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diff --git a/9079-0.txt b/9079-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e1852b --- /dev/null +++ b/9079-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13745 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Shakespeare, by Frank Harris + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man Shakespeare + +Author: Frank Harris + + +Release Date: October, 2005 [EBook #9079] +This file was first posted on September 3, 2003 +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN SHAKESPEARE *** + + + + +Produced by Jon Ingram, Juliet Sutherland and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +THE MAN SHAKESPEARE + +AND + +HIS TRAGIC LIFE STORY + +By Frank Harris + + + + +I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY FRIEND, ERNEST BECKETT (NOW LORD GRIMTHORPE), +A MAN OF MOST EXCELLENT DIFFERENCES, WHO UNITES TO A GENIUS FOR +PRACTICAL THINGS A PASSIONATE SYMPATHY FOR ALL HIGH ENDEAVOUR IN +LITERATURE AND ART + + + + +CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTION + + BOOK I + SHAKESPEARE PAINTED BY HIMSELF + + CHAPTER + I. Hamlet: Romeo-Jaques + II. Hamlet-Macbeth + III. Duke Vincentio-Posthumus + IV. Shakespeare's Men of Action: the Bastard, + Arthur, and King Richard II + V. Shakespeare's Men of Action (_continued_): Hotspur, + Prince Henry, and Henry V + VI. Shakespeare's Men of Action (_concluded_): King + Henry VI. and Richard III + VII. Shakespeare as Lyric Poet: “Twelfth Night” + VIII. Shakespeare's Humour: “Falstaff” + + + BOOK II + + I. Shakespeare's early attempts to portray himself + and his wife: Biron, Adriana, Valentine + II. Shakespeare as Antonio the Merchant + III. Shakespeare's Love-story: the Sonnets: Part I + IV. Shakespeare's Love-story: the Sonnets: Part II + V. Shakespeare's Love-story: the Sonnets: Part III + VI. The First-fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: Brutus + VII. Dramas of Revenge and Jealousy: Hamlet + VIII. Dramas of Revenge and Jealousy: Othello + IX. Dramas of Lust: Part I: Troilus and Cressida + X. Dramas of Lust: Part II: Antony and Cleopatra + XI. The drama of Madness: Lear + XII. The Drama of Despair: Timon of Athens + XIII. The Latest Works: All Copies: “Winter's Tale”; “Cymbeline”; “The + Tempest” + XIV. Shakespeare's Life: Part I + XV. Shakespeare's Life: Part II + +INDEX + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +This book has grown out of a series of articles contributed to “The +Saturday Review” some ten or twelve years ago. As they appeared they +were talked of and criticized in the usual way; a minority of readers +thought “the stuff” interesting; many held that my view of Shakespeare +was purely arbitrary; others said I had used a concordance to such +purpose that out of the mass of words I had managed, by virtue of some +unknown formula, to re-create the character of the man. + +The truth is much simpler: I read Shakespeare's plays in boyhood, +chiefly for the stories; every few years later I was fain to re-read +them; for as I grew I always found new beauties in them which I had +formerly missed, and again and again I was lured back by tantalizing +hints and suggestions of a certain unity underlying the diversity of +characters. These suggestions gradually became more definite till at +length, out of the myriad voices in the plays, I began to hear more and +more insistent the accents of one voice, and out of the crowd of faces, +began to distinguish more and more clearly the features of the writer; +for all the world like some lovelorn girl, who, gazing with her soul in +her eyes, finds in the witch's cauldron the face of the belovèd. + +I have tried in this book to trace the way I followed, step by step; for +I found it effective to rough in the chief features of the man first, +and afterwards, taking the plays in succession, to show how Shakespeare +painted himself at full-length not once, but twenty times, at as many +different periods of his life. This is one reason why he is more +interesting to us than the greatest men of the past, than Dante even, or +Homer; for Dante and Homer worked only at their best in the flower of +manhood. Shakespeare, on the other hand, has painted himself for us in +his green youth with hardly any knowledge of life or art, and then in +his eventful maturity, with growing experience and new powers, in +masterpiece after masterpiece; and at length in his decline with +weakened grasp and fading colours, so that in him we can study the +growth and fruiting and decay of the finest spirit that has yet been +born among men. This tragedy of tragedies, in which “Lear” is only one +scene--this rise to intensest life and widest vision and fall through +abysms of despair and madness to exhaustion and death--can be followed +experience by experience, from Stratford to London and its thirty years +of passionate living, and then from London to village Stratford again, +and the eternal shrouding silence. + +As soon as this astonishing drama discovered itself to me in its tragic +completeness I jumped to the conclusion that it must have been set forth +long ago in detail by Shakespeare's commentators, and so, for the first +time, I turned to their works. I do not wish to rail at my forerunners +as Carlyle railed at the historians of Cromwell, or I should talk, as he +talked, about “libraries of inanities...conceited dilettantism and +pedantry...prurient stupidity,” and so forth. The fact is, I found all +this, and worse; I waded through tons of talk to no result. Without a +single exception the commentators have all missed the man and the story; +they have turned the poet into a tradesman, and the unimaginable tragedy +of his life into the commonplace record of a successful tradesman's +career. Even to explain this astounding misadventure of the host of +critics is a little difficult. The mistake, of course, arose from the +fact that his contemporaries told very little about Shakespeare; they +left his appearance and even the incidents of his life rather vague. +Being without a guide, and having no clear idea of Shakespeare's +character, the critics created him in their own image, and, whenever +they were in doubt, idealized him according to the national type. + +Still, there was at least one exception. Some Frenchman, I think it is +Joubert, says that no great man is born into the world without another +man being born about the same time, who understands and can interpret +him, and Shakespeare was of necessity singularly fortunate in his +interpreter. Ben Jonson was big enough to see him fairly, and to give +excellent-true testimony concerning him. Jonson's view of Shakespeare is +astonishingly accurate and trustworthy so far as it goes; even his +attitude of superiority to Shakespeare is fraught with meaning. Two +hundred years later, the rising tide of international criticism produced +two men, Goethe and Coleridge, who also saw Shakespeare, if only by +glimpses, or rather by divination of kindred genius, recognizing certain +indubitable traits. Goethe's criticism of “Hamlet” has been vastly +over-praised; but now and then he used words about Shakespeare which, in +due course, we shall see were illuminating words, the words of one who +guessed something of the truth. Coleridge, too, with his curious, +complex endowment of philosopher and poet, resembled Shakespeare, saw +him, therefore, by flashes, and might have written greatly about him; +but, alas, Coleridge, a Puritan born, was brought up in epicene +hypocrisies, and determined to see Shakespeare--that child of the +Renascence--as a Puritan, too, and consequently mis-saw him far oftener +than he saw him; misjudged him hideously, and had no inkling of his +tragic history. + +There is a famous passage in Coleridge's “Essays on Shakespeare” which +illustrates what I mean. It begins: “In Shakespeare all the elements of +womanhood are holy”; and goes on to eulogize the instinct of chastity +which all his women possess, and this in spite of Doll Tearsheet, +Tamora, Cressida, Goneril, Regan, Cleopatra, the Dark Lady of the +Sonnets, and many other frail and fascinating figures. Yet whatever +gleam of light has fallen on Shakespeare since Coleridge's day has come +chiefly from that dark lantern which he now and then flashed upon the +master. + +In one solitary respect, our latter-day criticism has been successful; +it has established with very considerable accuracy the chronology of the +plays, and so the life-story of the poet is set forth in due order for +those to read who can. + +This then is what I found--a host of commentators who saw men as trees +walking, and mistook plain facts, and among them one authentic witness, +Jonson, and two interesting though not trustworthy witnesses, Goethe and +Coleridge--and nothing more in three centuries. The mere fact may well +give us pause, pointing as it does to a truth which is still +insufficiently understood. It is the puzzle of criticism, at once the +despair and wonder of readers, that the greatest men of letters usually +pass through life without being remarked or understood by their +contemporaries. The men of Elizabeth's time were more interested in +Jonson than in Shakespeare, and have told us much more about the younger +than the greater master; just as Spaniards of the same age were more +interested in Lope de Vega than in Cervantes, and have left a better +picture of the second-rate playwright than of the world-poet. Attempting +to solve this problem Emerson coolly assumed that the men of the +Elizabethan age were so great that Shakespeare himself walked about +among them unnoticed as a giant among giants. This reading of the riddle +is purely transcendental. We know that Shakespeare's worst plays were +far oftener acted than his best; that “Titus Andronicus” by popular +favour was more esteemed than “Hamlet.” The majority of contemporary +poets and critics regarded Shakespeare rather as a singer of “sugred” + verses than as a dramatist. The truth is that Shakespeare passed through +life unnoticed because he was so much greater than his contemporaries +that they could not see him at all in his true proportions. It was +Jonson, the nearest to him in greatness, who alone saw him at all fairly +and appreciated his astonishing genius. + +Nothing illustrates more perfectly the unconscious wisdom of the English +race than the old saying that “a man must be judged by his peers.” One's +peers, in fact, are the only persons capable of judging one, and the +truth seems to be that three centuries have only produced three men at +all capable of judging Shakespeare. The jury is still being collected. +But from the quality of the first three, and of their praise, it is +already plain that his place will be among the highest. From various +indications, too, it looks as if the time for judging him had come: +“Hamlet” is perhaps his most characteristic creation, and Hamlet, in his +intellectual unrest, morbid brooding, cynical self-analysis and dislike +of bloodshed, is much more typical of the nineteenth or twentieth +century than of the sixteenth. Evidently the time for classifying the +creator of Hamlet is at hand. + +And this work of description and classification should be done as a +scientist would do it: for criticism itself has at length bent to the +Time-spirit and become scientific. And just as in science, analysis for +the moment has yielded pride of place to synthesis, so the critical +movement in literature has in our time become creative. The chemist, who +resolves any substance into its elements, is not satisfied till by +synthesis he can re-create the substance out of its elements: this is +the final proof that his knowledge is complete. And so we care little or +nothing to-day for critical analyses or appreciations which are not +creative presentments of the person. “Paint him for us,” we say, “in his +habit as he lived, and we will take it that you know something about +him.” + +One of the chief attempts at creative criticism in English literature, +or, perhaps it would be fairer to say, the only memorable attempt, is +Carlyle's Cromwell. He has managed to build up the man for us quite +credibly out of Cromwell's letters and speeches, showing us the +underlying sincerity and passionate resolution of the great Puritan once +for all. But unfortunately Carlyle was too romantic an artist, too +persuaded in his hero-worship to discover for us Cromwell's faults and +failings. In his book we find nothing of the fanatic who ordered the +Irish massacres, nothing of the neuropath who lived in hourly dread of +assassination. Carlyle has painted his subject all in lights, so to +speak; the shadows are not even indicated, and yet he ought to have +known that in proportion to the brilliancy of the light the shadows must +of necessity be dark. It is not for me to point out that this romantic +painting of great men, like all other make-believes and hypocrisies, has +its drawbacks and shortcomings: it is enough that it has had its day and +produced its pictures of giant-heroes and their worshippers for those +who love such childish toys. + +The wonderful age in which we live--this twentieth century with its +X-rays that enable us to see through the skin and flesh of men, and to +study the working of their organs and muscles and nerves--has brought a +new spirit into the world, a spirit of fidelity to fact, and with it a +new and higher ideal of life and of art, which must of necessity change +and transform all the conditions of existence, and in time modify the +almost immutable nature of man. For this new spirit, this love of the +fact and of truth, this passion for reality will do away with the +foolish fears and futile hopes which have fretted the childhood of our +race, and will slowly but surely establish on broad foundations the +Kingdom of Man upon Earth. For that is the meaning and purpose of the +change which is now coming over the world. The faiths and convictions of +twenty centuries are passing away and the forms and institutions of a +hundred generations of men are dissolving before us like the baseless +fabric of a dream. A new morality is already shaping itself in the +spirit; a morality based not on guess-work and on fancies; but on +ascertained laws of moral health; a scientific morality belonging not to +statics, like the morality of the Jews, but to dynamics, and so fitting +the nature of each