Shakespeare on Stamps

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote some three dozen plays, writes Scotland based English Teacher Jeff Dugdale, many of which have been celebrated with the issue of at least one postage stamp…

If you are writing up this part of your literature collection this article may help you to do more than place the name of the play beside each item in your display. The challenge of identifying what is going on in Shakespeare stamps falls into three categories for those of us with even a nodding acquaintance of his plays which we “had to do at school”, these challenges being a) simple, b) more difficult and speculative and c) impossible to be sure, unless you know every play inside out!

Before we start may I recommend a technique to you which will improve your chances. If you have a scanner, scan the stamp image into it and magnify—possible many times more than with a glass– to see the intricate detail in some stamp designs. Particularly rewarding here is such study of the 1995 GB issue designed by Shakespearean scholar C. Walter Hodges for the opening of the new Globe Theatre in London, for along the bottom of the se-tenant strip of five are some of Shakespeare’s best known characters. You’ll note for example as seen in the enlarged version of the central stamp below..Shakespeare himself at bottom left, then as we look cross the stamp Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Richard III, Falstaff and Bottom, as the literature accompanying the stamps confirms. But this highlights the challenge (and the fun) of researching uncaptioned stamps, because whilst the figures of Bottom and Richard III are very distinctive, the young man in breeches and sword in the centre could be a King Henry and the lovers could be from any one of The Comedies.

So let’s start with an easy one…

Hamlet
Hamlet is easily the most popular topic for philatelic designers celebrating the Bard. The 1964 and 1982 GB issues for Shakespeare both use images of Hamlet with the Skull, but the designs give the mistaken impression that the hero is alone and deeply pensive. In fact the scene in which Hamlet handles the skull has three characters in it and is initially a comic one.

Great Britain issues featuring images of Hamlet

Hamlet, returning to Denmark in Act V Scene i after escaping death at the hands of assassins hired by his evil uncle King Claudius comes across a grave digger, one of Shakespeare’s clowns. He is preparing Ophelia’s grave, but Hamlet is not even aware his love is dead and there is a short series of frankly awful double entendres relating to the “ownership” of the grave before Hamlet spots a skull, which the grave digger identifies as that of Yorick, the long dead royal jester with whom The Prince as a child played. This leads Hamlet to discuss with his friend Horatio the subject of transience and to reflect on his own mortality……..

Alas! Poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is ! my gorge rises at it.

The skull scene is also referred to in Hamlet stamps from Romania (1983) Liberia (1987) and St Vincent Grenadines (1990) albeit Disney-fied and of course the skull appears in a corner of the US Shakespeare issue (1964).

This 1989 Sierra Leone issue for Hamlet shows Act I Sc iv, where Hamlet and his friends are astonished to see the Ghost of his father King Hamlet.

Horatio: Look, my Lord, it comes!
Enter Ghost
Hamlet: Angels and ministers of grace defend us! –

Alone, Hamlet pursues the Ghost and learns that his death was by murder which he is then charged to “Revenge!”

Sierra Leone also issued in 1990 a long set to mark the achievements of famous English stage and film actor Laurence Olivier, in which the souvenir sheet shows a still from his 1947 presentation of Hamlet.  Both images of The Prince suggest he is alone and thinking before delivering one of his early soliloquies, possibly

O ! That this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew; (I ii,129)

or

To be or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them ? (III, I, 56).

Whatever the designer intended, Horatio’s words from V, ii, 373 over the dying Hamlet, given on the sheet, do not relate to what is shown in the accompanying image!

Olivier’s Hamlet is also the subject of a 1990 San Marino issue. (not shown).

This 1966 USSR issue (above) depicts a scene from a Russian film of Hamlet. I surmise that the images show the brooding Hamlet with Queen Gertrude his mother after he has told her that King Hamlet was murdered by his brother Claudius, now her new husband, and that the following quote from Act III Sc ii is appropriate…

Queen: O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain
Hamlet: O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.

Ophelia, Hamlet’s troubled love obsession appears in a number of stamps, for example in the St Vincent, Grenadines Disney issue where the illustration of her sitting reading a letter, which does not actually happen on stage, but something inspired by it does in Act II Sc ii:

Polonius: I have a daughter, – have whilst she is mine, –
Who, in her duty and obedience, mark
Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise
(Reads—letter from Hamlet-to King Claudius)
“To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautiful Ophelia…”

See also a local post issue from the Scottish island of Staffa (not shown).

