University of Virginia Library

THE BARD AND THE LABOR QUESTION

In these days of industrial unrest it will be of interest to learn Shakespeare's position on the labor question. Not only do the dramas testify to the fact that he was a barber, but they contain evidence of his membership in a barbers' union. In "Richard III" a disgruntled party asks:

Hamlet's query, "Is thy union here?" and old Polonius's mention of a "walkout" are significant indications that organized labor had secured a foothold in the poet's time. Moreover, in addition to many other corroborative passages in the plays, one of the speakers complains of a "sore injunction," and another declares:

The big commentators have unaccountably missed a point here. "To these injunctions" is the reading in most texts, and probably would have remained so but for an erudite member of

a local union, who suggested the emendation as above. The ingenious substitution of "at" for "to" lends new force to the lines, and will doubtless be adopted as a happy rendering of an otherwise obscure statement.

Such forceful expressions make it reasonably apparent that the attitude of the unions toward this legal process has not changed since Shakespeare's day, and are curiously prophetic of present conditions. Even the matter of Sunday closing did not escape the poet's attention, for he avows a, brotherly sympathy for the barber "whose sore task does not divide the Sunday from the week."

Truly, "the barber's chair fits all," and many of the great bard's immortals have reclined therein. "I must to the barber-shop," says the peerless Bottom, "for methinks I am marvelous hairy about the face." We have Falstaff's word for it that Bardolph was shaved at least once, "and lost many a hair." His face, all whelks and knobs, would have been a grievous task for an artist even of Shakespeare's skill. It is pleasant to think of that arrant rogue with basin beneath his chin, his wonderful nose shedding a lurid glare, like a Pharos, over the wide expanse of snowy lather, and wincing under a dull razor amid the ribald gibes of Fat Jack and bombastic Pistol.