individual person. Even now conscience with its +prohibitions is fading out of life, evolving into a more profound +consciousness of ourselves and others, with multiplied incitements to +wise giving. The old religious asceticism with its hatred of the body is +dead; the servile acceptance of conditions of life and even of natural +laws is seen to be vicious; it is of the nobility of man to be insatiate +in desire and to rebel against limiting conditions; it is the property +of his intelligence to constrain even the laws of nature to the +attainment of his ideal. + +Already we are proud of being students, investigators, servants of +truth, and we leave the great names of demi-gods and heroes a little +contemptuously to the men of bygone times. As student-artists we are no +longer content with the outward presentment and form of men: we want to +discover the protean vanities, greeds and aspirations of men, and to lay +bare, as with a scalpel, the hidden motives and springs of action. We +dream of an art that shall take into account the natural daily decay and +up-building of cell-life; the wars that go on in the blood; the fevers +of the brain; the creeping paralysis of nerve-exhaustion; above all, we +must be able even now from a few bare facts, to re-create a man and make +him live and love again for the reader, just as the biologist from a few +scattered bones can reconstruct some prehistoric bird or fish or mammal. + +And we student-artists have no desire to paint our subject as better or +nobler or smaller or meaner than he was in reality; we study his +limitations as we study his gifts, his virtues with as keen an interest +as his vices; for it is in some excess of desire, or in some +extravagance of mentality, that we look for the secret of his +achievement, just as we begin to wonder when we see hands constantly +outstretched in pious supplication, whether a foot is not thrust out +behind in some secret shame, for the biped, man, must keep a balance. + +I intend first of all to prove from Shakespeare's works that he has +painted himself twenty times from youth till age at full length: I shall +consider and compare these portraits till the outlines of his character +are clear and certain; afterwards I shall show how his little vanities +and shames idealized the picture, and so present him as he really was, +with his imperial intellect and small snobberies; his giant vices and +paltry self-deceptions; his sweet gentleness and long martyrdom. I +cannot but think that his portrait will thus gain more in truth than it +can lose in ideal beauty. Or let me come nearer to my purpose by means +of a simile. Talking with Sir David Gill one evening on shipboard about +the fixed stars, he pointed one out which is so distant that we cannot +measure how far it is away from us and can form no idea of its +magnitude. “But surely,” I exclaimed, “the great modern telescopes must +bring the star nearer and magnify it?” “No,” he replied, “no; the best +instruments make the star clearer to us, but certainly not larger.” This +is what I wish to do in regard to Shakespeare; make him clearer to men, +even if I do not make him larger. + +And if I were asked why I do this, why I take the trouble to re-create a +man now three centuries dead, it is first of all, of course, because he +is worth it--the most complex and passionate personality in the world, +whether of life or letters--because, too, there are certain lessons +which the English will learn from Shakespeare more quickly and easily +than from any living man, and a little because I want to get rid of +Shakespeare by assimilating all that was fine in him, while giving all +that was common and vicious in him as spoil to oblivion. He is like the +Old-Man-of-the-Sea on the shoulders of our youth; he has become an +obsession to the critic, a weapon to the pedant, a nuisance to the man +of genius. True, he has painted great pictures in a superb, romantic +fashion; he is the Titian of dramatic art: but is there to be no +Rembrandt, no Balzac, no greater Tolstoi in English letters? I want to +liberate Englishmen so far as I can from the tyranny of Shakespeare's +greatness. For the new time is upon us, with its new knowledge and new +claims, and we English are all too willing to live in the past, and so +lose our inherited place as leader of the nations. + +The French have profited by their glorious Revolution: they trusted +reason and have had their reward; no such leap forward has ever been +made as France made in that one decade, and the effects are still +potent. In the last hundred years the language of Molière has grown +fourfold; the slang of the studios and the gutter and the laboratory, of +the engineering school and the dissecting table, has been ransacked for +special terms to enrich and strengthen the language in order that it may +deal easily with the new thoughts. French is now a superb instrument, +while English is positively poorer than it was in the time of +Shakespeare, thanks to the prudery of our illiterate middle class. +Divorced from reality, with its activities all fettered in baby-linen, +our literature has atrophied and dwindled into a babble of nursery +rhymes, tragedies of Little Marys, tales of Babes in a Wood. The example +of Shakespeare may yet teach us the value of free speech; he could say +what he liked as he liked: he was not afraid of the naked truth and the +naked word, and through his greatness a Low Dutch dialect has become the +chiefest instrument of civilization, the world-speech of humanity at +large. + +FRANK HARRIS. + +LONDON, 1909. + + + + +BOOK I. SHAKESPEARE PAINTED BY HIMSELF + + + + +CHAPTER I. HAMLET: ROMEO--JAQUES + +“As I passed by ... I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE +UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto +you.” This work of Paul--the discovery and proclaiming of an unknown +god--is in every age the main function of the critic. + +An unknown god this Shakespeare of ours, whom all are agreed it would be +well to know, if in any way possible. As to the possibility, however, +the authorities are at loggerheads. Hallam, “the judicious,” declared +that it was impossible to learn anything certain about “the man, +Shakespeare.” Wordsworth, on the other hand (without a nickname to show +a close connection with the common), held that Shakespeare unlocked his +heart with the sonnets for key. Browning jeered at this belief, to be in +turn contradicted by Swinburne. Matthew Arnold gave us in a sonnet “the +best opinion of his time”: + + “Others abide our question. Thou art free. + We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still, + Out-topping knowledge.” + +But alas! the best opinion of one generation is in these matters often +flat unreason to the next, and it may be that in this instance neither +the opinion of Hallam nor Browning nor Arnold will be allowed to count. + +As it is the object of a general to win battles so it is the life-work +of the artist to show himself to us, and the completeness with which he +reveals his own individuality is perhaps the best measure of his genius. +One does this like Montaigne, simply, garrulously, telling us his height +and make, his tastes and distastes, his loves and fears and habits, till +gradually the seeming-artless talk brings the man before us, a +sun-warmed fruit of humanity, with uncouth rind of stiff manners and +sweet kindly juices, not perfect in any way, shrivelled on this side by +early frost-bite, and on that softened to corruption through too much +heat, marred here by the bitter-black cicatrice of an ancient injury and +there fortune-spotted, but on the whole healthy, grateful, of a most +pleasant ripeness. Another, like Shakespeare, with passionate +conflicting sympathies and curious impartial intellect cannot discover +himself so simply; needs, like the diamond, many facets to show all the +light in him, and so proceeds to cut them one after the other as +Falstaff or Hamlet, to the dazzling of the purblind. + +Yet Shakespeare's purpose is surely the same as Montaigne's, to reveal +himself to us, and it would be hasty to decide that his skill is +inferior. For while Montaigne had nothing but prose at his command, and +not too rich a prose, as he himself complains, Shakespeare in magic of +expression has had no equal in recorded time, and he used the lyric as +well as the dramatic form, poetry as well as prose, to give his soul +utterance. + +We are doing Shakespeare wrong by trying to believe that he hides +himself behind his work; the suspicion is as unworthy as the old +suspicion dissipated by Carlyle that Cromwell was an ambitious +hypocrite. Sincerity is the birthmark of genius, and we can be sure that +Shakespeare has depicted himself for us with singular fidelity; we can +see him in his works, if we will take the trouble, “in his habit as he +lived.” + +We are doing ourselves wrong, too, by pretending that Shakespeare +“out-tops knowledge.” He did not fill the world even in his own time: +there was room beside him in the days of Elizabeth for Marlowe and +Spenser, Ben Jonson and Bacon, and since then the spiritual outlook, +like the material outlook, has widened to infinity. There is space in +life now for a dozen ideals undreamed-of in the sixteenth century. Let +us have done with this pretence of doglike humility; we, too, are men, +and there is on earth no higher title, and in the universe nothing +beyond our comprehending. It will be well for us to know Shakespeare and +all his high qualities and do him reverence; it will be well for us, +too, to see his limitations and his faults, for after all it is the +human frailties in a man that call forth our sympathy and endear him to +us, and without love there is no virtue in worship, no attraction in +example. + +The doubt as to the personality of Shakespeare, and the subsequent +confusion and contradictions are in the main, I think, due to Coleridge. +He was the first modern critic to have glimpses of the real Shakespeare, +and the vision lent his words a singular authority. But Coleridge was a +hero-worshipper by nature and carried reverence to lyric heights. He +used all his powers to persuade men that Shakespeare was [Greek: +_myrionous anaer_]--“the myriad-minded man”; a sort of demi-god who +was every one and no one, a Proteus without individuality of his own. +The theory has held the field for nearly a century, probably because it +flatters our national vanity; for in itself it is fantastically absurd +and leads to most ridiculous conclusions. For instance, when Coleridge +had to deal with the fact that Shakespeare never drew a miser, instead +of accepting the omission as characteristic, for it is confirmed by Ben +Jonson's testimony that he was “of an open and free nature,” Coleridge +proceeded to argue that avarice is not a permanent passion in humanity, +and that Shakespeare probably for that reason chose to leave it +undescribed. This is an example of the ecstasy of hero-worship; it is +begging the question to assume that whatever Shakespeare did was +perfect; humanity cannot be penned up even in Shakespeare's brain. Like +every other man of genius Shakespeare must have shown himself in his +qualities and defects, in his preferences and prejudices; “a fallible +being,” as stout old Dr. Johnson knew, “will fail somewhere.” + +Even had Shakespeare tried to hide himself in his work, he could not +have succeeded. Now that the print of a man's hand or foot or ear is +enough to distinguish him from all other men, it is impossible to +believe that the mask of his mind, the very imprint, form and pressure +of his soul should be less distinctive. Just as Monsieur Bertillon's +whorl-pictures of a thumb afford overwhelming proofs of a man's +identity, so it is possible from Shakespeare's writings to establish +beyond doubt the main features of his character and the chief incidents +of his life. The time for random assertion about Shakespeare and +unlimited eulogy of him has passed away for ever: the object of this +inquiry is to show him as he lived and loved and suffered, and the +proofs of this and of that trait shall be so heaped up as to stifle +doubt and reach absolute conviction. For not only is the circumstantial +evidence overwhelming and conclusive, but we have also the testimony of +eye-witnesses with which to confirm it, and one of these witnesses, Ben +Jonson, is of rare credibility and singularly well equipped. + +Let us begin, then, by treating Shakespeare as we would treat any other +writer, and ask simply how a dramatic author is most apt to reveal +himself. A great dramatist may not paint himself for us at any time in +his career with all his faults and vices; but when he goes deepest into +human nature, we may be sure that self-knowledge is his guide; as Hamlet +said, “To know a man well, were to know himself” (oneself), so far +justifying the paradox that dramatic writing is merely a form of +autobiography. We may take then as a guide this first criterion that, in +his masterpiece of psychology, the dramatist will reveal most of his own +nature. + +If a dozen lovers of Shakespeare were asked to name the most profound +and most complex character in all his dramas it is probable that every +one without hesitation would answer Hamlet. The current of cultivated +opinion has long set in this direction. With the intuition of a kindred +genius, Goethe was the first to put Hamlet on a pedestal: “the +incomparable,” he called him, and devoted pages to an analysis of the +character. Coleridge followed with the confession whose truth we +shall see later: “I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so.” But +even if it be admitted that Hamlet is the most complex and profound of +Shakespeare's creations, and therefore probably the character in which +Shakespeare revealed most of himself, the question of degree still +remains to be determined. Is it possible to show certainly that even the +broad outlines of Hamlet's character are those of the master-poet? + +There are various ways in which this might be proved. For instance, if +one could show that whenever Shakespeare fell out of a character he was +drawing, he unconsciously dropped into the Hamlet vein, one's suspicion +as to the identity of Hamlet and the poet would be enormously +strengthened. There is another piece of evidence still more convincing. +Suppose that Shakespeare in painting another character