Ophelia and Gertrude are shown either side of Hamlet in a 1969 Polish issue which features a painting by J. Malczewski, in which both women appear to be wearing handcuffs, but why I have not yet been able to fathom.

One of the most famous paintings related to Shakespeare is Sir John Millais’ “Death of Ophelia” and this may well appear on a stamp but my researches have not yet located one. (The subject was also painted by Eugene Delacroix.)

Ophelia’s suicide happens of course off stage and is reported in Act IV Sc vii

 

Laertes: Drown’d! O, where?
Gertrude: There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come…

This stamp from the Trucial State of Fujeira in 1969 shows the moment Hamlet finally kills his uncle in Act V Sc ii:. On learning of his treachery from the dying Laertes

Laertes:…the king, the king’s to blame
Hamlet: The point envenom’d too!
Then venom to thy work (Stabs the King)

 

 

Romeo and Juliet
Stamps from Russia (1961) and Sweden (1975)  show similar scenes from the Romeo and Juliet ballet by Prokofiev, both suggesting the joy of their young love as captured in the famous sonnet Romeo shares with Juliet on their love-at-first-sight meeting  in Act 1 Sc v

Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this, –
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss…

Great Britain (1964) and Hungary (1948) both select the Balcony Scene for their issues so any number of quotations from Act II Sc ii would be appropriate, such as

Juliet: Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say goodnight till be morrow (II, ii, 184)

But this 1964 Soviet issue must be regarded as purely representational (or, if you like an error) showing to the left of The Bard’s portrait the lovers and to the right Romeo’s friends Mercutio and Benvolio observing them from a distance. Since the romance between Romeo and Juliet was a forbidden and secret one there was no public display of affection until the very end, though Romeo told his friends much about his feelings for Juliet.

The St Vincent Grenadines Disney issue for this play shows a suitably silly cow (!) playing the Nurse, apposite in my opinion as the character is a loyal but somewhat supercilious and garrulous one as we see from this speech of hers in Act I Sc iii where she discusses Juliet’s birth with her mother…

Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she—God rest all Christian souls!-
Were of an age: Well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me:- but, as I said,
On Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well

And so she goes on and on!

The 1969 Fujeira issue depicts Romeo and Juliet together in her bedroom, no doubt with the Nurse outside keeping guard.  It looks as if it is time for Romeo to leave so this could represent the opening words of Act III Sc v

Jul: Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;

Both the 87 Liberia and the 89 Sierra Leone issues use almost identical artwork to show Juliet awakening from her false death to find Romeo lying beside her having taken his own life, presuming that Juliet’s body being in the crypt meant she was dead.

Juliet: What’s here? A cup, clos’d in my true love’s hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:-
O churl ! drink all, and leave no friendly drop
To help me after?  – I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me died with a restorative.

Othello
Sierra Leone’s 1989 issue shows us almost the beginning and end of this tragic plot. In this first stamp we see the middle aged Moor seeking the hand of the youthful Desdemona in marriage from her father, Brabantio. In order to convince the aged parent of his good intentions Othello is required to explain how this unlikely match occurred which he does with a convincing speech in Act 1 Sc iii. At the end of it  Brabantio acquiesces grudgingly parting with an ominous warning which sticks in Othello’s mind when Iago, his evil lieutenant starts to poison it regarding his new bride’s constancy

Brabantio: Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes
She has deceiv’d her rather, and may thee.

Later, in Cyprus itself, a distraught Othello is forced to be polite to Lodovico, kinsman to Brabantio who has arrived in Act IV Sc I to bring new instructions for the great man, a scene represented on this 1964 Cyprus issue:

Lod: the duke and senators of Venice greet you.
(Gives Othello a packet)
Oth: I will kiss the instrument of their pleasures
(Opens the packet and reads)
Des: And what’s the news good cousin Lodovico?
Iago: I am very glad to see you, signior

Welcome to Cyprus.

