Omaha daily bee., 1896-12-26
HOW FALsTAFF DIED.
Mr. Locke Richardson's Clearing Up
of q Shmkcsncnrcnn MNstcrN.

of Shakcspcnrcan Mystery.
After nearly 300 years since Shakespeare q
death, writes correspondent OF the New
York Sun, 1t is not usual for new interpre-
tations of his plays to be found. There is
practically standard text, that Of MessrS.
Clark and Wright, and no emendations in the
way of new readings have been made since
tho late John Orchard Haliwell discovered
the Perkins folio" with its now discredlted
alterations in many Of the plays. New light
Is thrown constantly on meanings hitherto
obscure, and often by persons not profess
edly Shakespearean students; that is, by
actors who thus bear out Charles Lamb $
saying that the way to understand Shake
speare's plays Is to see them acted.
"A little more than kin and less than
kind" says Hamlet and for scores of years
Hamlets have said the words, pronouncing
kind to rhyme with blind" and making
the sentence practically senseless Comes a
second-rate, melodramatic actor and gives
to kind" a pronunciation which makes 1t
rhyme with 'sinned," explaining that he
learned that an old Midland counties word
for Child" was kind" with that pronuncia-
tion. Presto! we have a Shakespearean pun
and the meaningless sentence assumes q
meaning. Hamlet" to the king" is "a
little more than kin and less than child"
which he was in reality.
One of the great Shakespearean cruXes has
been the last words Of Sir John Fastaff, as
reported by Dame Quickly in King Henry
V. act ILL., scene g. Says the dame 1--WE fol-
low the Globe text of Clark and Wright:
"a parted even just between IL and l.,
even at the turning of the tide; for after
saw him tumble with the sheets and play
with flowers, and smile upon his fingers
ends l knew there was but one way; for
his nose was as sharp as pen and a
babbled OF grean fields"
The last clause is one of the most cele-
hratn bod LOT In aI1 hal
was made by Theobald, not eminent edi-
tor, who changed the table of greene
fields of the first folio into "a babbled of
green fields" a change accepted almost uni
versally in English now, although other
cancellations are thus recorded in the latest
Cambridge edition: Upon table of green
fells;" ION a table OF green frieze;" "as
stubble on shorn fields" ION a table Of
greasy FELL" and "the bill OF a green finch"
1heobald is the hero" of Pope's Dun
clad" but the malicious poet has been un-
able to injure his reputation among Shake
spearean scholars
Even with Theobald's emendations ac-
cepted. what did Dame Quickly mean? No
one knew. But now, in the Critic comes
Mr.. Locke Richardson like Wilson Barrett,
not known as a critical student of Shake
speare, though known as a reciter of the
plays. He studies Falstaff carefully; he
remembers that the fat knight had been
brought up religiously that he had been a
choir boy (had lost his voice singing psalms),
and he notes that all through even his most
reckless speeches the old man quotes from
the bible And then. as he read Dame
Quicklys pathetic description of Sir Johns
DEATH" there flashed into his memory the
Twenty-third psalm; and it came to him:
That in the phrase and a babbled Of green
fields lurked the very fulfllment of my
conviction that the dear old sinner, who
never 'h.d strength to repent was now in
his moral extremity, mastering his waning
powers in an effort to die fair DEATH by
in broken and half audible ac-
cents, verses learned in childhood:
THE Lord is my shepherd; l shall not
want He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures; He leadeth me beside the still
waters. Yea. though l walk through the
valley of the shadow OF death, l will fear
no evil"
Here at last we discover the true ex-
of Mistress Quickly's words. In
her green fields We recognize the green
pastures OF David, and with the recognition
comes a strain of pathos in Falstaff's dying
hour which no hand but Shakespeare's could
have infused
Mr.. Horace Howard Furness, editor of the
Variorum edition, and Mrs w. j. Rolfe of
have approved Mr.. Richardson's
discovery" which stands by itself without
their aid. May we not all join them in ac-
cepting it and congratulate Mr.. Richardson
on making it? 1t clears up Shakespearean
mystery and adds deserved interest to the
end of that dear old sinner" that most
lovable and pitiabe of Shakespeare's char
acters Sir John Falstaff