did nothing but +paint Hamlet over again trait by trait--virtue by virtue, fault by +fault--our assurance would be almost complete; for a dramatist only +makes this mistake when he is speaking unconsciously in his proper +person. But if both these kinds of proof were forthcoming, and not once +but a dozen times, then surely our conviction as to the essential +identity of Hamlet and Shakespeare would amount to practical certitude. + +Of course it would be foolish, even in this event, to pretend that +Hamlet exhausts Shakespeare; art does little more than embroider the +fringe of the garment of life, and the most complex character in drama +or even in fiction is simple indeed when compared with even the simplest +of living men or women. Shakespeare included in himself Falstaff and +Cleopatra, beside the author of the sonnets, and knowledge drawn from +all these must be used to fill out and perhaps to modify the outlines +given in Hamlet before one can feel sure that the portrait is a +re-presentment of reality. But when this study is completed, it will be +seen that with many necessary limitations, Hamlet is indeed a revelation +of some of the most characteristic traits of Shakespeare. + +To come to the point quickly, I will take Hamlet's character as analyzed +by Coleridge and Professor Dowden. + +Coleridge says: “Hamlet's character is the prevalence of the abstracting +and generalizing habit over the practical. He does not want courage, +skill, will or opportunity; but every incident sets him thinking: and it +is curious, and at the same time strictly natural, that Hamlet, who all +the play seems reason itself, should be impelled at last by mere +accident to effect his object.” Again he says: “in Hamlet we see a +great, an almost enormous intellectual activity and a proportionate +aversion to real action consequent upon it.” + +Professor Dowden's analysis is more careful but hardly as complete. He +calls Hamlet “the meditative son” of a strong-willed father, and adds, +“he has slipped on into years of full manhood still a haunter of the +university, a student of philosophies, an amateur in art, a ponderer on +the things of life and death who has never formed a resolution or +executed a deed. This long course of thinking apart from action has +destroyed Hamlet's very capacity for belief.... In presence of the +spirit he is himself 'a spirit,' and believes in the immortality of the +soul. When left to his private thoughts he wavers uncertainly to and +fro; death is a sleep; a sleep, it may be, troubled with dreams.... He +is incapable of certitude.... After his fashion (that of one who +relieves himself by speech rather than by deeds) he unpacks his heart in +words.” + +Now what other personage is there in Shakespeare who shows these traits +or some of them? He should be bookish and irresolute, a lover of thought +and not of action, of melancholy temper too, and prone to unpack his +heart with words. Almost every one who has followed the argument thus +far will be inclined to think of Romeo. Hazlitt declared that “Romeo is +Hamlet in love. There is the same rich exuberance of passion and +sentiment in the one, that there is of thought and sentiment in the +other. Both are absent and self-involved; both live out of themselves in +a world of imagination.” Much of this is true and affords a noteworthy +example of Hazlitt's occasional insight into character, yet for reasons +that will appear later it is not possible to insist, as Hazlitt does, +upon the identity of Romeo and Hamlet. The most that can be said is that +Romeo is a younger brother of Hamlet, whose character is much less +mature and less complex than that of the student-prince. Moreover, the +characterization in Romeo--the mere drawing and painting--is very +inferior to that put to use in Hamlet. Romeo is half hidden from us in +the rose-mist of passion, and after he is banished from Juliet's arms we +only see him for a moment as he rushes madly by into never-ending night, +and all the while Shakespeare is thinking more of the poetry of the +theme than of his hero's character. Romeo is crude and immature when +compared with a profound psychological study like Hamlet. In “Hamlet” + the action often stands still while incidents are invented for the +mere purpose of displaying the peculiarities of the protagonist. “Hamlet,” + too, is the longest of Shakespeare's plays with the exception of “Antony +and Cleopatra,” and “the total length of Hamlet's speeches,” says +Dryasdust, “far exceeds that of those allotted by Shakespeare to any +other of his characters.” The important point, however, is that Romeo +has a more than family likeness to Hamlet. Even in the heat and heyday +of his passion Romeo plays thinker; Juliet says, “Good-night” and +disappears, but he finds time to give us the abstract truth: + + “Love goes towards love, as schoolboys from their books, + But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.” + +Juliet appears again unexpectedly, and again Hamlet's generalizing habit +asserts itself in Romeo: + + “How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, + Like softest music to attending ears.” + +We may be certain that Juliet would have preferred more pointed praise. +He is indeed so lost in his ill-timed reverie that Juliet has to call +him again and again by name before he attends to her. + +Romeo has Hamlet's peculiar habit of talking to himself. He falls into a +soliloquy on his way to Juliet in Capulet's orchard, when his heart must +have been beating so loudly that it would have prevented him from +hearing himself talk, and into another when hurrying to the apothecary. +In this latter monologue, too, when all his thoughts must have been of +Juliet and their star-crossed fates, and love-devouring Death, he is +able to picture for us the apothecary and his shop with a wealth of +detail that says more for Shakespeare's painstaking and memory than for +his insight into character. The fault, however, is not so grave as it +would be if Romeo were a different kind of man; but like Hamlet he is +always ready to unpack his heart with words, and if they are not the +best words sometimes, sometimes even very inappropriate words, it only +shows that in his first tragedy Shakespeare was not the master of his +art that he afterwards became. + +In the churchyard scene of the fifth act Romeo's likeness to Hamlet +comes into clearest light. + +Hamlet says to Laertes: + + “I pr'ythee, take thy fingers from my throat; + For though I am not splenitive and rash + Yet have I something in me dangerous + Which let thy wisdom fear.” + +In precisely the same temper, Romeo says to Paris: + + “Good, gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man; + Fly hence and leave me; think upon these gone, + Let them affright thee.” + +This magnanimity is so rare that its existence would almost of itself be +sufficient to establish a close relationship between Romeo and Hamlet. +Romeo's last speech, too, is characteristic of Hamlet: on the very +threshold of death he generalizes: + + “How oft when men are at the point of death, + Have they been merry? which their keepers call + A lightening before death.” + +There is in Romeo, too, that peculiar mixture of pensive sadness and +loving sympathy which is the very vesture of Hamlet's soul; he says to +“Noble County Paris”: + + “O, give me thy hand, + One writ with me in sour misfortune's book.” + +And finally Shakespeare's supreme lyrical gift is used by Romeo as +unconstrainedly as by Hamlet himself. The beauty in the last soliloquy +is of passion rather than of intellect, but in sheer triumphant beauty +some lines of it have never been surpassed: + + “Here, here will I remain + With worms that are thy chambermaids; O, here + Will I set up my everlasting rest + And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars + From this world-wearied flesh.” + +The whole soliloquy and especially the superb epithet “world-wearied” + are at least as suitable to Hamlet as to Romeo. Passion, it is true, is +more accentuated in Romeo, just as there is greater irresolution +combined with intenser self-consciousness in Hamlet, yet all the +qualities of the youthful lover are to be found in the student-prince. +Hamlet is evidently the later finished picture of which Romeo was merely +the charming sketch. Hamlet says he is revengeful and ambitious, +although he is nothing of the kind, and in much the same way Romeo says: + + “I'll be a candle-holder and look on,” + +whereas he plays the chief part and a very active part in the drama. If +he were more of a “candle-holder” and onlooker, he would more resemble +Hamlet. Then too, though he generalizes, he does not search the darkness +with aching eyeballs as Hamlet does; the problems of life do not as yet +lie heavy on his soul; he is too young to have felt their mystery and +terror; he is only just within the shadow of that melancholy which to +Hamlet discolours the world. + +Seven or eight years after writing “Romeo and Juliet,” Shakespeare +growing conscious of these changes in his own temperament embodied them +in another character, the melancholy “Jaques” in “As You Like It.” Every +one knows that Jaques is Shakespeare's creation; he is not to be found +in Lodge's “Rosalynde,” whence Shakespeare took the story and most of +the characters of his play. Jaques is only sketched in with light +strokes, but all his traits are peculiarly Hamlet's traits. For Jaques +is a melancholy student of life as Hamlet is, with lightning-quick +intelligence and heavy heart, and these are the Hamlet qualities which +were not brought into prominence in the youthful Romeo. Passages taken +at haphazard will suffice to establish my contention. “Motley's the only +wear,” says Jaques, as if longing to assume the cap and bells, and +Hamlet plays the fool's part with little better reason. Jaques exclaims: + + “Give me leave + To speak my mind, and I will through and through + Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, + If they will patiently receive my medicine.” + +And Hamlet cries: + + “The Time is out of joint; O cursèd spite + That ever I was born to set it right.” + +The famous speech of Jaques, “All the world's a stage,” might have been +said by Hamlet, indeed belongs of right to the person who gave the +exquisite counsel to the players. Jaques' confession of melancholy, too, +both in manner and matter is characteristic of Hamlet. How often +Shakespeare must have thought it over before he was able to bring the +peculiar nature of his own malady into such relief: + +“I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the +musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; +nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is +politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all +these; but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, +extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my +travels; which, by often rumination, wraps me in, a most humourous +sadness.” + +This “humourous sadness,” the child of contemplation, was indeed +Shakespeare's most constant mood. Jaques, too, loves solitude and the +country as Hamlet loved them--and above all the last trait recorded of +Jaques, his eagerness to see the reformed Duke and learn from the +convert, is a perfect example of that intellectual curiosity which is +one of Hamlet's most attaching characteristics. Yet another trait is +attributed to Jaques, which we must on no account forget. The Duke +accuses him of lewdness though lewdness seems out of place in Jaques's +character, and is certainly not shown in the course of the action. If we +combine the characters of Romeo, the poet-lover, and Jaques, the +pensive-sad philosopher, we have almost the complete Hamlet. + +It is conceivable that even a fair-minded reader of the plays will admit +all I have urged about the likeness of Romeo and Jaques to Hamlet +without concluding that these preliminary studies, so to speak, for the +great portrait render it at all certain that the masterpiece of +portraiture is a likeness of Shakespeare himself. The impartial critic +will probably say, “You have raised a suspicion in my mind; a strong +suspicion it may be, but still a suspicion that is far from certitude.” + Fortunately the evidence still to be offered is a thousand times more +convincing than any inferences that can properly be drawn from Romeo or +from Jaques, or even from both together. + + + + +CHAPTER II. HAMLET--MACBETH + +There is a later drama of Shakespeare's, a drama which comes between +“Othello” and “Lear,” and belongs, therefore, to the topmost height of +the poet's achievement, whose principal character is Hamlet, Hamlet over +again, with every peculiarity and every fault; a Hamlet, too, entangled +in an action which is utterly unsuited to his nature. Surely if this +statement can be proved, it will be admitted by all competent judges +that the identity of Hamlet and his creator has been established. For +Shakespeare must have painted this second Hamlet unconsciously. Think of +it. In totally new circumstances the poet speaks with Hamlet's voice in +Hamlet's words. The only possible explanation is that he is speaking +from his own heart, and for that reason is unaware of the mistake. The +drama I refer to is “Macbeth.” No one, so far as I know, has yet thought +of showing that there is any likeness between the character of Hamlet +and that of Macbeth, much less identity; nevertheless, it seems to me +easy to prove that Macbeth, “the rugged Macbeth,” as Hazlitt and Brandes +call him, is merely our gentle irresolute, humanist, philosopher Hamlet +masquerading in galligaskins as a Scottish thane. + +Let us take the first appearance of Macbeth, and we are forced to remark +at once that he acts and speaks exactly as Hamlet in like circumstances +would act and speak. The honest but slow Banquo is amazed when Macbeth +starts and seems to fear the fair promises of the witches; he does not +see what the nimble Hamlet-intellect has seen in a flash--the dread +means by which alone the promises can be brought to fulfilment. As soon +as Macbeth is hailed “Thane of Cawdor” Banquo warns him, but Macbeth, in +spite of the presence of others, falls at once, as Hamlet surely would +have fallen, into a soliloquy: a thing, considering the circumstances, +most false to general human nature, for what he says must excite +Banquo's suspicion, and is only