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DISGUISE IN SHAKESPEARE 1SHAKESPEARE IN DISGUISE*

SHOICHIRO KAWAI

" Poor lady, she were better love a dream, 1 Disguise, I see thou art

a wickedness," says Viola in 11we4frh Night(2.2.26-7).i Viola finds dis--

guise wicked because it makes her a "poor

monstet," both feminineand rnasculine (2.2.34). Shakespeate is another

` poor monster

'

who is

made both tadical and conservative in recent cfiticism. Pethaps Shake-

speare is in disguise-disguise not so much in the sense of `

concealing

one's identity'as in its primary sense, which is`to be out of the usual

guise '. The word

`

guise ' in the period signified both the manner of

a society-" custom, habit, practice; the ` ways

' (of a country)

"-and

the manner of an individual-" Manner of carrying oneself; behaviour,carriage, conduct, course of life " (OED). `

Shakespeare in disguise ',

as I put it, is the Shakespeare who displaces the `guise'

of the wotld

by means of his own particulat ` guise

'.

Shakespeare's p!ays may be

his ` disguise

' to demonstrate his idea of

` guise

'-course

of life-as

opposed to the usual manner of the vLrorld; for the play is the thing

wherein the dramatist transplants the ` guise

' of the world onto the

stage to create an illusion, or an alternative appearance of the world.

Indeed the words `disguise'

and `disguising'

denoted a fbrm of

masque or play because of the new and strange costumes perfbrmerswore. In this essayIshall explore disguise in Shakespeare in order to

elucidate Shakespearean ` guise

'.

If one's life is "

no more than to say

`one'"

(Hanvlet, s.2.74) and is as transient as "

the interim" that the

disguised must go through till they unveil their disguise, then it matters

* This e$say is based on the paper I read at the Fifth Wotld Sh2kespeare Congress at

Tokyo, :6 August Tggi･

i Quotations from Shakespeare refet to The Riversde ShakeJ]peare, gen. ed. G. Blakemore

Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ig74).

[29i]




292 Shoichito Kawai

all the more what ` guise

' one assumes to

" defend the interim "

the "

future "

(T7neon ofAcbens, 2.2,i48-g)･

agamst

I

Disguise in Shakespeare ranges from a comical costuming as in MeMerrp IYligres of V7ndsor, where Falstaff is disguised as a woman, to

Hamlet's antic disposition, of to any character's ` seeming

' or

` decep-

tion '.i

Disguise is not simply alteration of the fashion of dress buttather

the artificial manner which induces people to mistake the person.Sometimes a garb assumed in order to deceive may not function as dis-guise, as, for example, in Perelc;fes, when the Lord Lysimachus comes to

itfi.b,re`,egk,-gh･x･B･sw,.d,liglp,%dg'

g.ttig.rs,csg,2i6z&s,ttTgig,s{,`

,tge.,L.og.1L,,y,s`,m,gdebauchefy incczgvaito (4.6.i6-7). The intention of deceiving is often in-cidental

to disguise. For example, although the twins in Zbe Convedyof Erroas do not seek confusion, their resemblance functions as disguiseas much as Viola's

" masculine usurp'd attire

" (ThoeLICth .ZVlaig)ij4 s.i･2so)･

Both Antipholi are received by the citizens as the Antipholus theyknow. VC7hen the Syracusan Antipholus finds to his surprise that every-body apparently knows him, he wonders whether he is "

disguis'd " tohimself (2.2,2i4). Through his resemblznce to his brother, he un-

?wares assumes the manner which makes people see a different personin him. Because of some mistaking or misunderstanding that it in--volves, sometimes disguise may resemble a ttick. For example, boththe bed-tricks in Measwrefor Measwre and A"'s llZ7ll T;eal Ends urlerz aferefetred

to as disguise: "

So disguise [ie. Angelo's semblance] shall by

;h.l.Sg%g-l3ssd,,f.P.w,w.i:h,,[laks,.2h

,::.,2fa,ls,z･.eig,cAigg,,A

'

i".e.a'ZgZfo..r,rX･IIg"ii,::,'would unjustly win

"

(Ati's Il7le4; 4.2.7s-6). Both Mariana and Hel-ena, who use the trick, may be considered as disguised not so muchbecause they deceive as because they are mistaken by their lovefs for thewomen they desire. Thus disguise is an individual behavioral manoeu-vre, which is on the surface assimilative to the social manners but ac-tually both dissimilative and dissimulative.

i For

the

study

of disguise, see M. C. Bradbrook, `C

Shakespeare and the Use of Disguisein Elizabethan

Dtama." Ersop,s in eiiicisne, 2 (igs7) : isg-i68; and Victot O. Freeburg, Dis-guise Plots in EEzabeth`zn Dranea: A SIevdy in Sfage T>'adelien (New York: Columbia UP ,

i9i5)･




Disguise in Shakespeatef Shakespeate in Disguise 2g3

Disguise necessarily involves the obfuscation of identity and the ac-

guisition of an alternative external form of sel£ "Poor

Turlygod!

