Fool by Peter K. Andersson;

Author:Peter K. Andersson;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2023-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Traits

THE FIRST glimpse we get of William Somer in any document that is not an administrative record from the court is in an early dramatic text. It is a brief interlude that was performed in the 1520s or ’30s before an audience of members of the royal court—or at least of people associated with it. It was written by a promising young poet and singer, John Heywood, who would go on to become one of the most prolific and well-known writers of the Tudor age. The manuscript of the interlude is dated 1544, but it is generally believed to have been written some time earlier.1 If Witty and Witless, as the interlude is generally called nowadays, was written before 1533, as the chief authorities on Heywood, Peter Happé and Greg Walker, would have it, then it constitutes the earliest known reference to Somer in writing after his introduction at court.

The interlude is a simple dialogue between two men called John and James, who enter the stage in the middle of a discussion on who is happier—the witty or the witless. Scholars are undecided on whether the beginning of the text is missing or whether Heywood intended it to start in medias res. As it is, John immediately begins the debate by denouncing the provocative statement that his interlocutor has just expressed: “Better to be a foole then a wyse man.” James defends his position by comparing the witty, who are forced to fend for themselves in the world and make a living on their own, with the “naturall foole calde or thydeote,” who in his reliance on other people’s charity is liberated “from all kyndes of labore that dothe payne constrayne.” John then tries to illustrate the hard life of fools by listing all the abuses they have to put up with:

Some beate hym, some bob hym

Some joll hym, some job hym,

Some tugg hym by the heres [arse],

Some lugg hym by the eares,

Some spet at hym, some spurne hym,

Some tosse hym, some turne hym,

Some snape hym, some snatche hym,

Some crampe hym, some cratche hym,

Some cuff, some clowt hym,

Some lashe hym, some lowte hym,

Some whysk hym, some whype hym,

Wythe scharpe naylys some nype hym,

Not evyn mayster Somer, the Kyngs gracys foole,

But tastythe some tyme some nyps of new schoole.2

Historian Pamela Allen Brown, among others, uses this list as one of the primary documentations of what she terms “Bad Fun,” the cruel sort of humour and mockery that many claim to have haunted early modern culture in general and the professional life of kept fools in particular.3 The addition of Somer’s name at the end indicates of course that not even a fool of the king could escape this maltreatment, but this picture is altered when Somer is once more invoked, about halfway through the drama.

By now, James has unexpectedly won John over, but when John finally proclaims “better be a foole then a wyse man sewre,” on to the stage walks a third character called Jerome, who replaces James in order to make things right and persuade John to come back to reason.

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