An 87 Liberian issue and  second 89 Sierra Leone stamp use very similar designs to depict the last moments of Desdemona’s life. Othello, shown with dagger in hand,  is about to smother her because, consumed by jealousy and doubt in his own worth thanks to Iago, he wrongly believes Desdemona has been having an affair with one of his staff Cassio. As he approaches her sleeping figure in Act V Sc II riven with anguish Othello says

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!
It is the cause—Yet I’ll not shed her blood;
Not scar that whiter skin of hers than snow
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
(Takes off his sword)
Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light:
which he goes on to do by suffocating her with a pillow just before Emilia, Iago’s wife, arrives:
Des: But while I say one prayer
Oth: It is too late. (Smothers her)
Emil. (within) My Lord, my lord , what ho!

All of which also makes little sense given the very similar design of the 1969 Fujeira issue where Othello approaches his sleeping wife dagger in hand and in this 1972 stamp from the Yemen Arab Republic inscribed “Verdi Othello” in which the man with the sword appears to be about to cleave in half the women in front of him!

Othello also carries a dagger in the 1969 Ras Al Khaima issue which in fact marks Verdi’s 1887 opera Otello, with a libretto by Arrigo Boito, but this scene does occur in the play, where in Act V Sc ii the tragic hero takes his own life, his last words being:

Set you down this
And say, besides, – that in Allepo once,
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduc’d the state
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him—thus (Stabs himself)

Sierra Leone also includes an Othello stamp in its Laurence Olivier set showing a little of Venice in the bottom right — the subtitle of the play is “The Moor of Venice” – and two issues from Grenada Grenadines show the famous pairing of Paul Robeson and Ethel Barrymore as the doomed lovers. A 1997 Rumanian issue also depicts Constatin Serghie in the title role in a production in the mid-1850’s.

Actors who have played The Prince
Several stamps show various actors playing the role of Hamlet, traditionally the apogee of a serious actor’s career e.g. from France (1976), The Netherlands (1978), from Romania (1983 and 87) and from St Lucia (1981) which shows the legendary Sarah Bernhardt in the role. Grenada (Grenadines) in 1989 produced a series of stamps of famous actors within which  is a somewhat unimaginative issue for Hamlet in which John Barrymore appears in a suit.

French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) also played the role of Hamlet and is shown in role in the St Lucia stamp (not shown) issued in commemoration of the International Year of Disabled Persons, as she had a leg amputated in 1915 but still persevered with her stage career.

Macbeth
This play which is about the Eleventh Century Scottish King’s lust for power is surprisingly under-represented philatelically with just over half a dozen stamps for the play which is the most often taught Shakespearean play in British schools. Shakespeare’s grasp of history is quite inaccurate but the play is amongst the most popular ever written because of its timeless theme, repeated in the famous dictum of Nineteenth Century historian Lord Acton, “Power Corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The question all who study the play have to ask themselves is “To what extent is Macbeth a noble man corrupted by evil spirits ?”

One 1989 Sierra Leone design shows the three witches flaring up from behind a rock to startle Scottish nobles Macbeth and Banquo who are on their way home to Forres, which is near Inverness, after defeating the Norwegian invaders in battle in Fife in Act 1 Sc ii and the incident occurs just as the victorious soldiers are chatting thus:

Macbeth: So foul and fair I have not seen.
Banquo: How far is’t called to Forres? – What are these,
So wither’d, and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth
And yet are on ‘t?

A 1976 stamp from Germany depicts the actress Hermine Körner as Lady Macbeth in what appears to be the Act 2 Sc i scene in which Duncan is being murdered offstage, suggested by her anxious state and the staircase in the background. As she waits Macbeth is upstairs killing the old man in the hope of being nominated his successor, but Lady Macbeth is not sure of her husband’s efficiency in drugging the King’s guards and says:

Alack! I am afraid they have awak’d
And ‘tis not done ; – the attempt, and not the deed,
Confounds us.—Hark! – I laid their daggers ready;
He could not miss ‘em.  Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done’t.

The next stamp from the Fujeira set (above) depicts the very next lines in the play where Macbeth re-enters, foolishly carrying the daggers, which his wife chastises him over and which she has to place back at the murder scene as he is too terrified to return himself

Macb: I have done the deed.—Didst thou not hear a noise?
Lady M: I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry
Did not you speak?
Macb: When ?
Lady M: Now.
Macb: As I descended?
Lady M: Ay.

