Monday, June 22, 2020

Humors Antique Faces

HVMORS
ANTIQVE
FACES.
Drawne in proportion to his seuerall
Antique Iestures.
LONDON
Imprinted for Henry Rockett, and are to bee
solde at the long Shop vnder S. Mildreds Church
in the Poultrie. 1605.

(Anonymous - attributed to Samuel Rowlands)


To the Reader.
HE that to please all humors doth intend,
May well begin but neuer make an ende:
S•nce euerie humor hath his seuerall vaine,
Which in themselues strange obiects doe retaine
I then will write at random: HIT AS T'WILL,
If some be pleas'd, of some be impleased still.
To him that likes it best, to him I send it,
Mislike it not till you your selfe can mend it.
Then if my humor hath done humors wrong
Ile rather mend it or else hould my tongue.
Meane while comment but rightly on the text
I will present strange fashions to you next.

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Disproportionate Droeshout FACE


XI. — ON THE PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE.   JONSON
TO THE READER.
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle SHAKSPEARE cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-do the life :
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in BRASS, as he has HIT
His FACE; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in BRASS :
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.

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Metaphors of Mind: An Eighteenth-Century Dictionary
By Brad Pasanek

BRASS and BRONZE
Bronze and brass are two “BASE” ALLOYS put to figurative use in the eighteenth century. Johnson notes that “brass” does not strictly differentiate brass from bronze but is used “in popular language for any kind of metal in which copper has a part” (“BRASS” and “BRONZE”). Brass is a metal of impudence so that “BRAZEN” is defined by Johnson, in this case without comment on the term’s figurative or literal status, as “impudent.” Brass has a bright luster but not the heft of a precious metal: it is SHOW without value, glister without the gold.

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John Chamberlain, who himself regularly reported masques and masquing, illustrates how they became news, explaining to Dudley Carleton:
For lacke of better newes here is likewise a ballet or song of Ben lohnsons in the play or shew at the lord marquis at Burley, and repeated again at Windsor.... There were other songs and deuises of BASER ALAY, but because this had the vogue and general applause at court, I was willing to send it.
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Ascham, Schoolmaster
"It is a bold comparison indeed to think to say better than that is best. Such turning of the best into the worse is much like the turning of good wine out of a fair sweet flagon of silver into a foul musty bottle of leather, or to turn pure gold and silver into foul brass and copper."


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Jonson, To the Memory of My Beloved (Shakespeare)

From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names; but call forth thund'ring Aeschylus,
Euripides and Sophocles to us;
Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,
To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,
And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
Leave thee alone for the comparison
Of all that INSOLENT Greece or HAUGHTY Rome
Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
Tri'umph, my Britain, thou hast one to SHOW

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Rowlands, Humors Antique Faces
Prologue.
VNder the shadowe of the gloomy night,
When silent sleepe arrests each mortall wight,
When fayrie Oberon and his night Queene
In Cinthias honor friskes ore euerie greene.
Sleepe, parting from mee, gaue inuention light
To finde some subiect for my pen to wright
When musing how the world I best might fit,
I saw how Poets humor'd out their wit.
Nay then thought I write all of what they list,
Once in my daies ile proue a humorist.
When on the Sudden as I thought the thing,
I was encountred by the Fayrie King.
Mortall (quoth hee) I charge thee to ingage,
Thy pen to scourge the humors of this age,
Thou shalt not neede to make a long relation,
What thou canst get by tediouse obseruation.
Fayries haue left their lowe infernall places,
The seuerall formes of humors in their faces.
Take what, and where thou list while it is night,
But send them home before the day be light.

