In Love’s Labor’s Lost, the King of Navarre and three of his Lords vow to study and fast and speak to no women for three years, when lo and behold, the Princess of France and her three Ladies show up. Berowne (rhymes with moon in the play), the wittiest of the men, falls in love with Rosaline, the wittiest of the women.

I am always fascinated to see what a really close read reveals in a play, how what we thought we knew about a play changes when we dig under the surface layer. (How does Shakespeare do that???) I want to share an epiphany that many of us had during a recent Zoom very-close reading of Love’s Labor’s Lost: Rosaline, beloved of Berowne, is a Black woman. She’s not just auburn haired (“Elizabethans preferred fair blondes”); she is not just darker complected than Brits (“Rosaline is probably Italian”); it is not a metaphor (“Berowne refers to her darker nature,” “dark versus white is a classical trope”). Rosaline is a Black woman. This becomes manifestly evident when one stops reading excuses and listens to just the text.

Berowne first describes Rosaline:
    “And, among three, to love the worst of all:
     A wightly [nimble] wanton with a velvet brow,
     With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes . . .” [pitch is black tar]

Later he says:
    “O, if in black my lady's brows [forehead] be deck'd,
      It mourns that painting [makeup] and usurping hair [a wig]
      Should ravish doters with a false aspect;
      And therefore is she born to make black fair;
      Her favor [appearance] turns the fashion of the days,
      For native blood is counted painting now;
      And therefore red [blushing skin color], that would avoid dispraise,
      Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.”

Berowne’s peers tease him:
    “By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.”
    “O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
     The hue of dungeons and the suit of night.”
    “To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.”
    “And since her time are colliers [coal miners] counted bright.”
    “And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack [boast].”
    “Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.”

Berowne teases his friends that the makeup, the colors, on their lovers' faces will wash off:
      Your mistresses dare never come in rain,
      For fear their colors should be wash’d away.

Even the ladies tease Rosaline in the contrast of her “light” behavior and her dark skin:
      Rosaline asks: “What’s your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?’
      Katherine responds, “A light condition in a beauty dark.”

The Princess plays on Berowne’s letter to Rosaline, that she is described, “Beauteous as ink; a good conclusion.”

Berowne describes her hands as white, perhaps in the OED definition (“of a person, often as a term of endearment: highly prized, precious; dear, beloved, favorite”) or referring to her white gloves (“By this white glove—how white the hand, God knows”), which has probably sidetracked many an editor and educator.

And why not a Black woman? Aaron the Black Moor is beloved of a white woman, who births his child in Titus Andronicus. Desdemona marries a Black man, Othello. A tawny man comes to court Portia in The Merchant of Venice, indicating there is nothing unusual in that match-up. In The Merchant of Venice, Launcelot Gobbo has gotten a Black girl pregnant; Lorenzo says to him: “I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you can the getting up of the Negro's belly: the Moor is with child by you, Launcelot.” Perhaps Berowne was originally played by a Black man as well, but no matter his color, the reactions of the other nobles on Berowne’s love shines a spotlight on racism in the court (racism that doesn't deter Berowne) in a typically Shakespearean manner.

Love’s Labor’s Lost also has this stage direction: Enter Black moores with musicke. Interestingly, Queen Elizabeth had a group of eight “blackamoor” musicians and three dancing boys. Since the 1598 title page of the Love's Labor's Lost quarto states, “As it was presented before her Highness this last Christmas,” the Queen’s blackamoor musicians could certainly have been the ones playing music during the performance. And lest you believe the black Moors were merely tawny, the OED states that blackamoors are “black Africans, Ethiopians.”

I’ve been reading two books on the history of Blacks in England, Staying Power: The History of Black People in England, and Black Tudors: The Untold Story. It is eye-opening how Blacks, like Women, have been ignored in the historical record. During Shakespeare’s time, slavery was outlawed. Queen Elizabeth complained in 1596 that there were too many Blacks in London and were taking jobs away from Englishmen. Blacks had paid work and small businesses, worked in households, intermarried, appeared at court. And they showed up as characters in plays. :-)

anon!
Robin

p.s. There is another book I have not yet read: Black and British: A Forgotten History, by David Olusoga. Let me know how it is! On another note, check out these literary stickers that include William Shakespeare and other great writers.

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Click this red link to download the new Shakespeare Quiz just for you: Disturbed Dramas! :-)

And here are the answers to the previous quiz, Shakespeare Pictionary:
1) King Lear. 2) Romeo and Juliet. 3) Merry Wives of Windsor. 4) Antony & Cleopatra. 5) Merchant of Venice. 6) Henry the Fourth, part 1 or 2. 7) Macbeth. 8) Cymbeline. 9) Richard the Third. 10) The Tempest. 11) Hamlet.