Arden of Faversham

ARDEN: “A botcher, and no better at the first,

Who, by base brokage getting some small stock,

Crept into service of a noblemen,

And by his servile flattery and fawning

Is now become the steward of his house,

And bravely jets it in his silken gown.”

Arden refers to Mosby’s previous profession by the word “botcher” rather than “tailor.” A botcher was an unskilled mender, whereas a tailor was a skilled tradesperson. Arden resents the way Mosby has climbed the social ladder by flattery and fawning, though Arden likely ingratiated himself to the Duke of Somerset in a similar way.

ALICE: “Sweet Mosby is the man that hath my heart,

And he usurps it, having naught but this,

That I am tied to him my marriage.

Love is a god, and marriage is but words;

And therefore Mosby’s title is best.

Tush! Whether it be or no, he shall be mine

In spite of him, of Hymen, and of rites.”

Alice laments her legal ties to Arden because she loves Mosby. To her, the vow of marriage pales in comparison to true love, and so she believes Mosby is more entitled to be her lover than Arden. She alludes to Hymen, the Greek goddess of marriage ceremonies.

ALICE: “Base peasant, get thee gone,

And boast not of thy conquest over me,

Gotten by witchcraft and mere sorcery.

For what hast thou to countenance my love,

Being descended of a noble house

And matched already with a gentleman

Whose servant thou mayst be?”

When fighting with Mosby, Alice mocks him for his “base” birth. Usually, early modern women sought to better their social station by marriage. But Mosby has far less to offer Alice than Arden. These are false protestations, as she says elsewhere (and more often) that love is more important to her than her marriage to Arden.

ARDEN: “So, sirrah, you may not wear a sword!

The statute makes against artificers.

I warrant that I do. Now use your bodkin,

Your Spanish needle, and your pressing-iron.”

According to a medieval statute that was still in place, the only social ranks that could wear a sword were gentlemen and higher. Mosby, an “artificer,” is carrying a sword illicitly. Arden mocks his social station by commanding him instead to wield various tools a tailor would use, such as a needle and pressing iron.

GREENE: “Your husband doth me wrong

To wring from me the little land I have.

My living is my life; only that

Resteth remainder of my portion.

Desire of wealth is endless in his mind,

And he is greedy-gaping still for gain;

Nor cares he though young gentleman do beg,

So he may scrape and hoard up in his pouch.”

Greene is telling Alice about what he feels is his right to the abbey. He is the first character in the play to comment on Arden’s cruel greed. Not only does Arden always seek more wealth, but he tramples over less fortunate people to do so and has no empathy for those from the lower classes.

ARDEN: “Then that base Mosby doth usurp my room

And makes his triumph of my being thence.

At home or not at home, where’er I be,

Here, here it lies, ah, Franklin, here it lies

That will not out till wretched Arden dies.”

Arden continuously illustrates the play’s theme of Class Tension and Social Mobility. He often comments on Mosby’s “base” birth, which he finds more disturbing than the fact Alice is unfaithful. During these lines, the actor playing Arden can choose to either gesture to his forehead or his heart when he declares “here, here it lies.” This will affect the audience’s perceptions about whether Arden is primarily concerned with his heartbreak or his cuckoldry.

MICHAEL: “Conflicting thoughts encampèd in my breast

Awake me with the echo of their strokes,

And I, a judge to censure either side,

Can give to neither wished victory.

My master’s kindness pleads to me for life

With just demand, and I must grant it him;

My mistress she hath forced me with an oath

For Susan’s sake, the which I may not break,

For that is nearer than master’s love.”

Michael faces a decision: Does he choose the moral path or that of Immorality for Personal Gain? He does not want to betray Arden, but more strongly than that, he wants to marry Susan.

ARDEN: “But in the pleasure of this golden rest

An ill-thewed foster had removed the toil

And rounded me with that beguiling home

Which late, methought, was pitched to cast the deer.

With that he blew an evil-sounding horn;

And at the nose another herdman came

With falchion drawn, and bent it at my breast,

Crying aloud, ‘Thou art the game we seek.’”

