Disguises, Disguises, Disguises.

 

Map of Medieval Nottingham, the site of the Silver Arrow contest.

Disguises. Disguises. Disguises. The usage of disguises grows as the Robin Hood story goes on. In Chapter 7, "The Silver Arrow", we see the hero go from the bliss of finding his long-lost friend of his heart and taking her as his forest bride, to facing peril of death with all of his men. This time it is directly under the gaze of the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Robin brings it about deliberately.

Where the story picks up in this chapter, King Richard has returned to England from the Crusades explicitly to put aside the tyrannical rein of his brother Prince John. Meanwhile the Sheriff of Nottingham has grown apoplectic over his failure to capture Robin. He (painfully) spends a great deal of money to travel to London under heavy armed escort to plead with the king for more resources to capture the rascal, who has been abusing the king's own forests. Unimpressed, the king dismisses him and sends him home. The Sheriff is humiliated and very angry.

He devises a plan to lure Robin into his clutches---an open archery contest in Nottingham. Being a man obsessed with wealth, he thinks in terms of silver and gold. The prize of the contest is a silver arrow with a gold tip as a prize. Robin will surely want to win the prize. He is sure this will work. 

On this, he is correct. The plan might well have worked but for the fact that one of Robin's men, David of Doncaster, has a sister who works as a maid in the household of the Sheriff. David visits his sister clandestinely and she tells him of the plan, in order to warn Robin that the contest is a trap. When David returns to the forest, he finds Robin has already heard of the contest and is planing to go. At first he brushes aside the warning from his own man, mocking his caution and cowardice. Then he hears about the details, and the thoroughness of the Sheriff's plan. So he adjusts his own plan. All of his men will go, each one in separate disguises.  

They make their way into town and blend in, in groups of two or three, and the Sheriff never suspects them. All the while he is looking for a group of men in Lincoln green, but none ever materialize.

Of course Robin wins the contest and is presented the arrow by the wife of the Sheriff. Afterwards she tells the Sheriff how much the contest winner resembled the charming butcher who once came to dinner. To seal the victory, Robin later delivers a letter to the Sheriff by means of an arrow that he shoots into the castle. The Sheriff now realizes his own idiocy and rages, vowing revenge. 

Marian does not make an appearance in this chapter. In the version presented in the 1938 Warner Brothers movie (which is itself based on other narrative-space variations of the story), it is Marian who takes the role of presenting the arrow to the winner.  The contest in the movie is being held by Prince John who has not yet been deposed (Claude Rains makes a superb villain in the movie). 

Sitting next to Marian, and knowing she is in love with Robin, the Prince watches her like a hawk for her reactions to the various contestants, and by this he discerns Robin's disguised identity even before he wins the contest. He savors the moment of letting Robin advance to the podium where he can spring the trap right in front of Marian.

According to classical Hollywood poetics, it is to Marian's virtue that she cannot hide her love for Robin. A woman in love can never truly hide it, and when pressed, she cannot deny it (but only a cad or a villain would press her on such an issue). Had she been able to conceal her feelings completely, she would not be worthy of being the true love of such a noble soul as Robin. Even if she must verbally deny her love for him, for example to save his life, her face and her voice cannot conceal her true feelings. This is, in fact, the glory of woman that she cannot hide her true love. A man who loves her may know this about her, and he conveys to her I can see right through you, and I like what I see.

A sociopathic villain, however, will also see right through her, in a coldblooded way, as does Prince John in the film (but not the Sheriff in the book, as this is much easier to convey with the camera than in print). Thankfully, in story terms at least, her virtue will save her. As a woman, she is vulnerable and in need of masculine protection, but also her love ultimately makes her invulnerable to the villain, even as he thinks he can read her like a book and anticipate her every move. He cannot see in her the depth of feminine power that comes from true love (otherwise he wouldn't be the villain). He cannot account for the power of the Spirit of Love to act in a spontaneous chaotic way that will foil his plans. It is the feminine submission of the heroine that invokes this Spirit to act to protect her. I love the way classic movies invariably brought out this theme.

In the book version, the Sheriff literally has everything he wants right in front of him, but is blinded by greed and hate. Ironically the Sheriff himself has a splendid wife who had effectively saved his life in the first encounter with Robin, and then, after the arrow contest, unknowingly provides the the service of telling the Sheriff he was duped.  Is it implied subtly that the Sheriff's wife saved his life a second time? 

Consider Robin's arrow message to him at his residence is seemingly superfluous in story terms. Why have it? The Sheriff already knows, because his wife told him. Of course, Robin himself doesn't know the Sheriff knows, but we do. Robin could have found out by other means that the Sheriff figured it out. Why have the whole episode of Robin going in to shoot the arrow? For closure purposes with a second arrow shot? Maybe.

If nothing else, the wife's informing him after the context told him how easily Robin was able to penetrate a high-security setting and to approach the Sheriff in person so brazenly. The Sheriff henceforth would be more on guard, fearing the next appearance of Robin. Robin does in fact go to the Sheriff's house, to shoot the arrow message. It serves Robin's ego to do this. He's rubbing it in, and only asking for trouble. 

By putting the Sheriff on guard as she did, the wife perhaps prevented Robin from ambushing the Sheriff and doing harm to him, perhaps killing him. This would have been bad for all involved in the story. Among other things, it would have prevented King Richard from coming to Nottinghamshire (as he is about to do) and fairly judge the conflict between the Sheriff and Robin. The King would been forced into an antagonistic position against Robin from the beginning. What a disaster.  Justice would not be restored to he kingdom.

I admit I sort of made all this last part up by speculation. I see no indication in the story that what I described in overtly implied. Rather I would argue it is a possible interpretive variation of the story. The continued vitality of the Robin Hood narrative in Anglo-American culture, however, means it is still possible to generate variations in the narrative space such as this, in a way that appeals to the curiosity of audiences. Sadly Hollywood has mostly forgotten how to do this, and instead it relies on cheap surface variations like changing a character from straight to gay, or white to black. It would all be so funny if it weren't depriving entire generations of the power of story to inform people of how to construct somewhat happy lives and avoid ones that are shitty and soul-killing. 

When shall Love flourish again, without disguise or guile? When at least shall the King return and restore Justice to the benighted land?