Study Questions
1. Where does Sly awaken?

2. How is Sly treated once he is awake?

3. How does Sly first respond to this treatment?

4. How does Sly describe himself?

5. What activities does the Lord suggest might be to Sly’s liking?

6. What classical text do the Lord and his servants allude to when they mention mythological characters, such as Adonis and Io?

7. How does the Lord ultimately convince Sly that he is a lord and not just dreaming?

8. Describe Sly’s reaction to his “wife.”

9. Does Bartholomew join Sly in bed?

10. What sort of play is announced to Sly?

Answers
1. Sly awakens in a bedroom at the Lord’s home.

2. The Lord’s servants treat Sly as a gentleman, and offer him wine and rich clothing.

3. At first, Sly tries to renounce his new identity and all the ministrations of the Lord’s servants.

4. Sly describes his ancestry, and his current vocation as a tinker (pot-mender), but does so in a pretentious way, as if he were a gentleman.

5. The Lord mentions riding, hunting, and hawking.

6. They refer to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a text alluded to in various ways in most of Shakespeare’s works.

7. The Lord switches from talk of clothes and courtly activities, of which Sly is ignorant, to mention of Sly’s beautiful wife.

8. Sly is instantly attracted to Bartholomew dressed up as a woman.

9. No. Bartholomew cannot join Sly because that would lead to Sly finding out that his “wife” is nothing but a cross-dressed boy, and reveal the joke the Lord has played on him.

10. The play is at first described as a comedy, but on further questioning Bartholomew calls it a kind of history. The first description is accurate.