Male friendship in Shakespeare’s Plays

Friendship in Shakespeare’s plays is a surprisingly fragile experience.  This is particularly the case with males.  This isn’t to say that friendships are rarely established in these plays: on the contrary, there are numerous examples of males making common cause with one another and enjoying the companionship that results.  But these friendships rarely last: frequently they are infected with rivalry and mistrust.  The trigger may be a craving for power or – more usually – competition for the attentions of a woman.  Either way, the outcome is often conflict followed by collapse.

A good example of this kind of conflict emerges in “The Winter’s Tale”.  Here Leontes and Polyxenes share a friendship that has its roots in their childhood.  But Leontes feels threatened by the close friendship between his wife Hermione and Polyxenes – the play makes clear that he has no reason to do so – and as events unfold it becomes clear that he is willing to lose everything to pursue this baseless fantasy.  Events are kind to him, and a generation later, much of what he lost is restored, but the destruction of his friendship is a common pattern in these plays.

Similar conflicts over women underwrite one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” (c. 1590), and one of his last, “The Two Noble Kinsmen” (1613).  In the earlier play, Valentine discovers that in courting Silvia he has a secret rival – none other than Proteus, his old friend from Verona. In the event, Proteus is less than gentlemanly in his pursuit, though his conduct is forgiven by Valentine in the play’s closing scenes. 

Similar rivalry emerges in “The Two Noble Kinsmen”, a late play that follows the fortunes of two Theban warriors incarcerated in an enemy jail in Athens.  There the two cousins Arcite and Palamon catch sight of the irresistible Emilia, and any sense of fellow feeling between them is abandoned as they are persuaded to fight for her hand.  Arcite triumphs, but is then killed in an accident, leaving Emilia to Palamon. 

A variation on this theme is explored in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” (1594).  Here four male friends take a vow to abjure the delights of romance, and devote themselves for three years to study and self-restraint.  But the arrival of four young women disrupts their plans, as one by one they surrender to their instincts and favour their visitors with their attentions.  It is striking that their various courtships are carried out in secret from one another until an improbable spate of overheard soliloquies gives the game away.  Their plans are disrupted in the final scene by a bereavement that necessitates a postponement rather than a cancelation, though the outcome of these various romances is probably the theme of “Love’s Labour’s Won”, a play now lost to us.

Romance, then, is one trigger for the collapse of male friendships.  Power is another.  The sequence of events and relationships that underwrites “Henry IV Parts One and Two” is a case in point.  Prince Hal, the heir to the throne, is busy undermining his good reputation by keeping company with the rogue Falstaff, a friendship that survives all kinds of challenges: Hal’s practical jokes, for example, Falstaff’s cowardice on the battlefield, the fat knight’s frankly insulting (and overheard) libel of the king’s oldest son.  But ultimately the crown is Hal’s destiny and Falstaff is expendable, illustrated by the savage rejection Hal delivers to Sir John – “I know you not, old man” – as he parades to his coronation.  Their friendship, says Hal, is at an end.

On a slightly more elevated level, Shakespeare’s Roman plays are often underwritten by dissent between notable males formerly united in their common pursuit.  Cassius and Brutus in “Julius Caesar” combine (a touch uneasily) in their murder of Caesar, but though they unite long enough to face Antony’s forces at Philippi, their sense of united purpose is at an end.  Antony proceeds to make common cause with Octavius Caesar in “Antony and Cleopatra”, but though he marries Octavius’s sister in an attempt to reinforce their common cause, it is Egypt and Cleopatra that triumphs, albeit briefly. Thus love and power combine to separate the two Roman generals, a summary of Shakespeare’s implicit conviction that male friendship is prey to these siren voices.

Perhaps the most cynical portrayal of male friendship in these plays is explored in “Othello”.  Here, the play’s central character, everywhere lauded as “honest Iago”, dissembles friendships first with Roderigo, whom he uses in an attempt to destroy Cassio, then with Cassio, used to undermine Othello, and then the Moor himself.  For the audience, the play is an excruciating illustration of trust misplaced, an exploration of hatred under the guise of friendship and empathy.  The trigger here may be, as Coleridge suggests, Iago’s “motiveless malignity”, but there is an element of love turned sour as Iago’s esteem for the Moor is not requited until it is too late.

In general, Shakespeare is at pains to suggest a process is in train in these various failing relationships: initially, there is friendship, a shared history, a common pursuit.  One thinks of Banquo and Macbeth returning from the battlefield in Act One, and Banquo’s sober advice to his friend about the dangers of taking too much notice of what looks like good news.  Next there emerge the suspicions that things have not been as they seem, as the common pursuit dissolves in suspicion and mistrust.  Finally comes the reckoning, the resolution, in which the breakdown is all too clearly signalled. 

It is only fair to reflect that Shakespeare’s plays are not entirely devoid of male friendships that prosper and flourish: Antonio and Bassanio in “The Merchant of Venice” are close companions, though one could not claim their relationship is particularly balanced, and in practice Bassanio’s developing love affair with Portia suggests that its intensity is time-limited.  Elsewhere, Sir Andrew and Sir Toby in “Twelfth Night” are evidently good companions, as Sebastian and Antonio in “The Tempest” are partners in crime.  But to suggest that the most successful male friendship in Shakespeare is quite possibly Stephano and Trinculo from the same play is tantamount to acknowledging that this is an extremely thin field, and that in the playwright’s eyes, it is the course of male friendship that never did run smooth.