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diff --git a/1050-0.txt b/1050-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4bbc6e --- /dev/null +++ b/1050-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1728 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1050 *** + +THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS + +By Bernard Shaw + + + + +CONTENTS + + Preface + How the Play came to be Written + Thomas Tyler + Frank Harris + Harris "durch Mitleid wissend" + "Sidney's Sister: Pembroke's Mother" + Shakespear's Social Standing + This Side Idolatry + Shakespear's Pessimism + Gaiety of Genius + Jupiter and Semele + The Idol of the Bardolaters + Shakespear's alleged Sycophancy and Perversion + Shakespear and Democracy + Shakespear and the British Public + The Dark Lady of the Sonnets + + + + + +THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS + +1910 + + + + +PREFACE TO THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS + + + + +How the Play came to be Written + +I had better explain why, in this little _piece d'occasion_, written +for a performance in aid of the funds of the project for establishing +a National Theatre as a memorial to Shakespear, I have identified the +Dark Lady with Mistress Mary Fitton. First, let me say that I do not +contend that the Dark Lady was Mary Fitton, because when the case in +Mary's favor (or against her, if you please to consider that the Dark +Lady was no better than she ought to have been) was complete, a +portrait of Mary came to light and turned out to be that of a fair +lady, not of a dark one. That settles the question, if the portrait +is authentic, which I see no reason to doubt, and the lady's hair +undyed, which is perhaps less certain. Shakespear rubbed in the +lady's complexion in his sonnets mercilessly; for in his day black +hair was as unpopular as red hair was in the early days of Queen +Victoria. Any tinge lighter than raven black must be held fatal to +the strongest claim to be the Dark Lady. And so, unless it can be +shewn that Shakespear's sonnets exasperated Mary Fitton into dyeing +her hair and getting painted in false colors, I must give up all +pretence that my play is historical. The later suggestion of Mr +Acheson that the Dark Lady, far from being a maid of honor, kept a +tavern in Oxford and was the mother of Davenant the poet, is the one I +should have adopted had I wished to be up to date. Why, then, did I +introduce the Dark Lady as Mistress Fitton? + +Well, I had two reasons. The play was not to have been written by me +at all, but by Mrs Alfred Lyttelton; and it was she who suggested a +scene of jealousy between Queen Elizabeth and the Dark Lady at the +expense of the unfortunate Bard. Now this, if the Dark Lady was a +maid of honor, was quite easy. If she were a tavern landlady, it +would have strained all probability. So I stuck to Mary Fitton. But +I had another and more personal reason. I was, in a manner, present +at the birth of the Fitton theory. Its parent and I had become +acquainted; and he used to consult me on obscure passages in the +sonnets, on which, as far as I can remember, I never succeeded in +throwing the faintest light, at a time when nobody else thought my +opinion, on that or any other subject, of the slightest importance. I +thought it would be friendly to immortalize him, as the silly literary +saying is, much as Shakespear immortalized Mr W. H., as he said he +would, simply by writing about him. + +Let me tell the story formally. + + + + +Thomas Tyler + +Throughout the eighties at least, and probably for some years before, +the British Museum reading room was used daily by a gentleman of such +astonishing and crushing ugliness that no one who had once seen him +could ever thereafter forget him. He was of fair complexion, rather +golden red than sandy; aged between forty-five and sixty; and dressed +in frock coat and tall hat of presentable but never new appearance. +His figure was rectangular, waistless, neckless, ankleless, of middle +height, looking shortish because, though he was not particularly +stout, there was nothing slender about him. His ugliness was not +unamiable; it was accidental, external, excrescential. Attached to +his face from the left ear to the point of his chin was a monstrous +goitre, which hung down to his collar bone, and was very inadequately +balanced by a smaller one on his right eyelid. Nature's malice was so +overdone in his case that it somehow failed to produce the effect of +repulsion it seemed to have aimed at. When you first met Thomas Tyler +you could think of nothing else but whether surgery could really do +nothing for him. But after a very brief acquaintance you never +thought of his disfigurements at all, and talked to him as you might +to Romeo or Lovelace; only, so many people, especially women, would +not risk the preliminary ordeal, that he remained a man apart and a +bachelor all his days. I am not to be frightened or prejudiced by a +tumor; and I struck up a cordial acquaintance with him, in the course +of which he kept me pretty closely on the track of his work at the +Museum, in which I was then, like himself, a daily reader. + +He was by profession a man of letters of an uncommercial kind. He was +a specialist in pessimism; had made a translation of Ecclesiastes of +which eight copies a year were sold; and followed up the pessimism of +Shakespear and Swift with keen interest. He delighted in a hideous +conception which he called the theory of the cycles, according to +which the history of mankind and the universe keeps eternally +repeating itself without the slightest variation throughout all +eternity; so that he had lived and died and had his goitre before and +would live and die and have it again and again and again. He liked to +believe that nothing that happened to him was completely novel: he +was persuaded that he often had some recollection of its previous +occurrence in the last cycle. He hunted out allusions to this +favorite theory in his three favorite pessimists. He tried his hand +occasionally at deciphering ancient inscriptions, reading them as +people seem to read the stars, by discovering bears and bulls and +swords and goats where, as it seems to me, no sane human being can see +anything but stars higgledy-piggledy. Next to the translation of +Ecclesiastes, his _magnum opus_ was his work on Shakespear's Sonnets, +in which he accepted a previous identification of Mr W. H., the "onlie +begetter" of the sonnets, with the Earl of Pembroke (William Herbert), +and promulgated his own identification of Mistress Mary Fitton with +the Dark Lady. Whether he was right or wrong about the Dark Lady did +not matter urgently to me: she might have been Maria Tompkins for all +I cared. But Tyler would have it that she was Mary Fitton; and he +tracked Mary down from the first of her marriages in her teens to her +tomb in Cheshire, whither he made a pilgrimage and whence returned in +triumph with a picture of her statue, and the news that he was +convinced she was a dark lady by traces of paint still discernible. + +In due course he published his edition of the Sonnets, with the +evidence he had collected. He lent me a copy of the book, which I +never returned. But I reviewed it in the Pall Mall Gazette on the 7th +of January 1886, and thereby let loose the Fitton theory in a wider +circle of readers than the book could reach. Then Tyler died, sinking +unnoted like a stone in the sea. I observed that Mr Acheson, Mrs +Davenant's champion, calls him Reverend. It may very well be that he +got his knowledge of Hebrew in reading for the Church; and there was +always something of the clergyman or the schoolmaster in his dress and +air. Possibly he may actually have been ordained. But he never told +me that or anything else about his affairs; and his black pessimism +would have shot him violently out of any church at present established +in the West. We never talked about affairs: we talked about +Shakespear, and the Dark Lady, and Swift, and Koheleth, and the +cycles, and the mysterious moments when a feeling came over us that +this had happened to us before, and about the forgeries of the +Pentateuch which were offered for sale to the British Museum, and +about literature and things of the spirit generally. He always came +to my desk at the Museum and spoke to me about something or other, no +doubt finding that people who were keen on this sort of conversation +were rather scarce. He remains a vivid spot of memory in the void of +my forgetfulness, a quite considerable and dignified soul in a +grotesquely disfigured body. + + + + +Frank Harris + +To the review in the Pall Mall Gazette I attribute, rightly or +wrongly, the introduction of Mary Fitton to Mr Frank Harris. My +reason for this is that Mr Harris wrote a play about Shakespear and +Mary Fitton; and when I, as a pious duty to Tyler's ghost, reminded +the world that it was to Tyler we owed the Fitton theory, Frank +Harris, who clearly had not a notion of what had first put Mary into +his head, believed, I think, that I had invented Tyler expressly for +his discomfiture; for the stress I laid on Tyler's claims must have +seemed unaccountable and perhaps malicious on the assumption that he +was to me a mere name among the thousands of names in the British +Museum catalogue. Therefore I make it clear that I had and have +personal reasons for remembering Tyler, and for regarding myself as in +some sort charged with the duty of reminding the world of his work. I +am sorry for his sake that Mary's portrait is fair, and that Mr W. H. +has veered round again from Pembroke to Southampton; but even so his +work was not wasted: it is by exhausting all the hypotheses that we +reach the verifiable one; and after all, the wrong road always leads +somewhere. + +Frank Harris's play was written long before mine. I read it in +manuscript before the Shakespear Memorial National Theatre was mooted; +and if there is anything except the Fitton theory (which is Tyler's +property) in my play which is also in Mr Harris's it was I who annexed +it from him and not he from me. It does not matter anyhow, because +this play of mine is a brief trifle, and full of manifest +impossibilities at that; whilst Mr Harris's play is serious both in +size, intention, and quality. But there could not in the nature of +things be much resemblance, because Frank conceives Shakespear to have +been a broken-hearted, melancholy, enormously sentimental person, +whereas I am convinced that he was very like myself: in fact, if I +had been born in 1556 instead of in 1856, I should have taken to blank +verse and given Shakespear a harder run for his money than all the +other Elizabethans put together. Yet the success of Frank Harris's +book on Shakespear gave me great delight. + +To those who know the literary world of London there was a sharp +stroke of ironic comedy in the irresistible verdict in its favor. In +critical literature there is one prize that is always open to +competition, one blue ribbon that always carries the highest critical +rank with it. To win, you must write the best book of your generation +on Shakespear. It is felt on all sides that to do this a certain +fastidious refinement, a delicacy of taste, a correctness of manner +and tone, and high academic distinction in addition to the +indispensable scholarship and literary reputation, are needed; and men +who pretend to these qualifications are constantly looked to with a +gentle expectation that presently they will achieve the great feat. +Now if there is a man on earth who is the utter contrary of everything +that this description implies; whose very existence is an insult to +the ideal it realizes; whose eye disparages, whose resonant voice +denounces, whose cold shoulder jostles every decency, every delicacy, +every amenity, every dignity, every sweet usage of that quiet life of +mutual admiration in which perfect Shakespearian appreciation is +expected to arise, that man is Frank Harris. Here is one who is +extraordinarily qualified, by a range of sympathy and understanding +that extends from the ribaldry of a buccaneer to the shyest +tendernesses of the most sensitive poetry, to be all things to all +men, yet whose proud humor it is to be to every man, provided the man +is eminent and pretentious, the champion of his enemies. To the +Archbishop he is an atheist, to the atheist a Catholic mystic, to the +Bismarckian Imperialist an Anacharsis Klootz, to Anacharsis Klootz a +Washington, to Mrs Proudie a Don Juan, to Aspasia a John Knox: in +short, to everyone his complement rather than his counterpart, his +antagonist rather than his fellow-creature. Always provided, however, +that the persons thus confronted are respectable persons. Sophie +Perovskaia, who perished on the scaffold for blowing Alexander II to +fragments, may perhaps have echoed Hamlet's + + Oh God, Horatio, what a wounded name-- + Things standing thus unknown--I leave behind! + +but Frank Harris, in his Sonia, has rescued her from that injustice, +and enshrined her among the saints. He has lifted the Chicago +anarchists out of their infamy, and shewn that, compared with the +Capitalism that killed them, they were heroes and martyrs. He has +done this with the most unusual power of conviction. The story, as he +tells it, inevitably and irresistibly displaces all the vulgar, mean, +purblind, spiteful versions. There is a precise realism and an +unsmiling, measured, determined sincerity which gives a strange +dignity to the work of one whose fixed practice and ungovernable +impulse it is to kick conventional dignity whenever he sees it. + + + + +Harris "durch Mitleid wissend" + +Frank Harris is everything except a humorist, not, apparently, from +stupidity, but because scorn overcomes humor in him. Nobody ever +dreamt of reproaching Milton's Lucifer for not seeing the comic side +of his fall; and nobody who has read Mr Harris's stories desires to +have them lightened by chapters from the hand of Artemus Ward. Yet he +knows the taste and the value of humor. He was one of the few men of +letters who really appreciated Oscar Wilde, though he did not rally +fiercely to Wilde's side until the world deserted Oscar in his ruin. +I myself was present at a curious meeting between the two, when +Harris, on the eve of the Queensberry trial, prophesied to Wilde with +miraculous precision exactly what immediately afterwards happened to +him, and warned him to leave the country. It was the first time +within my knowledge that such a forecast proved true. Wilde, though +under no illusion as to the folly of the quite unselfish suit-at-law +he had been persuaded to begin, nevertheless so miscalculated the +force of the social vengeance he was unloosing on himself that he +fancied it could be stayed by putting up the editor of The Saturday +Review (as Mr Harris then was) to declare that he considered Dorian +Grey a highly moral book, which it certainly is. When Harris foretold +him the truth, Wilde denounced him as a fainthearted friend who was +failing him in his hour of need, and left the room in anger. Harris's +idiosyncratic power of pity saved him from feeling or shewing the +smallest resentment; and events presently proved to Wilde how insanely +he had been advised in taking the action, and how accurately Harris +had gauged the situation. + +The same capacity for pity governs Harris's study of Shakespear, whom, +as I have said, he pities too much; but that he is not insensible to +humor is shewn not only by his appreciation of Wilde, but by the fact +that the group of contributors who made his editorship of The Saturday +Review so remarkable, and of whom I speak none the less highly because +I happened to be one of them myself, were all, in their various ways, +humorists. + + + + +"Sidney's Sister: Pembroke's Mother" + +And now to return to Shakespear. Though Mr Harris followed Tyler in +identifying Mary Fitton as the Dark Lady, and the Earl of Pembroke as +the addressee of the other sonnets and the man who made love +successfully to Shakespear's mistress, he very characteristically +refuses to follow Tyler on one point, though for the life of me I +cannot remember whether it was one of the surmises which Tyler +published, or only one which he submitted to me to see what I would +say about it, just as he used to submit difficult lines from the +sonnets. + +This surmise was that "Sidney's sister: Pembroke's mother" set +Shakespear on to persuade Pembroke to marry, and that this was the +explanation of those earlier sonnets which so persistently and +unnaturally urged matrimony on Mr W. H. I take this to be one of the +brightest of Tyler's ideas, because the persuasions in the sonnets are +unaccountable and out of character unless they were offered to please +somebody whom Shakespear desired to please, and who took a motherly +interest in Pembroke. There is a further temptation in the theory for +me. The most charming of all Shakespear's old women, indeed the most +charming of all his women, young or old, is the Countess of Rousillon +in All's Well That Ends Well. It has a certain individuality among +them which suggests a portrait. Mr Harris will have it that all +Shakespear's nice old women are drawn from his beloved mother; but I +see no evidence whatever that Shakespear's mother was a particularly +nice woman or that he was particularly fond of her. That she was a +simple incarnation of extravagant maternal pride like the mother of +Coriolanus in Plutarch, as Mr Harris asserts, I cannot believe: she +is quite as likely to have borne her son a grudge for becoming "one of +these harlotry players" and disgracing the Ardens. Anyhow, as a +conjectural model for the Countess of Rousillon, I prefer that one of +whom Jonson wrote + + Sidney's sister: Pembroke's mother: + Death: ere thou has slain another, + Learnd and fair and good as she, + Time shall throw a dart at thee. + +But Frank will not have her at any price, because his ideal Shakespear +is rather like a sailor in a melodrama; and a sailor in a melodrama +must adore his mother. I do not at all belittle such sailors. They +are the emblems of human generosity; but Shakespear was not an emblem: +he was a man and the author of Hamlet, who had no illusions about his +mother. In weak moments one almost wishes he had. + + + + +Shakespear's Social Standing + +On the vexed question of Shakespear's social standing Mr Harris says +that Shakespear "had not had the advantage of a middle-class +training." I suggest that Shakespear missed this questionable +advantage, not because he was socially too low to have attained to it, +but because he conceived himself as belonging to the upper class from +which our public school boys are now drawn. Let Mr Harris survey for +a moment the field of contemporary journalism. He will see there some +men who have the very characteristics from which he infers that +Shakespear was at a social disadvantage through his lack of +middle-class training. They are rowdy, ill-mannered, abusive, +mischievous, fond of quoting obscene schoolboy anecdotes, adepts in +that sort of blackmail which consists in mercilessly libelling and +insulting every writer whose opinions are sufficiently heterodox to +make it almost impossible for him to risk perhaps five years of a +slender income by an appeal to a prejudiced orthodox jury; and they +see nothing in all this cruel blackguardism but an uproariously jolly +rag, although they are by no means without genuine literary ability, a +love of letters, and even some artistic conscience. But he will find +not one of the models of his type (I say nothing of mere imitators of +it) below the rank that looks at the middle class, not humbly and +enviously from below, but insolently from above. Mr Harris himself +notes Shakespear's contempt for the tradesman and mechanic, and his +incorrigible addiction to smutty jokes. He does us the public service +of sweeping away the familiar plea of the Bardolatrous ignoramus, that +Shakespear's coarseness was part of the manners of his time, putting +his pen with precision on the one name, Spenser, that is necessary to +expose such a libel on Elizabethan decency. There was nothing +whatever to prevent Shakespear from being as decent as More was before +him, or Bunyan after him, and as self-respecting as Raleigh or Sidney, +except the tradition of his class, in which education or statesmanship +may no doubt be acquired by those who have a turn for them, but in +which insolence, derision, profligacy, obscene jesting, debt +contracting, and rowdy mischievousness, give continual scandal to the +pious, serious, industrious, solvent bourgeois. No other class is +infatuated enough to believe that gentlemen are born and not made by a +very elaborate process of culture. Even kings are taught and coached +and drilled from their earliest boyhood to play their part. But the +man of family (I am convinced that Shakespear took that view of +himself) will plunge into society without a lesson in table manners, +into politics without a lesson in history, into the city without a +lesson in business, and into the army without a lesson in honor. + +It has been said, with the object of proving Shakespear a laborer, +that he could hardly write his name. Why? Because he "had not the +advantage of a middle-class training." Shakespear himself tells us, +through Hamlet, that gentlemen purposely wrote badly lest they should +be mistaken for scriveners; but most of them, then as now, wrote badly +because they could not write any better. In short, the whole range of +Shakespear's foibles: the snobbishness, the naughtiness, the contempt +for tradesmen and mechanics, the assumption that witty conversation +can only mean smutty conversation, the flunkeyism towards social +superiors and insolence towards social inferiors, the easy ways with +servants which is seen not only between The Two Gentlemen of Verona +and their valets, but in the affection and respect inspired by a great +servant like Adam: all these are the characteristics of Eton and +Harrow, not of the public elementary or private adventure school. +They prove, as everything we know about Shakespear suggests, that he +thought of the Shakespears and Ardens as families of consequence, and +regarded himself as a gentleman under a cloud through his father's ill +luck in business, and never for a moment as a man of the people. This +is at once the explanation