poor Tom! " cries Edgar in Kifag Lear, "

That's something yet: Edgar

I nothing am" (z.3.2o-i). Edgar becomes "something " to the eye

of the world, while his self is effaced, signifying " nothing." Such efi

facement of the self is not playfu1 concealment. Viola the poor mon-ster, fbr instance, may enjoy her masquerade, but at the same time it

gives her some fear, a sense of uncertainty, threat, or C`

wickedness " as

she puts it. Disguise makes her suffer, because her identity is obscured

not only to the other chatacters but also to hersel£ She is neither the

Viola who wou!d have expressed her love to Orsino nor the Cesario

who could have accepted Olivia's love. " I am not what ! am," says

Viola in het obscurity (3.i.i4i). Iago in Othel7b, who is dissatisfiedwith his present state as Othello's ancient, evidently knows the

"

wick-

edness " of disguise, when he confesscs his dissimulation in the same

words as Viola's: "I am not what I am" (i.i.6s). The present state

of "I"

exptessed in the present tense of "what

I am" is, in bothcases, dangetously obscure, although both Viola and Iago obviously be-

lieve in the clarity of " I "

as the subject, which only time will prove.Likewise Prince Hal in i Hlen)zy JV reveals to the audience that he is

not what he is, and the validity of his comparison between himself andthe sun (i.z) lies in the future when he shows his true worth like the

sun emerging from behind the clouds. But Hal, like Viola and Iago,

believes in his future self Thus disguise works like the clouds: it de-

lays but promises the emergence of the self, In other words, disguise

works against the`guise' of the xxrorld, looking fbrward to an alterna-

tive ` guise

' of the world where the emergence of the self is possible.

II

Such formulation of disguise situations in Shakespeare may primafacie seem to be applicable to any kind of disguise situations in the

petiod. However, as the wording on the title page ofthe isg8 Quartoof 11ee BimdBqggar ofAfexandeia (isg6)-" his variab!e humours in dis-

guised shapes "-shows,

disguise is still largely based on the mirth of

tole-playing, actor playing diflerent roles or humours.i The hilarity of

i6io)the imposture and the quick change as in Jonson's T;ee Alabewist ( i The dates of the plays referred to are based on those suggested in Alfred Hatbage's

Annals ofElfrgEsh Drama g7i-J7eo, 3rd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, ig8g).



The EnglishSociety ofJapan

294 Shoichlro Kawal

or the anonymous Look Ahout Ybu (c. isg7-gg) certainly derive fromsuch a motive as in Frances Merbury's A Marriage kedeeen U771 and L:7is-

tihne (is7i-7g), where Idleness the Vice assurmes five different disguises.

Further back in time, we have a similar quick change in ( anehises (c.iss8-6g), whose title page shows how thirty-eight characters can be

performed by eight actors. In danvthises, an incredibly guick change isrequired when an actor for Sisarnnes enters as Diligence, Crueitie, and

Hob consecutively.

It must be emphasized that the tremendous popularity of disguisedevice in the isgo's is based on the hilarity ofsuch role--playiog. Thevogue is largely owing to Henslowc's psedigious series of box optce

hits of `dlsguise'

plays, whick probably begafi eitker with Robett

Gteene's IFle"iar Bacon uptd Fridir Bewrgay (i s 8g-go) or with ARthony Mun--day's

Jbhn a Klrnt avad .fohre a denvber (c. is8g-go). Heftslowe records

thitty-two perfofmances (isg4risg7) of a lost play IIIee IYYseneae of va2,st( ;eester (probably a revisjon of lbhn a Kknl and ]bhn a dawther), twenty-six

perfbrmances (isg4-i6o2) of Maflowe's Doctor flzastsus, twenty-two per-･fotmances (i s g6-g7) of Chapman's 71ee BlvidBelggar ofAlexandlaia, twenty-

two perfbtmances (isg4-g6) of the anonymous A Kkiacfe te ]<how aveHbnest Man, and six perforrriances (isgs) of a Iost plzy Distgua'ses, or Love

in Di.{gziise, aPetticoal vap,age. Henslowe also mentions the anonymous

Look Abont Yba, and Henry Chettie and John Day's T;E)e BimdBeggzar ofBedual G2'eene (i6oo), which seems to have been such a success thzt a

secofid and a third foilow-ups wefe wxitten by Day and Haughton ini6oi. One of the signhicances of these plays is that they contributed

to the technical elaboration in disguise device, which was further de-veloped in the first decade ef the seventeenth ceAtuxy. Erhe tone og

voice, fos instance, is changed or imitated as in MarstoR's tl;6e Makon-fent (i6G2-o4), where a stage ditectioA has "

BILIOSO enteri'ng, MA-LEVOLE shipeth his :tpeech

" (i.4.44>.i And the device of female-page

disguise became so popular that it was used even as a trick to surprise

the audience as in Jonson's .Eipicoene (i6og), a device apparent!y starting

frorn Chapman's May Dapr presumably perfbrmed in i6oz.2 The simple

i QuQted from The S17lectedPlvs ofJbhn MLirsfon, edis. MacDonald P. Jackson and Michael

Neill (Cambtidge: Cambtidge UP, !g86).

