Enter Lance [with his dog Crab]

LANCE                        Nay, ’twill be this hour ere I have done weeping. All the kind of the Lances have this very fault. I have received my proportion, like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives. My mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting. Why, my grandam having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. – Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it.  (2.3.1-10)

CW: anti-semitism

Hooray, Lance and Crab the dog. Lance may be tear-stained and hiccupping, or he may be ironically dead-pan, as he explains how upset he is: nay, ’twill be this hour ere I have done weeping. I’m going to be sobbing for a good while yet, and all the kind of the Lances have this very fault. I can’t help it, all of the family get Emotional. A bit of malapropism, to lighten the tone: I have received my proportion (he means portion, allowance, by analogy with inheritance), like the prodigious (he means prodigal, not extraordinary) son, in the bible, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s court. Ah, so this is Proteus’s servant, off to Milan with him. This is it, he’s leaving home, leaving Verona. (Why has Lance not appeared already? Is this to limit the time that the dog has to spend backstage? Is this to delay one of the play’s selling points? Is it just messy plotting?)

But: I think Crab, my dog—and Crab sounds particularly funny to a modern audience, a crustacean canine! although it means crab-apple, and it sets up the ensuing joke—be the sourest-natured dog that lives. No show of emotion. My whole family, the entire household were in an uproar to see me go, weeping and wailing—my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying—alright, fair enough—our maid howling (starting to push it? but suggesting the general hysteria), our cat wringing her hands. AH. A vivid image of the little paws, but also, impossible for a quadruped, obviously… and Lance has to keep a straight face. And all our house in a great perplexity; it’s chaos, total melt-down. (But the shift to our does suggest close, cosy domesticity, something sheltered. PAWS.) Yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear. He is a stone, a very pebble-stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. This may be the moment where this brilliant speech tips over into perfection, and in so doing sets up its central joke and premise, that the dog doesn’t have to do anything to be hilarious, that the whole point is, Crab is a dog and behaves like one—whatever else Lance might be imagining that he could do. A Jew would have wept to see our parting; Lance employs a typically early modern anti-semitic slur, attributing hard-heartedness and cruelty. Then a transition to the next movement of the scene: why my grandam having no eyes, look you—which reinforces the grotesque humour of no eyes, meaning blind, and perhaps allows for a comic Welsh accent into the bargain—wept herself blind at my parting. If she hadn’t already been etc etc.

Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it. Let me demonstrate—as if the laughter of the audience means that they don’t believe him about the weeping and wailing, that Lance needs to show them what happened in order for it to be convincing.

(It’s possibly even funnier in this moment if Crab is just being a cheerful unconcerned doggy dog, going on with his doggy life—apologies to Auden—with a madly wagging tail, sniffing, generally being a good boy, rather than an impassive stone—although Woolly, perhaps the RSC’s most beloved Crab, was an almost definitionally hang-dog wolfhound…)