Arden recounts a dream he had the night before, in which he saw traps in the woods and assumed they were set up to catch a deer. It soon becomes clear that the traps are meant for him, and he is being hunted. Dreams were sometimes thought to have a prophetic quality, which Arden confirms. This dream might serve as either a providential warning that he is in danger or an indication that, somewhere in his subconscious, Arden knows there is a threat to his life.

MOSBY: “My golden time was when I had no gold:

Though then I wanted, yet I slept secure;

My daily toil begat me nights repose;

My night’s repose made daylight fresh for me.

But since I climbed the top bough of the tree

And sought to build my nest among the clouds,

Each gentle starry gale doth shake my bed

And makes me dread my downfall to the earth.”

Mosby laments his social mobility. He thinks that the best time in his life was when he had no wealth to lose. Then, he could live and sleep without worries. However, now that he has “climbed” the social ladder (or tree, as he puts it), he must constantly worry that he will fall.

LORD CHEYNE: “What, Black Will, for whose purse wait you?

Thou wilt be hanged in Kent when all his done.”

WILL: “Not hanged, God save your honour.”

This is one of several moments of foreshadowing. Many of the conspirators’ deaths are foreshadowed before they are sentenced to execution. Lord Cheyne says Will might be hanged for his criminality, which Will refutes. Will is correct: He will burn.

MICHAEL: “So, fair weather after you, for before you lies Black Will and Shakebag in the broom close, too close for you. They’ll be your ferryman to long home.”

Michael’s words here have a double meaning. Arden and Franklin are searching for a ferryman to take them to Lord Cheyne’s house. However, Michael alludes to the ferryman of the Greek underworld, Charon, who took the spirits of departed souls across the Rivers Styx and Acheron, into Hades—just as Will and Shakebag will ferry Arden into the next life.

ALICE: “Why should he thrust his sickle in our corn,

Or what hath he to do with thee, my love,

Or govern me that am to rule myself?”

Alice insists on her autonomy. She uses phallic and almost violent imagery to describe what she sees as Arden’s meddling in her love life with Mosby, asking why he “thrusts” his “sickle” in their corn. This suggests that Alice sees Arden’s meddling as a violent transgression, while it is simultaneously likely Arden sees her infidelity as the real transgression.

MOSBY: “Why, what’s love without true constancy?

Like to a pillar built of many stones,

Yet neither with good mortar well compact

Nor cement to fasten it in the joints

But that is shakes with every blast of wind

And, being touched, straight falls unto the earth

And buries all his haughty pride in dust.”

Mosby’s image of a wind shaking something to the ground recalls his soliloquy in Scene 8 when he fears a gale that will make him fall from his current social station. Mosby believes that Alice might be his downfall; his warning here of “true constancy” is perhaps a warning to her.

FERRYMAN: “Then for this once: let it be midsummer moon, but yet my wife has another moon.”

FRANKLIN: “Another moon?”

FERRYMAN: “Ay, and it hath influences and eclipses.”

ARDEN: “Why, then, by this reckoning you sometimes play the man in the moon.”

FERRYMAN: “Ay, but you had best not meddle with that moon lest I scratch you by the face with my bramble-bush.”

Shakespeare is one of several potential authors of this text, and this exchange is reminiscent of Shakespeare’s bawdy scenes. The ferryman comments on the inconstancy of women by using the moon as a metaphor for his wife’s menstrual cycle and fluctuating mood. Arden picks up on this metaphor and asks if that makes the ferryman “the man in the moon”—a crass comment on the ferryman and his wife’s lovemaking. The ferryman returns his jest by telling Arden to stay away from his moon lest he scratch him with his bramble-bush. While the bramble-bush is traditionally an attribute of the man in the moon, “bush” also carries a sexual connotation.

SHAKEBAG: “O, Will, where art thou?”

WILL: “Here, Shakebag, almost in hell’s mouth where I cannot see my way for smoke.”

The image of the hell mouth has a double meaning. On the one hand, it refers to an image popular in medieval England of a monster’s mouth full of souls, which leads to hell. This version of the hell mouth continued to be popular in the early modern period. The hell mouth was also a popular theater mechanism in the medieval period, wherein a large, gaping mouth was displayed under the main stage and could emit rudimentary effects. Though the theatrical hell mouth was out of use in the early modern period, the double entendre would still apply, especially if there was a mist effect on the stage.