true to the Hamlet-mind, that in and out +of season loses itself in meditation. The soliloquy, too, is startlingly +characteristic of Hamlet. After giving expression to the merely natural +uplifting of his hope, Macbeth begins to weigh the for and against like +a student-thinker: + + “This supernatural soliciting + Cannot be ill; cannot be good; if ill, + Why hath it given me earnest of success, + Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor: + If good, why do I yield to that suggestion + Whose horrid image ... + ... function + Is smothered in surmise and nothing is + But what is not,----” + +When Banquo draws attention to him as “rapt,” Macbeth still goes on +talking to himself, for at length he has found arguments against action: + + “If chance will have me King, why chance may crown me, + Without my stir,”-- + +all in the true Hamlet vein. At the end of the act, Macbeth when +excusing himself to his companions becomes the student of Wittenberg in +proper person. The courteous kindliness of the words is almost as +characteristic as the bookish illustration: + + “Kind gentlemen, your pains + Are registered where every day I turn + The leaf to read them.” + +If this is not Hamlet's very tone, manner and phrase, then individuality +of nature has no peculiar voice. + +I have laid such stress upon this, the first scene in which Macbeth +appears, because the first appearance is by far the most important for +the purpose of establishing the main outlines of a character; first +impressions in a drama being exceedingly difficult to modify and almost +impossible to change. + +Macbeth, however, acts Hamlet from one end of the play to the other; and +Lady Macbeth's first appearance (a personage almost as important to the +drama as Macbeth himself) is used by Shakespeare to confirm this view of +Macbeth's character. After reading her husband's letter almost her first +words are: + + “Yet do I fear thy nature. + It is too full o' the milk of human kindness + To catch the nearest way.” + +What is this but a more perfect expression of Hamlet's nature than +Hamlet himself gives? Hamlet declares bitterly that he is “pigeon +livered,” and lacks “gall to make oppression bitter”; he says to +Laertes, “I loved you ever,” and to his mother: + + “I must be cruel only to be kind,” + +and she tells the King that he wept for Polonius' death. But the best +phrase for his gentle-heartedness is what Lady Macbeth gives here: he is +“too full o' the milk of human kindness.” The words are as true of the +Scottish chieftain as of the Wittenberg student; in heart they are one +and the same person. + +Though excited to action by his wife, Macbeth's last words in this scene +are to postpone decision. “We will speak further,” he says, whereupon +the woman takes the lead, warns him to dissemble, and adds, “leave all +the rest to me.” Macbeth's doubting, irresolution, and dislike of action +could hardly be more forcibly portrayed. + +The seventh scene of the first act begins with another long soliloquy by +Macbeth, and this soliloquy shows us not only Hamlet's irresolution and +untimely love of meditation, but also the peculiar pendulum-swing of +Hamlet's thought: + + “If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well + It were done quickly: if the assassination + Could trammel up the consequence, and catch + With his surcease success: that but this blow + Might be the be-all and the end-all; here, + But here upon this bank and shoal of time + We'd jump the life to come. . . . .” + +Is not this the same soul which also in a soliloquy questions +fate?--“Whether 'tis better in the mind....” + +Macbeth, too, has Hamlet's peculiar and exquisite intellectual +fairness--a quality, be it remarked in passing, seldom found in a +ruthless murderer. He sees even the King's good points: + + ...... “this Duncan + Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been + So clear in his great office, that his virtues + Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against + The deep damnation of his taking off.” + +Is it not like Hamlet to be able to condemn himself in this way +beforehand? Macbeth ends this soliloquy with words which come from the +inmost of Hamlet's heart: + + “I have no spur + To prick the sides of my intent, but only + Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, + And falls on the other.” + +Hamlet, too, has no spur to prick the sides of his intent, and Hamlet, +too, would be sure to see how apt ambition is to overleap itself, and so +would blunt the sting of the desire. This monologue alone should have +been sufficient to reveal to all critics the essential identity of +Hamlet and Macbeth. Lady Macbeth, too, tells us that Macbeth left the +supper table where he was entertaining the King, in order to indulge +himself in this long monologue, and when he hears that his absence has +excited comment, that he has been asked for even by the King, he does +not attempt to excuse his strange conduct, he merely says, “We will +proceed no further in this business,” showing in true Hamlet fashion how +resolution has been “sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.” In +fact, as his wife says to him, he lets “'I dare not' wait upon 'I would' +like the poor cat i' the adage.” Even when whipped to action by Lady +Macbeth's preternatural eagerness, he asks: + + “If we should fail?” + +whereupon she tells him to screw his courage to the sticking place, and +describes the deed itself. Infected by her masculine resolution, Macbeth +at length consents to what he calls the “terrible feat.” The word +“terrible” here is surely more characteristic of the humane +poet-thinker than of the chieftain-murderer. Even at this crisis, too, +of his fate Macbeth cannot cheat himself; like Hamlet he is compelled to +see himself as he is: + + “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.” + +I have now considered nearly every word used by Macbeth in this first +act: I have neither picked passages nor omitted anything that might make +against my argument; yet every impartial reader must acknowledge that +Hamlet is far more clearly sketched in this first act of “Macbeth” than +in the first act of “Hamlet.” Macbeth appears in it as an irresolute +dreamer, courteous, and gentle-hearted, of perfect intellectual fairness +and bookish phrase; and in especial his love of thought and dislike of +action are insisted upon again and again. + +In spite of the fact that the second act is one chiefly of incident, +filled indeed with the murder and its discovery, Shakespeare uses +Macbeth as the mouthpiece of his marvellous lyrical faculty as freely as +he uses Hamlet. A greater singer even than Romeo, Hamlet is a poet by +nature, and turns every possible occasion to account, charming the ear +with subtle harmonies. With a father's murder to avenge, he postpones +action and sings to himself of life and death and the undiscovered +country in words of such magical spirit-beauty that they can be compared +to nothing in the world's literature save perhaps to the last chapter of +Ecclesiastes. From the beginning to the end of the drama Hamlet is a +great lyric poet, and this supreme personal gift is so natural to him +that it is hardly mentioned by the critics. This gift, however, is +possessed by Macbeth in at least equal degree and excites just as little +notice. It is credible that Shakespeare used the drama sometimes as a +means of reaching the highest lyrical utterance. + +Without pressing this point further let us now take up the second act of +the play. Banquo and Fleance enter; Macbeth has a few words with them; +they depart, and after giving a servant an order, Macbeth begins another +long soliloquy. He thinks he sees a dagger before him, and immediately +falls to philosophizing: + + “Come let me clutch thee:-- + I have thee not and yet I see thee still. + Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible + To feeling as to sight? or art thou but + A dagger of the mind, a false creation + Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? + I see thee yet in form as palpable + As that which now I draw.... + - - - - - - - - - - + Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses. + Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still; + And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood + Which was not so before.--There's no such thing.” + +What is all this but an illustration of Hamlet's assertion: + + “There is nothing either good or bad + But thinking makes it so.” + +Just too as Hamlet swings on his mental balance, so that it is still a +debated question among academic critics whether his madness was feigned +or real, so here Shakespeare shows us how Macbeth loses his foothold on +reality and falls into the void. + +The lyrical effusion that follows is not very successful, and probably +on that account Macbeth breaks off abruptly: + + “Whiles I threat he lives, + Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives,” + +which is, of course, precisely Hamlet's complaint: + + “This is most brave; + That I, the son of a dear father murdered, + Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, + Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words.” + +After this Lady Macbeth enters, and the murder is committed, and now +wrought to the highest tension Macbeth must speak from the depths of his +nature with perfect sincerity. Will he exult, as the ambitious man +would, at having taken successfully the longest step towards his goal? +Or will he, like a prudent man, do his utmost to hide the traces of his +crime, and hatch plans to cast suspicion on others? It is Lady Macbeth +who plays this part; she tells Macbeth to “get some water,” + + “And wash this filthy witness from your hand,” + +while he, brainsick, rehearses past fears and shows himself the +sensitive poet-dreamer inclined to piety: here is the incredible scene: + + “_Lady M._ There are two lodged together. + _Macb_. One cried, 'God bless us!' and 'Amen' the other, + As they had seen me with these hangman's hands. + Listening their fear, I could not say 'Amen,' + When they did say 'God bless us.' + _Lady M_. Consider it not so deeply. + _Macb_. But wherefore could not I pronounce 'Amen'? + I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen' + Stuck in my throat.” + +This religious tinge colouring the weakness of self-pity is to be found +again and again in “Hamlet”; Hamlet, too, is religious-minded; he begs +Ophelia to remember his sins in her orisons. When he first sees his +father's ghost he cries: + + “Angels and ministers of grace defend us,” + +and when the ghost leaves him his word is, “I'll go pray.” This new +trait, most intimate and distinctive, is therefore the most conclusive +proof of the identity of the two characters. The whole passage in the +mouth of a murderer is utterly unexpected and out of place; no wonder +Lady Macbeth exclaims: + + “These deeds must not be thought + After these ways: so, it will make us mad.” + +But nothing can restrain Macbeth; he gives rein to his poetic +imagination, and breaks out in an exquisite lyric, a lyric which has +hardly any closer relation to the circumstances than its truth to +Shakespeare's nature: + + “Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more! + Macbeth does murder sleep,'--the innocent sleep: + Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,” + +and so forth--the poet in love with his own imaginings. + +Again Lady Macbeth tries to bring him back to a sense of reality; tells +him his thinking unbends his strength, and finally urges him to take the +daggers back and + + “smear + The sleepy grooms with the blood.” + +But Macbeth's nerve is gone; he is physically broken now as well as +mentally o'erwrought; he cries: + + “I'll go no more; + I am afraid to think what I have done. + Look on't again I dare not.” + +All this is exquisitely characteristic of the nervous student who has +been screwed up to a feat beyond his strength, “a terrible feat,” and +who has broken down over it, but the words are altogether absurd in the +mouth of an ambitious, half-barbarous chieftain. + +His wife chides him as fanciful, childish--“infirm of purpose,”--she'll +put the daggers back herself; but nothing can hearten Macbeth; every +household noise sets his heart thumping: + + “Whence is that knocking? + How is't with me when every noise appals me?” + +His mind rocks; he even imagines he is being tortured: + + “What hands are here? Ha! + They pluck out my eyes.” + +And then he swings into another incomparable lyric: + + “Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood + Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather + The multitudinous seas incarnadine, + Making the green one red.” + +There is a great deal of the poet-neuropath and very little of the +murderer for ambition's sake in this lyrical hysteria. No wonder Lady +Macbeth declares she would be ashamed “to wear a heart so white.” It is +all Hamlet over again, Hamlet wrought up to a higher pitch of intensity. +And here it should be remembered that “Macbeth” was written three years +after “Hamlet” and probably just before “Lear”; one would therefore +expect a greater intensity and a deeper pessimism in Macbeth than in +Hamlet. + +The character-drawing in the next scene is necessarily slight. The +discovery of the murder impels every one save the protagonist to action, +but Macbeth finds time even at the climax of excitement to coin +Hamlet-words that can never be forgotten: + + “There's nothing serious in mortality;” + +and the description of Duncan: + + “His silver skin laced with his golden blood” + +--as sugar'd sweet as any line in the sonnets, and here completely out +of place. + +In these first two acts the character of Macbeth is outlined so firmly +that no after-touches can efface the impression. + +Now comes a period in the drama in which deed follows so fast upon deed, +that there is scarcely any opportunity for characterization. To the +casual view Macbeth seems almost to change his nature, passing from +murder to murder quickly if not easily. He not only arranges for +Banquo's assassination, but leaves Lady Macbeth innocent of the +knowledge. The explanation of this seeming change of character is at +hand. Shakespeare took the history of Macbeth from Holinshed's +Chronicle, and there it is recorded that Macbeth murdered Banquo and +many others, as well as Macduff's wife and