of and excuse for his snobbery. He was not +a parvenu trying to cover his humble origin with a purchased coat of +arms: he was a gentleman resuming what he conceived to be his natural +position as soon as he gained the means to keep it up. + + + + +This Side Idolatry + +There is another matter which I think Mr Harris should ponder. He +says that Shakespear was but "little esteemed by his own generation." +He even describes Jonson's description of his "little Latin and less +Greek" as a sneer, whereas it occurs in an unmistakably sincere eulogy +of Shakespear, written after his death, and is clearly meant to +heighten the impression of Shakespear's prodigious natural endowments +by pointing out that they were not due to scholastic acquirements. +Now there is a sense in which it is true enough that Shakespear was +too little esteemed by his own generation, or, for the matter of that, +by any subsequent generation. The bargees on the Regent's Canal do +not chant Shakespear's verses as the gondoliers in Venice are said to +chant the verses of Tasso (a practice which was suspended for some +reason during my stay in Venice: at least no gondolier ever did it in +my hearing). Shakespear is no more a popular author than Rodin is a +popular sculptor or Richard Strauss a popular composer. But +Shakespear was certainly not such a fool as to expect the Toms, Dicks, +and Harrys of his time to be any more interested in dramatic poetry +than Newton, later on, expected them to be interested in fluxions. +And when we come to the question whether Shakespear missed that +assurance which all great men have had from the more capable and +susceptible members of their generation that they were great men, Ben +Jonson's evidence disposes of so improbable a notion at once and for +ever. "I loved the man," says Ben, "this side idolatry, as well as +any." Now why in the name of common sense should he have made that +qualification unless there had been, not only idolatry, but idolatry +fulsome enough to irritate Jonson into an express disavowal of it? +Jonson, the bricklayer, must have felt sore sometimes when Shakespear +spoke and wrote of bricklayers as his inferiors. He must have felt it +a little hard that being a better scholar, and perhaps a braver and +tougher man physically than Shakespear, he was not so successful or so +well liked. But in spite of this he praised Shakespear to the utmost +stretch of his powers of eulogy: in fact, notwithstanding his +disclaimer, he did not stop "this side idolatry." If, therefore, even +Jonson felt himself forced to clear himself of extravagance and +absurdity in his appreciation of Shakespear, there must have been many +people about who idolized Shakespear as American ladies idolize +Paderewski, and who carried Bardolatry, even in the Bard's own time, +to an extent that threatened to make his reasonable admirers +ridiculous. + + + + +Shakespear's Pessimism + +I submit to Mr Harris that by ruling out this idolatry, and its +possible effect in making Shakespear think that his public would stand +anything from him, he has ruled out a far more plausible explanation +of the faults of such a play as Timon of Athens than his theory that +Shakespear's passion for the Dark Lady "cankered and took on proud +flesh in him, and tortured him to nervous breakdown and madness." In +Timon the intellectual bankruptcy is obvious enough: Shakespear tried +once too often to make a play out of the cheap pessimism which is +thrown into despair by a comparison of actual human nature with +theoretical morality, actual law and administration with abstract +justice, and so forth. But Shakespear's perception of the fact that +all men, judged by the moral standard which they apply to others and +by which they justify their punishment of others, are fools and +scoundrels, does not date from the Dark Lady complication: he seems +to have been born with it. If in The Comedy of Errors and A Midsummer +Night's Dream the persons of the drama are not quite so ready for +treachery and murder as Laertes and even Hamlet himself (not to +mention the procession of ruffians who pass through the latest plays) +it is certainly not because they have any more regard for law or +religion. There is only one place in Shakespear's plays where the +sense of shame is used as a human attribute; and that is where Hamlet +is ashamed, not of anything he himself has done, but of his mother's +relations with his uncle. This scene is an unnatural one: the son's +reproaches to his mother, even the fact of his being able to discuss +the subject with her, is more repulsive than her relations with her +deceased husband's brother. + +Here, too, Shakespear betrays for once his religious sense by making +Hamlet, in his agony of shame, declare that his mother's conduct makes +"sweet religion a rhapsody of words." But for that passage we might +almost suppose that the feeling of Sunday morning in the country which +Orlando describes so perfectly in As You Like It was the beginning and +end of Shakespear's notion of religion. I say almost, because +Isabella in Measure for Measure has religious charm, in spite of the +conventional theatrical assumption that female religion means an +inhumanly ferocious chastity. But for the most part Shakespear +differentiates his heroes from his villains much more by what they do +than by what they are. Don John in Much Ado is a true villain: a man +with a malicious will; but he is too dull a duffer to be of any use in +a leading part; and when we come to the great villains like Macbeth, +we find, as Mr Harris points out, that they are precisely identical +with the heroes: Macbeth is only Hamlet incongruously committing +murders and engaging in hand-to-hand combats. And Hamlet, who does +not dream of apologizing for the three murders he commits, is always +apologizing because he has not yet committed a fourth, and finds, to +his great bewilderment, that he does not want to commit it. "It +cannot be," he says, "but I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall to make +oppression bitter; else, ere this, I should have fatted all the region +kites with this slave's offal." Really one is tempted to suspect that +when Shylock asks "Hates any man the thing he would not kill?" he is +expressing the natural and proper sentiments of the human race as +Shakespear understood them, and not the vindictiveness of a stage Jew. + + + + +Gaiety of Genius + +In view of these facts, it is dangerous to cite Shakespear's pessimism +as evidence of the despair of a heart broken by the Dark Lady. There +is an irrepressible gaiety of genius which enables it to bear the +whole weight of the world's misery without blenching. There is a +laugh always ready to avenge its tears of discouragement. In the +lines which Mr Harris quotes only to declare that he can make nothing +of them, and to condemn them as out of character, Richard III, +immediately after pitying himself because + + There is no creature loves me + And if I die no soul will pity me, + +adds, with a grin, + + Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself + Find in myself no pity for myself? + +Let me again remind Mr Harris of Oscar Wilde. We all dreaded to read +De Profundis: our instinct was to stop our ears, or run away from the +wail of a broken, though by no means contrite, heart. But we were +throwing away our pity. De Profundis was de profundis indeed: Wilde +was too good a dramatist to throw away so powerful an effect; but none +the less it was de profundis in excelsis. There was more laughter +between the lines of that book than in a thousand farces by men of no +genius. Wilde, like Richard and Shakespear, found in himself no pity +for himself. There is nothing that marks the born dramatist more +unmistakably than this discovery of comedy in his own misfortunes +almost in proportion to the pathos with which the ordinary man +announces their tragedy. I cannot for the life of me see the broken +heart in Shakespear's latest works. "Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's +gate sings" is not the lyric of a broken man; nor is Cloten's comment +that if Imogen does not appreciate it, "it is a vice in her ears which +horse hairs, and cats' guts, and the voice of unpaved eunuch to boot, +can never amend," the sally of a saddened one. Is it not clear that +to the last there was in Shakespear an incorrigible divine levity, an +inexhaustible joy that derided sorrow? Think of the poor Dark Lady +having to stand up to this unbearable power of extracting a grim fun +from everything. Mr Harris writes as if Shakespear did all the +suffering and the Dark Lady all the cruelty. But why does he not put +himself in the Dark Lady's place for a moment as he has put himself so +successfully in Shakespear's? Imagine her reading the hundred and +thirtieth sonnet! + + My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; + Coral is far more red than her lips' red; + If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; + If hairs be wire, black wires grow on her head; + I have seen roses damasked, red and white, + But no such roses see I in her cheeks; + And in some perfumes is there more delight + Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. + I love to hear her speak; yet well I know + That music hath a far more pleasing sound. + I grant I never saw a goddess go: + My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. + And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare + As any she belied with false compare. + +Take this as a sample of the sort of compliment from which she was +never for a moment safe with Shakespear. Bear in mind that she was +not a comedian; that the Elizabethan fashion of treating brunettes as +ugly woman must have made her rather sore on the subject of her +complexion; that no human being, male or female, can conceivably enjoy +being chaffed on that point in the fourth couplet about the perfumes; +that Shakespear's revulsions, as the sonnet immediately preceding +shews, were as violent as his ardors, and were expressed with the +realistic power and horror that makes Hamlet say that the heavens got +sick when they saw the queen's conduct; and then ask Mr Harris whether +any woman could have stood it for long, or have thought the "sugred" +compliment worth the cruel wounds, the cleaving of the heart in twain, +that seemed to Shakespear as natural and amusing a reaction as the +burlesquing of his heroics by Pistol, his sermons by Falstaff, and his +poems by Cloten and Touchstone. + + + + +Jupiter and Semele + +This does not mean that Shakespear was cruel: evidently he was not; +but it was not cruelty that made Jupiter reduce Semele to ashes: it +was the fact that he could not help being a god nor she help being a +mortal. The one thing Shakespear's passion for the Dark Lady was not, +was what Mr Harris in one passage calls it: idolatrous. If it had +been, she might have been able to stand it. The man who "dotes yet +doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves," is tolerable even by a spoilt +and tyrannical mistress; but what woman could possibly endure a man +who dotes without doubting; who _knows_, and who is hugely amused at +the absurdity of his infatuation for