“Come Aloft, Jack-little-ape!”: Race and Dance in The Spanish Gypsie

Abstract

A Gypsy woman dances the Morris on the green with a human-sized baboon: such is the vision offered to spectators in act 3 scene 5 of Shakespeare and Fletcher's play, The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613). 1 As countrymen and countrywomen led by the local schoolmaster rehearse a Morris for Duke Theseus, they realize that they are one woman short: the countryman dressed as a Baboon has no female partner to dance with. Enter the jailer's daughter who, jilted, has turned mad, and the company quickly decides to recruit her. "Schoolmaster: And are you mad, good woman? Daughter: I would be sorry else. Give me your hand. Schoolmaster: Why? Daughter: I can tell your fortune. (She looks at his hand.) You are a fool" (3.5.78-80). 2 By offering to perform palmistry, the jailer's daughter presents herself, albeit briefly, as a figure that an early modern audience would immediately have recognized as a Gypsy woman. Since the term "Gypsy" served earlier in the play to reject romantic suitors, 3 the My gratitude goes to Jean E. Howard for her insightful suggestions and comments on this piece, and to the three anonymous reviewers at ELR whose feedback helped me strengthen this essay in every possible way.1. In this essay, I use the term "Gypsy" in keeping with its early modern usage. I save the term "Roma" for moments when I refer to the real-life ethnic group to which this racial slur was affixed.2. Quotations from The Two Noble Kinsmen excerpted from William Shakespeare, The Complete Works, ed. Gary Taylor et al. (Oxford, 2016). My reading of this scene is focused on Gypsiness specifically. For excellent accounts of the Africanist discourse in the same scene, see Sujata Iyengar,

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