Following the murder of King Duncan, that is the toppling of the rightful monarch, a whole series of equally unnatural events is reported in a conversation between the Scots nobleman Ross and an Old Man in Act III Sc ii:

Old M.: ‘Tis unnatural,
Even like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last,
A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.

Part of this quotation appears on three 1964 local post stamps from Lundy Island (below left), presumably which has a colony of falcons on it.

The 1987 Liberia issue (above right) depicts Macbeth’s Act IV Sc i return to consult the witches after he has  murdered Banquo, fearful of his future and wanting to learn what they predict.

Macb: How now, you secret, black and midnight hags!
What is’t you do?
All: A deed without a name.
Macb: I conjure you, by that which you profess—
Howe’er you come to know it, – answer me:

The second 1989 Sierra Leone design is taken from near the crisis of the play and shows Lady Macbeth’s last few moments on the stage. Being party to the murder of King Duncan and knowing of her husband’s other blood lettings, the Lady has lost her reason and her madness is depicted in the well known sleep-walking scene, (Act V Sc I) which is observed by A Gentlewoman, who explains to The Doctor…

Lo you, here she comes!
Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper
This is her very guise; and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close

A mini-sheet complementing the Grenada Grenadines famous international Shakespearean actors set depicts two locally famous West Indian actors, one of whom is here shown playing Lady Macbeth.

The Merchant of Venice
Also still much taught in schools because of its accessible mixture of magical love story and a plot which depicts racial issues, and very recently issued as a major motion picture with Al Pacino as Jewish money lender Shylock and Jeremy Irons as Antonio, the Merchant, this play has attracted some philatelic attention. In the play Shylock, who resents the harsh treatment of him by Christians because of his money lending  sets out to get his revenge on Antonio by wagering a pound of the Merchant’s flesh against the timely repayment of a loan backed by Antonio. The court action, necessary because the loan is not paid in time, in which Shylock’s scrupulous words are turned back upon him by a clever lawyer, really Portia in disguise, is amongst the most famous in all of Shakespearean plays.

This Sierra Leone stamp shows Act I Sc iii  in which Antonio seeks to borrow money from his rival Shylock with his friend Tubal in attendance. However, this grouping represents either artistic licence or a design error as the stage directions of the scene are as follows:

Venice. A public place, Enter Bassanio and Shylock

So Bassanio, Antonio’s friend not Tubal ought to be in the grouping, and this is indeed the case in the 1969 Fujeira stamp design…

This is the scene in which the Jewish money lender makes his jesting (!) bargain about being paid “a pound of flesh” if Antonio does not repay on time:

Antonio: Well, Shylock, shall we be beholden to you?
Shylock: Signior Antonio, many and time and oft,
In the Rialto, you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe:
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Also still taught in schools and usually to younger pupils is this romantic fairy tale, which is very popular on stamps. Inevitably the first image a designer is going to consider is that of Bottom the weaver with his Ass’s head placed on him by Puck as a joke in Act III Sc I l.124  Oberon has placed love-juice on his Queen Titania’s eyes so she will fall in love with the first thing she sees on wakening, which— alas—is Bottom !

Quince: Bless thee, Bottom ! Bless thee! Thou art translated.
Bottom: I see their knavery; this is to make an ass of me; to fright me, if they could…
Titania: I pray thee gentle mortal, sing again:
Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;

Stamps from East Germany (1973), Great Britain (1964), Fujeira (1969) Czechoslovakia (1964) show various combinations of Bottom, Puck and Titania and a stamp from Dominica (1987) shows the painter Marc Chagall’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the infatuation.

However a stamp from St Kitts Nevis (1970) showing a scene from a presentation of the play on stage gives few clues about what is going on…

There is a stunningly beautiful 1989 issue of 21 stamps in a sheet from Ghana complete with quotations and scenes from the play, part of which is reproduced below. An item to treasure if you can get it.

Henry IV
Most of the images designers have used for the  stamps issued to mark this two part play feature one of the most famous and amusing of all Shakespearean characters, Sir John Falstaff, in Henry IV Part 1 the drinking companion of Prince Hal, who will become King Henry V. Falstaff is pictured in this St Vincent Disney issue with his mouth open — for one of his three essential habits – eating, drinking and talking about himself, in any order you like!