2 E. K. Chambers, suggests the date of .?Ut?vJ Day as ;6og since the play has

"

a clear irnita-tion in I, i. 378 see. of ch. v. of Dekker's GvaU's fdbrnhoofe (i6og)

" (The Ellileathefhan SZtage,

vol.s [rg23; Oxfbrd: Clarendon, ig74] 2s6). If Chambets is correct, i6og is, as fat as




Disguise in Shakespeate/ Shakespeare in Disguise 2gs

change of names and cloaks which had been valid in interludes was no

longer suthcient, and the covering of the face had long become impet-ative in disguise plots. It is for this reason, responding to the prevail--ing style, that Celia in As Ybva Li)ee fr (isg8-gg) says that she will"

with a kind of umber smitch [her] face " (i.3.ii2). Viola-as-Cesarioin [I-beeij}fh Mget(i6oi-o2), too, may use a make--up similat to Celia's.When Viola speaks of herself as Cesario's sister, she is apparently

playfu11y refetring to the make-up she wears :

.' . . she never told her love,But let concealment like a worm i' th' budFeed on het damask cheek (2.4.no-2)

Presumably the "

damask cheek " tefers to the make-up for a female

role, and it is now concealed by the make-up fbr a boy.

Chapman comments through a character in May Day that the current

device like a friar's cloak is insuthcient and that the face should be com-pletely covefed, insisting on a disguise like a chimney sweeper with hisface totally black (2.4). Thus disguise is made more

` realistic'. Jon-

son says in i6i8 that he abandoned the idea of writing a play like Plau-tus's Amphitrio because he could never find two actors who look likeeach other

"

that he could persuade the spectators they were one,"i

Shakespea:e, however, does not go that far. He preserves the con-

vention and uses it as a basis for dtamatic irony. In 7bueiph N4ghl, oncethe captain has sworn to be "

mute," it is as if a strange charm is castthat unless someone

" blabs," Viola's disguise is never discetned (i,2.

62-3). Orsino scrutinizes Viola's face to find that " all is semblative a

woman's part "

and yet he apparently does not suspect her sexual iden-tity (i.4.s4). But Shakespeare can hardly have been unaware of con-

temporary playwriting in which the convention is readily dismissed. InBeaumont and Fletchet's Love's Piigrimage (i6i6), for instance, a `

boy '

is immediately suspected to be a gifl, because thete is " too sweet a rel--

I 1rnow, the first year when the device is used. Beaumont and Flectchet's Philasler, which

uses the same device, is also written in the same year. Other examples of the fernale-page'

disguise which sutprises the audience are found in Fletchet's Zbe N)ight IVddeer (c. i6ii),

Middleton's Zee uehlow (c. i6i6), Jonson's The IVlew inn (i62g), and Brome's A Mltd Cbmple

V17UMdtch'd(i637-39)･

i Quoted from Ben lbnson, eds. C. H. Hetfbtd and Percy and Evelyn Simpson, n vols

(Oxfbtd: Clarendon, Tg2s-s2), = i44, lines 42z-3.




2g6 Shoichiro Kawai

ish " in C

his ' language for a boy (2.2.i86).i In Dekker's J ZI16e ffonesl

urhore (i6o4) Bellafront disguised as a page reveals her identity by sim-

ply asking Hypolito to "look

on [her] face" (4.i.iig).2 And in E`l-nvond froasiZle (c. i sgo-i6oo), the king, suspecting Edricus's disguise, says

" Ile quickly knowe

" and pulls the velvet patch off his face (line i3i2).3

The scene in Tleereiph N4ght is all the more ptegnant because the conven-

tion may be dropped and Orsino may become at least half aware of

Viola's ` truth

'-her

hidden love as well as her hidden identity, Thescene may be a potential beginning fdr Orsino to

` discover ' his future

wife. The irony in Orsino's speech is untnlstakable: "Prosper

well

in this, 1 And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord, / To call his fortunesthine

"

(i.4.38-4o). In a sense, the scene oscillates between the con--

vention and its dismissal.

III

Some playwrights are evidently opposed to the current usage of dis-guise, which is too theatrical to be dramatic. The satiric Beaumont,fbr one, makes the discovery of disguise delibetately untheatrical fbrthe sake of irony in the last scene of Phdester (i6og), satirizing the heroin his misunderstanding of the unveiled

` truth

' of the female-page.4

Shakespeare, fbr another, deliberately dtops the effect of the theatrical

unveiling of disguise in order to create a tense dramatic mornent inCbrioimas (i6o8) Act 4 Scene s, xxrhere Coriolanus, with his face muMed,meets Aufidius. Aufidius has a great difllculty in recognizing him;even after Coriolanus unmuffles himself, which is supposed to be the-

i Quoted from The Dranvalic nebrfes t'n the Beauneonl czndFlacher thnon, gen. ed. Fredson

Bowets, 8 vols to date (Cambtidge: Cambtidge UP, rg66- ), vol. 2.

