursing”[2] by special command of Queen Elizabeth I.

These “lawes” can be checked against the earliest of Shakespeare’s references to the sport.  In 3 Henry VI, Queen Margaret calls upon her king to flee:

Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain:
Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds,
Having the fearful, flying hare in sight,
With firy eyes, sparkling for very wrath,
And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,
Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.[3] 
We can check the playwrights veracity against the duke:

2. You ought not to course a hare with more than a brace of greyhounds.
The terminology is correct.  The event is properly described.  The Rule has been obeyed.


In another early play we learn of the premiere point-scoring maneuver of the sport.  Describing his love object, in the play Love’s Labour Lost, Dumaine avers:

Her Amber haires for foule hath amber coted.[4]
Again the Duke:

5. The dog that gives the first turn, if after that there be neither cote, slip, nor wrench, wins the wager.[5]
To “cote” is a specialized term of the sport.  It means to burst ahead of the competitors far enough to get clear of the brace and hare and be able to turn crossways to the rest forcing the hare to turn back.[6]  In more general terms, it means to “outstrip”.

The LLL quote has provoked debate for centuries now.  Surely, it is said, coted must be “quoted”.  Otherwise the line makes no sense.  Just what sense it is supposed to make if “quoted” is changed in, however, seems equally unclear.  The line is meant to say (I paraphrase), “The color of her hair breaks the laws of nature for it is more amber than actual amber.”  Her Amber has coted itself.  It is not possible much less permitted for a hound to cote itself in the sport.

The same mistake of editing ”coted” to “quoted” is made even more blatantly in the play Hamlet.  Sadly, the misquote has become the standard.  The original line makes perfected sense, and, left alone, is a stunningly precise image:

Polonlius. That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgement
I had not coted him.[7] 
The minute one knows the sport from long personal experience, the passage is brilliantly descriptive.  Polonius thinks he has gotten ahead of Hamlet’s intention and turned Ophelia away like a greyhound coting another.  Shakespeare knows perfectly well that the greyhounds that are coted react with frenzy in the turn and display a determination akin to madness to get close to the hare again.



This is not the only reference to coursing in Hamlet.  Rosencrantz announces his and Guildenstern’s arrival  by explaining that they passed a troupe of players not far back.

To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what
lenten entertainment the players shall receive from you;
we coted them on the way; and hither are they coming, to
offer you service.[8]
This particular reference surely gives Hamlet food for thought.  Like Henry in the quote from 3 Henry VI, above, he is the hare in this image.  He is perceived by Rosencrantz as being pursued.  It is an inexhaustible and wily hare, indeed, who manages to survive the course.

The sport of coursing is so little known by scholars that we have been able to set a few historical failures straight here.  Other challenges are associated with the most famous quote of all, from The Merry Wives of Windsor, in which Mr. Page defends his greyhound “on Cotsall”. 

Slender. How does your fallow greyhound, sir ? I heard say he was outrun on Cotsall.
Page. It could not be judged, sir.
Slender. You'll not confess, you'll not confess.
Shallow. That he will not. 'Tis your fault, 'tis your fault, 'tis a good dog.
Page. A cur, sir.
Shallow. Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog ; can there be more said ? He is good and fair.[9]
The passage is actually unlikely to have been written by Shakespeare, however, and the evidence is too involved to address here.  The subject must await its own post.

The complete list of the Duke of Norfolk’s “lawes of the Leash or Coursing” can be found here.


[1] The 4th Duke was later executed by the Queen on June 2, 1572.  For details see my Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof and Ulysses and Agamemnon (1584).
[2] Cox, Harding. “Coursing.”  Coursing and Falconry (1892)  4 ff. Cox’s source (as all writers on coursing) concerning the laws codified by order of Elizabeth I, is Gervase Markham’s Country Contentment (1631).
[3] 3 Henry VI, II.v.
[4] Love’s Labour Lost, IV.iii.89.
[5] Cox, 4.
[6] Ibid., 5.  “15. A cote is when a greyhound goeth endways by his fellow, and gives the hare a turn.”
[7] Hamlet, II.i.110-2.
[8] Ibid., II.ii.305-8.
[9] Merry Wives, I.i. 91.

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