The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-01-08
HOW FALSTAFF DIED.
Mr.. Locke Richardson's Clearing Up of q
Shakespearean Mystery.

After nearly 800 years since Shakes
peares death it is not usual for new
interpretations of his plays to be found.
There is a practically standard text,
/ that of Messrs. CLARK and Wright, and
no emendations in the way of new read
! ings have been made since the late John
! Orchard Halliwell discovered the "Per-
/ kins folio, with its now discredited al
terations in many Of the plays. New
light is thrown constantly on meanings
hitherto obscure, and often by persons
not professedly Shakespearean students
that is, by actors who thus bear out
Charles Lambs saying that the way to
understand Shakespeare plays is to see
them acted.
IA little more than kin and less than
Kind, says Hamlet, and for scores Of
years Hamlets have said the words, pro-
nouncing kind" to rhyme witt" blind"
and making the sentence practically
senseless. Comes a second rate melodra-
matte actor and gives to "kind" pro-
nunciation which makes it rhyme with
"sinned," explaining that he learned
that an old Midland counties word for
"child" was "kind" with that pronun-
citation. Presto, we have a Shakespeare
an pun, and the meaningless sentence
assumes 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 trux-
es has been the last words of Sir John
Falstaff, as reported by Dame Quickly
in "King Henry "" act 2, scene 3.
Says the dame Eve follow The Globe
text Of Clark and Wright:
ga parted even just between IL and
/, even at the turning O. the tide, for
after saw him tumble with the sheets
and play with flowers and smile upon
his fingers ends knew there was but
one way, for his nose was as sharp as
pen and a. babled of green fields"
The last clause is one Of the most cell
ebrated emendations in all Shakespeare. |
1t was made by Theobald, not eminent
editor, who changed the "table of
greene fields" Of the first folio into "a
babled of green fields" achange accept
ed Almost universally in English now,
though other cancellations have been
proposed. Such emendations are thus
recorded in the latest Cambridge edi-
ton: Upon table Of green fells,"
ION table Of green frieze," "as stub
BILE on shorn fields, ION table of
greasy FELL" and "the bill of a green
finch" Theobald is the "hero" of
Pope's "Dunciad, but the malicious
poet has been unable to injure his repu-
tation among Shakespeare4n scholars.
Even with Theobald's amendation ac-
cepted, what did Dame Quickly mean?
No one knew. But now, in The Critic,
comes Mr.. Locke Richardson, like Will
son Barrett, not known as critical
student of Shakespeare, though known
as a reciter OF the plays. He studies
Falstaff carefully. He remembe that
the fat knight had been brought up re-
that he had been choir boy
chad 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 Quickly's pathetic description of
Sir Johns death there flashed into his
the Twenty third Psalm, and it
came to him that in the phrase. and
a. babbIed of green fields, lurked the
very fulfllment of my conviction, that
the dear old sinner, who never had
strength to repent, was now, in his
mortal extremity. mastering his waning
powers in an effort to die fair death
BY repeating, in broken and half audible
accents, verses learned i'll childhood:
g The Lord is my shepherd. l shall
lot want. He maketh ne to lie down
n green pastures. He leadeth me beside
he still waters. Yea, though l walk
through the valley of the shadow of
leath, will fear no evil.
"Here at last we discover the true ex-
,lanation of Mistress Quickly's words.
N her green fields we recognize the
green pastures of David, and with the
comes a strain of pathos in
Falstaff' dying hour which no hand
nut Shakespeare could have infused. P"
Mr.. Horace Howard Furness, editor
# the Variorum edition, and Mrs. W.
L Rolfe of Cambridge have approved
DR.. Richardson discovery, " which
lands by itself without their aid. May
We not all join them in accepting it and
Mr.. Richardson on making
t? 1t clears up Shakespearean mystery
nd adds deserved interest to the end of
hat dear old sinner, that most low
BILE and pitiable of Shakespeare char
cters, Sir John Falstatf Letter in
lew York Sun.
Large Block of Granite.