2 Quoted from 1-;be Dramatic Vbrks qf Tlheneas Dekker, ed. Fredson Bowers, 4 vols (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge UP, igs3-6i), vol. 2･

3 Quoted from Etimond lronsidla or LYZir H}2th Made A" Fbeiends, The Malone Society Re-

ptints, eds. Eleanote Boswell and W. W. Greg (Oxfbrd: Oxfbrd UP, ig27).

4 A$ Philip J. Finkelpearl points out, Philaster, who is a

" phil-aster,"

" poot lover," is

obsessed by his cuckoldry and misinterprets Dion's words-"All is discovered "-as wofds

evidencing Arethusa's fornication with the boy. See Philip J. Finkelpeatl, "Beaurnont,

Flectcher, and `

Beaumont and Fletcher ': Some Distinctions," EngiZrh LiXeracy Renaisszincei (ig7i) : i44-64, is s ff; and his ( bsurl and C27esntcpt Pebuias in the P22avs ofBeaesneont cznd Flelcher

(Princeton: Princeton UP, iggo), isi. The supposition th2t the last scene is Beaumont'sis based on Cyrus Hoy's assignment in " The Shares of Fletcher and his Collabotatots in theBeaumont and Fletcher Canon

" (I)-(VII), Stutes in BithIVagrapip 8-i s (igs6-62).




Disguise in Shakespeare / Shakespeate in Disguise 297

attically effective, Aufidius repeats his question: " What is thy name?

"

(4･s･s7). The efiect ofremoving a mufller, which is extremely common

in the period, is nullified; the unexpected reaction from Aufidius as well

as the flow of his interrogation apparently posits Coriolanus as a personwith no identity.

" Say, what's thy name," Aufidius asks him, looking

him in the face now unveiled, and repeats the question, "

What's thy

name? " (lines sg-6z). Coriolanus's expectation of surprising Aufidius

is upset. "Know'st

thou me yet?" asks Cotiolanus, but Aufidiusbluntly repeats the question:

" I know thee not. Thy name?

" (lines

63-4), Aufidius's lines are not fbund in the source, North's Plutarch,

which described a silent moment after the unmuMing as a moment of

wonder: meeting him Aufidius simply can not believe his eyes.i Shake-

speare transfbrms it into a moment of embartassment, in which the

recognition of Coriolanus is emphatically and symbolically denied.Throughout the play, his`truth'fails to be recognized. Aufidius failsto know him, just as the citizens fail to

` know

' him when he is

`

dis-

guised ' in the gown of humility. Coriolanus, who does not wish the

citlzens to see his body, does not care how the world looks on him,

content with his own knowledge of himself. Howevet, when he

slights his appearance to the world, he loses his identity as well. Even-

tually he refuses all names and titles and becomes "

a kind of nothing,"

as Cominius puts it (s.i.i3). In a sense, one's guise is a means to pte-serve his selg for it mediates between the world and the sel £ Because

Coriolanus's ` guise

'-his

manner of carrying himself-is incompatible

with the custom of the world, it must needs be ` dis-guise

'-the guise

against the manner of the world. Howevet, Cotiolanus, who refuses

any doub!e-dealing or disguise, denies his guise-his outward manner-

as we!1; consequently he loses his sel£ Thus disguise in Shakespeare

designates the way in which the characters present themselves to the

world.

Disguise is a paradoxical way of presenting oneself by becoming selfeffeacing, unobtrusive, and unnoticed. As long as the disguised are

assimilated to the manners of the world, sometimes it does not matter

whether their appearance is visible or not. In Kifag Lear, fbr instance,

when the naked Edgar is " disguised " as Tom o' Bedlam, the blind

i See Appendix to thriolani", the Arden Shakespeare, ed. Philip Brockbank (London and

New York: Methuen, Tg76) 344.




2g8 Shoichiro Kawai

Gloucester cannot see the disguise. In Me Tlampest (i.2), Ariel dis-

guised as a sea-nymph is invisible to all except Prospeto. Likewise inTweLiCZh N)lght Feste's disguise as Sir ']ropas

the curate is not seen byMalvolio in the dark. Maria says:

"Thou mightst have done this

without thy beard and gown, he sees thee not" (4.2.64-s). What issignificant is not for the disguised to be seen but for them to see. Thevision of the disguised is special not Ieast because they have a superior

viewpoint from which to spy on everything with their true face unseen.Because of their peculiar perception, their view of the world is differentfrom the usual, accepted, orthodox view.