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Cynthia's Revels, Ben Jonson
Act II.    Scene III.
Amorphus, Asotus, Cos, Prosaites, Cupid. Mercury.
C
Ome Sir. You are now within regard of the Pre-
 sence, and see, the privacy of this Room, how
sweetly it offers it self to our retir'd intendments. Page,
cast a vigilant, and enquiring Eye about, that we be
not rudely surpriz'd, by the approach of some ruder
stranger.
   Cos. I warrant you, Sir. I'll tell you when the Wolf
enters, fear nothing.
 Mer. O, what a mass of benefit shall we possess, in be-
ing the invisible Spectators of this strange Show now to
be acted.
   Amo. Plant your self there, Sir: and observe me. You
shall now, as well be the Ocular, as the Ear-witness,
how clearly I can refel that paradox, or rather pseudodox;
of those, which hold the Face to be the Index of the
mind, which (I assure you) is not so, in any politick
Creature: for instance; I will now give you the parti-
cular, and distinct face of every your most noted species
of Persons, as your Merchant, your Schollar, your
Soldier, your Lawyer, Courtier, &c. and each of these
so truly, as you would swear, but that your Eye shall
see the variation of the Lineament, it were my most
proper and genuine aspect. First, for your Merchant,
or City-face, 'tis thus, a dull, plodding Face, still look-
ing in a direct line, forward: there is no great matter
in this Face. Then have you your Students, or aca-
demique Face, which is here, an honest, simple, and
methodical Face: but somewhat more spred than the
former. The third is your Soldiers Face, a menacing,
and astounding Face, that looks broad, and big: the
grace of this Face consisteth much in a Beard. The anti-
face, to this, is your Lawyers Face, a contracted, sub-
tile, and intricate Face, full of quirks, and turnings,
a labyrinthæan Face, now angularly, now circularly, e-
very way aspected. Next is your statist's Face, a seri-
ous, solemn, and supercilious Face, full of formal, and
square Gravity, the Eye (for the most part) deeply and
artificially shadow'd: there is great judgment required
in the making of this Face. But now, to come to your
Face of Faces, or Courtiers Face, 'tis of three sorts,
according to our subdivision of a Courtier, Elementary,
Practick, and Theorick. Your Courtier Theorick, is
he, that hath arriv'd to his farthest, and doth now
know the Court, rather by speculation, than practice;
and this is his Face: a fastidious and oblick Face, that
looks, as it went with a Vice, and were screw'd thus.
Your Courtier Practick, is he, that is yet in his Path,
his course, his way, and hath not toucht the puntilio,
or point of his hope; his Face is here: a most promi-
sing, open, smooth, and over-flowing Face, that seems
as it would run, and pour it self into you. Somewhat
a northerly Face. Your Courtier Elementary, is one
but newly enter'd, or as it were in the alphabet, or ut-re-
mi-fa-sol-la of Courtship. Note well this Face, for it is
this you must practice.
   Aso. I'll practice 'em all, if you please, Sir.
   Amo. I, hereafter you may: and it will not be alto-
gether an ungrateful study. For, let your Soul be as-
sur'd of this (in any rank, or profession whatever) the
more general, or major part of Opinion goes with the
Face, and (simply) respects nothing else. Therefore,
if that can be made exactly, curiously, exquisitely,
thorowly, it is enough: But (for the present) you shall
only apply your self to this Face of the Elementary
Courtier, a light, revelling, and protesting Face, now
blushing, now smiling, which you may help much with
a wanton wagging of your Head, thus, (a Feather will
teach you) or with kissing your Finger that hath the
Ruby, or playing with some String of your Band, which
is a most quaint kind of melancholy besides: or (if a-
mong Ladies) laughing lowd, and crying up your own
Wit, though perhaps borrow'd, it is not amiss. Where
is your Page? call for your Casting-bottle, and place
your mirrour in your Hat, as I told you: so. Come,
look not pale, observe me, set your face, and enter.
   Mer. O, for some excellent Painter, to have tane the
Copy of all these Faces!
   Aso. Prosaites.
   Amo. Fie, I premonish you of that: In the Court,
Boy, Lacquey, or Sirrah.
   Cos. Master, Lupus in ——— O, 'tis Prosaites.
 Aso. Sirrah prepare my Casting-bottle, I think I must
be enforc'd to purchase me another Page, you see how
at hand Cos waits here.
   Mer. So will he too, in time.
   Cup. What's he, Mercury?
   Mer. A notable Smelt. One, that hath newly enter-
tain'd the Begger to follow him, but cannot get him to
wait near enough. 'Tis Asotus, the Heir of Philargyrus;
but first I'll give ye the others Character, which may
make his the clearer. He that is with him is Amorphus
a Traveller, one so made out of the mixture and shreds
of forms, that himself is truly deform'd. He walks
most commonly with a Clove or Pick-tooth in his
Mouth, he is the very mint of Complement, all his Be-
haviours are printed, his Face is another Volume of
Essayes; and his Beard an Aristrachus. He speaks all
Cream skim'd, and more affected than a dozen of wait-
ing Women. He is his own Promoter in every place.
The Wife of the Ordinary gives him his Diet to main-
tain her Table in discourse, which (indeed) is a meer
Tyranny over the other Guests, for he will usurp all
the talk: Ten Constables are not so tedious. He is no
great shifter, once a year his Apparel is ready to revolt.
He doth use much to arbitrate Quarrels, and fights him-
self, exceeding well (out at a Window.) He will lye
cheaper than any Begger, and lowder than most Clocks;
for which he is right properly accommodated to the
Whetstone his Page. The other Gallant is his Zani, and
doth most of these Tricks after him; sweats to imitate
him in every thing (to a Hair) except a Beard, which is
not yet extant. He doth learn to make strange Sauces,
to eat Anchovies, Maccaroni, Bovoli, Fagioli, and Ca-
viare, because he loves 'em; speaks as he speaks, looks,
walks, goes so in Cloaths and Fashion: is in all as if he
were moulded of him. Marry (before they met) he
had other very pretty sufficiencies, which yet he re-
tains some light impression of; as frequenting a dan-
cing School, and grievously torturing strangers with In-
quisition after his grace in his Galliard. He buys a
a fresh acquaintance at any rate. His Eyes and his
Raiment confer much together as he goes in the Street.
He treads nicely like the Fellow that walks upon Ropes;
especially the first Sunday of his Silk-stockings; and
when he is most neat and new, you shall strip him
with Commendations.

