Mojo, The Bard, & Me

In very brief, the suit is impertinent to

myself, as your worship shall know by this

honest old man: and, though I say it,

though old man, yet poor man, my father.

 

-Launcelot Gobbo

 

The Merchant Of Venice              Act II, scene ii      Line 137

This is a pretty interesting scene. And an exceedingly interesting name of this character: Launcelot Gobbo. Launcelot is listed as a clown, servant to Shylock. So once again we have a clown. But this one is not specifically a court jester. In fact, I don’t think he’s officially a ‘clown’. I think he’s officially a ‘servant’ the ‘clown’ listing serving to describe him more than anything. Shylock being a private citizen and money lender it seems unlikely that he would be hiring the services of a jester. At least that’s what I think. I don’t actually know for sure.

But official or unofficial clown, giving him the name of Launcelot is intriguing. Lancelot is of course is the name of a renowned knight of King Arthur’s court. King Arthur’s Lancelot was not a clown. He was as far from a clown as you could get. So what’s Will’s comment here? What’s he saying about Launcelot Gobbo, the clownish servant, by giving him the name of King Arthur’s knight? I don’t know the answer to this question, but I’m sure Will was up to something.  Often times he uses his clowns to spout truths, making them the smartest people in the play. Is he making this one the most gallant? The bravest? Well I’m not seeing it.

In any event, in the beginning of this scene Launcelot is having an argument with himself, an argument between his own devil whispering in one ear and his own angel whispering in the other. It’s sort of like the scene in Animal House where the girl passes out on Pinto in his dorm room. Except in this case there’s not a tiny little angel and devil appearing on Launcelot Gobbo’s shoulder, because it’s a play. In this case Launcelot just talks us through the argument, taking both sides. The argument is whether or not Launcelot Gobbo should run away from his master, Shylock. And while he’s arguing with himself, his father, Old Gobbo, shows up. Launcelot tells his father what he’s considering, and then Bassanio shows up. At that point young and old Gobbo try to talk Bassanio into taking Launcelot into his service. In fact, the two Gobbo’s are leading up to this question when Launcelot speaks today’s Totally Random line to Bassanio. You kind of have to read the several lines leading up to this line, or better yet the whole scene, to understand the context of this one line. And you need to understand that Launcelot Gobbo has both a really funny way of talking and a manner of rambling on and on and using as many words as possible to say as little as possible. That’s what he’s doing with today’s line. In fact, by prefacing this sentence with ‘in very brief’, Launcelot is doing a ‘Tony Long-story-short’ thing (The Tony thing will be explained in the 11/11 post, you’ll have to wait), because he’s not being brief at all, in fact quite the opposite. Hah, I just caught that! That Will is a real pistol!

I’m trying to imagine what it would be like to have a goody-two-shoes whispering in one ear and a…well, not-so-good-guy whispering in the other.