Tom Tel-Troths message: references to Venus and Adonis and the Rape of Lucrece

Not all contemporary allusions to Shakespeare were positive. In the second stanza of Tom-Tel Troths Message (1600), John Lane commands his pen to “In mournfull verse lament the faults of men,” particularly in England. The last half of the poem cites examples of each of the seven deadly sins, and the speaker introduces the allusion to Shakespeare thus: “Now last of all though perhaps chiefe of all, / My pen hath hunted out lewde Lecherie.” Both Venus and Adonis (1593) and Lucrece (1594) are censured (sig. F2r):

VVhen chast Adonis came to mans estate,
Venus straight courted him with many a wile;
Lucrece once seene, straight Tarquine laid a baite,
VVith foule incest her bodie to defile:
                   Thus men by women, women wrongde by men,
                   Giue matter still vnto my plaintife pen.

Lane cites Shakespeare’s narrative poems as evidence that both men and women can be guilty of lechery.

Lane then expresses a desire to write a poem that will either eliminate sin entirely or inspire others to live more virtuously. Either option will have the salutary effect of deterring playgoers, especially women (sig. F3r):

Then light-taylde huswiues which like Syrens sing,
And like to Circes with their drugs enchant,
VVould not vnto the Banke-sides round house fling,
In open sight themselues to show and vaunt:
                     Then then I say they would not masked goe,
                     Though vnseene to see those they faine would know.

Lane’s “Banke-sides round house” may not be the Globe — it could be another theater, including the Globe’s neighbor, the Rose, or it could be a pit for cockfighting or bearbaiting— but given Lane’s interest in Shakespeare, it is certainly possible.

Similarly, the poem’s final couplet may ironically echo the first two lines of Puck’s final speech in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, also printed for the first time in 1600. Speaking on behalf of his pen, Lane writes:

And if (as he hath not) he haue offended,
He hopes (as you) so he wilbe amended” (sig. F3r)

Puck ends his speech with:

If we shadows have offended,
think but this and all is mended. (Act 5, scene 1, lines 440-441)

The volume shown here is part of the Folger Shakespeare Library, and purchased by Mr. Folger as part of the original Folger collection. The British Library and the Huntington Library also own copies.