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Rowlands, Humors Antique Faces
Epigram.
O By your leaue I pray you giue them vent,
Heere comes braue courtship gallant complement
Hee meetes his friend nay then he keepes a stur,
Illustrous, generous, most accomplisht Sur.
Kisses his hand and sends it to his foote
As if he ought some duetie to his boote
Phoebus bright lampe good halfe an houre might burne,
Courtly contending, each doth keepe his turne.
Vntill their Courtship pester so the way,
By comes a cart, and then dissolues the fray.
Then out comes wordes more eloquent then Hermes,
The quintessence of all your Inkchorne termes.
As we are Alians I am sorrie thoe,
Tis your defect Sir: you will haue it soe.
Moste admirable be the wordes they speake,
T' expresse their mindes plaine english is to weake.
To these strange wordes, which these braue gallants cogge,
A courtly conge is the Epilogue.
For hauing now so frankely spent their store,
Needes must they parte when they can speake no more

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Rowlands, Humors Antique Faces

Epigram.
COme my braue gallant come vncase, vncase,
Neare shall Obliuion your great actes deface.
He has been there where neuer man came yet,
An vnknowne countrie, I, ile warrant it,
Whence he could Ballace a good ship inholde.
With Rubies, Saphers, Diamonds and golde,
Great Orient Pearles esteem'd no more then moates,
Sould by the pecke as chandlers measure oates,
I meruaile then we haue no trade from thence,
O tis to far it will not beare expence.
Twere far indeede, a good way from our mayne,
If charges eate vp such excessiue gaine,
Well he can shew you some of Lybian grauel,
O that there were another world to trauel,
I heard him sweare that hee (twas in his mirth)
Had been in all the corners of the earth.
Let all his wonders be together stitcht,
He threw the barre that great Alcides pitcht:
But he that sawe the Oceans farthest strands,
You pose him if you aske where Douer stands.
He has been vnder ground and hell did see
Aeneas neare durst goe so farre a hee.
For he hath gone through Plutoes Regiment,
Saw how the Feindes doe Lyers there torment.
And how they did in helles damnation frye,
But who would thinke the Traueller would lye?
To dine with Pluto he was made to tarrie,
As kindely vs'd as at his Ordinarie.
Hogsheades of wine drawne out into a Tub,
Where hee did drinke hand-smooth with Belzebub,
And Proserpine gaue him a goulden bow
Tis in his chest he cannot shew it now.

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Rowlands, con't
*Proteus.
TIme seruing humour thou wrie-faced Ape,
That canst transforme thy selfe to any shape:
Come good Proteus come away apace,
We long to see thy mumping Antique face.
This is the fellow that liues by his wit,
A cogging knaue and fawning Parrasit,
He has behauiour for the greatest porte,
And hee has humors for the rascall sorte,
He has been greate with Lordes and high estates,
They could not liue without his rare conceites,
He was associat for the brauest spirits,
His gallant carriage such fauour merrits.
Yet to a Ruffin humor for the stewes,
A right graund Captaine of the damned crewes,
With whome his humour alwaies is vnstable
Mad, melancholly, drunke and variable.
Hat without band like cutting Dicke he go'es,
Renowned for his new inuented oathes.
Sometimes like a Ciuilian tis strange
At twelue a clocke he must vnto the Change,
Where being thought a Marchant to the eye,
Hee tels strange newes his humor is to lie.
Some Damaske coate the effect thereof must heare,
Inuites him home and there he gets good cheare.
but how is't now such braue renowned wits,
Weare ragged robes with such huge gastly slitts,
Faith thus a ragged humor he hath got
Whole garments for the Summer are to hot.
Thus you may censure gently if you please,
He weares such Garments onely for his ease.
Or thus, his creadit will no longer waue.
For all men know him for a prating knaue.