a woman of whose mortal +imperfections not one escapes him: a man always exchanging grins with +Yorick's skull, and inviting "my lady" to laugh at the sepulchral +humor of the fact that though she paint an inch thick (which the Dark +Lady may have done), to Yorick's favor she must come at last. To the +Dark Lady he must sometimes have seemed cruel beyond description: an +intellectual Caliban. True, a Caliban who could say + + Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises + Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. + Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments + Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices, + That, if I then had waked after long sleep + Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, + The clouds, methought, would open and shew riches + Ready to drop on me: that when I wak'd + I cried to dream again. + +which is very lovely; but the Dark Lady may have had that vice in her +ears which Cloten dreaded: she may not have seen the beauty of it, +whereas there can be no doubt at all that of "My mistress' eyes are +nothing like the sun," &c., not a word was lost on her. + +And is it to be supposed that Shakespear was too stupid or too modest +not to see at last that it was a case of Jupiter and Semele? +Shakespear was most certainly not modest in that sense. The timid +cough of the minor poet was never heard from him. + + Not marble, nor the gilded monuments + Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme + +is only one out of a dozen passages in which he (possibly with a keen +sense of the fun of scandalizing the modest coughers) proclaimed his +place and his power in "the wide world dreaming of things to come." +The Dark Lady most likely thought this side of him insufferably +conceited; for there is no reason to suppose that she liked his plays +any better than Minna Wagner liked Richard's music dramas: as likely +as not, she thought The Spanish Tragedy worth six Hamlets. He was not +stupid either: if his class limitations and a profession that cut him +off from actual participation in great affairs of State had not +confined his opportunities of intellectual and political training to +private conversation and to the Mermaid Tavern, he would probably have +become one of the ablest men of his time instead of being merely its +ablest playwright. One might surmise that Shakespear found out that +the Dark Lady's brains could no more keep pace with his than Anne +Hathaway's, if there were any evidence that their friendship ceased +when he stopped writing sonnets to her. As a matter of fact the +consolidation of a passion into an enduring intimacy generally puts an +end to sonnets. + +That the Dark Lady broke Shakespear's heart, as Mr Harris will have it +she did, is an extremely unShakespearian hypothesis. "Men have died +from time to time, and worms have eaten them; but not for love," says +Rosalind. Richard of Gloster, into whom Shakespear put all his own +impish superiority to vulgar sentiment, exclaims + + And this word "love," which greybeards call divine, + Be resident in men like one another + And not in me: I am myself alone. + +Hamlet has not a tear for Ophelia: her death moves him to fierce +disgust for the sentimentality of Laertes by her grave; and when he +discusses the scene with Horatio immediately after, he utterly forgets +her, though he is sorry he forgot himself, and jumps at the proposal +of a fencing match to finish the day with. As against this view Mr +Harris pleads Romeo, Orsino, and even Antonio; and he does it so +penetratingly that he convinces you that Shakespear did betray himself +again and again in these characters; but self-betrayal is one thing; +and self-portrayal, as in Hamlet and Mercutio, is another. Shakespear +never "saw himself," as actors say, in Romeo or Orsino or Antonio. In +Mr Harris's own play Shakespear is presented with the most pathetic +tenderness. He is tragic, bitter, pitiable, wretched and broken among +a robust crowd of Jonsons and Elizabeths; but to me he is not +Shakespear because I miss the Shakespearian irony and the +Shakespearian gaiety. Take these away and Shakespear is no longer +Shakespear: all the bite, the impetus, the strength, the grim delight +in his own power of looking terrible facts in the face with a chuckle, +is gone; and you have nothing left but that most depressing of all +things: a victim. Now who can think of Shakespear as a man with a +grievance? Even in that most thoroughgoing and inspired of all +Shakespear's loves: his love of music (which Mr Harris has been the +first to appreciate at anything like its value), there is a dash of +mockery. "Spit in the hole, man; and tune again." "Divine air! Now +is his soul ravished. Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale +the souls out of men's bodies?" "An he had been a dog that should +have howled thus, they would have hanged him." There is just as much +Shakespear here as in the inevitable quotation about the sweet south +and the bank of violets. + +I lay stress on this irony of Shakespear's, this impish rejoicing in +pessimism, this exultation in what breaks the hearts of common men, +not only because it is diagnostic of that immense energy of life which +we call genius, but because its omission is the one glaring defect in +Mr Harris's otherwise extraordinarily penetrating book. Fortunately, +it is an omission that does not disable the book as (in my judgment) +it disabled the hero of the play, because Mr Harris left himself out +of his play, whereas he pervades his book, mordant, deep-voiced, and +with an unconquerable style which is the man. + + + + +The Idol of the Bardolaters + +There is even an advantage in having a book on Shakespear with the +Shakespearian irony left out of account. I do not say that the +missing chapter should not be added in the next edition: the hiatus +is too great: it leaves the reader too uneasy before this touching +picture of a writhing worm substituted for the invulnerable giant. +But it is none the less probable that in no other way could Mr Harris +have got at his man as he has. For, after all, what is the secret of +the hopeless failure of the academic Bardolaters to give us a credible +or even interesting Shakespear, and the easy triumph of Mr Harris in +giving us both? Simply that Mr Harris has assumed that he was dealing +with a man, whilst the others have assumed that they were writing +about a god, and have therefore rejected every consideration of fact, +tradition, or interpretation, that pointed to any human imperfection +in their hero. They thus leave themselves with so little material +that they are forced to begin by saying that we know very little about +Shakespear. As a matter of fact, with the plays and sonnets in our +hands, we know much more about Shakespear than we know about Dickens +or Thackeray: the only difficulty is that we deliberately suppress it +because it proves that Shakespear was not only very unlike the +conception of a god current in Clapham, but was not, according to the +same reckoning, even a respectable man. The academic view starts with +a Shakespear who was not scurrilous; therefore the verses about "lousy +Lucy" cannot have been written by him, and the cognate passages in the +plays are either strokes of character-drawing or gags interpolated by +the actors. This ideal Shakespear was too well behaved to get drunk; +therefore the tradition that his death was hastened by a drinking bout +with Jonson and Drayton must be rejected, and the remorse of Cassio +treated as a thing observed, not experienced: nay, the disgust of +Hamlet at the drinking customs of Denmark is taken to establish +Shakespear as the superior of Alexander in self-control, and the +greatest of teetotallers. + +Now this system of inventing your great man to start with, and then +rejecting all the materials that do not fit him, with the ridiculous +result that you have to declare that there are no materials at all +(with your waste-paper basket full of them), ends in leaving +Shakespear with a much worse character than he deserves. For though +it does not greatly matter whether he wrote the lousy Lucy lines or +not, and does not really matter at all whether he got drunk when he +made a night of it with Jonson and Drayton, the sonnets raise an +unpleasant question which does matter a good deal; and the refusal of +the academic Bardolaters to discuss or even mention this question has +had the effect of producing a silent verdict against Shakespear. Mr +Harris tackles the question openly, and has no difficulty whatever in +convincing us that Shakespear was a man of normal constitution +sexually, and was not the victim of that most cruel and pitiable of +all the freaks of nature: the freak which transposes the normal aim +of the affections. Silence on this point means condemnation; and the +condemnation has been general throughout the present generation, +though it only needed Mr Harris's fearless handling of the matter to +sweep away what is nothing but a morbid and very disagreeable modern +fashion. There is always some stock accusation brought against +eminent persons. When I was a boy every well-known man was accused of +beating his wife. Later on, for some unexplained reason, he was +accused of psychopathic derangement. And this fashion is +retrospective. The cases of Shakespear and Michel Angelo are cited as +proving that every genius of the first magnitude was a sufferer; and +both here and in Germany there are circles in which such derangement +is grotesquely reverenced as part of the stigmata of heroic powers. +All of which is gross nonsense. Unfortunately, in Shakespear's case, +prudery, which cannot prevent the accusation from being whispered, +does prevent the refutation from being shouted. Mr Harris, the +deep-voiced, refuses to be silenced. He dismisses with proper +contempt the stupidity which places an outrageous construction on +Shakespear's apologies in the sonnets for neglecting that "perfect +ceremony" of love which consists in returning calls and making +protestations and giving presents and paying the trumpery attentions +which men of genius always refuse to bother about, and to which touchy +people who have no genius attach so much importance. No leader who +had not been tampered with by the psychopathic monomaniacs could ever +put any construction but the obvious and innocent one on these +passages. But the general vocabulary of the sonnets to Pembroke (or +whoever "Mr W. H." really was) is so overcharged according to modern +ideas that a reply on the general case is necessary. + + + + +Shakespear's alleged Sycophancy and Perversion + +That reply, which Mr Harris does not hesitate to give, is twofold: +first, that Shakespear was, in his attitude towards earls, a +sycophant; and, second, that the normality of Shakespear's sexual +constitution is only too well attested by the excessive susceptibility +to the normal impulse shewn in the whole mass of his writings. This +latter is the really conclusive reply. In the case of Michel Angelo, +for instance, one must admit that if his works are set beside those of +Titian or Paul Veronese, it is impossible not to be struck by the +absence in the Florentine of