The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Israel Gollancz William Shakespeare [3572]
The Earl of Southampton, who was shadowed forth as Bertram in Love's Labour's Won, with Parolles as his factotum,—representing Florio in that capacity,—becomes the prince in Henry IV., while Florio becomes Falstaff. The First Part of the play in its original form reflected their connection and the affair of the "dark lady" in 1593-94. The First Part of Henry IV., in its revised form, and the Second Part of Henry IV. reflect a resumed, or a continued, familiarity between Southampton and Florio in 1598. This leads me to infer that Florio may again have accompanied Southampton when he left England with Sir Robert Cecil for the French Court in February 1598, in much the same capacity as he had served him on his first visit to France in 1592, when they were first reflected as Bertram and Parolles.
In the original development of the characterisation of Parolles, Armado, and Falstaff, I am convinced that Shakespeare worked, not only from observation of his prototype in their daily intercourse, but that he also studied Florio's mental and moral angles and literary mannerisms in his extant productions. If Armado's letters to Jaquenetta and to the King be compared with Florio's dedication of his Second Fruites—which was published in 1591, several months preceding the original composition of Love's Labour's Lost—and also with his "Address to the Reader," a similitude will be found that certainly passes coincidence. A comparison of Parolles' and Falstaff's opportunist and materialistic philosophy with Florio's outlook on life as we find it unconsciously exhibited in his Second Fruites, reveals a characteristic unity that plainly displays intentional parody on Shakespeare's part.
Didactic literature seldom presents the real character and workaday opinions and beliefs of a writer. The teacher generally speaks from a height transcending his ordinary levels of thought and action. In Florio's Second Fruites his intention is didactic only in relation to imparting a colloquial knowledge of Italian. In this endeavour he arranges a series of twelve conversations on matters of everyday life between imaginary characters, who are, presumably, of about the same social quality as his usual pupils—the younger gentry of the time. In these talks his intention was to be entirely natural and to reproduce, what he conceived to be, ordinary conversation between gentlemen of fashion. In doing this he reveals ethics, manners, and morals of a decidedly Falstaffian flavour. The gross and satyr-like estimate of women he displays; his primping enjoyment of apparel; the gusto with which he converses of things to eat and drink—of ale, and wine, and capons; his distrust of the minions of the law; his knowledge and horror of arrest and imprisonment, and his frankly animal zest of life, all suggest Shakespeare's knowledge of the book as well as the man.
As Florio's Second Fruites is not easily accessible to the general reader, a few extracts may serve to exhibit the characteristic resemblances to Shakespeare's delineation of Falstaff.
The twelve chapters of the work are headed as follows:
The first chapter, "Of rising in the morning and of things belonging to the chamber and to apparel."
The second, "For common speech in the morning between friends; wherein is described a set of tennis."
The third, "Of familiar morning communication; wherein many courtesies are handled, and the manner of visiting and saluting the sick, and of riding, with all that belongeth to a horse."
The fourth chapter, "Wherein is set down a dinner for six persons, between whom there fall many pleasant discourses concerning meat and repast."
The fifth, "Wherein discourse is held of play and many things thereto appertaining, a game of primero and of chess."
The sixth chapter, "Concerning