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Rowlands, con't.

Epilogue.
VAnish ye hence ye CHANGELINGS of the night,
For I descry your enemie the light:
Flye through the westerne Gate see you darke gleames,
Least in the east you meete with Phoebus beames
Descend into your Orbes I say begon,
And thanke your gentle Master Oberon.
Tell him how well your gestures fit our rime,
being roughly model'd in so short a time.
For what you see presented to your sight,
I onely write to tyer out the night,
Wherein if you delight to heere me sing
Weele haue more trafique with the fayrie King.

E. M.
FINIS.

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Amorphus/Oxford

Cynthia's Revels, Jonson
Act I.    Scene III.
Amorphus, Eccho, Mercury.

Amor. DEar spark of Beauty, make not so fast away.
   Ecc. Away.
   Mer. Stay, let me observe this Portent yet.
   Amo. I am neither your Minotaure, nor your Centaure,
nor your Satyre, nor your Hyæna, nor your Babion, but
your meer Traveler, believe me.
   Ecc. Leave me.
   Mer. I guess'd it should be some travelling motion
pursu'd Eccho so.
   Amo. Know you from whom you flye? or whence?
   Ecc. Hence.
   Amo. This is somewhat above strange! a Nymph of her
Feature and Lineament, to be so preposterously rude! well,
I will but cool my self at yon' Spring, and follow her.
   Mer. Nay, then I am familiar with the issue: I'll leave
you too.
   Amo. I am a Rhinoceros, if I had thought a Creature
of her symmetry, could have dar'd so improportionable,
and abrupt a digression. Liberal, and divine Fount,
suffer my prophane hand to take of thy Bounties. By
the Purity of my taste, here is most ambrosiack Water;
I will sup of it again. By thy favour, sweet fount.
See, the Water (a more running, subtile, and humo-
rous Nymph than she) permits me to touch, and handle
her. What should I infer? If my Behaviours had been
of a cheap or customary garb; my Accent or Phrase
vulgar; my Garments trite; my Countenance illite-
rate, or unpractis'd in the incounter of a beautiful and
brave attir'd Piece; then I might (with some change
of colour) have suspected my Faculties: but know-
ing my self an essence so sublimated, and refin'd by
travel; of so studied, and well exercis'd a Gesture; so
alone in Fashion; able to render the face of any States-
man living; and so speak the meer extraction of Lan-
guage; one that hath now made the sixth return upon
ventuer; and was your first that ever inricht his Coun-
trey with the true Laws of the duello; whose optiques
have drunk the spirit of Beauty, in some Eight score
and eighteen Princes Courts, where I have resided, and
been there fortunate in the amours of Three hundred
forty and five Ladies (all Nobly, if not Princely de-
scended) whose names I have in Catalogue; to con-
clude, in all so happy, as even Admiration her self doth
seem to fasten her kisses upon me: Certes, I do neither
see, nor feel, nor taste, nor favour the least steam, or
fume of a reason, that should invite this foolish fastidi-
ous Nymph, so peevishly to abandon me. Well, let the
Memory of her fleet into Air; my thoughts and I am
for this other Element, Water.

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Cynthia's Revels, Jonson
Act V.    Scene I.

Mercury, Crites.

IT is resolv'd on, Crites, you must do it.
   Cri. The Grace divinest Mercury hath done me,
In this vouchsafed discovery of himself,
Binds my observance in the utmost terme
Of satisfaction, to his godly Will:
Though I profess (without the affectation
Of an enforc'd, and form'd austerity)
I could be willing to enjoy no place
With so unequal Natures.   Mer. We believe it.
But for our sake, and to inflict just pains
On their prodigious Follies, aid us now:
No man is, presently, made bad, with ill.
And good men, like the Sea, should still maintain
Their noble taste, in midst of all fresh humours,
That flow about them, to corrupt their Streams,
Bearing no season, much less salt of goodness.
It is our purpose, Crites, to correct,
And punish, with our laughter, this nights sport.
Which our Court-Dors so heartily intend:
And by that worthy scorn, to make them know
How far beneath the dignity of Man
Their serious, and most practis'd Actions are.
   Cri. I, but though Mercury can warrant out
His Undertakings, and make all things good,
Out of the Powers of his Divinity,
Th' offence will be return'd with weight on me,
That am a Creature so despis'd, and poor;
When the whole Court shall take it self abus'd
By our Ironical Confederacy.
   Mer. You are deceiv'd. The better Race in Court
Will apprehend it, as a grateful right
Done to their separate merit: and approve
The fit rebuke of so ridiculous Heads,
Who with their apish Customs, and forc'd Garbs,
Would bring the name of Courtier in contempt,
Did it not live unblemisht in some few,
Whom equal Jove hath lov'd, and Phœbus form'd
Of better METAL, and in better MOULD.
   Cri. Well, since my leader on is Mercury,
I shall not fear to follow. If I fall,
My proper Vertue shall be my relief,
That follow'd such a cause, and such a chief.

