basket

'Basket' is an intriguing word in the three Shakespearean plays in which it occurs. A basket is the stage prop in which the lecherous Falstaff is hidden and thrown from the window of the house into the Thames. The word occurs seventeen times in The Merry Wives of Windsor.   Perhaps Shakespeare remembers this scene when Hamlet in the closet scene refers to an obscure story of a basket and a monkey:

192 No, in despite of sense and secrecy, 
193 Unpeg the basket on the house's top, 
194 Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape, 
195 To try conclusions in the basket creep, 
196 And break your own neck down. 
                                            (Ham.3.4.192-196)

If one wants to hear sexual resonances in the use of the word, they are reinforced by the last appearance of a basket in Antony and Cleopatra, where the peasant brought Cleopatra a poisonous snake hidden in a basket of figs (Ant.5.2.340).

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23 September 1999

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