One Sierra Leone issue would appear to show action from Act II Sc ii of Henry IV Part 1 set on Gadshill where  Prince Henry (aka Hal) and Poins have set up some of their mates including Falstaff to rob some travellers. The robbery being over, Hal and Poins then very easily rob Falstaff and Co who run away scared putting up no resistance dropping their ill gotten gains. These actions later lead to Falstaff’s well known story explaining why he no longer has any of the booty…

Falstaff etc: Stand!
Travellers: Jesu bless us!
Falstaff: Strike down with them; cut the villains’ throats: – ah whoreson caterpillars! Bacon-fed knaves’ they hate us youth! down with them; fleece them.

The stamp above from Liberia seems to depict a scene from Act II Sc iv of Henry IV, Part 2 featuring Mistress Quickly, the hostess of the tavern and her bawdy friend Doll Tearsheet, romantically linked to Falstaff. The ladies have just learned that Falstaff may well be off to the wars again…

Host: By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet but you fall to some discord:…
Doll: Come, I’ll be friends with you thee, Jack; thou art going to the wars; and whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.

The second of the two Sierra Leone issues, above, also seems to relate to Henry IV Part 2, depicting Act III Sc ii set at the Court before Justice Shallow’s House in Gloucestershire, a scene which is peopled by characters with such wonderful names as Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble and Bullcalf, whom Falstaff has come to try to enlist into his side’s cause.

Shal: What think you, Sir John? A good limbed fellow; young, strong and of good friends.
Falstaff: Is thy name Mouldy?
Moul: Yea, an’t please you.
Falstaff: ‘Tis the more time thou wert used.

Falstaff’s typically arrogant demeanour is well caught in the 1969 Bulgarian issue which shows a painting of  the actor Krustyn Sarafanov in the role.

Falstaff appears in only a few scenes in Henry IV, part 2 and is quite rejected by Prince Hal when has become King in Henry V.

The Merry Wives of Windsor
In this play Falstaff is no longer a strong confident figure and is much disconcerted in Windsor Forest where he ends up having tried to woo two citizens’ wives, Mrs Ford and Mrs Page, simultaneously.

In this Liberian stamp we see Sir John possibly in the company of Mistress Quickly and Robin his page in Act II Sc ii with the suggestion of location given through part of Windsor Castle shown in the background. Mistress Quickly is acting as a go-between for Falstaff and one of the two married ladies he is attempting to woo, but as usual she is up to no good and is really collaborating in an elaborate trick to be played upon the foolish knight:
Falstaff: But what says she to me? Be brief my good she Mercury.
Quick: Marry, she hath received your letter; for the which she thanks you a thousand times and she gives you to notify that her husband will be absence from his house between ten and eleven.

In stamps from Sierra Leone and Fujeira (1969) after many humiliations, a bewildered Falstaff wearing antlers is shown in Act V Sc v at Herne’s Oak in the Forest, where he has been attacked by mock fairies and the husbands of the two ladies he has woo’d.

Mrs Ford: Sir John ? Are thou there, my deer, my male deer?
Falstaff: My doe with the black scut? – Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves; hail kiss
comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here (Embracing her bosom)
Mrs Ford: Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
Falstaff: Divide me like a bribe-buck, each a haunch.

Henry V
In this history play the young Prince Henry has shed the chrysalis of Hal and become King of England with a mission—to defeat the French and claim that throne as well.

The Sierra Leone stamp of famous English actor Laurence Oliver includes a ship in the bottom right corner, a reference to Henry’s voyage to France to besiege the French city of Harfleur

The 1964 Great Britain issue shows Henry praying before the battle of Agincourt in Act IV Sc I:

K. Henry: What kind of god are thou, that suffer’st more
Of mortal griefs than do they worshippers?
What are thy rents ? What are they comings-in?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth!
Are thou aught else but place, degree and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?

Richard III
This play completes the tetralogy of Histories about the ancestors and descendants of Prince Hal begun with Henry IV, i and ii, Henry V, and continued in Henry VI, i, ii and iii, the last four written by Shakespeare between 1590 and 1592.