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Barbarous Antiquity: Reorienting the Past in the Poetry of Early Modern England
Miriam Jacobson

note 67. According to the OED, antic first appeared in the second half of the sixteenth century and was used to describe the wild designs of decorative grotesques. In his chapter of Henry VIII, Edward Hall describes "A fountayne of embowed woorke...ingrayled with anticke woorkes, " The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (London: Richard Grafton, 1548). Fifty years later, John Florio used the adjective anticke to define the Italian work grottesca (grotesque) in his Italian-English dictionary A Worlde of Wordes (London:1598)
note 68. antic, adj. and n., OED. For antics and the danse macabre see (...) For Patricia Parker, the different inflections of antic in Shakespeare's plays, from grotesque to Death to foreignness, "suggest the blackface familiar from mumming, morris dancing and other theatricals, as well as the antic masks of carnival inversion" in "Black Hamlet: Battening on the Moor," Shakespeare Studies. Dark-skinned foreigners are described as antics in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra adn Much Ado About Nothing, Jonson's Masque of Oberon, Dekker's Troia-nova Triumphans, and Middleton's The Triumphs of Honor and Vertue (1622). See Iyengar, Shades of Difference. For antics as stage clowns and demons, as well as their connection to "antique Romans," see de Grazia "Hamlet the Intellectual" (snip)

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Othello
Had it pleased heaven
To try me with affliction; had they rain'd
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,
Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,—
Ay, there, look grim as hell!

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OTHELLO. Not I, I must be found. My parts, my title, and my perfect soul. Shall manifest me rightly.

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Moors and Natural Fools:
Moor’s Coat, “Muckender,” and “Moros”
 Hornback, Robert