REEDE: “God, I beseech thee, show some miracle

On thee or thine in plaguing thee for this.

That plot of ground which thou detains from me

(I speak it in an agony of spirit)

Be ruinous and fatal unto thee!

Either there be butchered by thy dearest friends,

Or else be brought for men to wonder at,

Or thou or thine miscarry in that place,

Or there run mad and end they cursèd days.”

Reede’s curse of Arden foreshadows his eventual death. Though the conspirators try to kill Arden throughout England, he is eventually killed in his home. Further, he is killed brutally by those he considers friends. Because Arden’s story lives on in Holinshed’s Chronicles as well as this play, Arden is also continuously “brought for men to wonder at.”

ARDEN: “Ah, Mosby! Perjured beast! Bear this and all!”

MOSBY: “And yet no hornèd beast: the horns are thine.”

FRANKLIN: “O monstrous! Nay, then, ‘tis time to draw.”

Arden accuses Mosby of perjury, or telling a falsehood under oath. This is correct, as Mosby has sworn to Arden that he has no designs on Alice. Mosby then calls Arden a horned beast, indicating cuckhold’s horns. This is also correct, but it is a grave offense to label someone a cuckold. The insult is so great that it drives the even-tempered Franklin to draw his sword.

WILL: “Sirrah Greene, when was I so long in killing a man?”

Will expresses distress over the difficulty of committing one murder when he has committed many before. The fact that so many people are trying to kill Arden while Arden keeps narrowly escaping is one of the chief ironies of the play. It indicates a providential aspect of Arden’s continued survival.

SUSAN [aside to Michael]: “I fear me, Michael, all will be bewrayed.”

MICHAEL [aside to Susan]: “Tush, so it be known that I shall marry thee in the morning, I care not though I be hanged ere night. But to prevent the worst I’ll buy some ratsbane.”

SUSAN [aside to Michael]: “Why, Michael, wilt thou poison thyself?”

MICHAEL [aside to Susan]: “No, but my mistress, for I fear she’ll tell.”

Susan tries to indicate to Michael her worries that he will betray them; this also serves as foreshadowing, as Michael’s mistake is key in their condemnation. Michael offers to poison the offender, and Susan pointedly asks how he will poison himself. Michael does not take Susan’s hints, and instead reveals his increasing paranoia about Alice.

ALICE: “Now let the judge and juries do their worst;

My house is clear, and now I fear them not.”

SUSAN: “As we went, it snowèd all the way,

Which makes me fear our footsteps will be spied.”

ALICE: “Peace, fool! The snow will cover them again.”

Alice mistakenly believes that if Arden’s body isn’t in her house, she will not be blamed for the murder. She is wrong about her house being “clear,” as Arden’s blood still covers her floors. She also berates Susan for her reasonable worry, indicating Alice cares less about the fate of women and more about her individual gain. The footprints become key in condemning the conspirators.

FRANKLIN: “Know you this hand-towel and this knife?”

SUSAN [aside]: “Ah, Michael, through this thy negligence thou hast betrayed and undone us all.”

MICHAEL [aside]: “I was so afraid I knew not what I did. I thought I had thrown them both into the well.”

Franklin brings key evidence against the conspirators. This quote reveals that, for all their planning, the murderers still committed the act messily. As Susan predicted, Michael’s paranoia and panic made him central to their undoing.

ALICE: “Arden, sweet husband, what shall I say?

The more I sound his name, the more he bleeds.

This blood condemns me and in gushing forth

Speaks as it falls and asks me why I did it.”

Early modern thought held that the corpse of a murder victim would bleed anew in the presence of their murderer. This evidence was sometimes admissible in court; as Alice says, Arden’s blood condemns her and reveals her guilt. This quote also reveals Alice’s repentance for her crimes.

FRANKLIN: “But this above the rest is to be noted:

Arden lay murdered in that plot of ground

Which he by force and violence held from Reede,

And in the grass his body’s print was seen

Two years and more after the deed was done.”

Franklin’s denouement in the Epilogue reveals what the playwright believes the audience should take from the story. Lest any viewer is too sympathetic to the murdered Arden, they should remember that he lay murdered on the ground he held by force and violence.