I would suggest, however, that Shake-scene was meant for a playwright who had offended against what Greene considered the professional code of honor. He had taken his contribution to the Contention plays and applied them to his own competing plays on the subject history — one of those lines being “Oh, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide!”
In 1592, a few months after Greene’s death, was published a pamphlet written by Greene called A Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance.... It commences with an exhortation to three dramatists to leave off writing plays;—1, a ‘‘famous gracer of tragedians,” supposed to be Marlowe; 2, “Young Juvenal, that biting satyrist that lastlie with mee together writ a comedie,” supposed to be Lodge; 3, “ and thou no less deserving than the other two, in some things rarer, in nothing inferiour,” supposed to be Peele. Then it continues:—“Base minded men all three of you, if by my miserie ye be not warned; for unto none of you, like me, sought these burres to cleave; these puppits, I mean, that speak from our mouths, those antics garnisht in our colours. Is it not strange that I, to whom they al have beene beholding, is it not like that you, to whome they all have been beholding, shall, were ye in that case that I am now, be both at once of them forsaken ? Yes, trust them not; for there is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shakescene in a countrie. O that I might entreat your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses, and let these apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions!’’
***
The Shakescene is universally admitted to be Shakespeare. So it was “the gentle” Shakespeare who had consciously or unwittingly awakened Greene’s jealousy, and drawn from him this farrago of lies, hatred, and ill-conceived virulence. The first clause of the above quotation, “beautified with our feathers,” evidently alludes to Shakespeare [Shakescene] as an actor, and points conclusively to the fact that the “upstart crow” had acted in plays written by Greene, and gained distinction in the characters he had assumed. Hence he was one of the puppets that, spoke the words he had written, and the praise and fame he gained therein, garnished him in the colours and beautified him with the feathers which Greene thought ought to belong to him as the author.
***
The expression, “Tiger’s heart wrapt in a player’s hide,” is a parody on a line in the True Tragedy, i. 4, and 3 Henry VI. i. 4:
“Oh, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide!”
and was no doubt meant to be very spiteful; but applied to the untigerlike Shakespeare, is about as ill-chosen as it could be; it shows, however, that Greene was in a vindictive mood towards Shakespeare, also that little reliance is to be placed on his statements. The next clause of the sentence, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you,” clearly alludes to Shakespeare as a writer.
***
The “absolute Johannes factotum” means that he was a Jack of all trades—that is, he did anything, whether as an actor, a refurbisher of old plays, or a writer of new ones. There can be no doubt that Shakespeare in the early part of his career did work wherever it was wanted; and that work, in all likelihood, embraced those three departments of his art.
***
The quotation given above has been advanced as external evidence that Greene, in conjunction with Marlowe, Lodge and Peele, had some share in writing these plays, and that the charge levelled at Shakespeare in A Groatsworth of Wit, was that he appropriated their work when writing 2 and 3 Henry VI. The following construction of the passage has been advanced by Malone Shakespeare having therefore, probably not long before the year 1592, when Greene wrote his dying exhortation to his friend, new-modelled these two pieces (the two parts of the Contention), and produced on the stage what in the folio edition of his works are called the Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI., and having acquired considerable reputation by them, Greene could not conceal the mortification that he felt at his own fame, and that of his associate, both of them old and admired playwrights, being eclipsed by an upstart writer (for so be calls our great poet) who had then first perhaps attracted the notice of the public by exhibiting two plays, formed upon old dramas written by them, considerably enlarged and improved. He therefore in direct terms charges him with having acted like the crow in the fable, beautified himself with their feathers; in other words, with having acquired fame furtivis coloribus, by new-modelling a work originally produced by them: and wishing to depreciate our author, he very naturally quotes a line from one of the pieces which Shakespeare had thus re-written, a proceeding which the authors of the original plays considered an invasion both of their literary property and character. This line with many others, Shakespeare adopted without any alteration. The very term that Greene uses, — “to bombast out a blank verse,” exactly corresponds with what has been now suggested. This new poet, says he, knows as well as any man how to amplify and swell out a blank verse.”
Beginning here at the end, then, I will respectfully dissent from only one of Hopkinson's points above that Greene 'evidently alludes to Shakespeare [Shakescene] as an actor, and points conclusively to the fact that the “upstart crow” had acted in plays written by Greene'. This is also to dissent from both the traditional and the Oxfordian position that the passages were necessarily written as a complaint, at least in part, about how Shakes-scene was acting on stage.
1 Hopkinson, A. F. The Contention and True Tragedy (1897). xiv-xix.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”
On Shakespeare's lameness and historical-fiction biography, etc. August 5, 2023. “Those who support Sogliardo of Stratford and other authorship candidates generally stop by from time to time to remark...”
- Shakespeare CSI: Sir Thomas More, Hand-D. April 22, 2023. “What a glory to have an actual hand-written manuscript from the greatest English writer of all time!”
- Robert Greene and the Construction Shakespeare Never Used. August 9, 2022. 'Our first foray “staring intently into” the texts of Robert Greene has noted that his work utilized far fewer feminine endings than Shakespeare’s.'
A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years. Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
- Check out the Shakespeare Authorship Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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