Robert Greene's Shake-scene

Robert Greene’s criticism of the actor Shakespeare and declaration that he was not the author Shakespeare is to be found in the last of his pamphlets, published posthumously in 1592 under the title Greene’s Groats-worth of Witte, bought with a Million of Repentance. In the epistle addressed ‘To those Gentlemen his Quondam acquaintance that spend their wits in making plays’, Greene warns three of his fellow playwrights not to trust actors – those ‘puppets’, ‘burrs’ and ‘anticks garnished in our colours’ – and refers to a particular actor, identifiable as William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon, as an ‘upstart Crow’ beautified with the ‘feathers’ of the playwrights, who not only believes that he is able to bombast out a blank verse as well as the best of the playwrights but also, being an ‘absolute Iohannes fac totum’, is conceited enough to imagine that he is the only ‘Shake-scene’ in a country.

‘Base-minded men all three of you, if by my miserie you be not warnd: for unto none of you (like mee) sought those burres to cleave: those Puppets (I meane) that spake from our mouths, those Anticks garnisht in our colours. Is it not strange, that I, to whom they all have beene beholding: is it not like that you, to whom they all have been beholding, shall (were yee in that case as I am now) bee both at once of them forsaken? Yes trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tyger’s hart wrapped in a Player’s hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. O that I might entreate your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses: & let these Apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions.’[1]

‘Iohannes fac totum’ was a term of abuse used mainly by the university wits and meaning ‘Jack-of-all-trades, master of none’. The crow is famous for mimicry but not for invention, and it croaks bombastically. In classical fables it is associated with stealing whatever it finds beautiful or attractive, even the finer plumes of other birds; thus in Renaissance symbolism the crow is associated with plagiarism, particularly literary plagiarism, with the plumes or feathers (relating to quill pens) referring to what the poets (‘other birds’) have written. In this instance the actor who is the ‘upstart crow’ is accused of beautifying himself with the ‘feathers’ of Greene and his fellow playwrights. The Shakespeare inference is made clear not only by mention of the ‘Shake-scene’ but also of one direct and one indirect reference to two Shakespeare plays, Romeo and Juliet and 3 Henry VI. The references are far from complementary to the actor.

O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face…
Dove-feather’d raven…
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st![2]

Oh tiger’s heart wrapp’d in a woman’s hide!
How could’st thou drain the life-blood of the child,
To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,
And yet be seen to bear a woman’s face?[3]

Not only is Green accusing the actor of stealing their plays, which can only mean that he is stealing the credit for them by passing them off as his own, pretending to be what he is not, but also that he has a tiger’s heart (i.e. proud, lustful, duplicitous, deceitful, ferocious, ruthless) and in his own conceit thinks he is the only Shake-scene in the country. This clearly implies that there is another Shake-scene, and this in turn implies that there is another Shakespeare. Because Greene includes in this other Shake-scene himself and his fellow playwrights (the ‘gentlemen’ who, as Greene makes clear elsewhere, ‘spend their wits in making plays’), and the actor was stealing from them, the inference is that the true author Shakespeare was the leader or ‘chief’ of the group and assisted by the other playwrights in the group.

It also suggests that the name ‘Shakespeare’, in the context of the plays, poems and literary Shake-scene, was a pseudonym, a matter which is confirmed by the alternative spelling of ‘Shakespeare’ as ‘Shake-speare’ printed on the Shake-speare Sonnets and many of the quarto editions of the plays. It also makes more sense of why many plays and poems published under the name of Shakespeare have been recognised as not being by the bard Shakespeare but by other poets using or being grouped by the publisher under the name of Shakespeare.

© Peter Dawkins, 2006

(See the author's book, The Shakespeare Enigma)