“The humour of it, quoth'a! Here's a fellow frights English out of his wits.”[II.i.127}
I
“Shakespeare's time had generated an unprecedented enthusiasm for English as a literary medium, for the scope, flexibility and beauty of the language”(7). It is the meaning in this first quote that draws people to read Shakespeare again and again. The complexity of the language has been the focus point of more scholarly papers than I can count. Still, with almost everything possible criticized about the multiple texts he wrote, and the debates and conclusions assumed on a variety of scholar approaches, there still remain new points of view on his works.
Close reading of any given text by Shakespeare can give us insight to word play used by Shakespeare in his comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. “Shakespeare uses prose for comic, often subversively comic, purposes, as the medium”(7). Simply put, in order of class, the lower the character is, the more likely the character would speak in prose. Verse was used for the higher-class characters.
Word play can be used for either high class or low class characters. I t can also be used in different ways. Syntax, or word that has two meanings, is one way, making the reader wonder, “Does the word, here, have a literal meaning or is it meant in another context?” Thus, close reading must be employed. “The Merry Wives of Windsor has been relatively neglected in the criticism of Shakespeare's comedies and what attention it has received has centered very largely on Falstaff”(7). This couldn't be more true, but he is not the only character in the play. Falstaff is accompanied by his servants, Bardolph, Robin, Pistol and Nym. These characters have fallen short of criticism and among them Nym has received the least.
All of them, even Falstaff, are presumed to be exiled from Eastcheap, but the others are outsiders or outcasts or thieves, knaves or just plain lower class. As the plot is carried out, we see the characters being both deceivers and deceived. All but Nym, who will in no way have anything to do with his master's plans to deceive Ford and woo his wife, play out in the last act during Falstaff's embarrassment due to his shortcomings in the ways of wooing married women. “Nym's obsessively repeated catchword, "humours," is another symptom of social pretensions; as one of Ben Jonson's characters explains, in its current usage of the word signified "a gentlemanlike monster, bred in the special gallantry of our time by affectation, and fed by folly”(7). Yes, a word he repeats often. In fact, in the thirteen opportunities he has to speak in the play, all but one includes the word “humor.” In close reading of this play, the Folger edition (8) gives a longer note in reference to humor. This expanded note reads:
humors: In early usage, humor referred to the bodily fluids of blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile; later, the term referred to the dispositions, character traits, or moods thought to be caused by these fluids, and then to moods or whims in general. In Nym"s language, the word becomes so vague as to have no real meaning. (8)
Although the word “humor” has added or changed or edited its definition, I find it hard to believe that Shakespeare would plant a word to be used as often as it is by one character that has no meaning. Close reading would be required as a challenge to the statement made by the Folder edition that “In Nym's language, the word becomes so vague as to have no real meaning”(8). Nym and Pistol are described in criticisms as “swashbuckling swordsmen”(7). Page describes him as “a drawling, affecting rogue” (7) and, by critics again, “As for Nym, his vocabulary is minimal, and he cannot form a phrase without the word "humor" in it”(5). Page comments, after listening to Nym tell Ford of Falstaff and his intentions toward his wife, “The humor of it, quoth he? Heres a fellow frights English out of his wits.” (II.i.127 ) Nym does not see himself this way. He states, “will keep the havior of reputation” (II.iii.79) and is not present for the Falstaff embarrassment, plus excuses himself from delivering the letter to Page, how then does the “limited vocabulary” affect the nature of his character to be less than honorable?
The constant use of the word “humor,” most likely out of context, has lead critics to believe he is a knave, a thief, a swashbuckler. In fact, it is a comedy. The word humor is “... then, so to speak, "in play," and is used with increasing frequency”(3). Although Nym is a character in a comedy, he is not the only Shakespeare character that repeats one word, "humour", frequently. Othello uses the word “honest” repetitively. Othello and Nym both are soldiers by trade, both seen as outcasts or outsiders in each play by the accompanying characters. There is no mention in either play of the characters' lineage. Nym a knave and Othello a hero yet use one word of ten. This statement is not interested in one play being a tragedy and the other a comedy. Still, both repeat one word. Yet, Nym is the character that speaks in slang.