...Given the wealth of evidence of associations between blackface, natural fools, and Moors, I am suggesting that Burbage in blackface as Othello, especially, as we shall see, in light of Shakespeare’s deployment of other emblems of natural folly, would have been quite as likely to call to mind the now-lost natural fool tradition of comic abuse on the Renaissance stage as the now more familiar association with evil. In addition, other obvious emblems of natural folly, such as the Moor’s standard stage apparel, would have reinforced associations between Othello and the abject, scapegoated natural fool. In “The Device of the Pageant,” for instance, Peele refers simply to a character “apparelled like a Moor, “ suggesting that Moors had a conventional, recognizable stage costume. But how were stage Moors traditionally apparelled? As is so often the case, Shakespeare’s contemporary Phillip Henslowe’s detailed records are an invaluable source for recovering Renaissance theatre practices: Henslowe’s list of properties includes a “Mores cotte,” referring to the flowing, ankle-length aljuba traditionally worn by Moors. (snip) That Othello too would actually have worn a Moor’s coat is underscored, I believe, by the emphasis on his essential strangeness, his exotic otherness and obvious lack of complete assimilation when he is characterized as “pagan”, “ Barbary” (i.e., “Barbarian” ), “rude”, “stranger” associated with exotic  “Egyptian” magic: he is, in short, emphatically an “extravagant and wheeling stranger? Of here and everywhere”. The Moor’s coat would obviously have signalled this sensational, “extravagant” otherness.
What is significant about Othello’s likely appearance in Moor’s coat is that in Henslowe’s records “we find that the fool’s gown, the Moor’s flowing aljuba, and the Levantine and Scythian caftan were all classed as coats.” Thus the English translated and transformed the long ankle-length Moorish gown into both their own idiom and their own more familiar fashion of a long coat or petticoat – a garment traditionally worn in England only by women, small children, and, most importantly, fools.
(snip)
Then main point I want to add to our understanding of Shakespeare’s long-recognized use of allegory in Othello, therefore, is that in his use of emblems of folly Shakespeare toys with audience expectations by inviting laughter at the outset to make it complicit in Iago’s abuse of Othello. Part of Shakespeare’s rationale in deploying allegorical emblems of natural folly, I argue, then, was apparently to implicate his audience in what Brooke has termed the “horrid laughter” characteristic of Jacobean tragedy – “a nightmare of complicit participation in which even the normally gently will occasionally find themselves, disgustingly involved.” Many commentators have noted that, by provoking and frustrating a desire to prevent the horror of the impending tragedy, the play functions in part as a “theatrical punishment of the observers.” On the Renaissance stage, this was partly the case because Shakespeare was able to draw on allegorical associations with “naturals” to fool his audience, intitially, into approving of and consenting to Iago’s abuse and scapegoating of Othello. Othello’s role as Moorish ALIEN and resemblance to the natural fool invited the audience to join in the abuse, or at least solicited their passive approval.
In Othello’s character Shakespeare thus created a striking palimpsest of stereotypes, of Moor and natural fool, since both Moors and naturals were stereotyped as deviant/different outsiders, and as irrational, lusty, and gullible. Whether we trace such fundamental stereotypes to ethnicity, or, as I have, to the historically parallel tracition of the abject natural fool, it is important to recognize that such stereotyping is part of intolerant “normative” humor, which ridicules and excludes the different and the supposedly deviant Other in order to bolster or define conservative social norms. Othello is constructed as both alien and other – a “Barbary”, “stranger”, an “extravagant and wheeling stranger /Of here and everywhere” – and as socially transgressive in his marriage to the white Desdemona […] In addition, in his role as “blackface clown,” Othello plays the “abject-clown function” not merely of the butt of charivari but, more broadly, the traditional, historical role of the natural fool, who is laughed at and abused because he is constructed as physically or mentally different or deficient as well as socially transgressive. The multi-faceted construction of Othello as the butt of normative comedy “encourage[s] a kind of complicity within the audience” as it “solicits…a participatory endorsement of the action.” Therefore, in Othello Shakespeare explores the “horrid” potential of normative humor by making his audience complicit in ‘the brutal jeering laughter of triumphant sadism enjoying the torture and destruction of a victim.'
(SNIP)
It is also remarkable that, far from merely serving as comic relief, a distraction or break from the tragedy for the supposedly insensitive, unrefined “groundlings,” as neoclassical critics and the modern descendants have often overtly or implicitly assumed, the comedy in Othello was originally directly germane to provoking sympathy and awaking a painful self-knowledge in the audience members that they had been fooled into laughing at sadism.

http://bringingdeformedforth.blogspot.com/2018/03/blackface-folly-and-blotting-beauty.html

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Tania Woloshyn

...Scottish artist and writer David Batchelor argues that colour has been feared and marginalised as trivial, as artifice, as “other”, throughout the history of Western civilisation. He terms this “chromophobia”, describing the prejudice against colour as operating two ways:

In the first, colour is made out to be the property of some ‘foreign’ body - usually the feminine, the oriental, the primitive, the infantile, the vulgar, the queer or the pathological. In the second, colour is relegated to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential or the cosmetic. In one, colour is regarded as alien and therefore dangerous; in the other, it is perceived merely as a secondary quality of experience, and thus unworthy of serious consideration. Colour is dangerous, or it is trivial, or it is both.

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Colour/figure/ornament

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 Iago:
The Moor is of a free and open nature
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by th' nose
As asses are.
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Jonson on Shakespeare:
He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. “Sufflaminandus erat,”  as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been too…

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Cartwright:
...Shakespeare to thee was DULL, whose best jest lyes
I'th Ladies questions, and the Fooles replyes;
Old fashion'd wit, which walkt from town to town
In turn'd Hose, which our fathers call'd the CLOWN;
Whose wit our nice times would obsceannesse call,
And which made Bawdry passe for Comicall:
Nature was all his Art, thy veine was FREE
As his, but without his SCURILITY;

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A&C - Shake-speare

Cleopatra. Farewell, and thanks.
[Exit DOLABELLA]
Now, Iras, what think'st thou?
Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown
In Rome, as well as I. mechanic slaves
With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,
Rank of gross diet, shall be enclouded,
And forced to drink their vapour.

Iras. The gods forbid!
Cleopatra. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors
Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I' the posture of a whore.

Iras. O the good gods!

Cleopatra. Nay, that's certain.

Iras. I'll never see 't; for, I am sure, my nails
Are stronger than mine eyes.