Hands On Shakespeare

Look at the Elizabethan gentleman in the portrait here. Listen to what he is saying.

How can you do that?

See how his right hand is held? It is a gesture called conscienter affirmo.

According to John Bulwer this gesture means:

     TO LAY THE HAND OPEN TO OUR HEART using a kind of bowing gesture is a garb wherein we affirm a thing, swear or call God to witness a truth, and so we seem as if we would openly exhibit unto sense the testimony of our conscience or take a tacit oath, putting in security that no mental reservation doth basely divorce our words and meaning, but that all is truth that we now protest unto. This expression hath been most observed in the ancient Grecians, as Chrysippus sayeth, who from this natural expression of the hand concludes the lodging of the soul to be about the heart. The Turks at this day are observed most frequently to use this natural form of protesting, with whom the hand spread upon the breast is accounted equivalent to the most solemn oath, insomuch as whatsoever they speak or promise using this gesture may be believed as ingeniously spoken, and the accomplishment of that promise to be presumed of. If we would see this form of sincere asserveration in practice, our own histories afford us many examples. For the form that hath been and is used at this day in judiciary trials and arraignments of noblemen who are tried by their peers is that when the Lord Steward or Clerk of the Crown asketh the Peers whether the nobleman there arraigned be guilty or not, everyone of them ceremoniously by his hand to his breast affirms upon his honor and conscience he is or is not guilty, according as they find him. The particularizing of the examples I purposely omit, as unwilling to offend any noble personages who love not to hear of the tainted blood of their ancestors.

Says an awful lot, doesn't it?

This is the origin of why we hold our hands over our hearts when we pledge allegiance. It is also the basis for why this particular gentleman, before God and men, can affirm that he was, indeed, Edward Alleyn, one of the great actors of the Elizabethan stage, 400 years after his death. It is called a rhetorical gesture.

This is an introduction to rhetorical gesture, and its part in shaping an actor's craft, as well as the body language we use every day.