The Sierra Leone design for this play looks as if it represents Richard III’s state on the night before the Battle of Bosworth, in Act V Sc III where the ghosts of those whom Richard has killed appear and correctly foretell his defeat:

K. Richard: O Thou whose captain I account myself,
Look on my forces with a gracious eye;
Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath
That they may crush down with a heavy fall
The usurping helmets of our adversaries….
(Sleeps. The Ghost of Prince Edward, son to Henry VI, rises)
Ghost: Let me sit heavy on thy soul tomorrow!…
(The Ghosts vanish. King Richard starts out of his dream).
K. Richard: Give me another horse—bind up my wounds
Have mercy, Jesu! – Soft I did but dream —

King Lear
This late play (1604-5) is the most difficult of the tragedies to read and study and is seldom taught in schools, as its themes are very adult and are about the concerns of a petulant and unwise old man, who we would today guess has developed some symptoms of Alzheimers Disease.  If playing Hamlet is the aspiration of the young player, then taking on the immense role of Lear is definitely that of the mature character actor, like the late Richard Burton shown on this Grenada Grenadines issue.

In this 1973 stamp from East Germany, we see Lear with two of his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, the last of which trio professes to love her father for what he is and not what he can bequeath his offspring like the mercenary older pair.  Strangely this response does not please Lear and instead he determines to divide up what he was going to give Cordelia between the other two.  This design possibly shows Lear rejecting her in Act I Sc I.

Lear:…Be as well neighbour’d, pitied, and relieve’d
As thou my sometime daughter.
Kent: Good my liege, –
Lear: Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I lov’d her most and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery.—Hence and avoid my sight!
(To Cordelia)

However, Goneril and Regan then reveal their heartless feelings for their father by breaking many promises regarding his welfare and turn him out of their home into the teeth of a storm which we see depicted in the Sierra Leone stamp, which shows from left Kent, The Fool and Lear on the Heath in Act III Sc ii:

Enter Kent
Kent: Who’s there?
Fool: Marry, here’s grace and a cod-piece; that’s a wise man and a fool.
Kent: Alas, sir, are you here ? Things that love night
Love not such nights are these: the wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves.

It is later in this scene that Lear concludes:

I am a man
More sinn’d against than sinning.

The Liberian stamp shows a scene from Act III Sc iv where The Earl of Gloster enters seeking Lear and his abandoned crew, who have meantime been befriended by Gloster’s betrayed son Edgar, disguised as a lunatic beggar.

Enter Gloster with a torch
Lear: What’s he?
Kent: Who’s there? What is’t you seek?
Glo: What are you there? Your names?
Edgar: Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt and the water…
Glo: What, hath your grace no better company?

The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a relatively popular play philatelically and its plot has become more accessible to the public through the Cole Porter 1948 musical Kiss Me, Kate.

The St Vincent Grenadines issue introduces us to the main protagonists Katharina and Petruchio. Katharina the elder daughter of a Padua nobleman has a younger sister Bianca who may not marry until a husband has been found for her shrewish sister. Petruchio agrees to woo Katharina for mercenary reasons and to help his friend who is in love with Bianca.

Petruchio adopts a uxorious approach to his new shrewish wife and by keeping her awake and hungry manages to tame her and at the end of the play wins a bet about her skills as a wife.

The 1969 Fujeira stamp possibly shows the first meeting of Petruchio and Kate in Act II Sc I where he immediately sets out to rile her:

Pet: Good morrow, Kate, for that’s your name, I hear.
Kat: Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing.
They call me Katherine that do talk of me.
Pet: You lie, in faith, for you are called plain Kate
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst.

The first Sierra Leone issue possibly shows Act IV Sc I set in Petruchio’s house where he sets out to show how masterful he is in front of Kate by ordering the servants about and verbally and physically abusing them:

Pet: Where is the foolish knave I sent before?
Grum: Here, sir, as foolish as I was before.
Pet: You peasant swain! You whoreson malthorse drudge
Did I not bid thee meet me in the park
And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?

The second Sierra Leone stamp depicts a later phase of the same scene where Petruchio deliberately pretends nothing is good enough for his new wife and so she begins to starve and in due course becomes subdued and less shrewish.