In other words, when they assume the appearance of`something'

and thereby become `

nothing ', all the impottance lies in theit

` noting

',

which was how`nothing'was pronounced in the period. As the punin the title of Merch Ado about Nothiz(g points to the fa11acy of observation,

the superiority of the observation of the disguised is arbitrary, totally

dependent on their own perspective. They think they know-likeViola, who cties

"Ay but I know

" (2.4.io3)-but they are not omni-

scient: the Duke in AdeaJwrefor Measare, for instance, is surprised to findthat Angelo has not acted as he thought he would (4.2). Malvolio

` dis-

guised ' in yellow stockings believes that he knows Olivia's mind. The

disguised must be positive of their view. 'lhey

cannot but be hopefu1:" To be worst, 1 The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune, 1 Stands

stM in esperance, lives not in fear," says Edgar in disguise (Lear, 4.i.z-4). However dejected Edgar is, he believes in his "

just proog" bywhich his real self will be proved (3.4.ii3). In other words, the dis-guised have a vision of anothef world in which they play a differentrole-the role they believe they should be playing. In Tlei,eiph Mgol,Malvolio dreams of a world where he is Count Malvolio, the ptepostet-ousness of which is emphasized by the ludicrousness of his `

disguise '.

Viola, too, dreams of a diflerent world where she is a Duchess and not

btotherless. While Malvolio fails, Viola's "imagination" proves

"

true " (3.4.37s). Diflerent from Malvolio, who is only

` disguised ',

being strange to the mannef of the world, Viola is truly in ` disguise ':

she is seemingly confbrming to the world and yet in fact insidiouslyundermining it, creating, as it were, a blank in it by effacing her ownidentity. When Viola-as-Cesario speaks of the lady Patience or Ce-sario's sistet, she says that her story is blank:




Disguise in Shakespeare 1 Shakespeare in Disguise

Dake. Andwhat'sherhistory?

V?ola. A blank, my lord: she nevet told her love

299

(2.4.i09-iO)

The lady Patience is an alternative from of Viola's selg who only exists

as an image in Viola's mind. Her stoty must remain blank in the world

where Viola conceals her " great a pang of heart " (2.4.go) with pa-

tience. The blank story, nevettheless, fbreshadows an alternative

world, which is realized when " time

" untangles the knot and allows

her to claim the story as her own.

IV

Thus disguise in Shakespeare, by effacing the identity of the dis-

guised, adumbrates an alternative world, however submissive the dis-

guised may seem, effacing themselves. The idea of disguise may bebetter undetstood when compared with Stephen Gteenblatt's

"self-

fashioning." According to Greenblatt, selffashioning always involves

some experience of threat, some effacement or undermining, some loss

of selfli The fashioned selg when its identity is precarious, may be a

fofm of disguise, not least because the wotd " fashion

"

also signifies

`to

counterfeit, pervert'(e.g. Hl?nc7 171 i.2.i4). In other words, the

self is as insubstantial as disguise itself.2 Disguise does not posit the

self and the Other as fixed and fitm, much less true or false; instead it

fbcuses on the interactions between the two.

Like a play itselg disguise has a binary function, representing and

at the same time subvefting the criterial on which it stands. Suppottedby the stability of the cultutal system of meanings, disguise produces a

pattern of reactions from the viewet in whom the system has embedded

the code. How people think ofa person in rags and tatters, fbr ex-

ample, is a code which disguise takes advantage of. But if a person is

accepted by people fbr whatever he or she pretends to be, it will provethe fa11acy of the system. Thus disguise undermines the stability of the

system with its own instability, often threatening to create a new struc-

i Stephen Greenblatt, Renaiss`znce Se4XLFasfiionijrg; From Mbre to Shrkeipeare (Chicago &

London: U of Chicago P, ig8o) g.

2 For the irisubstantiality ofthe selfand disguise, see also Stephen Greenblatt," Psycho-

analysis and Renaissance Culture," Learnifrg to Cburse; Efsays in Early Mbtihrn Crkwre (NewYork and London: Routledge, !ggo) i3i-i4s; Jonathan Dollimere, Radical 1le`rgedy:

Rel)Igion, Idleei2a{l7 and Pezyer in the Drama ofShdeespeare andhis Cbntemperaries, znd ed. (NewYork: Harvester, ig8g) i76-




3oo Shoichiro Kawai

ture. The rejection of Falstaffin 2 Hizncy IVis a good example of these

contradictory functions of disguise. In a sense, Falstaff is disguised tohimselC believing that he is "

fbrtune's steward " (s.3.i3o-i) who has

the laws of England at his command. Under the new regime, how-ever, this disguise must be unveiled, as the new king denounces it bypointing out what Falstaff teally is: "

So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and

so ptofane" (s.s.so), At the same time, Ptince Hal, who had acted

under the disguise of a prodigal son, now assumes another disguise,namely the king's two bodies.i The play ends not only with the unveil-

ing of Falstaff's disguise but also with Hal's wearing the new disguise.Falstaff believes that Hal's new disguise is a temporary expedient:" Look you," he says to Shallow, "

he must seem thus to the world "

(s･s.78). But when he is cartied away by the officers, he must realize

that Hal"s alternative self has established a new structure where the dis-guise of Falstaff no longer works, The disguised Falstaff temains a

subversive element within and opposed to the play's structure. Theplace he occupies in the final picture of the play is, in a sense,

"

bl2nk "

like Viola's image of " Patience."

