SHAKESPEARE AND RAGUSA-DUBROVNIK

Argosies-Aragouse-Ragusa

Adam S. Eterovich

Croatians were in England and Spain before, during and after the Age of Discovery of the New World. A young Dalmatian playboy was in London in 1590 and would write to a friend in Florence of English society. These Croatian businessmen left their mark on Shakespeare, England and on maps of the American coast.

Shakespeare at the Elephant

In concluding these brief items of news about our Dalmatian Paolo Gondolo-Gundulich, I'm pleased to observe a brief clause from one of his letters which has some value for the Shakespearian critic. When he informs the Panciatichi about mutual friends, with regards to Vanni "that he goes more than ever to his Piero del Giardino" he adds that "if a man wants to find him he needs to go there or to the Elephant Inn", that is to the inn where he often stays, "a quel che pare," (where he stops?) ordinarily. In Twelfth Night we are reminded of the same name. It's Antonio who indicates and recommends to Sebastiano a good lodging in that unnamed city of Illyria (Ragusa-Dubrovnik) where Viola's young brother just arrived. In Gargano, G. S. “Mercante Paolo Gondola, 1590-1592.” Scapigliatura Italiana a Londra Sotto Elisabetta e Giacomo I, edited by Gondola's letters. Florence, 1923. Paolo Gundulich in London.

In olden days when proud Ragusan citizens, eager to prove that Shakespeare had heard of their famous city and that he must have known of their gallant merchant vessels (Argosies), wished to produce evidence in support of their claim, they would quote:

Merchant of Venice:

“Your mind is tossing on the ocean, There where your argosies with portly sail Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood Or as it were the pageants of the sea - Do overpeer the petty traffickers That curtsy to them, do them reverence, As they fly by them with their woven wings.”

The above quotation contains Shakespeare's most poetical description of argosies, but that is by no means the only passage in his works where he speaks of them. In fact, he mentions argosies in three more places. In Scene 3 of Act 1, Shylock, speaking to Bassanio, says that Antonio:

"hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies ... he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England . At the beginning of the third act we learn that Antonio's argosy bound to Tripolis, on her return voyage, had suffered shipwreck Antonio ... hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis".

And in the last act, when Antonio is resigned to his fate believing that all his vessels are lost, Portia comforts him by saying :

“three of your argosies Are richly come to harbour suddenly.”

Nor is The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare's only play in which argosies are mentioned.

Taming of the Shrew:

Towards the end of the only scene of Act II, Gremio and Tranio vie for Bianca's hand by boasting before her father Baptista of the riches that they can give her. Tranio says:

“If I may have your daughter to my wife, I'll leave her houses three of four... Besides two thousand ducats by the year Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.”

To which Gremio concernedly mumbles to himself:

“Two thousand ducats by the year of landl My land amounts not to so much in all.”

But then he soon recovers his wits and says aloud that he will leave Bianca, if she becomes his wife, much more:

“That she shall have, besides an argosy That now is lying in Marseilles road. What, have I choked you with an argosy? Than three great argosies, besides two galliasses And twelve tight galleys.“

In his edition of The Taming of the Shrew (New Penguin Shakespeare, 1968) G.R. Hibbard comments: "argosy - merchant vessel of the largest size, especially one from Ragusa-Dubrovnik - whence the name. In the Glossary to his edition of the play (The New Shakespeare, Cambridge, 1928 and 1953) quotes the O.E.D.: " Argosy merchant vessel of the largest size and burden, esp. those of Ragusa and Venice". In connection with argosies in The Merchant of Venice J. Dover Wilson adds: "The word is a corruption of 'Aragouse, the 16th century form of 'Ragusa'."

Henry VI

Finally, to exhaust the subject, I may mention that in The Third Part of Henry VI Shakespeare in passing uses the word "argosy" in a fine simile. It is the future King Edward IV speaking, who, after the defeat of Henry VI, compares Queen Margaret, fleeing with the dethroned King and the Prince of Wales, to an argosy in full sail:

“Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen, That led calm Henry, though he were a king, As doth a sail, filled with a fretting gust, Command an argosy to stem the waves.”

In Filipovich, Rudolph, Dubrovnik’s Relations with England, 1977. Zagreb.

Ragusa-Dubrovnik in America

Capo de Arause

The Cabot’s discovered North America in 1494 for the English Crown. Capo de Arause is located on Cabot’s map of 1544 between New York and Cape Cod. Stevens in his Historical and Geographical Notes states “ some names became hopelessly disguised, such as Capo de Arause which means nothing, instead of Capo de Arecite which does have a meaning”. Arause was corrupted Spanish, Portuguese and Italian pronunciation of Ragusa (Dubrovnik).

Capo Rognioso

Verranzano in his voyage has this place name in the area of Cape Cod coast of America in 1522, Cartier indentifies it as Rognoso, Hakluyt indicates Rogaoso. Others use Reanose, Renoose, Renouze, Renews and so on. All commentary of this place name comes to no conclusion or origin. The first use was Rogaoso. The English did use Rogosy, Ragosy and later Argosy to mean a ship laden with riches from Ragusa which at a later date was listed as a class ship, an Argosy.

CROATIAN BOOKS

A STATE OF DEFERENCE: Ragusa/Dubrovnik in the Medieval Centuries Susan Mosher Stuard

1992. 269 pages. HC. $24.00. Univ of Penn Press, PO Box 4836, Hampden Station, Baltimore, MD 21211

This full-length study of medieval Ragusa traces its remarkable course of social development and the internal cohesion and economic growth that went with it, making it a rival of Venice and Genoa.