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Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Clowns and Cunnilingus in Shakespeare.

Part 1: Clowns


Those who have read my Capulet, Capulet & Parolles (2020)1 may recall that I assign the first quarto [first edition] of Romeo and Juliet to around 1587. Actually, that date may apply to an earlier version yet. Numerous hints in the first and second quarto make clear the earlier version. Foremost among them is the presence of a character first identified as “clown” and quickly transformed to “servant”.

In the second quarto, the clown receives directions from Lord Capulet to give an invitation to everyone on a list to the next evening's masked ball. This being the second quarto, the clown together enters with Capulet and Paris: “Enter Capulet, Countie Paris, and the Clowne.” By the time the clown speaks, he is designated as “Servant”.

Serv. Find them out whose names are written. Here it is written, that the shoo-maker should meddle with his yard, and the tayler with his last, the fisher with his pensill, & the painter with his nets.2

In the first quarto, Capulet and Paris enter alone. Later comes the direction “Enter Servingman,” Capulet's instructions and the clown's/servant's first speech.

Ser: Seeke them out whose names are written here, and yet I knowe not who are written here : I must to the learned to Iearne of them,...

The clownish babble of the servant is immediately evident in Q2. The illiterate servant/clown's thought that he must find someone who can read comes first in Q1.

Lest one think that Q1 has no demonstrable clown, but only the implication, in Act 1, Scene 4. he is to wait table for supper.

Enter clown]

Clowne: Maddam you are cald for, supper is readie, the Nurce curst in the Pantrie, all thinges in extreamitie, make hast for I must be gone to waite.

In Q2, the speech is given by Servant:

Ser. Madam the guests are come, supper serv'd up, you cald, my young Lady askt for, the Nurse curst in the Pantrie, and everie thing in extremitie : I must hence to wait,...

The presence of a clown, or clowns, in an earlier version is further supported by Q2 referring, in a marginal note, to the character Peter as being played by William Kemp, who would become the foremost clown of the Elizabethan stage after the death of Richard Tarleton in 1588.

As plays matured, during the Elizabethan period, clowns and other minor characters (sentry, wife, ruffian, thief, receiver, etc.) that had earlier been identified by their function, were often given proper names. Their parts were often partially rewritten, as well, giving them more personality. Clowns might graduate to servants or waiters as an intermediate step across several versions toward proper names.

Here we see that the process was accomplished in steps rather than all at once. Both quartos give different clues, each script having evolved separately from the other for use in different performances.

Shakespeare plays with designated “clowns” are earlier productions. When those plays were revised to be played again, bits and pieces of vestigial evidence of the earlier clowns (and other characters such as John Oldcastle, who became John Falstaff, etc.) was often left behind by harried company scribes and printer's typesetters and proof-readers who needed to get out their product quickly. Together, small errors of authors, scribes and type-setters tended to leave behind a highly informative trail of such clues.

We have already been introduced to Albert Cohn's Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1865), in the recent post on Hamlet, and shown how it can be considerable help in determining what the earlier versions of certain Shakespeare plays were like and when they were written. The first known record of English players in Europe informs us that a group was in service at Elsinore, Denmark, in 1585. The next year

On June 17, 1586, the players Will Kempe, George Bryan and Thomas Pope, set sail from England as servants of the Danish ambassador, Henrik Ramel, to Elsinore, in Denmark, where they entertained King Frederick II. In September of that year, the Danish and German authorities gave them permission to try their luck in Germany.3

Each is listed, in the front matter of the Shakespeare First Folio as an actor who performed his plays. Various German language translations of Shakespeare plays are extant. Their relationships with the extant English versions indicate that they were translated from earlier versions of the English plays — consistent with the mid 1580s.

Kemp had already been in the Netherlands where he was referred to, in a letter of March 24, 1586, as “Will, my lord of Leicester's jesting player,”4 having delivered an official letter to England. It is not known whether he was a member of the first English players.

As it happens, a German translation of Romeo and Juliet, quite clearly close to the quarto versions of the play, was published, by Cohn, from an ancient manuscript in the Imperial Library at Vienna. In it, the Clown is not transformed into Servant but remains designated throughout as “Clown”.

In fact, the clown — designated specifically as clown — has the biggest part in the entire play. He has already had above a dozen lines before he considers Capulet's order to invite guests.

CLOWN. Well, well, if it cannot be helped, I will do it with all my heart. Now I am Mr. Invite; how shall I find out the houses where they live? I will go and study a little how to address guests that are to be invited5

In all three versions, the illiterate clown/servant comes upon Romeo and Benvolio as they are speaking and asks them to read the names on his list. In this way, Romeo discovers that Rosaline, his love-object, is on the list. He decides to attend the masked ball in order to see her.

In the English language quartos, the clown disappears after the pantry scene with lady Capulet and re-appears briefly, as the character Peter, in Q2, in Act IV, Scene 5, and Servant in the same scene of Q1. He calls for musicians to play indicating an interlude such was then common in plays. We are informed that Kemp plays Peter. No actor's name is given to Servant. In the German translation, only a stage direction appears: “Doleful music. Juliet is seen lying in the vault.”

In between, in the English quartos, Mercutio plays the clown with witty jests making fun of Romeo for his love-sick behavior. This is only hinted at in the German translation. The German clown has his last big scene when he discovers the dead body of Tibalt and informs Juliet's nurse who informs Juliet. In the English quartos the clown has long been gone and the nurse sees Tibalt's dead body with her “own eyes” and tells Juliet.

In conclusion: the vestiges of a clown part in Q1 & Q2 of Romeo and Juliet strongly indicates that an earlier version existed with clowns playing parts in the fashion practiced until the mid to late 1580s. The German translation of the play actually features the old-style clown part throughout strongly indicating that its source was a mid to late 1580s English version of the Shakespeare play.



2 Daniel, P.A. Quotes from Q1 & Q2 are taken from Romeo and Juliet. Parallel Texts of the First Two Quartos (1874)

3 Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Edward de Vere was Shakespeare (2013). 167. https://www.amazon.com/Edward-Vere-was-Shake-speare-proof/dp/1543136257/ See also, Ravn, V. C. “English Instrumentalists at the Danish Court etc.” Sammelbände Der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft, 1906. IV. 550-563. Especially @556 where he reminds us that Kemp was actually already in the Netherlands at the time and only the earlier group of English players (which may or may not have included him) likely performed at Elsinore.

4 Ravn. 557.

5 Cohn, Albert. Shakespeare in Germany in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1865). 323, 324. “PICKELHARING. Nu Nu wan ichs thuen muess, so thue ichs gehrn, iezt bin ich Herr Latein, o wo werd ich die Heuser absinden, wo sie wohnen, ich will gehen vnd ein wenig Studiren, wie man die gåst anrädt wan man sie einladen soll”




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