This image ofthe disguised is also fbund in the picture ofthe TrojanWar in T;be R`ipe tz/'Lacrece. The poem is significant in that it points tothe ambiguity of the outward appeafance in relation to the supposed`

truth '.

Disguise wofks as a metaphor here, seflecting the structure of

the whole poem, which is satutated with the confusion of identities.

In the pictute of the 'ftojan

Wat, Luctece looks for Helen, wishingthat she could tear her with her nails. As Paris's lust is to Helen's beau-ty, so Targuin's is to Lucrece's. She therefore curses Helen's beautylike her own. V7ere Helen in the picture, she would tear her, ButHelen-the very cause of the war-is effaced from the picture. In-stead s Lucrece finds Sinon, who, like Tarquin, hides his hot-burningfire under a cool appearance.

" In Tarquin's likeness I did entettain

thees" she said to Tarquin, "Hast thou put on his shape to do him

shameP "

(lines sg6-7). The wickedness of disguise is such that it de-molishes her as it does Troy. She compares Targuin to Sinon, andherself to Ptiam:

"

as Ptiam him did cherish, 1 So did I Targuin, so my'Uroy

did perish "

(lines is46-7). Then seized by uncontrollable pas-slon:

i See Ernst Kantorowicz, Zee Ki}rg's 1beo Bdos (Ptinceton: Ptinceton UP, igs7).




Disguise in Shakespeare f Shakespeate in Disguise

She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,

Comparing him to that unhappy guestWhose deed hath made herself hetself detest. (lines is64-6)

3o;

But Sinon's disguise serves political strategy, and is comparable with

the disguise not so much of lustfu1 Tatguin as of Brutus, who has pre-

tended to be an idiot, but now " throws that shallow habit by, 1 Where-

in deep policy did him disguise" (Iines x8i4-s). At the close of th.e

kisses itpoetn Brutus plucks the fatal knife from Lucrece's body and

to seal his vow, as if he receives through the knife the power to sub-

vert the monarchy. The knife represents Lucrece's honour and wrong:

" My honor I'II bequeath unto the knife 1 That wounds my body so dis-

honored," says Lucrece, and it is now stained with he! blood-red for

i737-5O)･her purity and black for her dishonour (Iines ii84-s; lines

well as phy-But the talismanic knife effaces Lucrece metaphorically as

sically; it is transformed into a means to establish the republic. Lu-

ctece's body, notwithstanding the dignity it once had, is cartied out

and is used to demonstrate Tarquin's tyranny to the public. Hetbody-the cause and end of the story-is carried out of the frame of the nar-

rative of her honour and wrong. Like Helen, she is effaced from the

picture in which Brutus, like Sinon in disguise, exetcises his political

Power. V7hen Brutus kisses the knife, the picture is still on the wall with the

figure of Sinon left torn. The totn figure transcends the two dimen-

sional picture and no longer exists propetly in it; he is there, and not

there. The place that the figure is to occupy in the picture becomes,in a way, thlank-indefinable and transcendental-the vety charactetis-

tics of the disguised. The blank, which fbrmerly signified Sinon, now

signifies Brutus. Sinon's political disguise represented in the picture

teflects Brutus's in the larger picture of the poem. Just as Sinon in

disguise changes the fottune of Troy, so Brutus in disguise changes

that of Rome. Sinon's place in the picture of Troy coincides with Bru-

tus's in the picture of the whole poem. The "

skilfu1 painter "

of the

picture, whose skill Lucrece chides, merges with Shakespeare, the paint-er of the larger picture. Thus disguise in Shakespeare echoes Shakespeare's art. The word

ar4 which also means ` deception

'

and `

counterfeit' as well as `

pic-ture

', is resonant with the word `

disguise '. In Shakespeate, disguise




so2 Shoichite KEvwal

is the art of rcepresentation which assimilates nature. In other words,

disguise is the art to mend-or rather change-" Nature " and to be-come

" Nature

" itself( Ilbe llZiitter's 7bele, 4.4.gs-7). In Tbe,eiph N(gh4

Olivia rnistakes Viola fbr Sebastian. "But," as Sebastian says,

"Na-

ture to her bias drew in that"(s.i.zsg). That is to say, the confusion

of Viola and Sebastian's identities is natural not only because of the

nature of twinning but a!so because of the art ef Shakespeare, Olivia

has seen and !oved the Sebastian-in-Viola, or the Sebastian whom Violahas acted in his stead until the feal Sebastiag replaces het. Ift a sense,

Viola is SebastiaR and Sebastian is Vlola. The only difference is that'Vio!a

has scemained a torn figure ia the picture-torn between Oliviaand Orsino-while Sebastian has no crzaafe: their only differencc is a

sexual one.

