After the king and his three friends recover from their Russian masquerade fiasco, Costard comes in to announce an impromptu pageant of the Nine Worthies. The king worries the pageant will shame them anew in front of the ladies, but Berowne reminds him that it is “some policy to have one show worse than the king’s and his company.”
Who are the Nine Worthies? In 1312, Jacques de Longuyon in his epic poem “Les Voeux du paon” (“The Vows of the Peacock”) described nine of the world’s most valiant warriors, each embodying the rules of chivalry. De Longuyon chose three men from three groups:
- Pagan: Hector, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar
- Jewish: Joshua, David, Judas Maccabeus
- Christian: King Arthur, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon
The Nine Worthies skit in Love’s Labor’s Lost contains two not on the original list: Hercules and Pompey the Great. The members of this motley group of comic relief take turns playing the various Worthies:
- Pompey the Great, who was part of the Roman military political alliance known as the First Triumvirate.
- Alexander the Great, the empire builder and commander.
- Hercules, a Roman mythological hero.
- Judas Maccabeus, a great warrior in Jewish history.
- Hector of Troy, the greatest fighter in the Trojan War.
But for all the royals’ talk about devoting three years to study of the ancients, when the men are faced with some of the most famous ancients, there is little respect—even civility—for them or the actors playing them. As in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when the royals mock the rustics’ Pyramus and Thisbe masque, these gents interrupt and mercilessly skewer the Worthies on an artistic as well as personal level.
Holofernes exits, saying, “This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.”
The audience doesn’t get to see the end of their show. An emissary from France arrives with some life-changing news, and suddenly, the party’s over.
—Catherine Foster
Reprinted from OSF’s 2018 Illuminations, a 64-page guide to the season’s plays. Members at the Donor level and above and teachers who bring school groups to OSF receive a free copy of Illuminations.