Pet: What’s this? mutton?
Servant: Ay
Pet: Who brought it?
Servant: I.
Pet: Tis burnt: and so is all the meat
What dogs are these? Where is the rascal cook
How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser
And serve it thus to me that love it not?
There, take it to you, trenchers, cups and all
(Throws the meat etc about the stage)

Much Ado About Nothing
Beatrice and Benedick have a similar relationship to Petruchio and Katharina for much of this charming comedy for which there is one stamp, a Disney design from St Vincent Grenadines.

In the stamp Benedick appears to be wooing Beatrice at the end of the play in which their relationship has formed a subplot to the main story of the troubled love affair of Claudio and Hero.  With that pair finally united, their closest friends turn their acerbic words upon each other once again in the closing scene, (Act V Sc iv) until it is proved to all that they really do love one another:

Bene: Do not you love me?
Beat: No, no more than reason.
Bene: Why then your uncle, and the prince, and Claudio
Hath been deceived; for they swore you did.
Beat: Do not you love me?
Bene: No, no more than reason.
Beat: Why then my cousin, Margaret and Ursula
Are much deceived; for they did swear you did.

Julius Caesar
Is also treated in the St Vincent G set in a design that can relate to only one scene (Act III Sc ii) which is amongst the most famous in the Shakespearean canon.

Mark A: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them
The good is oft interred with their bones.

Anthony and Cleopatra
This is a sort of sequel to Julius Caesar showing the rivalry between Mark Anthony and Octavius Caesar which culminates in the Battle of Actium referred to via depiction of a war chariot in a detail of this stamp for Laurence Olivier.

As You Like It
Set in the Forest of Arden, as the Sierra Leone issue suggests, perhaps this scene is actually “Under the Greenwood Tree” (Act II Sc v) It possibly shows from Act III Sc ii, Audrey, a country wench, the clown Touchstone whose naïve dialogue provides much amusement in the play and Jacques one of the sons of Rowland de Bois:

Touch: Come Apace, good Audrey, I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? Am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you?
Aud: Your features! Lord Warrant us! What features?
Touch: I am here with thee and thy goats as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
Jaq: (Aside) O knowledge ill-inhabited ! Worse than Jove in a thatch’d house

All’s Well That Ends Well
At the start of this play Helena cures the King of France of his illness and as a reward is allowed to select a husband. She chooses Bertram, whom she loves, but he unwillingly obeys the king’s order to wed her. This Fujeira stamp shows the moment in Act II Sc iii when Helena indicates her choice.

Hel: (To Bertram) I dare not say I take you; but I give
Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
Into your guiding power. – This is the man.
King: Why, then, you Bertram, take her; she’s thy wife.

 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona
This rarely produced early comedy concerns friends Valentine and Proteus, the latter being in love with Julia who loves him. On his travels Valentine falls in love with Silvia, daughter of the Duke of Milan, the subject of famous song “Who is Silvia? What is she?” (Act IV Sc ii).  Unfortunately Silvia also attracts Proteus when he encounters her on a journey away from Verona and he determines to betray both friend Valentine and love Julia by carrying off Silvia.

Silvia escapes from Milan to seek out Valentine and is captured by outlaws as we see in this stamp from Sierra Leone (Act V Sc iii) but Proteus eventually rescues her and there is much further complication before it all ends happily with the original lovers reunited.

Outlaw: Come, I must bring you to our captain’s cave;
Fear not; he bears an honourable mind,
And will not use a Woman lawlessly.
Silvia: O Valentine, this I endure for thee. (Exeunt)

Twelfth Night
The final G.B. issue in 1964 shows Feste, the Clown, slapstick in hand posing before the castle of Duke Orsino who is in love with the lady Olivia. Much of the comedy in the play comes from the sub-plot dealing with members of Olivia’s household, Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, his friend Malvolio and her clown Feste.

The play’s lyrical atmosphere is promoted by Feste’s two lovely songs “Come away, come away, death” and “When that I was and a little tiny boy”

Seeing Double?
You might think you’ve seen these stamps in earlier parts of this feature but you’d be wrong! Take a closer look and see how the artwork for one country has been used for another’s by the company who produced these issues for Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1987 and 1989 respectively.