children. Holinshed makes +Duncan have “too much of clemencie,” and Macbeth “too much of crueltie.” + Macbeth's actions correspond with his nature in Holinshed; but +Shakespeare first made Macbeth in his own image--gentle, bookish and +irresolute--and then found himself fettered by the historical fact that +Macbeth murdered Banquo and the rest. He was therefore forced to explain +in some way or other why his Macbeth strode from crime to crime. It must +be noted as most characteristic of gentle Shakespeare that even when +confronted with this difficulty he did not think of lending Macbeth any +tinge of cruelty, harshness, or ambition. His Macbeth commits murder for +the same reason that the timorous deer fights--out of fear. + + “To be thus is nothing; + But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo + Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature + Reigns that which would be feared”: + +And again: + + “There is none but he + Whose being I do fear”:... + +This proves, as nothing else could prove, the all-pervading, attaching +kindness of Shakespeare's nature. Again and again Lady Macbeth saves the +situation and tries to shame her husband into stern resolve, but in +vain; he's “quite unmann'd in folly.” + +Had Macbeth been made ambitious, as the commentators assume, there would +have been a sufficient motive for his later actions. But ambition is +foreign to the Shakespeare-Hamlet nature, so the poet does not employ +it. Again and again he returns to the explanation that the timid grow +dangerous when “frighted out of fear.” Macbeth says: + + “But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer + Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep + In the affliction of these terrible dreams + That shake us nightly.” + +In passing I may remark that Hamlet, too, complains of “bad dreams.” + +In deep Hamlet melancholy, Macbeth now begins to contrast his state with +Duncan's: + + “After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. + Treason has done his worst: nor steel nor poison, + Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing, + Can touch him further.” + +Lady Macbeth begs him to sleek o'er his rugged looks, be bright and +jovial. He promises obedience; but soon falls into the dark mood again +and predicts “a deed of dreadful note.” Naturally his wife questions +him, and he replies: + + “Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck, + Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night, + Scarf up the tender eye of pityful day, + And with thy bloody and invisible hand + Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond + Which keeps me pale.” + +No other motive for murder is possible to Shakespeare-Macbeth but fear. + +Banquo is murdered, but still Macbeth cries: + + “I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in + To saucy doubts and fears.” + The scene with the ghost of Banquo follows, where-in Macbeth again shows +the nervous imaginative Hamlet nature. His next speech is mere +reflection, and again Hamlet might have framed it: + + “the time has been + That when the brains were out the man would die + And there an end”: ... + +But while fear may be an adequate motive for Banquo's murder, it can +hardly explain the murder of Macduff's wife and children. Shakespeare +feels this, too, and therefore finds other reasons natural enough; but +the first of these reasons, “his own good,” is not especially +characteristic of Macbeth, and the second, while perhaps characteristic, +is absurdly inadequate: men don't murder out of tediousness: + + “For mine own good + All causes shall give way: I am in blood[1] + Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, + Returning were as tedious as go o'er.” + +[Footnote 1: It seems to me probable that Shakespeare, unable to find an +adequate motive for murder, borrowed this one from “Richard III.” Richard +says: + + “But I am in + So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin”-- + +This is an explanation following the fact rather than a cause producing +it--an explanation, moreover, which may be true in the case of a +fiendlike Richard, but is not true of a Macbeth.] + +Take it all in all, this latter reason is as poor a motive for +cold-blooded murder as was ever given, and Shakespeare again feels this, +for he brings in the witches once more to predict safety to Macbeth and +adjure him to be “bloody, bold and resolute.” When they have thus +screwed his courage to the sticking place as his wife did before, +Macbeth resolves on Macduff's murder, but he immediately recurs to the +old explanation; he does not do it for his “own good” nor because +“returning is tedious “; he does it + + “That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, + And sleep in spite of thunder.” + +It is fair to say that Shakespeare's Macbeth is so gentle-kind, that he +can find no motive in himself for murder, save fear. The words +Shakespeare puts into Hubert's mouth in “King John” are really his own +confession: + + “Within this bosom never enter'd yet + The dreadful motion of a murderous thought.” + +The murders take place and the silly scenes in England between Malcolm +and Macduff follow, and then come Lady Macbeth's illness, and the +characteristic end. The servant tells Macbeth of the approach of the +English force, and he begins the wonderful monologue: + + “my May of life + Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf; + And that which should accompany old age, + As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, + I must not look to have; but in their stead + Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath + Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.” + +Truly this is a strange murderer who longs for “troops of friends,” and +who at the last push of fate can find in himself kindness enough towards +others to sympathize with the “poor heart.” All this is pure Hamlet; one +might better say, pure Shakespeare. + +We are next led into the field with Malcolm and Macduff, and immediately +back to the castle again. While the women break into cries, Macbeth +soliloquizes in the very spirit of bookish Hamlet: + + “I have almost forgot the taste of fears. + The time has been, my senses would have cooled + To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair + Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir + As life were in 't.” + +The whole passage, and especially the “dismal treatise,” recalls the +Wittenberg student with a magic of representment. + +The death of the Queen is announced, and wrings from Macbeth a speech +full of despairing pessimism, a bitterer mood than ever Hamlet knew; a +speech, moreover, that shows the student as well as the incomparable +lyric poet: + + “She should have died hereafter: + There would have been a time for such a word.-- + To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, + Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, + To the last syllable of recorded time; + And all our yesterdays have lighted fools + The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! + Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, + That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, + And then is heard no more: it is a tale + Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, + Signifying nothing.” + +Macbeth's philosophy, like Hamlet's, ends in utter doubt, in a passion +of contempt for life, deeper than anything in Dante. The word “syllable” + in this lyric outburst is as characteristic as the “dismal treatise” in +the previous one, and more characteristic still of Hamlet is the +likening of life to “a poor player.” + +The messenger tells Macbeth that Birnam Wood has begun to move, and he +sees that the witches have cheated him. He can only say, as Hamlet might +have said: + + “I 'gin to be aweary of the sun, + And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.-- + Ring the alarum bell! Blow wind! Come, wrack! + At least we'll die with harness on our back.” + +And later he cries: + + “They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, + But bear-like I must fight the course.” + +This seems to me intensely characteristic of Hamlet; the brutal side of +action was never more contemptuously described, and Macbeth's next +soliloquy makes the identity apparent to every one; it is in the true +thinker-sceptic vein: + + “Why should I play the Roman[1] fool and die + On mine own sword?” + +[Footnote 1: About the year 1600 Shakespeare seems to have steeped +himself in Plutarch. For the next five or six years, whenever he thinks +of suicide, the Roman way of looking at it occurs to him. Having made up +his mind to kill himself, Laertes cries: + + “I am more an antique Roman than a Dane,” + +and, in like case, Cleopatra talks of dying “after the high Roman +fashion.”] + +Macbeth then meets Macduff, and there follows the confession of pity and +remorse, which must be compared to the gentle-kindness with which Hamlet +treats Laertes and Romeo treats Paris. Macbeth says to Macduff: + + “Of all men else I have avoided thee: + But get thee back, my soul is too much charged + With blood of thine already.” + +Then comes the “something desperate” in him that Hamlet boasted of--and +the end. + +Here we have every characteristic of Hamlet without exception, The +crying difference of situation only brings out the essential identity of +the two characters. The two portraits are of the same person and +finished to the finger-tips. The slight shades of difference between +Macbeth and Hamlet only strengthen our contention that both are +portraits of the poet; for the differences are manifestly changes in the +same character, and changes due merely to age. Just as Romeo is younger +than Hamlet, showing passion where Hamlet shows thought, so Macbeth is +older than Hamlet; in Macbeth the melancholy has grown deeper, the tone +more pessimistic, and the heart gentler. [Footnote: Immediately after +the publication of these first two essays, Sir Henry Irving seized the +opportunity and lectured before a distinguished audience on the +character of Macbeth. He gave it as his opinion that “Shakespeare has +presented Macbeth as one of the most blood-thirsty, most hypocritical +villains in his long gallery of men, instinct with the virtues and vices +of their kind (_sic_).” Sir Henry Irving also took the occasion to +praise the simile of pity: + + “And pity, like a naked new-born babe, + Striding the blast.” + +This ridiculous fustian seemed to him “very beautiful.” All this was +perfectly gratuitous: no one needed to be informed that a man might have +merit as an actor and yet be without any understanding of psychology or +any taste in letters.] I venture, therefore, to assert that the portrait +we find in Romeo and Jaques first, and then in Hamlet, and afterwards in +Macbeth, is the portrait of Shakespeare himself, and we can trace his +personal development through these three stages. + + + + +CHAPTER III. DUKE VINCENTIO--POSTHUMUS + +It may be well to add here a couple of portraits of Shakespeare in later +life in order to establish beyond question the chief features of his +character. With this purpose in mind I shall take a portrait that is a +mere sketch of him, Duke Vincentio in “Measure for Measure,” and a +portrait that is minutely finished and perfect, though consciously +idealized, Posthumus, in “Cymbeline.” And the reason I take this +careless, wavering sketch, and contrast it with a highly-finished +portrait, is that, though the sketch is here and there hardly +recognizable, the outline being all too thin and hesitating, yet now and +then a characteristic trait is over-emphasized, as we should expect in +careless work. And this sketch in lines now faint, now all too heavy, is +curiously convincing when put side by side with a careful and elaborate +portrait in which the same traits are reproduced, but harmoniously, and +with a perfect sense of the relative value of each feature. No critic, +so far as I am aware, not Hazlitt, not Brandes, not even Coleridge, has +yet thought of identifying either Duke Vincentio or Posthumus with +Hamlet, much less with Shakespeare himself. The two plays are very +unlike each other in tone and temper; “Measure for Measure” being a sort +of tract for the times, while “Cymbeline” is a purely romantic drama. +Moreover, “Measure for Measure” was probably written a couple of years +after “Hamlet,” towards the end of 1603, while “Cymbeline” belongs to +the last period of the poet's activity, and could hardly have been +completed before 1610 or 1611. The dissimilarity of the plays only +accentuates the likeness of the two protagonists. + +“Measure for Measure” is one of the best examples of Shakespeare's +contempt for stagecraft. Not only is the mechanism of the play, as we +shall see later, astonishingly slipshod, but the ostensible purpose of +the play, which is to make the laws respected in Vienna, is not only not +attained, but seems at the end to be rather despised than forgotten. +This indifference to logical consistency is characteristic of +Shakespeare; Hamlet speaks of “the undiscovered country from whose +bourne no traveller returns” just after he has been talking with his +dead father. The poetic dreamer cannot take the trouble to tie up the +loose ends of a story: the real purpose of “Measure for Measure,” which +is the confusion of the pretended ascetic Angelo, is fulfilled, and that +is sufficient for the thinker, who has thus shown what “our seemers be.” + It is no less characteristic of Shakespeare that Duke Vincentio, his +_alter ego_, should order another to punish loose livers--a task +which his kindly nature found too disagreeable. But, leaving these +general considerations, let us come to the first scene of the first act: +the second long speech of the Duke should have awakened the suspicion +that Vincentio is but another mask for Shakespeare. The whole speech +proclaims the poet; the Duke begins: + + “Angelo + There is a kind of character in thy life,” + +Hamlet says to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in what is supposed to be +prose: + + “There is a kind of confession in your looks.” + +A little later the line: + + “Spirits are not finely touched + But to fine issues,” + +is so characteristic of Hamlet-Shakespeare that it should have put every +reader on the track. + +The speeches of the Duke in the fourth scene of the first act are also +characteristic