The crack, however, is not without the fertility to give birth to a

new cuiture for a new generation. Whexe women " lack " (Tlbe Mkr-

thavt of Vlanice, 3.4.62; foeiph Nigb4 3.4.3os), they have power to

generate. The crack equals `nothing'

that Hamlet jokes about (s.2.i2r), the figure `

O,' or the zero which is surprisingly fecund as BrianRotman argues.i It is mysterious, veiled lacuna, or impenetfable abyss,

functioning as both womb and tDmb-womb because it gives bifth toa new wor!d, and tomb because it is the iRfefno-" the su!phufous pit,burning, scalding

" (Lear, 4.6.n8)-that prepares a death-bed for the

¢ xisting wofld. It is the "

ring " that men must keep safe (IIZhe Mbrdent

of Vl?nice, s.i.3o7), fot it may ifisidio"sly change their wot!d, whese

supposedly meft are obtrusive and women ate selfethcing. Thus the

manoeuvte of disguise, which is both obscure and opposed to authority,

has the image of ` nothing

', the opposite of the phallus which is both

obtrusive and representative of authority.

v

The significance of zero as a metaphor has been much discussed intecent criticism. Analyzing Iago's pregnant phrase

"I am not what

'I am," Joel Nneman relates Iago's "

principle of seeming-being-to be

as not to be," as he puts it, with Jacques-A!ain tvIiller's discussion of

t Brian Rotman, .Signdyiag Nbfhh{g; [[he SlimieSics of Zero <Lofiden: A{acmlllan, ig87).




Disguise ln Shakespeate/ Shakespeare in Disguise sos

the Lacanian zero, i.e. " le nombre zeto qui suture le discours logique."i

The zero that sutures the logical discourse, however, is the zero that

buttresses the structure of the discourse. The same is true of the

Foucauldian " grid

" or

" the interstitial blanks selparait'ng all [the] en-

tities from one another," defining the order of things.2 Their zero or

blank corroborates the existing structure, and gives it the form it has

now. The blank of disguise, on the other hand, is a sort of cavity

which may decompose the whole structure. It is arbitrary and .ug-

necessary as far as the structure is concerned, however necesFary lt lsfor the disguised individual. Moreover, it is not authoritative; it is

against the authority of all appearances. In exceptional cases where

disguise is supported by some authority, such as Pottia's disguise ip

Ilbe Merthant of Vlenice and the Duke's in Meas"re of Mleaswre, the opposi-

tion between the disguised and the authority is lost, and the world

achieved through disguise become problematic, because it is based on

the authority which disguise is supposed to put into question,

The function of disguise as we have seen may, again, Prima facieseem to be comparable to that of what the anthropologist Victor Turn-

er calls the liminal phase, or the transitional phase of ritual passage,which novices go through in their matginal telationship to the society:

they become amorphous beings, reptesented as androgynous, masked,

or as both living and dead-that is to say, in various fdrms of disguise.S

Their identities are completely blurred, transcending the social sttuc-

ture, until they are re-integrated in the society. The embryonic chaos

of this phase resembles that of what Ruth Nevo calls the procesma lar-

barume, or what Northrop Frye calls the second of the three stages of

comedy, which corresponds, in C. L. Barber's words, to the temporary

i Joel Fineman, " The Sound of O in OthelZb," The Subjectivity Elffect

in Vlestern

Literacy

ThadXtion" Essays Tbwatzlg the Release of Shakespeare's Je7liIZ; An October Book (Carnbridge,Mass.: MIT Press, iggr) i43-i64, i48. Quoted from Jacques-Alain Millet,

"

`

La suture ':

Elements de la logique du signifiant;' ( bhiers pozar l'analyse, no. if2 (ig66) : 37-4g, 46･

2 Michael Foucault, Zee Order of Thifrgs" An Archaeolagpt of the Hiziman Sciences, trans.

Alan Sheridan (ig7o; London: Routledge, ig8g) xvi.

S Victot Turner, " Variations on a Theme of Liminality," Slec"bu Ritera4 eds. Sally F.

Moore and Barbara G. Myerhoff (Assen, Amsterdam: Van Gotcum, ig77) 37･ Turner,

" Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama," Ilhe Anthropoltlgpt of Experienee, eds. Victor W. Turner and

Edward M. Bnmer (Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, Tg86) 4i-2. Turner borrows

the term " liminal phase

" frorm Arnold van Gennep, 1:he Rifes of Passage (Chicago:

U of

Chicago P, ig6o) passine.




