Notes

The sense of absurdity continues unabated through this scene. Pandarus apes courtly graces and the servant apes Pandarus. Courts, like all restricted societies, generate their own idiom and devise many nice distinctions in the use of every common word or phrase. The gracious scene of Lord, Lady and Servant is a set piece of high farce in which the language of courtly Petrarchan adoration can carry only the wheedling of a flatterer and the frivolous licentiousness of a bored middle-aged couple. So we have Pandarus babbling: ‘Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company; fair desires in all fair measure fairly guide them - especially to you, fair queen: fair thoughts be your fair pillow.’

The scene also gives us an insight into the character of Paris who appears here as weak-willed and besotted with Helen. He even refers to her as his ‘Nell.’ When, at the end of the scene, he tells Helen that ‘Sweet, above thought I love thee’, the audience recognizes him as a man of low intellectual capability.

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