of Shakespeare. But the four lines, + + “My holy sir, none better knows than you + How I have ever loved the life removed, + And held in idle price to haunt assemblies, + Where youth and cost and witless bravery keep,” + +are to me an intimate, personal confession; a fuller rendering indeed of +Hamlet's “Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither.” In any case it +will be admitted that a dislike of assemblies and cost and witless +bravery is peculiar in a reigning monarch, so peculiar indeed that it +reminds me of the exiled Duke in “As You Like It,” or of Duke Prospero +in “The Tempest” (two other incarnations of Shakespeare), rather than of +any one in real life. A love of solitude; a keen contempt for shows and +the “witless bravery” of court-life were, as we shall see, +characteristics of Shakespeare from youth to old age. + +In the first scene of the third act the Duke as a friar speaks to the +condemned Claudio. He argues as Hamlet would argue, but with, I think, a +more convinced hopelessness. The deepening scepticism would of itself +force us to place “Measure for Measure” a little later than “Hamlet”: + + “Reason thus with life:-- + If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing + That none but fools would keep; a breath thou art, + - - - - - - - - - - + The best of rest is sleep, + And that thou oft provok'st, yet grossly fear'st + Thy death, which is no more. Thou'rt not thyself; + For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains + That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not; + For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get, + And what thou hast, forgett'st. + - - - - - - - - - - + What's in this, + That bears the name of life? Yet in this life + Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear, + That makes these odds all even.” + +That this scepticism of Vincentio is Shakespeare's scepticism appears +from the fact that the whole speech is worse than out of place when +addressed to a person under sentence of death. Were we to take it +seriously, it would show the Duke to be curiously callous to the +sufferings of the condemned Claudio; but callous the Duke is not, he is +merely a pensive poet-philosopher talking in order to lighten his own +heart. Claudio makes unconscious fun of the Duke's argument: + + “To sue to live, I find I seek to die, + And seeking death, find life: let it come on.” + +This scepticism of Shakespeare which shows itself out of place in Angelo +and again most naturally in Claudio's famous speech, is one of the +salient traits of his character which is altogether over-emphasized in +this play. It is a trait, moreover, which finds expression in almost +everything he wrote. Like nearly all the great spirits of the +Renaissance, Shakespeare was perpetually occupied with the heavy +problems of man's life and man's destiny. Was there any meaning or +purpose in life, any result of the striving? was Death to be feared or a +Hereafter to be desired?--incessantly he beat straining wings in the +void. But even in early manhood he never sought to deceive himself. His +Richard II. had sounded the shallow vanity of man's desires, the +futility of man's hopes; he knew that man + + “With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased + With being nothing.” + +And this sad knowledge darkened all Shakespeare's later thinking. +Naturally, when youth passed from him and disillusionment put an end to +dreaming, his melancholy deepened, his sadness became despairing; we can +see the shadows thickening round him into night. Brutus takes an +“everlasting farewell” of his friend, and goes willingly to his rest. +Hamlet dreads “the undiscovered country”; but unsentient death is to him +“a consummation devoutly to be wished.” Vincentio's mood is +half-contemptuous, but the melancholy persists; death is no “more than +sleep,” he says, and life a series of deceptions; while Claudio in this +same play shudders away from death as from annihilation, or worse, in +words which one cannot help regarding as Shakespeare's: + + “_Claud_. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; + To lie in cold obstruction and to rot....” + +A little later and Macbeth's soul cries to us from the outer darkness: +“there's nothing serious in mortality”; life's + + “a tale + Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, + Signifying nothing.” + +And from this despairing gloom come Lear's shrieks of pain and pitiful +ravings, and in the heavy intervals the gibberings of the fool. Even +when the calmer mood of age came upon Shakespeare and took away the +bitterness, he never recanted; Posthumus speaks of life and death in +almost the words used by Vincentio, and Prospero has nothing to add save +that “our little life is rounded with a sleep.” + +It is noteworthy that Shakespeare always gives these philosophic +questionings to those characters whom I regard as his impersonations,[1] +and when he breaks this rule, he breaks it in favour of some Claudio who +is not a character at all, but the mere mouthpiece of one of his moods. + +[Footnote 1: One of my correspondents, Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, has +been kind enough to send me an article contributed to “Colbourn's +Magazine” in 1873, in which he declares that “Shakespeare seems to have +kept a sort of Hamlet notebook, full of Hamlet thoughts, of which 'To be +or not to be' may be taken as the type. These he was burdened with. +These did he cram into Hamlet as far as he could, and then he tossed the +others indiscriminately into other plays, tragedies and histories, +perfectly regardless of the character who uttered them.” Though Mr. +Watts-Dunton sees that some of these “Hamlet thoughts” are to be found +in Macbeth and Prospero and Claudio, he evidently lacks the key to +Shakespeare's personality, or he would never have said that Shakespeare +tossed these reflections “indiscriminately into other plays.” + Nevertheless the statement itself is interesting, and deserves more +notice than has been accorded to it.] + +I now come to a point in the drama which at once demands and defies +explanation. In the first scene of the third act the Duke, after +listening to the terrible discussion between Isabella and Claudio, first +of all tells Claudio that “Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt” + Isabella, and then assures Claudio that to-morrow he must die. The +explanation of these two falsehoods would be far to seek, unless we take +it that they were invented simply in order to prolong our interest in +the drama. But this assumption, though probable, does not increase our +sympathy with the protagonist--the lies seem to be too carelessly +uttered to be even characteristic--nor yet our admiration of the +structure of a play that needs to be supported by such flimsy +buttresses. Still this very carelessness of fact, as I have said, is +Shakespearean; the philosophic dreamer paid little attention to the mere +incidents of the story. + +The talk between the Duke and Isabella follows. The form of the Duke's +speech, with its touch of euphuistic conceit, is one which +Hamlet-Shakespeare affects: + + “The hand that hath made you fair hath made you + good: the goodness that is cheap in beauty makes + beauty brief in goodness; but grace, being the soul of + your complexion, shall keep the body of it ever fair.” + +This Duke plays philosopher, too, in and out of season as Hamlet did: he +says to Isabella: + + “Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful,” + +generalizing his praise even to a woman. + +Again, when Pompey is arrested, he passes from the individual to the +general, exclaiming: + + “That we were all as some would seem to be, + Free from our faults, as from faults seeming free.” + +Then follows the interesting talk with Lucio, who awakens the slightly +pompous Duke to natural life with his contempt. When Lucio tells the +Duke, who is disguised as a friar, that he (the Duke) was a notorious +loose-liver--“he had some feeling of the sport; he knew the +service”--the Duke merely denies the soft impeachment; but when Lucio +tells him that the Duke is not wise, but “a very superficial, ignorant, +unweighing fellow,” the Duke bursts out, “either this is envy in you, +folly, or mistaking: ... Let him but be testimonied in his own +bringings-forth, and he shall appear to the envious a scholar, a +statesman, and a soldier,” which recalls Hamlet's “Friends, scholars, +and soldiers,” and Ophelia's praise of Hamlet as “courtier, soldier, +scholar.” Lucio goes off, and the Duke “moralizes” the incident in +Hamlet's very accent: + + “No might nor greatness in mortality + Can censure 'scape; backwounding calumny + The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong + Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?” + +Hamlet says to Ophelia: + + “Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shall + not escape calumny.” + +And Laertes says that “virtue itself” cannot escape calumny. + +The reflection is manifestly Shakespeare's own, and here the form, too, +is characteristic. It may be as well to recall now that Shakespeare +himself was calumniated in his lifetime; the fact is admitted in Sonnet +36, where he fears his “guilt” will “shame” his friend. + +In his talk with Escalus the Duke's speech becomes almost obscure from +excessive condensation of thought--a habit which grew upon Shakespeare. + +Escalus asks: + + “What news abroad in the world?” + +The Duke answers: + + “None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness, + that the dissolution of it must cure it: novelty is only in + request. ... There is scarce truth enough alive to make + societies secure, but security enough to make fellowships + accursed.” + +Escalus then tells us of the Duke's temperament in words which would fit +Hamlet perfectly; for, curiously enough, they furnish us with the best +description of Shakespeare's melancholy: + + “Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at + anything which professed to make him rejoice.” + +And, lastly, the curious rhymed soliloquy of Vincentio which closes this +third act, must be compared with the epilogue to “The Tempest”: + + “He who the sword of Heaven will bear + Should be as holy as severe; + Pattern in himself to know, + Grace to stand and virtue go;” + - - - - - - - - - - + “Shame to him whose cruel striking + Kills for faults of his own liking! + Twice treble shame on Angelo, + To weed my vice and let his grow!” + - - - - - - - - - - + +In the fifth act the Duke, freed from making plots and plans, speaks +without constraint and reveals his nature ingenuously. He uses words to +Angelo that recall the sonnets: + + “O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it, + To lock it in the wards of covered bosom, + When it deserves, with characters of brass, + A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time + And razure of oblivion.”[1] + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Sonnet 122 with its “full character'd” and “razed +oblivion.”] + +Again, the Duke argues in gentle Shakespeare's fashion for Angelo and +against Isabella: + + “If he had so offended, + He would have weighed thy brother by himself + And not have cut him off.” + +It seems impossible for Shakespeare to believe that the sinner can +punish sin. It reminds one of the sacred “he that is without sin among +you let him first cast a stone.” The detections and forgivings of the +last act follow. + +It will be admitted, I think, on all hands that Duke Vincentio speaks +throughout the play with Shakespeare's voice. From the point of view of +literary art his character is very far from being as complex or as +deeply realized as that of Hamlet or Macbeth, or even as that of Romeo +or of Jaques, and yet one other trait besides that of sceptical brooding +is so over-accentuated that it can never be forgotten. In the last scene +the Duke orders Barnardine to the block and the next moment respites +him; he condemns + + “An Angelo for Claudio; death for death,” + +then pardons Angelo, and at once begins to chat with him in kindly +intimacy; he asserts that he cannot forgive Lucio, Lucio who has +traduced him, shall be whipped and hanged, and in the same breath he +remits the heavy penalty. Truly he is “an unhurtful opposite” [Footnote: +The critics are at variance over this ending, and, indeed, over the +whole play. Coleridge says that “our feelings of justice are grossly +wounded in Angelo's escape”; for “cruelty with lust and damnable +baseness cannot be forgiven.” Mr. Swinburne, too, regrets the +miscarriage of justice; the play to him is a tragedy, and should end +tragically with the punishment of the “autotype of the huge national +vice of England.” Perhaps, however, Puritan hypocrisy was not so +widespread or so powerful in the time of Shakespeare as it is nowadays; +perhaps, too, Shakespeare was not so good a hater as Mr. Swinburne, nor +so strenuous a moralist as Coleridge was, at least in theory. In any +case it is evident that Shakespeare found it harder to forgive Lucio, +who had hurt his vanity, than Angelo, who pushed lust to outrage and +murder, which strange, yet characteristic, fact I leave to the mercy of +future commentators. Mr. Sidney Lee regards “Measure for Measure” as +“one of Shakespeare's greatest plays.” Coleridge, however, thought it “a +hateful work”; it is also a poor work, badly constructed, and for the +most part carelessly written. In essence it is a mere tract against +Puritanism, and in form a sort of Arabian Nights' Entertainment in which +the hero plays the part of Haroun-al-Raschid.] whose anger has no +stead-fastness; but the gentle forgivingness of disposition that is so +marked in Vincentio is a trait we found emphasized in Romeo, and again +in Hamlet and again in Macbeth. It is, indeed, one of the most permanent +characteristics of Shakespeare. From the beginning to the end of the +play, Duke Vincentio is weakly-kind in act and swayed by fitful +impulses; his assumed austerity of conduct is the thin varnish of vanity +that will not take on such soft material. The Hamlet weakness is so +exaggerated in him, and so unmotived, that I am inclined to think +Shakespeare was even more irresolute and indisposed to action than +Hamlet himself. + +In the character of Posthumus, the hero of “Cymbeline,” Shakespeare has +painted himself with extraordinary care; has, in