that susceptibility to feminine charm +which pervades the pictures of the Venetians. But, as Mr Harris +points out (though he does not use this particular illustration) Paul +Veronese is an anchorite compared to Shakespear. The language of the +sonnets addressed to Pembroke, extravagant as it now seems, is the +language of compliment and fashion, transfigured no doubt by +Shakespear's verbal magic, and hyperbolical, as Shakespear always +seems to people who cannot conceive so vividly as he, but still +unmistakable for anything else than the expression of a friendship +delicate enough to be wounded, and a manly loyalty deep enough to be +outraged. But the language of the sonnets to the Dark Lady is the +language of passion: their cruelty shews it. There is no evidence +that Shakespear was capable of being unkind in cold blood. But in his +revulsions from love, he was bitter, wounding, even ferocious; sparing +neither himself nor the unfortunate woman whose only offence was that +she had reduced the great man to the common human denominator. + +In seizing on these two points Mr Harris has made so sure a stroke, +and placed his evidence so featly that there is nothing left for me to +do but to plead that the second is sounder than the first, which is, I +think, marked by the prevalent mistake as to Shakespear's social +position, or, if you prefer it, the confusion between his actual +social position as a penniless tradesman's son taking to the theatre +for a livelihood, and his own conception of himself as a gentleman of +good family. I am prepared to contend that though Shakespear was +undoubtedly sentimental in his expressions of devotion to Mr W. H. +even to a point which nowadays makes both ridiculous, he was not +sycophantic if Mr W. H. was really attractive and promising, and +Shakespear deeply attached to him. A sycophant does not tell his +patron that his fame will survive, not in the renown of his own +actions, but in the sonnets of his sycophant. A sycophant, when his +patron cuts him out in a love affair, does not tell his patron exactly +what he thinks of him. Above all, a sycophant does not write to his +patron precisely as he feels on all occasions; and this rare kind of +sincerity is all over the sonnets. Shakespear, we are told, was "a +very civil gentleman." This must mean that his desire to please +people and be liked by them, and his reluctance to hurt their +feelings, led him into amiable flattery even when his feelings were +not strongly stirred. If this be taken into account along with the +fact that Shakespear conceived and expressed all his emotions with a +vehemence that sometimes carried him into ludicrous extravagance, +making Richard offer his kingdom for a horse and Othello declare of +Cassio that + + Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge + Had stomach for them all, + +we shall see more civility and hyperbole than sycophancy even in the +earlier and more coldblooded sonnets. + + + + +Shakespear and Democracy + +Now take the general case pled against Shakespear as an enemy of +democracy by Tolstoy, the late Ernest Crosbie and others, and endorsed +by Mr Harris. Will it really stand fire? Mr Harris emphasizes the +passages in which Shakespear spoke of mechanics and even of small +master tradesmen as base persons whose clothes were greasy, whose +breath was rank, and whose political imbecility and caprice moved +Coriolanus to say to the Roman Radical who demanded at least "good +words" from him + + He that will give good words to thee will flatter + Beneath abhorring. + +But let us be honest. As political sentiments these lines are an +abomination to every democrat. But suppose they are not political +sentiments! Suppose they are merely a record of observed fact. John +Stuart Mill told our British workmen that they were mostly liars. +Carlyle told us all that we are mostly fools. Matthew Arnold and +Ruskin were more circumstantial and more abusive. Everybody, +including the workers themselves, know that they are dirty, drunken, +foul-mouthed, ignorant, gluttonous, prejudiced: in short, heirs to +the peculiar ills of poverty and slavery, as well as co-heirs with the +plutocracy to all the failings of human nature. Even Shelley +admitted, 200 years after Shakespear wrote Coriolanus, that universal +suffrage was out of the question. Surely the real test, not of +Democracy, which was not a live political issue in Shakespear's time, +but of impartiality in judging classes, which is what one demands from +a great human poet, is not that he should flatter the poor and +denounce the rich, but that he should weigh them both in the same +balance. Now whoever will read Lear and Measure for Measure will find +stamped on his mind such an appalled sense of the danger of dressing +man in a little brief authority, such a merciless stripping of the +purple from the "poor, bare, forked animal" that calls itself a king +and fancies itself a god, that one wonders what was the real nature of +the mysterious restraint that kept "Eliza and our James" from teaching +Shakespear to be civil to crowned heads, just as one wonders why +Tolstoy was allowed to go free when so many less terrible levellers +went to the galleys or Siberia. From the mature Shakespear we get no +such scenes of village snobbery as that between the stage country +gentleman Alexander Iden and the stage Radical Jack Cade. We get the +shepherd in As You Like It, and many honest, brave, human, and loyal +servants, beside the inevitable comic ones. Even in the Jingo play, +Henry V, we get Bates and Williams drawn with all respect and honor as +normal rank and file men. In Julius Caesar, Shakespear went to work +with a will when he took his cue from Plutarch in glorifying regicide +and transfiguring the republicans. Indeed hero-worshippers have never +forgiven him for belittling Caesar and failing to see that side of his +assassination which made Goethe denounce it as the most senseless of +crimes. Put the play beside the Charles I of Wills, in which Cromwell +is written down to a point at which the Jack Cade of Henry VI becomes +a hero in comparison; and then believe, if you can, that Shakespear +was one of them that "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where +thrift may follow fawning." Think of Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, +Osric, the fop who annoyed Hotspur, and a dozen passages concerning +such people! If such evidence can prove anything (and Mr Harris +relies throughout on such evidence) Shakespear loathed courtiers. + +If, on the other hand, Shakespear's characters are mostly members of +the leisured classes, the same thing is true of Mr Harris's own plays +and mine. Industrial slavery is not compatible with that freedom of +adventure, that personal refinement and intellectual culture, that +scope of action, which the higher and subtler drama demands. + +Even Cervantes had finally to drop Don Quixote's troubles with +innkeepers demanding to be paid for his food and lodging, and make him +as free of economic difficulties as Amadis de Gaul. Hamlet's +experiences simply could not have happened to a plumber. A poor man +is useful on the stage only as a blind man is: to excite sympathy. +The poverty of the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet produces a great +effect, and even points the sound moral that a poor man cannot afford +to have a conscience; but if all the characters of the play had been +as poor as he, it would have been nothing but a melodrama of the sort +that the Sicilian players gave us here; and that was not the best that +lay in Shakespear's power. When poverty is abolished, and leisure and +grace of life become general, the only plays surviving from our epoch +which will have any relation to life as it will be lived then will be +those in which none of the persons represented are troubled with want +of money or wretched drudgery. Our plays of poverty and squalor, now +the only ones that are true to the life of the majority of living men, +will then be classed with the records of misers and monsters, and read +only by historical students of social pathology. + +Then consider Shakespear's kings and lords and gentlemen! Would even +John Ball or Jeremiah complain that they are flattered? Surely a more +mercilessly exposed string of scoundrels never crossed the stage. The +very monarch who paralyzes a rebel by appealing to the divinity that +hedges a king, is a drunken and sensual assassin, and is presently +killed contemptuously before our eyes in spite of his hedge of +divinity. I could write as convincing a chapter on Shakespear's +Dickensian prejudice against the throne and the nobility and gentry in +general as Mr Harris or Ernest Crosbie on the other side. I could +even go so far as to contend that one of Shakespear's defects is his +lack of an intelligent comprehension of feudalism. He had of course +no prevision of democratic Collectivism. He was, except in the +commonplaces of war and patriotism, a privateer through and through. +Nobody in his plays, whether king or citizen, has any civil public +business or conception of such a thing, except in the method of +appointing constables, to the abuses in which he called attention +quite in the vein of the Fabian Society. He was concerned about +drunkenness and about the idolatry and hypocrisy of our judicial +system; but his implied remedy was personal sobriety and freedom from +idolatrous illusion in so far as he had any remedy at all, and did not +merely despair of human nature. His first and last word on parliament +was "Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see +the thing thou dost not." He had no notion of the feeling with which +the land nationalizers of today regard the fact that he was a party to +the enclosure of common lands at Wellcome. The explanation is, not a +general deficiency in his mind, but the simple fact that in his day +what English land needed was individual appropriation and cultivation, +and what the English Constitution needed was the incorporation of Whig +principles of individual liberty. + + + + +Shakespear and the British Public + +I have rejected Mr Harris's view that Shakespear died broken-hearted +of "the pangs of love despised." I have given my reasons for +believing that Shakespear died game, and indeed in a state of levity +which would have been considered unbecoming in a bishop. But Mr +Harris's evidence does prove that Shakespear had a grievance and a +very serious one. He might have been jilted by ten dark ladies and +been none the worse for it; but his treatment by the British Public +was another matter. The idolatry which exasperated Ben Jonson was by +no means a popular movement; and, like all such idolatries, it was +excited by the magic of Shakespear's art rather than by his views. + +He was launched on his career as a successful playwright by the Henry +VI trilogy, a work of no originality, depth, or subtlety except the +originality, depth, and subtlety of the feelings and fancies of the +common people. But Shakespear was not satisfied with this. What is +the use of being Shakespear if you are not allowed to express any +notions but those of Autolycus? Shakespear did not see the world as +Autolycus