SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 77

Report by Colin Shaw A prize of £5 was offered for an extract from a discussion between King Lear and Lady Capulet on the problems of female education.

There was only a small entry, but competitors displayed enough invention to make final selection difficult. I rejected entries which gave only bare statements of policy with nothing to connect them. This led to the regretful banishment of A. M. Sayers, whose Lear, although appropriately stormy, was not really relevant enough. Michael James's Lear, again almost the genuine article, did not contribute anything to the discussion. W. D. Gilmour had news of a girls' school in Elysium run by, of all people, Lady Macbeth, while M. Haslam had happened on an early version of Lear which sent the old man on a rest-cure to Verona, but neither of these happy notions quite bore fruit. The Lear of J. Aitken was somewhat too reminiscent of the avuncular oracles to be found in advice columns.

I was finally left with six entries from which to choose. With some. hesitaion, I laid aside D. R. Peddy and W. J. Carson, and recommend a first prize of two pounds to D. L. L. Clarke, with three prizes of one pound to the indivisible Messrs. H. A. C. Evans, Allan M. Laing and R. B. Browning.

FIRST PRIZE (D. L. L. CLARKE) Lady Had I my time again, rd mew her up

With some book-learned scholar, nor would yield No nurse access nor paramour, to fashion Her mind to heady love, ere she were wed And bedded safe out of my care betimes.

Lear: And if she were not buxom to thy will ? Lady C.: Thou art a father and thou askest thus ?

If scolding answer not, then to her sire .

A maid must answer give.

Lear: Madam, thou speak'st Of one, but how wouldst thou with three have fared, That hadst but one such plague to cope withal ?

Lady C.: Aye one, and that same one is ay too much. Yet 'tis all one. Begetting more than one, Thou shouldst not rate one daughter more than all Lear: And she the apple of mine eye ?

Lady C.: Why, marry, Being partial, look thou keep thine eye's sight clear.

Lear: Lady, thou'rt still far wide, who; ycung espous'd

And failing of control, wouldst lutve thy daughter Still wed as young as thou and like defect Perpetuate. My judgement never erred Till; dotard-like, my doating was o'erswayed By those fair-seeming strangers to my love.

If thou affection find in any child,

School it to cherish thee and never wed.

It is not whom we choose, but constancy In giving of indulgence to our choice That makes or mars our joy.

SECOND PRIZES (H. A. C. EvANs) Lady C.: Well, well, what think'st thou, lord ? How should we rear Our daughters ? Should we put them in the charge

And government of some devout and sad

Tutor, that would their tender minds instruct In divers lore ? Or should we train their youth To know the ways, and manners of the world, So might they grow apace?

Lear: Nay, ask me not.

For, me, 'twere well enow could they but learn

To pay the simple dues of gratitude.

To parents, and perform the offices Of nature with effects of courtesy, Eschewing all that glib and oily art Of Battery, whereby some seek their ends, And turn themselves into unnatural hags.

Lady C.: Marry, and so they should. But 'tis not all For they must early learn submissiveness To those that know what's best, and do their will.

Then must they make their dispositions fit For marriage ; learn the tried and cunning arts Of pleasing husbands, and the varied skills Of household governance; not waste their youth In a greensickly, mopisit maidenhood.

(ALLAN M. LAING) Lady Cap• ulet: Nay, Sir, I'd liefer maidens knew no book So they be fit to marry and to cook.

Lear: Your wisdom, lady, is a thought too strait

For ample cover to what maids should know.

A something you've forgot, which is the base And solid fundament of human trust: School them that they do match their inmost hearts With what their too-smooth tongues set forth. Let truth Be manifest, that simple fathers may Be not deceived with specious words, whose thoughts Give them the lie.

Lady Capulet: I do perceive you speak

From sad experience. Maids that seemeth meek In secret disobedience stubborn are

And murmur peace, while in their hearts is war.

I had a daughter. once. .

Lear: Forbear! Too much Of woe the tale portends. 0, you may teach Whate'er you will, till Aristotle be Outfaced and wise Pythagoras yield the palm, But if in love and honour they're not schooled They prove but cockatrices to be stamped By parent foot.

play, surely 'tis enow If maids to older, wiser heads do bow. Ay, there's the rub! Not weight of years alone Of heedless youth makes sages. Thou and I Exemplars are of this outstanding truth....

(R. B. BROWNING)

King Lear has a wreath of flowers around his scraggy neck.

Lady C.: My lord, what simp'ring swains would wish to woo The wretched maidens that know naught of life, Or cannot tell their beads . . . ?

King L.: My fool whose wisdom I do daily 'joy

Quoth that a learned maid with head -close-pack'd Is but a critic of her husband's mind ; With her the tongue doth daily carping bite The hands that feed her ; why, 'tis better far To gratify one's lord in other ways Than by giving him such polished wit As makes him sulk.

Lady C.: Ah, there's the rub—that men should' sulk ' And let the whip of maidens' knowledge bow Their sleek heads. Men will ever seek Those who have brains, bodies and such rare wit As will entrance them. Let us therefore fill

The air with sense and give the girlish eye

The food of wisdom. Let the facts of life By experts taught, and subjects that will crown All maids as queens and objects of esteem ;

They'll conjure up a better race of men.

King L.: My daughters three are ignorant as fools,

And scarce do know what ails their foolish hearts; They nothing know and while away the hours And will do so until the crack of doom.

Their mother fed them milk and nothing else;

My brains they have, and better far 'twould be

If they had learned to think and keep themselves.

What 9id my jester ? Ah. . . . Lady Capulet : Lear: