The wisest fool

"...They have scared away two of my best sheep,
which I fear the wolf will find sooner than the master...."

                                                                       The Winter's Tale     (III, iii)


Shakespeare wrote these lines for an old shepherd, a character bewildered by a world that was changing around him. In equal measure, the world was changing for the playwright.

It isn't surprising that Ovid's classic Metamorphoses resonated with William Shakespeare. The Roman writer's narrative poem was evidently among the playwright's favorites: along with its tales of the mythological gods and subtle erotica, it reflected on the nature of change. Shakespeare's whole life was about change: some of it burdensome and harsh,  much of it unavoidable.

The sixteenth century into which Shakespeare was born had seen three changes in England's national religion over the course of a mere twelve years. The world of trade was transformed as well: the Age of Exploration brought with it new shipping trade routes that were oriented more toward the Atlantic than the Mediterranean, making England no longer a backwater at the edge of the European scene, but rather a geographically well-situated mover and shaker.

The English rural landscape was slowly changing as the steady enclosure of more and more land for sheep pasturage drove farm laborers off the land and into the cities, towns and villages, looking for work that many couldn't find. Yet it shouldn't be forgotten that so much of the nation was still essentially agricultural and rural, with inhabitants that lived their lives by the rhythms of the seasons and clung to time-honored beliefs that couldn't be easily changed by state decree.

This world of field and forest was the world of young William Shakespeare, and if his writings are any indication, that world stayed in his heart throughout his life.

Pictured above, in the collection of Agecroft Hall, is the central portion of a large English wool and silk tapestry (11 ft., 4 in. x 11 ft., 8 in.) made c1650 at Mortlake west of London, a tapestry works founded at the behest of King James I. The work is entitled, "The Wolf Hunt," and despite its hints of classicism, it reflects the abiding interest in the English landscape that persisted long after the poet Shakespeare had passed away.

In founding the tapestry works at Mortlake, and daring to compete with Flemish weavers across the English Channel, James was dubbed "the wisest fool in Europe."  Crazy like a fox: he had secretly enticed a number of Flemish weavers to cross over to England and weave for the royal venture. Although it took several decades, the Mortlake effort succeeded, producing fine tapestries that were much sought after both in England and on the continent. Pastoral scenes were hugely popular as subject matter for many of these tapestries, just as pastoral scenes had been popular in Shakespeare's plays.

As historian Michael Wood and others have pointed out, many of Shakespeare's works are sprinkled with references that have a distinct Warwickshire country flavor: he refers to the "hade land," a strip of land left unplowed in a field; to the "breese," gadflys that swarmed around livestock. He shows ample familiarity with sheep-shearing festivals as evidenced in The Winter's Tale, the local color and detail perhaps absorbed during his childhood. His father, a glover by trade, evidently did quite a bit of wool dealing on the side, and it stands to reason that young, observant William might have learned a thing or two.