did: he saw it, if not exactly as Ibsen did (for it was not +quite the same world), at least with much of Ibsen's power of +penetrating its illusions and idolatries, and with all Swift's horror +of its cruelty and uncleanliness. + +Now it happens to some men with these powers that they are forced to +impose their fullest exercise on the world because they cannot produce +popular work. Take Wagner and Ibsen for instance! Their earlier +works are no doubt much cheaper than their later ones; still, they +were not popular when they were written. The alternative of doing +popular work was never really open to them: had they stooped they +would have picked up less than they snatched from above the people's +heads. But Handel and Shakespear were not held to their best in this +way. They could turn out anything they were asked for, and even heap +up the measure. They reviled the British Public, and never forgave it +for ignoring their best work and admiring their splendid commonplaces; +but they produced the commonplaces all the same, and made them sound +magnificent by mere brute faculty for their art. When Shakespear was +forced to write popular plays to save his theatre from ruin, he did it +mutinously, calling the plays "As _You_ Like It," and "Much Ado About +Nothing." All the same, he did it so well that to this day these two +genial vulgarities are the main Shakespearian stock-in-trade of our +theatres. Later on Burbage's power and popularity as an actor enabled +Shakespear to free himself from the tyranny of the box office, and to +express himself more freely in plays consisting largely of monologue +to be spoken by a great actor from whom the public would stand a good +deal. The history of Shakespear's tragedies has thus been the history +of a long line of famous actors, from Burbage and Betterton to Forbes +Robertson; and the man of whom we are told that "when he would have +said that Richard died, and cried A horse! A horse! he Burbage cried" +was the father of nine generations of Shakespearian playgoers, all +speaking of Garrick's Richard, and Kean's Othello, and Irving's +Shylock, and Forbes Robertson's Hamlet without knowing or caring how +much these had to do with Shakespear's Richard and Othello and so +forth. And the plays which were written without great and predominant +parts, such as Troilus and Cressida, All's Well That Ends Well, and +Measure for Measure, have dropped on our stage as dead as the second +part of Goethe's Faust or Ibsen's Emperor or Galilean. + +Here, then, Shakespear had a real grievance; and though it is a +sentimental exaggeration to describe him as a broken-hearted man in +the face of the passages of reckless jollity and serenely happy poetry +in his latest plays, yet the discovery that his most serious work +could reach success only when carried on the back of a very +fascinating actor who was enormously overcharging his part, and that +the serious plays which did not contain parts big enough to hold the +overcharge were left on the shelf, amply accounts for the evident fact +that Shakespear did not end his life in a glow of enthusiastic +satisfaction with mankind and with the theatre, which is all that Mr +Harris can allege in support of his broken-heart theory. But even if +Shakespear had had no failures, it was not possible for a man of his +powers to observe the political and moral conduct of his +contemporaries without perceiving that they were incapable of dealing +with the problems raised by their own civilization, and that their +attempts to carry out the codes of law and to practise the religions +offered to them by great prophets and law-givers were and still are so +foolish that we now call for The Superman, virtually a new species, to +rescue the world from mismanagement. This is the real sorrow of great +men; and in the face of it the notion that when a great man speaks +bitterly or looks melancholy he must be troubled by a disappointment +in love seems to me sentimental trifling. + +If I have carried the reader with me thus far, he will find that +trivial as this little play of mine is, its sketch of Shakespear is +more complete than its levity suggests. Alas! its appeal for a +National Theatre as a monument to Shakespear failed to touch the very +stupid people who cannot see that a National Theatre is worth having +for the sake of the National Soul. I had unfortunately represented +Shakespear as treasuring and using (as I do myself) the jewels of +unconsciously musical speech which common people utter and throw away +every day; and this was taken as a disparagement of Shakespear's +"originality." Why was I born with such contemporaries? Why is +Shakespear made ridiculous by such a posterity? + + + +_The Dark Lady of The Sonnets was first performed at the Haymarket +Theatre, on the afternoon of Thursday, the 24th November 1910, by Mona +Limerick as the Dark Lady, Suzanne Sheldon as Queen Elizabeth, +Granville Barker as Shakespear, and Hugh Tabberer as the Warder._ + + + + +THE DARK LADY OF THE SONNETS + +_Fin de siecle 15-1600. Midsummer night on the terrace of the Palace +at Whitehall, overlooking the Thames. The Palace clock chimes four +quarters and strikes eleven._ + +_A Beefeater on guard. A Cloaked Man approaches._ + +THE BEEFEATER. Stand. Who goes there? Give the word. + +THE MAN. Marry! I cannot. I have clean forgotten it. + +THE BEEFEATER. Then cannot you pass here. What is your business? +Who are you? Are you a true man? + +THE MAN. Far from it, Master Warder. I am not the same man two days +together: sometimes Adam, sometimes Benvolio, and anon the Ghost. + +THE BEEFEATER. _[recoiling]_ A ghost! Angels and ministers of grace +defend us! + +THE MAN. Well said, Master Warder. With your leave I will set that +down in writing; for I have a very poor and unhappy brain for +remembrance. _[He takes out his tablets and writes]._ Methinks this +is a good scene, with you on your lonely watch, and I approaching like +a ghost in the moonlight. Stare not so amazedly at me; but mark what +I say. I keep tryst here to-night with a dark lady. She promised to +bribe the warder. I gave her the wherewithal: four tickets for the +Globe Theatre. + +THE BEEFEATER. Plague on her! She gave me two only. + +THE MAN. _[detaching a tablet]_ My friend: present this tablet, and +you will be welcomed at any time when the plays of Will Shakespear are +in hand. Bring your wife. Bring your friends. Bring the whole +garrison. There is ever plenty of room. + +THE BEEFEATER. I care not for these new-fangled plays. No man can +understand a word of them. They are all talk. Will you not give me a +pass for The Spanish Tragedy? + +THE MAN. To see The Spanish Tragedy one pays, my friend. Here are +the means. _[He gives him a piece of gold]._ + +THE BEEFEATER. _[overwhelmed]_ Gold! Oh, sir, you are a better +paymaster than your dark lady. + +THE MAN. Women are thrifty, my friend. + +THE BEEFEATER. Tis so, sir. And you have to consider that the most +open handed of us must een cheapen that which we buy every day. This +lady has to make a present to a warder nigh every night of her life. + +THE MAN. _[turning pale]_ I'll not believe it. + +THE BEEFEATER. Now you, sir, I dare be sworn, do not have an +adventure like this twice in the year. + +THE MAN. Villain: wouldst tell me that my dark lady hath ever done +thus before? that she maketh occasions to meet other men? + +THE BEEFEATER. Now the Lord bless your innocence, sir, do you think +you are the only pretty man in the world? A merry lady, sir: a warm +bit of stuff. Go to: I'll not see her pass a deceit on a gentleman +that hath given me the first piece of gold I ever handled. + +THE MAN. Master Warder: is it not a strange thing that we, knowing +that all women are false, should be amazed to find our own particular +drab no better than the rest? + +THE BEEFEATER. Not all, sir. Decent bodies, many of them. + +THE MAN. _[intolerantly]_ No. All false. All. If thou deny it, +thou liest. + +THE BEEFEATER. You judge too much by the Court, sir. There, indeed, +you may say of frailty that its name is woman. + +THE MAN. _[pulling out his tablets again]_ Prithee say that again: +that about frailty: the strain of music. + +THE BEEFEATER. What strain of music, sir? I'm no musician, God +knows. + +THE MAN. There is music in your soul: many of your degree have it +very notably. _[Writing]_ "Frailty: thy name is woman!" +_[Repeating it affectionately]_ "Thy name is woman." + +THE BEEFEATER. Well, sir, it is but four words. Are you a snapper-up +of such unconsidered trifles? + +THE MAN. _[eagerly]_ Snapper-up of--_[he gasps]_ Oh! Immortal +phrase! _[He writes it down]._ This man is a greater than I. + +THE BEEFEATER. You have my lord Pembroke's trick, sir. + +THE MAN. Like enough: he is my near friend. But what call you his +trick? + +THE BEEFEATER. Making sonnets by moonlight. And to the same lady +too. + +THE MAN. No! + +THE BEEFEATER. Last night he stood here on your errand, and in your +shoes. + +THE MAN. Thou, too, Brutus! And I called him friend! + +THE BEEFEATER. Tis ever so, sir. + +THE MAN. Tis ever so. Twas ever so. _[He turns away, overcome]._ +Two Gentlemen of Verona! Judas! Judas!! + +THE BEEFEATER. Is he so bad as that, sir? + +THE MAN. _[recovering his charity and self-possession]_ Bad? Oh no. +Human, Master Warder, human. We call one another names when we are +offended, as children do. That is all. + +THE BEEFEATER. Ay, sir: words, words, words. Mere wind, sir. We +fill our bellies with the east wind, sir, as the Scripture hath it. +You cannot feed capons so. + +THE MAN. A good cadence. By your leave _[He makes a note of it]._ + +THE BEEFEATER. What manner of thing is a cadence, sir? I have not +heard of it. + +THE MAN. A thing to rule the world with, friend. + +THE BEEFEATER. You speak strangely, sir: no offence. But, an't like +you, you are a very civil gentleman; and a poor man feels drawn to +you, you being, as twere, willing to share your thought with him. + +THE MAN. Tis my trade. But alas! the world for the most part will +none of my thoughts. + +_Lamplight streams from the palace door as it opens from within._ + +THE BEEFEATER. Here comes your lady, sir. I'll to t'other end of my +ward. You may een take your time about your business: I shall not +return too suddenly unless my sergeant comes prowling round. Tis a +fell sergeant, sir: strict in his arrest. Go'd'en, sir; and good +luck! _[He goes]._ + +THE MAN. "Strict in his arrest"! "Fell sergeant"! _[As if tasting a +ripe plum]_ O-o-o-h! _[He makes a note of them]._ + +_A Cloaked Lady gropes her way from the palace and wanders along the +terrace, walking in her sleep._ + +THE LADY. _[rubbing her hands as if washing them]_ Out, damned spot. +You will mar all with these cosmetics. God made you one face; and you +make yourself another. Think of your grave, woman, not ever of being +beautified. All the perfumes of Arabia will not whiten this Tudor +hand. + +THE MAN. "All the perfumes of Arabia"! "Beautified"! "Beautified"! +a poem in a single word. Can this be my Mary? _[To the Lady]_ Why +do you speak in a strange voice, and utter poetry for the first time? +Are you ailing? You walk like the dead. Mary! Mary! + +THE LADY. _[echoing him]_ Mary! Mary! Who would have thought that +woman to have had so much blood in her! Is it my fault that my +counsellors put deeds of blood on me? Fie! If you were women you +would have more wit than to stain the floor so foully. Hold not up +her head so: the hair is false. I tell you yet again, Mary's buried: +she cannot come out of her grave. I fear her not: these cats that +dare jump into thrones though they be fit only for men's laps must be +put away. Whats done cannot be undone. Out, I say. Fie! a queen, +and freckled! + +THE MAN. _[shaking her arm]_ Mary, I say: art asleep? + +_The Lady wakes; starts; and nearly faints. He catches her on his +arm._ + +THE LADY. Where am I? What art thou? + +THE MAN. I cry your mercy. I have mistook your person all this +while. Methought you were my Mary: my mistress. + +THE LADY. _[outraged]_ Profane fellow: how do you dare? + +THE MAN. Be not wroth with me, lady. My mistress is a marvellous +proper woman. But she does not speak so well as you. "All the +perfumes of Arabia"! That was well said: spoken with good accent and +excellent discretion. + +THE LADY. Have I been in speech with you here? + +THE MAN. Why, yes, fair lady. Have you forgot it? + +THE LADY. I have walked in my sleep. + +THE MAN. Walk ever in your sleep, fair one; for then your words drop +like honey. + +THE LADY. _[with cold majesty]_ Know you to whom you speak, sir, +that you dare express yourself so saucily? + +THE MAN. _[unabashed]_ Not I, not care neither. You are some lady +of the Court, belike. To me there are but two sorts of women: those +with excellent voices, sweet and low, and cackling hens that cannot +make me dream. Your voice has all manner of loveliness in it. Grudge +me not a short hour of its music. + +THE LADY. Sir: you are overbold. Season your admiration for a while +with-- + +THE MAN. _[holding up his hand to stop her]_ "Season your admiration +for a while--" + +THE LADY. Fellow: do you dare mimic me to my face? + +THE MAN. Tis music. Can you not hear? When a good musician sings a +song, do you not sing it and sing it again till you have caught and +fixed its perfect melody? "Season your admiration for a while": God! +the history of man's heart is in that one word admiration. +Admiration! _[Taking up his tablets]_ What was it? "Suspend your +admiration for a space--" + +THE LADY. A very vile jingle of esses. I said "Season your--" + +THE MAN. _[hastily]_ Season: ay, season, season, season. Plague on +my memory, my wretched memory! I must een write it down. _[He begins +to write, but stops, his memory failing him]._ Yet tell me which was +the vile jingle? You said very justly: mine own ear caught it even +as my false tongue said it. + +THE LADY. You said "for a space." I said "for a while." + +THE MAN. "For a while" _[he corrects it]._ Good! _[Ardently]_ And +now be mine neither for a space nor a while, but for ever. + +THE LADY. Odds my life! Are you by chance making love to me, knave? + +THE MAN. Nay: tis you who have made the love: I but pour it out at +your feet. I cannot but love a lass that sets such store by an apt +word. Therefore vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman--no: I have +said that before somewhere; and the wordy garment of my love for you +must be fire-new-- + +THE LADY. You talk too much, sir. Let me warn you: I am more +accustomed to be listened to than preached at. + +THE MAN. The most are like that that do talk well. But though you +spake with the tongues of angels, as indeed you do, yet know that I am +the king of words-- + +THE LADY. A king, ha! + +THE MAN. No less. We are poor things, we men and women-- + +THE LADY. Dare you call me woman? + +THE MAN. What nobler name can I tender you? How else can I love you? +Yet you may well shrink from the name: have I not said we are but +poor things? Yet there is a power that can redeem us. + +THE LADY. Gramercy for your sermon, sir. I hope I know my duty. + +THE MAN. This is no sermon, but the living truth. The power I speak +of is the power of immortal poesy. For know that vile as this world +is, and worms as we are, you have but to invest all this vileness with +a magical garment of words to transfigure us and uplift our souls til +earth flowers into a million heavens. + +THE LADY. You spoil your heaven with your million. You are +extravagant. Observe some measure in your speech. + +THE MAN. You speak now as Ben does. + +THE LADY. And who, pray, is Ben? + +THE MAN. A learned bricklayer who thinks that the sky is at the top +of his ladder, and so takes it on him to rebuke me for flying. I tell +you there is no word yet coined and no melody yet sung that is +extravagant and majestical enough for the glory that lovely words can +reveal. It is heresy to deny it: have you not been taught that in +the beginning was the Word? that the Word was with God? nay, that the +Word was God? + +THE LADY. Beware, fellow, how you presume to speak of holy things. +The Queen is the head of the Church. + +THE MAN. You are the head of my Church when you speak as you did at +first. "All the perfumes of Arabia"! Can the Queen speak thus? They +say she playeth well upon the virginals. Let her play so to me; and +I'll kiss her hands. But until then, you are my Queen; and I'll kiss +those lips that have dropt music on my heart. _[He puts his arms +about her]._ + +THE LADY. Unmeasured impudence! On your life, take your hands from +me. + +_The Dark Lady comes stooping along the terrace behind them like a +running thrush. When she sees how they are employed, she rises +angrily to her full height, and listens jealously._ + +THE MAN. _[unaware of the Dark Lady]_ Then cease to make my hands +tremble with the streams of life you pour through them. You hold me +as the lodestar holds the iron: I cannot but cling to you. We are +lost, you and I: nothing can separate us now. + +THE DARK LADY. We shall see that, false lying hound, you and your +filthy trull. _[With two vigorous cuffs, she knocks the pair asunder, +sending the man, who is unlucky enough to receive a righthanded blow, +sprawling an the flags]._ Take that, both of you! + +THE CLOAKED LADY. _[in towering wrath, throwing off her cloak and +turning in outraged majesty on her assailant]_ High treason! + +THE DARK LADY. _[recognizing her and falling on her knees in abject +terror]_ Will: I am lost: I have struck the Queen. + +THE MAN. _[sitting up as majestically as his ignominious posture +allows]_ Woman: you have struck WILLIAM SHAKESPEAR. + +QUEEN ELIZABETH. _[stupent]_ Marry, come up!!! Struck William +Shakespear quotha! And who in the name of all the sluts and jades and +light-o'-loves and fly-by-nights that infest this palace of mine, may +William Shakespear be? + +THE DARK LADY. Madam: he is but a player. Oh, I could have my hand +cut off-- + +QUEEN ELIZABETH. Belike you will, mistress. Have you bethought you +that I am like to have your head cut off as well? + +THE DARK LADY. Will: save me. Oh, save me. + +ELIZABETH. Save you! A likely savior, on my royal word! I had +thought this fellow at least an esquire; for I had hoped that even the +vilest of my ladies would not have dishonored my Court by wantoning +with a baseborn servant. + +SHAKESPEAR. _[indignantly scrambling to his feet]_ Base-born! I, a +Shakespear of Stratford! I, whose mother was an Arden! baseborn! You +forget yourself, madam. + +ELIZABETH. _[furious]_ S'blood! do I so? I will teach you-- + +THE DARK LADY. _[rising from her knees and throwing herself between +them]_ Will: in God's name anger her no further. It is death. +Madam: do not listen to him. + +SHAKESPEAR. Not were it een to save your life, Mary, not to mention +mine own, will I flatter a monarch who forgets what is due to my +family. I deny not that my father was brought down to be a poor +bankrupt; but twas his gentle blood that was ever too generous for +trade. Never did he disown his debts. Tis true he paid them not; but +it is an attested truth that he gave bills for them; and twas those +bills, in the hands of base hucksters, that were his undoing. + +ELIZABETH. _[grimly]_ The son of your father shall learn his place +in the presence of the daughter of Harry the Eighth. + +SHAKESPEAR. _[swelling with intolerant importance]_ Name not that +inordinate man in the same breath with Stratford's worthiest alderman. +John Shakespear wedded but once: Harry Tudor was married six times. +You should blush to utter his name. + +THE DARK LADY. | Will: for pity's sake-- | _crying out_ + + | | _together_ + +ELIZABETH. | Insolent dog-- | + +SHAKESPEAR. _[cutting them short]_ How know you that King Harry was +indeed your father? + +ELIZABETH. | Zounds! Now by-- + + | _[she stops to grind her teeth with rage]._ + +THE DARK LADY. | She will have me whipped through + + | the streets. Oh God! Oh God! + +SHAKESPEAR. Learn to know yourself better, madam. I am an honest +gentleman of unquestioned parentage, and have already sent in my +demand for the coat-of-arms that is lawfully mine. Can you say as +much for yourself? + +ELIZABETH. _[almost beside herself]_ Another word; and I begin with +mine own hands the work the hangman shall finish. + +SHAKESPEAR. You are no true Tudor: this baggage here has as good a +right to your royal seat as you. What maintains you on the throne of +England? Is it your renowned wit? your wisdom that sets at naught the +craftiest statesmen of the Christian world? No. Tis the mere chance +that might have happened to any milkmaid, the caprice of Nature that +made you the most wondrous piece of beauty the age hath seen. +_[Elizabeth's raised fists, on the point of striking him, fall to her +side]._ That is what hath brought all men to your feet, and founded +your throne on the impregnable rock of your proud heart, a stony +island in a sea of desire. There, madam, is some wholesome blunt +honest speaking for you. Now do your worst. + +ELIZABETH. _[with dignity]_ Master Shakespear: it is well for you +that I am a merciful prince. I make allowance for your rustic +ignorance. But remember that there are things which be true, and are +yet not seemly to be said (I will not say to a queen; for you will +have it that I am none) but to a virgin. + +SHAKESPEAR. _[bluntly]_ It is no fault of mine that you are a +virgin, madam, albeit tis my misfortune. + +THE DARK LADY. _[terrified again]_ In mercy, madam, hold no further +discourse with him. He hath ever some lewd jest on his tongue. You +hear how he useth me! calling me baggage and the like to your +Majesty's face. + +ELIZABETH. As for you, mistress, I have yet to demand what your +business is at this hour in this place, and how you come to be so +concerned with a player that you strike blindly at your sovereign in +your jealousy of him. + +THE DARK LADY. Madam: as I live and hope for salvation-- + +SHAKESPEAR. _[sardonically]_ Ha! + +THE DARK LADY. _[angrily]_--ay, I'm as like to be saved as thou +that believest naught save some black magic of words and verses--I +say, madam, as I am a living woman I came here to break with him for +ever. Oh, madam, if you would know what misery is, listen to this man +that is more than man and less at the same time. He will tie you down +to anatomize your very soul: he will wring tears of blood from your +humiliation; and then he will heal the wound with flatteries that no +woman can resist. + +SHAKESPEAR. Flatteries! _[Kneeling]_ Oh, madam, I put my case at +your royal feet. I confess to much. I have a rude tongue: I am +unmannerly: I blaspheme against the holiness of anointed royalty; but +oh, my royal mistress, AM I a flatterer? + +ELIZABETH. I absolve you as to that. You are far too plain a dealer +to please me. _[He rises gratefully]._ + +THE DARK LADY. Madam: he is flattering you even as he speaks. + +ELIZABETH. _[a terrible flash in her eye]_ Ha! Is it so? + +SHAKESPEAR. Madam: she is jealous; and, heaven help me! not without +reason. Oh, you say you are a merciful prince; but that was cruel of +you, that hiding of your royal dignity when you found me here. For +how can I ever be content with this black-haired, black-eyed, +black-avised devil again now that I have looked upon real beauty and +real majesty? + +THE DARK LADY. _[wounded and desperate]_ He hath swore to me ten +times over that the day shall come in England when black women, for +all their foulness, shall be more thought on than fair ones. _[To +Shakespear, scolding at him]_ Deny it if thou canst. Oh, he is +compact of lies and scorns. I am tired of being tossed up to heaven +and dragged down to hell at every whim that takes him. I am ashamed +to my very soul that I have abased myself to love one that my father +would not have deemed fit to hold my stirrup--one that will talk to +all the world about me--that will put my love and my shame into his +plays and make me blush for myself there--that will write sonnets +about me that no man of gentle strain would put his hand to. I am all +disordered: I know not what I am saying to your Majesty: I am of all +ladies most deject and wretched-- + +SHAKESPEAR. Ha! At last sorrow hath struck a note of music out of +thee. "Of all ladies most deject and wretched." _[He makes a note of +it]._ + +THE DARK LADY. Madam: I implore you give me leave to go. I am +distracted with grief and shame. I-- + +ELIZABETH. Go _[The Dark Lady tries to kiss her hand]._ No more. +Go. _[The Dark Lady goes, convulsed]._ You have been cruel to that +poor fond wretch, Master Shakespear. + +SHAKESPEAR. I am not cruel, madam; but you know the fable of Jupiter +and Semele. I could not help my lightnings scorching her. + +ELIZABETH. You have an overweening conceit of yourself, sir, that +displeases your Queen. + +SHAKESPEAR. Oh, madam, can I go about with the modest cough of a +minor poet, belittling my inspiration and making the mightiest wonder +of your reign a thing of nought? I have said that "not marble nor the +gilded monuments of princes shall outlive" the words with which I make +the world glorious or foolish at my will. Besides, I would have you +think me great enough to grant me a boon. + +ELIZABETH. I hope it is a boon that may be asked of a virgin Queen +without offence, sir. I mistrust your forwardness; and I bid you +remember that I do not suffer persons of your degree (if I may say so +without offence to your father the alderman) to presume too far. + +SHAKESPEAR. Oh, madam, I shall not forget myself again; though by my +life, could I make you a serving wench, neither a queen nor a virgin +should you be for so much longer as a flash of lightning might take to +cross the river to the Bankside. But since you are a queen and will +none of me, nor of Philip of Spain, nor of any other mortal man, I +must een contain myself as best I may, and ask you only for a boon of +State. + +ELIZABETH. A boon of State already! You are becoming a courtier like +the rest of them. You lack advancement. + +SHAKESPEAR. "Lack advancement." By your Majesty's leave: a queenly +phrase. _[He is about to write it down]._ + +ELIZABETH. _[striking the tablets from his hand]_ Your tables begin +to anger me, sir. I am not here to write your plays for you. + +SHAKESPEAR. You are here to inspire them, madam. For this, among the +rest, were you ordained. But the boon I crave is that you do endow a +great playhouse, or, if I may make bold to coin a scholarly name for +it, a National Theatre, for the better instruction and gracing of your +Majesty's subjects. + +ELIZABETH. Why, sir, are there not theatres enow on the Bankside and +in Blackfriars? + +SHAKESPEAR. Madam: these are the adventures of needy and desperate +men that must, to save themselves from perishing of want, give the +sillier sort of people what they best like; and what they best like, +God knows, is not their own betterment and instruction, as we well see +by the example of the churches, which must needs compel men to +frequent them, though they be open to all without charge. Only when +there is a matter of a murder, or a plot, or a pretty youth in +petticoats, or some naughty tale of wantonness, will your subjects pay +the great cost of good players and their finery, with a little profit +to boot. To prove this I will tell you that I have written two noble +and excellent plays setting forth the advancement of women of high +nature and fruitful industry even as your Majesty is: the one a +skilful physician, the other a sister devoted to good works. I have +also stole from a book of idle wanton tales two of the most damnable +foolishnesses in the world, in the one of which a woman goeth in man's +attire and maketh impudent love to her swain, who pleaseth the +groundlings by overthrowing a wrestler; whilst, in the other, one of +the same kidney sheweth her wit by saying endless naughtinesses to a +gentleman as lewd as herself. I have writ these to save my friends +from penury, yet shewing my scorn for such follies and for them that +praise them by calling the one As You Like It, meaning that it is not +as _I_ like it, and the other Much Ado About Nothing, as it truly is. +And now these two filthy pieces drive their nobler fellows from the +stage, where indeed I cannot have my lady physician presented at all, +she being too honest a woman for the taste of the town. Wherefore I +humbly beg your Majesty to give order that a theatre be endowed out of +the public revenue for the playing of those pieces of mine which no +merchant will touch, seeing that his gain is so much greater with the +worse than with the better. Thereby you shall also encourage other +men to undertake the writing of plays who do now despise it and leave +it wholly to those whose counsels will work little good to your realm. +For this writing of plays is a great matter, forming as it does the +minds and affections of men in such sort that whatsoever they see done +in show on the stage, they will presently be doing in earnest in the +world, which is but a larger stage. Of late, as you know, the Church +taught the people by means of plays; but the people flocked only to +such as were full of superstitious miracles and bloody martyrdoms; and +so the Church, which also was just then brought into straits by the +policy of your royal father, did abandon and discountenance the art of +playing; and thus it fell into the hands of poor players and greedy +merchants that had their pockets to look to and not the greatness of +this your kingdom. Therefore now must your Majesty take up that good +work that your Church hath abandoned, and restore the art of playing +to its former use and dignity. + +ELIZABETH. Master Shakespear: I will speak of this matter to the +Lord Treasurer. + +SHAKESPEAR. Then am I undone, madam; for there was never yet a Lord +Treasurer that could find a penny for anything over and above the +necessary expenses of your government, save for a war or a salary for +his own nephew. + +ELIZABETH. Master Shakespear: you speak sooth; yet cannot I in any +wise mend it. I dare not offend my unruly Puritans by making so lewd +a place as the playhouse a public charge; and there be a thousand +things to be done in this London of mine before your poetry can have +its penny from the general purse. I tell thee, Master Will, it will +be three hundred years and more before my subjects learn that man +cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh from the +mouth of those whom God inspires. By that time you and I will be dust +beneath the feet of the horses, if indeed there be any horses then, +and men be still riding instead of flying. Now it may be that by then +your works will be dust also. + +SHAKESPEAR. They will stand, madam: fear nor for that. + +ELIZABETH. It may prove so. But of this I am certain (for I know my +countrymen) that until every other country in the Christian world, +even to barbarian Muscovy and the hamlets of the boorish Germans, have +its playhouse at the public charge, England will never adventure. And +she will adventure then only because it is her desire to be ever in +the fashion, and to do humbly and dutifully whatso she seeth everybody +else doing. In the meantime you must content yourself as best you can +by the playing of those two pieces which you give out as the most +damnable ever writ, but which your countrymen, I warn you, will swear +are the best you have ever done. But this I will say, that if I could +speak across the ages to our descendants, I should heartily recommend +them to fulfil your wish; for the Scottish minstrel hath well said +that he that maketh the songs of a nation is mightier than he that +maketh its laws; and the same may well be true of plays and +interludes. _[The clock chimes the first quarter. The warder returns +on his round]._ And now, sir, we are upon the hour when it better +beseems a virgin queen to be abed than to converse alone with the +naughtiest of her subjects. Ho there! Who keeps ward on the queen's +lodgings tonight? + +THE WARDER. I do, an't please your majesty. + +ELIZABETH. See that you keep it better in future. You have let pass +a most dangerous gallant even to the very door of our royal chamber. +Lead him forth; and bring me word when he is safely locked out; for I +shall scarce dare disrobe until the palace gates are between us. + +SHAKESPEAR. _[kissing her hand]_ My body goes through the gate into +the darkness, madam; but my thoughts follow you. + +ELIZABETH. How! to my bed! + +SHAKESPEAR. No, madam, to your prayers, in which I beg you to +remember my theatre. + +ELIZABETH. That is my prayer to posterity. Forget not your own to +God; and so goodnight, Master Will. + +SHAKESPEAR. Goodnight, great Elizabeth. God save the Queen! + +ELIZABETH. Amen. + +_Exeunt severally: she to her chamber: he, in custody of the warder, +to the gate nearest Blackfriars._ + + +AYOT, ST. LAWRENCE, _20th June_ 1910. + + +Notes on the editing: Italicized text is delimited with underlines. +Punctuation and spelling retained as in the printed text. +Shaw intentionally spelled many words according to a non-standard +system. For example, "don't" is given as "dont" (without apostrophe), +"Dr." is given as "Dr" (without a period at the end), and +"Shakespeare" is given as "Shakespear" (no "e" at the end). Where +several characters in the play are speaking at once, I have indicated +it with vertical bars ("|"). The pound (currency) symbol has been +replaced by the word "pounds". + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Dark Lady of the Sonnets, by George Bernard Shaw + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1050 *** |