• Christopher Sly in The Taming of the Shrew (Vimeo) (YouTube)
|
A
Shrew (1594) |
The
Shrew (1623) |
|
Slie or Sly |
Christopher Sly |
|
Simon |
a lord (unnamed) |
|
a boy (unnamed) |
Bartholomew (a boy as Sly’s wife) |
|
hounds (unnamed) |
Clowder, Meriman, Belman |
|
Alfonso
(a merchant) |
Baptista Minola (a gentleman) |
|
Kate (Alfonso’s daughter, to Ferando) |
Kate (Baptista’s elder daughter, to Petruchio) |
|
Philema (2nd daughter, to Aurelius) |
Bianca (younger daughter, to Lucentio) |
|
Emelia (3rd daughter, to Polidor) |
a widow (unnamed, to Hortensio) |
|
Ferando (to Kate) |
Petruchio (to Kate) |
|
Aurelius
(to Philema; Jerobel’s son) |
Lucentio (to Bianca; Vincentio’s son) |
|
Polidor
(to Emelia) |
Hortensio (to a widow) |
|
Jerobel (Duke of Cestus) |
Vincentio (a merchant from Pica) |
Shakespeare
added the name Christopher and Bartholomew. Bartholomew can be a perfect
anagram of both-Marlowe.
The two new names frame the term “both Christopher Marlowe,” alluding that Christopher Marlowe
lived both in the drama and real world.
Marlowe
tried to tell the world that he wasn’t dead after his blasphemy charge in 1593.
The lord called Simon in A Shrew is unnamed in The Shrew to seal Mary
Sidney of Wilton House via anagram. The drunken Sly being practised by
the unnamed lord, implies that Marlowe was practised by Mary Sidney. To secure these
anagrams, hounds are named and the profession of Sly
is set to a Tinker.
The
Herbert family owned the power to arrange Marlowe’s fake death and to protect
him after that. However, if Marlowe forgot who saved him, Wilton House can also
punish him easily. This is shown in the relationship between Prospero and Ariel.
Spelling
of Bartholomew and Bartholmew
both exist in the 1623 folio. In the 1611 King James Version the name is printed
as Bartholomew always. In the 1587 Geneva Bible it’s Bartlemewe or Bartlemew. Unfixed
spelling will not affect the result of the fault tolerant Sidney
anagram.
Christopher
Sly has a boy wife. Male character disguised to be a female on the stage appears
also in The Merry Wives of Windsor where Falstaff transforms
himself to a fat woman to escape a jealous husband.