3o4 Shoi¢ hito Kawai

misrule or the festive liberation, out of which new reinstituted identities

are established.Z Nevertheless, the liminal as we!l as the festive !ibera-tion ls requifed in the nermative stfuctute to compeftsate fot its rigid-ities. Like Foucault's blank, the temporary iiberation is neecessarp, in the

existing structure. Aithough it is inversive, it is admitted and utilized

by authorcity. Disguise, on the other hand, is unwanted and insidious!ysuthyersive. While the duration of the liberation is presupposed by the

system and buiit into the calendar, disguise is femoved from the cal-

¢ ndar and becofnes a source for an anti-sttucture. This diffkirenceequals to the one Turneec finds between the liminal and the

`

liminoid ',

a noA-xitualistic and artistic form of the Iiminal in developed societies.2

According to Turner, the liminai beiongs to the genre of work as a spe-

cial performance reguited in the course of life, while the liminoid be-!ongs to the gente ofPdy, as a kind o £ mu!tiplicity of options which

raay not be slmply re-integtated in the normative structute. Like TBrn-

er's liminoid, disguise thteatens to dissoive the authoxitative stfucture

while existing within and supported by that structure.3 Disguise is in-deed "

a wickednes$," which inevitably leads to the confrontation with

the duality of both the self and the world.

Disguise in this sense is principally a sixteenth century product, when" new senses of the tensions between {the autonomous] individual and

aft asslgned ox expected social role " emefged, as Raymond Williams

puts it, referring to the inttoduction of the device of the soliloquy.4

Disguise mediates between individual autonomy and social authority.

While the idea of the thealrunv neined7, which entered Eng!ish drama in

i Ruth Nevo, Cbneic Tleczfi£fbrneations in Seakespeare (London: Methuen, ig8o) io. Nor-

throp Frye, Nalzzral PempecXi've: 11be Deve2tlpneent of Shakeespearean Cbmedy and Rone`znce (SanDiego: Harcoutt, ig6s) 7s. C. L. Barber, Shakespeare's Flestive Cbneedy; A Stzitijr of" Dranea-tic fbrm and ils lklation lo Secial dnfom (Prlnceten, N. J.: Pfinceton UP, igsg) Passine. 2 Victor Turner,

" Liminal to Liminoid, in P!ay, Flow, Ritual: An Essay in Compatative

Symbe!ogy," Precess, Pei:fbrmanse and Piigriwage: A Stevte, in Cbmpmative .SlrvimtheZLagy (NewDelhi: Concept, xg7g); rpt. in fhova Ritaallo Zeeatre: :Ilbe H2fman Serioeusness of P22!J, (NewYotk; Petfotming Atts Jeutnal Publications, ig82) 2o-6o.

S Fot the centributions of Tutnet's ideas to literaty theories, esp. Mazzist, see, for ex-

amplc, IAtroduction to l77cler Tla{uar and the Cbnstrfifctien ofCnd?aral aificism Belween Lilerefivre

and Anthmpolagy, ed. Kathleen M. Ashley (Bloomifigton and Indianapoli$: Xndiana UP,T990) X-Xv.

d Raymond Williams, CVilfuee, Fontana Paperbacks, (Glasgow: William Collins Sons &

Co. hd, mg8i) i42,




Disguise in Shakespeare1 Shakespeare in Disguise 3os

the early sixteenth century, mediates between stage and society, with a

more or less accepted sense of stability in the society, disguise puts that

stability into question. The stability Ieft unguestioned is only in the

autonomy of an individual, and the world may be reduced to such a

small expanse as Hamlet's "nutshell":

"I

could be bounded in a

nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space-were it not that

I have bad dreams " (2.2.2s4-6). In Rmbard U3 within the ribs of the

hard world, ie. his " ragged prison walls," Richard can count himself

to be a king, a beggar, and nothing (s.s,2i). Detesting his roles in

the world, he concludes: " But what e'er I be, / Nor I, not any man

that but man is, / With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd / With

l:e/

'

.

n

r,g

.e:,/2

t

9.2,

ig,e.ijtZplll.S,E.

`eial･lr,Si}et:ig2ugtXesz r

z-,&.111g?2,ib£u,'

N"1'gb3ell:n:g.:n;･,ih?

'

kn

:.i'

:'

:as Jean-Christophe Agnew puts it referring to Richard's speculation in

his prison,i However, such "

void "

is the source of a dream in which

one lives, whether the dream is " wonderfu1" (Tbue4frh Night, s.i.22s)

or hideous:

Between the acting of a dreadfu1 thing

And the first motion, ail the interim is

Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.(2,i. 63-5)

So says Brutus in julins C12estzr. From the moment he decides to kill

Caesar till Caesar cries "Et

lzt, Bxalee" (3.i.77), Brutus is disguised

to Caesar, Brutus must go through the "intetim,"

suffering from a

nightmarish anxiety, or the wickedness of disguise, in expectation of

another dream that will come true.

* * *

" Poor lady, she were better love a dream," Viola pities Olivia, but

"

are suchperhaps one has to love a dream in order to live on, if we

stuff ! As dreams are made on " (1lempesl, 4.i.is6-7)･

i Jean-Christophe Agnew, uebrldr Apart: The Afurkef tuzd lhe Theater in Airglo-American

Thoi(ghl, uio-iL7io (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, ig86) iT2-s.

(oed). - jstage.jst.go.jp

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