fact, given us as +deliberate and almost as complete a picture of himself as he did in +Hamlet. Unluckily his hand had grown weaker in the ten years' interval, +and he gave such loose rein to his idealizing habit that the portrait is +neither so veracious nor so lifelike. The explanation of all this will +be given later; it is enough for the moment to state that as Posthumus +is perhaps the completest portrait of him that we have after his mental +shipwreck, we must note the traits of it carefully, and see what manner +of man Shakespeare took himself to be towards the end of his career. + +It is difficult to understand how the commentators have been able to +read “Cymbeline” without seeing the likeness between Posthumus and +Hamlet. The wager which is the theme of the play may have hindered them +a little, but as they found it easy to excuse its coarseness by +attributing lewdness to the time, there seems to have been no reason for +not recognizing Posthumus. Posthumus is simply a staider Hamlet +considerably idealized. I am not at all sure that the subject of the +play was void of offence in the time of Elizabeth; all finer spirits +must even then have found it puerile and coarse. What would Spenser have +said about it? Shakespeare used the wager because of the opportunities +it gave him of painting himself and an ideal woman. His view of it is +just indicated; Iachimo says: + +“I make my wager rather against your confidence than her reputation: +and, to bar your offence herein too, I durst attempt it against any lady +in the world.” But in spite of the fact that Iachimo makes his insult +general, Posthumus warns him that: + + “If she remain unseduced ... for your ill opinion, + and the assault you have made to her chastity, you shall + answer me with your sword.” + +From this it appears that the bet was distasteful to Posthumus; it is +not so offenceful to him as it should have been according to our modern +temper; but this shortcoming, an unconscious shortcoming, is the only +fault which Shakespeare will allow in his hero. In the first scene of +the first act Posthumus is praised as men never praise the absent +without a personal motive; the First Gentleman says of him: + + “I do not think + So fair an outward and such stuff within + Endows a man but he.” + +The Second Gentleman replies: + + “You speak him far;” + +and the First Gentleman continues: + + “I do extend him, sir, within himself; + Crush him together, rather than unfold + His measure duly.” + +And as if this were not enough, this gentleman-eulogist goes on to tell +us that Posthumus has sucked in “all the learnings” of his time “as we +do air,” and further: + + “He lived in court-- + Which rare it is to do--most praised, most loved; + A sample to the young'st, to the more mature + A glass that feated them; and to the graver + A child that guided dotards.” + +This gross praise is ridiculously unnatural, and outrages our knowledge +of life; men are much more apt to criticize than to praise the absent; +but it shows a prepossession on Shakespeare's part in favour of +Posthumus which can only be explained by the fact that in Posthumus he +was depicting himself. Every word is significant to us, for Shakespeare +evidently tells us here what he thought about himself, or rather what he +wished to think, towards the end of his life. It is impossible to +believe that he was “most praised, most loved”; men do not love or +praise their superiors in looks, or intellect. + +The first words which Posthumus in this same scene addresses to Imogen, +show the gentle Shakespeare nature: + + “O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause + To be suspected of more tenderness + Than doth become a man.” + +And when Imogen gives him the ring and tells him to wear it till he woos +another wife, he talks to her exactly as Romeo would have talked: + + “How! how! another?-- + You gentle gods, give me but this I have, + And sear up my embracements from a next + With bonds of death! [_Putting on the ring_.] + Remain, remain thou here + While sense can keep it on.” + +And he concludes as self-depreciating Hamlet would have concluded: + + “And sweetest, fairest, + As I my poor self did exchange for you, + To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles + I still win of you; for my sake wear this: + It is a manacle of love; I'll place it + Upon this fairest prisoner. + [Putting a bracelet on her arm.]” + +In his fight with Cloten he is depicted as a rare swordsman of wonderful +magnanimity. Pisanio says: + + “My master rather played than fought, + And had no help of anger.” + +I call this gentle kindness which Posthumus displays, the birthmark of +Shakespeare; he had “no help of anger.” As the play goes on we find +Shakespeare's other peculiarities, or Hamlet's. Iachimo represents +Posthumus as “merry,” “gamesome,” “the Briton reveller”; but curiously +enough Imogen answers as Ophelia might have answered about Hamlet: + + “When he was here, + He did incline to sadness; and ofttimes + Not knowing why.” + +This uncaused melancholy that distinguishes Romeo, Jaques, Hamlet, +Macbeth, and Vincentio is not more characteristic of the +Hamlet-Shakespeare nature than the way Posthumus behaves when Iachimo +tries to make him believe that he has won the wager. Posthumus is +convinced almost at once; jumps to the conclusion, indeed, with the +heedless rapidity of the naïve, sensitive, quick-thinking man who has +cultivated his emotions and thoughts by writing in solitude, and not the +suspicions and distrust of others which are developed in the +market-place. One is reminded of Goethe's famous couplet: + + “Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, + Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.” + +Posthumus is all in fitful extremes; not satisfied with believing the +lie, he gives Iachimo Imogen's ring as well, and bursts into a diatribe: + + “Let there be no honour + Where there's beauty; truth, where semblance; love, + Where there's another man,” + +and so forth. Even Philario, who has no stake in the matter, is +infinitely harder to convince: + + “Have patience, sir, + And take your ring again; 'tis not yet won: + It may be probable she lost it.” + +Then this “unstable opposite,” Posthumus, demands his ring back again, +but as soon as Iachimo swears that he had the bracelet from her arm, +Posthumus swings round again to belief from sheer rapidity of thought. +Again Philario will not be convinced. He says: + + “Sir, be patient, + This is not strong enough to be believed + Of one persuaded well of--” + +But Posthumus will not await the proof for which he has asked. He is +convinced upon suspicion, as Othello was, and the very nimbleness of his +Hamlet-intellect, seeing that probabilities are against him, entangles +him in the snare. Even his servant Pisanio will not believe in Imogen's +guilt though his master assures him of it. Shakespeare does not notice +this peculiar imprudent haste of his hero, as he notices, for example, +the hasty speech of Hotspur by letting Harry of England imitate it, +simply because the quick-thinking was his own; while the hurried +stuttering speech was foreign to him. Posthumus goes on to rave against +women as Hamlet did; as all men do who do not understand them: + + “For even to vice + They are not constant, but are changing still.” + +And Posthumus betrays as clearly as ever Hamlet did that he is merely +Shakespeare masquerading: + + “I'll write against them, + Detest them, curse them--yet 'tis greater skill + In a true hate, to pray they have their will: + The very devils cannot plague them better.” + +“Write against them” indeed! This is the same threat which Shakespeare +uses against his dark mistress in Sonnet 140, and every one will admit +that it is more in the character of the poet and man of letters than in +that of the warrior son-in-law of a half-barbarous king. The last line +here, because it is a little superfluous, a little emphatic, seems to me +likely to have a personal application. When Shakespeare's mistress had +her will, did she fall to misery, I wonder? + +I may be allowed to notice here how intensely characteristic all this +play is of Shakespeare. In the third scene of the third act, life in the +country is contrasted to its advantage with life at Court; and then gold +is treated as dirt by the princely brothers--both these, the love of +country life, and the contempt of gold, are, as we shall see later, +abiding peculiarities of Shakespeare. + +When we come to Posthumus again almost at the end of the play we find +that his anger with Imogen has burned itself out. He is angry now with +Pisanio for having executed his order and murdered her; he should have +“saved the noble Imogen to repent.” Surely the poet Shakespeare and not +the outraged lover speaks in this epithet, “noble.” + +Posthumus describes the battle in which he took so gallant a part in +Shakespeare's usual manner. He falls into rhyme; he shows the cheap +modesty of the conventional hero; he tells of what others did, and +nothing of his own feats; Belarius and the two striplings, he says: + + “With their own nobleness ... gilded pale looks.” + +Unfortunately one is reminded of the exquisite sonnet line: + + “Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.” + +“Gild” is one of Shakespeare's favourite words; he uses it very often, +sometimes indeed as in this case, ineffectively. + +But the scene which reveals the character of Posthumus beyond all doubt +is the prison scene in the fifth act. His soliloquy which begins: + + “Most welcome, bondage, for thou art a way, + I think, to liberty “-- + +is all pure Shakespeare. When he determines to give up life, he says: + + “O Imogen! + I'll speak to thee in silence,” + +and Hamlet at his death comes to the self-same word: + + “The rest is silence.” + +The scene with the gaoler is from Hamlet's soul; Posthumus jests with +his keeper as Hamlet with the gravedigger: + + “So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the + ship pays the shot;” + +and the Hamlet melancholy: + + “I am merrier to die than them art to live;” + +and the Hamlet riddle still unsolved: + + “I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct + them the way I am going; but such as wink, and will + not use them.” + +When the messenger comes to bring him to the king, Posthumus cries: + + “Thou bringest good news, I am called to be made + free,” + +for there are “no bolts for the dead.” + +Those who wish to see how Shakespeare's mind worked will compare +Posthumus' speech to Iachimo, when he has learned the truth, with +Othello's words when he is convinced of his own fatal error and of +Desdemona's chastity. The two speeches are twins; though the persons +uttering them should be of totally different characters. The explanation +of this astounding similarity will be given when we come to “Othello.” + +It is characteristic of Posthumus that he should strike Imogen in her +page's dress, not recognizing her; he is ever too quick--a mere creature +of impulse. More characteristic still is the way he forgives Iachimo, +just as Vincentio forgave Angelo: + + “Kneel not to me: + The power that I have on you, is to spare you, + The malice towards you, to forgive you. Live, + And deal with others better.” + +In judging his fellow-men this is Shakespeare's harshest word. +Posthumus, then, is presented to us in the beginning of the play as +perfect, a model to young and old, of irreproachable virtue and of all +wonderful qualities. In the course of the play, however, he shows +himself very nimble-witted, credulous, and impulsive, quick to anger and +quicker still to forgive; with thoughts all turned to sadness and to +musing; a poet--ever in extremes; now hating his own rash errors to the +point of demanding the heaviest punishment for them; now swearing that +he will revenge himself on women by writing against them; a +philosopher--he jests with his gaoler and consoles himself with +despairing speculation in the very presence of the Arch-Fear. All these +are manifestly characteristics of Hamlet, and Posthumus possesses no +others. + +So far, then, from finding that Shakespeare never revealed himself in +his dramas, I have shown that he pictured himself as the hero [Footnote: +A hypercritic might contend that Jaques was not the hero of “As You Like +It”; but the objection really strengthens my argument. Shakespeare makes +of Jaques, who is merely a secondary character without influence on the +action, the principal person in the play simply because in Jaques he +satisfied his own need of self-revealing.] of six plays written at +widely different times; in fact that, like Rembrandt, he painted his own +portrait in all the critical periods of life: as a sensuous youth given +over to love and poetry in Romeo; a few years later as a melancholy +onlooker at life's pageant in Jaques; in middle age as the passionate, +melancholy, aesthete-philosopher of kindliest nature in Hamlet and +Macbeth; as the fitful Duke incapable of severity in “Measure for +Measure,” and finally, when standing within the shadow, as Posthumus, an +idealized yet feebler _replica_ of Hamlet. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. SHAKESPEARE'S MEN OF ACTION: THE BASTARD, ARTHUR, AND +KING RICHARD II. + + +It is time now, I think, to test my theory by considering the converse +of it. In any case, the attempt to see the other side, is pretty sure to +make for enlightenment, and may thus justify itself. In the mirror which +Shakespeare held up to human nature, we not only see Romeo, and Jaques, +Hamlet, Macbeth and Posthumus; but also the leonine, frank face of the +Bastard, the fiery, lean, impatient mask of Hotspur, and the cynical, +bold eyes of Richard III. Even if it were admitted that Shakespeare +preferred the type of the poet-philosopher, he was certainly able, one +would say, to depict the man of action with extraordinary vigour and +success. He himself then must have possessed a certain strength of +character, certain qualities of decision and courage; he must have had, +at least, “a good stroke in him,” as Carlyle phrased it. This is the +universal belief, a belief sanctioned by Coleridge and Goethe, and +founded apparently on plain facts, and yet, I think, it is mistaken, +demonstrably untrue. It might even be put more plausibly than any of its +defenders has put it. One might point out that Shakespeare's men of +action are nearly all to be found in the historical plays which he wrote +in early manhood, while the portrait of the philosopher-poet is the +favourite study of his riper years. It would then be possible to suggest +that Shakespeare grew from a bold roistering youth into a melancholy, +thoughtful old age, touching both extremes of manhood in his own +development. But even this comforting explanation will not stand: his +earliest impersonations are all thinkers. + +Let us consider, again, how preference in a writer is established. +Everyone feels that Sophocles prefers Antigone to Ismene; Ismene is a +mere sketch of gentle feminine weakness; while Antigone is a great +portrait of the _revoltée_, the first appearance indeed in +literature of the “new woman,” and the place she fills in the drama, and +the ideal qualities attributed to her girlhood--alike betray the +personal admiration of the poet. In the same way Shakespeare's men of +action are mere sketches in comparison with the intimate detailed +portrait of the aesthete-philosopher-poet with his sensuous, gentle, +melancholy temperament. Moreover, and this should be decisive, +Shakespeare's men of action are all taken from history, or tradition, or +story, and not from imagination, and their characteristics were supplied +by the chroniclers and not invented by the dramatist. To see how far +this is true I must examine Shakespeare's historical plays at some +length Such an examination did not form a part of my original purpose. +It is very difficult, not to say impossible, to ascertain exactly how +far history and verbal tradition helped Shakespeare in his historical +portraits of English worthies. Jaques, for instance, is his own creation +from top to toe; every word given to him therefore deserves careful +study; but how much of Hotspur is Shakespeare's, and how much of the +Bastard? Without pretending, however, to define exactly the sources or +the limits of the master's inspiration, there are certain indications in +the historical plays which throw a flood of light on the poet's nature, +and certain plain inferences from his methods which it would be folly +not to draw. + +Let us begin with “King John,” as one of the easiest and most helpful to +us at this stage, and remembering that Shakespeare's drama was evidently +founded on the old play entitled “The Troublesome Raigne of King John,” + let us from our knowledge of Shakespeare's character forecast what his +part in the work must have been. A believer in the theory I have set +forth would guess at once that the strong, manly character of the +Bastard was vigorously sketched even in the old play, and just as surely +one would attribute the gentle, feminine, pathetic character of Arthur +to Shakespeare. And this is precisely what we find: Philip Fauconbridge +is excellently depicted in the old play; he is called: + + “A hardy wildehead, tough and venturous,” + +and he talks and acts the character to the life. In “The Troublesome +Raigne,” as in “King John,” he is proud of his true father, the +lion-hearted Richard, and careless of the stain of his illegitimate +birth; he cries: + + “The world 's in my debt, + There's something owing to Plantaginet. + I, marrie Sir, let me alone for game + He act some wonders now I know my name; + By blessed Marie He not sell that pride + For England's wealth and all the world beside.” + +Who does not feel the leaping courage and hardihood of the Bastard in +these lines? Shakespeare seizes the spirit of the character and renders +it, but his emendations are all by way of emphasis: he does not add a +new quality; his Bastard is the Bastard of “The Troublesome Raigne.” But +the gentle, pathetic character of Arthur is all Shakespeare's. In the +old play Arthur is presented as a prematurely wise youth who now urges +the claims of his descent and speaks boldly for his rights, and now begs +his vixenish mother to + + “Wisely winke at all + Least further harmes ensue our hasty speech.” + +Again, he consoles her with the same prudence: + + “Seasons will change and so our present griefe + May change with them and all to our reliefe.” + +This Arthur is certainly nothing like Shakespeare's Arthur. Shakespeare, +who had just lost his only son Hamnet, [Footnote: Some months before +writing “King John” Shakespeare had visited Stratford for the first time +after ten years absence and had then perhaps learned to know and love +young Hamnet.] in his twelfth year, turns Arthur from a young man into a +child, and draws all the pathos possible from his weakness and +suffering; Arthur's first words are of “his powerless hand,” and his +advice to his mother reaches the very fount of tears: + + “Good my mother, peace! + I would that I were low laid in my grave; + I am not worth this coil that's made for me.” + +When taken prisoner his thought is not of himself: + + “O, this will make my mother die with grief.” + +He is a woman-child in unselfish sympathy. + +The whole of the exquisitely pathetic scene between Hubert and Arthur +belongs, as one might have guessed, to Shakespeare, that is, the whole +pathos of it belongs to him. + +In the old play Arthur thanks Hubert for his care, calls him “curteous +keeper,” and, in fact, behaves as the conventional prince. He has no +words of such affecting appeal as Shakespeare puts into Arthur's mouth: + + “I would to heaven + I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.” + +This love and longing for love is the characteristic of Shakespeare's +Arthur; he goes on: + + “Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale to-day. + In sooth, I would you were a little sick, + That I might sit all night and watch with you: + I warrant, I love you more than you do me.” + +A girl could not be more tender, more anxious for love's assurance. In +“The Troublesome Raigne,” when Hubert tells Arthur that he has bad news +for him, tidings of “more hate than death,” Arthur faces the unknown +with a man's courage; he asks: + + “What is it, man? if needes be don, + Act it, and end it, that the paine were gon.” + +It might be the Bastard speaking, so hardy-reckless are the words. When +this Arthur pleads for his eyesight, he does it in this way: + + “I speake not only for eyes priviledge, + The chiefe exterior that I would enjoy: + But for thy perill, farre beyond my paine, + Thy sweete soules losse more than my eyes vaine lack.” + +Again at the end he says: + + “Delay not, Hubert, my orisons are ended, + Begin I pray thee, reave me of my sight.” + +And when Hubert relents because his “conscience bids him desist,” Arthur +says: + + “Hubert, if ever Arthur be in state + Looke for amends of this received gift.” + +In all this there is neither realization of character nor even sincere +emotion. But Shakespeare's Arthur is a masterpiece of soul-revealing, +and moves us to pity at every word: + + “Will you put out mine eyes? + These eyes that never did, nor never shall, + So much as frown on you?” + +And then the child's imaginative horror of being bound: + + “For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound. + Nay, hear me, Hubert: drive these men away, + And I will sit as quiet as a lamb; + I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word.” + +When Hubert relents, Shakespeare's Arthur does not promise reward, he +simply breathes a sigh of exquisite affection: + + “O, now you look like Hubert: all this while + You were disguised.” + +And finally, when Hubert promises never to hurt him, his words are: + + “O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.” + +Arthur's character we owe entirely to Shakespeare, there is no hint of +his weakness and tenderness in the original, no hint either of the +pathos of his appeal--these are the inventions of gentle Shakespeare, +who has manifestly revealed his own exceeding tenderness and sweetness +of heart in the person of the child Prince. Of course, there are faults +in the work; faults of affectation and word-conceit hardly to be +endured. When Hubert says he will burn out his eyes with hot irons, +Arthur replies: + +“Ah, none, but in this iron age, would do it! The iron of itself, though +heat red-hot,” + +and so forth. ... Nor does this passage of tinsel stand alone. When the +iron cools and Hubert says he can revive it, Arthur replies with +pinchbeck conceits: + +“An if you do you will but make it blush, And glow with shame at your +proceedings,” + +and so forth. The faults are bad enough; but the heavenly virtues carry +them all off triumphantly. There is no creation like Arthur in the whole +realm of poetry; he is all angelic love and gentleness, and yet neither +mawkish nor unnatural; his fears make him real to us, and the horror of +his situation allows us to accept his exquisite pleading as possible. We +need only think of Tennyson's May Queen, or of his unspeakable Arthur, +or of Thackeray's prig Esmond, in order to understand how difficult it +is in literature to make goodness attractive or even credible. Yet +Shakespeare's art triumphs where no one else save Balzac and Tourgenief +has achieved even a half-success. + +I cannot leave this play without noticing that Shakespeare has shown in +it a hatred of murder just as emphatically as he has revealed his love +of gentleness and pity in the creation of Arthur. In spite of the +loyalty which the English nobles avow in the second scene of the fourth +act, which is a quality that always commends itself to Shakespeare, +Pembroke is merely their mouthpiece in requesting the King to +“enfranchise Arthur.” As soon as John tells them that Arthur is dead +they throw off their allegiance and insult the monarch to his face. Even +John is startled by their indignation, and brought as near remorse as is +possible for him: + + “I repent; + There is no sure foundation set on blood; + No certain life achieved by others' death--” + +--which reads like a reflection of Shakespeare himself. When the Bastard +asks the nobles to return to their allegiance, Salisbury finds an +astonishing phrase to express their loathing of the crime: + + “The King hath dispossess'd himself of us; + We will not line his thin bestained cloak + With our pure honours, _nor attend the foot + That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks_.” + +In all literature there is no more terrible image: Shakespeare's horror +of bloodshed has more than Aeschylean intensity. When the dead body of +Arthur is found each of the nobles in turn expresses his abhorrence of +the deed, and all join in vowing instant revenge. Even the Bastard calls +it + + “A damned and bloody work, + The graceless action of a heavy hand,” + +and a little later the thought of the crime brings even this tough +adventurer to weakness: + + “I am amazed, methinks, and lose my way + Among the thorns and dangers of this world.” + +--a phrase that suits the weakness of Richard II. or Henry VI. or +Shakespeare himself better than it suits the hardy Bastard. Even as a +young man Shakespeare hated the cruelty of ambition and the savagery of +war as much as he loved all the ceremonies of chivalry and observances +of gentle courtesy. + +Very similar inferences are to be drawn from a study of Shakespeare's +“King Richard II.,” which in some respects is his most important +historical creation. Coleridge says: “I know of no character drawn by +our great poet with such unequalled skill as that of Richard II.” Such +praise is extravagant; but it would have been true to say that up to +1593 or 1594, when Shakespeare wrote “King Richard II.,” he had given us +no character so complex and so interesting as this Richard. Coleridge +overpraised the character-drawing probably because the study of +Richard's weakness and irresolution, and the pathos resulting from such +helplessness, must have seemed very like an analysis of his own nature. + +Let us now examine “Richard II.,” and see what light it casts on +Shakespeare's qualities. There was an old play of the same title, a play +which is now lost, but we can form some idea of what it was like from +the description in Forman's Diary. Like most of the old history-plays it +ranged over twenty years of Richard's reign, whereas Shakespeare's +tragedy is confined to the last year of Richard's life. It is probable +that the old play presented King Richard as more wicked and more +deceitful than Shakespeare imagines him. We know that in the “Confessio +Amantis,” Gower, the poet, cast off his allegiance to Richard: for he +cancelled the dedication of the poem to Richard, and dedicated it +instead to Henry. William Langland, too, the author of the “Vision of +Piers Plowman,” turned from Richard at the last, and used his deposition +as a warning to ill-advised youth. It may be assumed, then, that +tradition pictured Richard as a vile creature in whom weakness nourished +crime. Shakespeare took his story partly from Holinshed's narrative, and +partly either from the old play or from the traditional view of +Richard's character. When he began to write the play he evidently +intended to portray Richard as even more detestable than history and +tradition had presented him. In Holinshed Richard is not accused of the +murder of Gloster, whereas Shakespeare directly charges him with it, or +rather makes Gaunt do so, and the accusation is not denied, much less +disproved. At the close of the first act we are astonished by the +revelation of Richard's devilish heartlessness. The King hearing that +his uncle, John of Gaunt, is “grievous sick,” cries out: + + “Now put it, God, in his physician's mind, + To help him to his grave immediately! + The lining of his coffers shall make coats + To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars. + Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him: + Pray God we may make haste and come too late.” + +This mixture of greed and cold cruelty decked out with blasphemous +phrase is viler, I think, than anything attributed by Shakespeare to the +worst of his villains. But surely some hint of Richard's incredible +vileness should have come earlier in the play, should have preceded at +least his banishment of Bolingbroke, if Shakespeare had really meant to +present him to us in this light. + +In the first scene of the second act, when Gaunt reproves him, Richard +turns on him in a rage, threatening. In the very same scene York +reproves Richard for seizing Gaunt's money and land, and Richard +retorts: + + “Think what you will: we seize into our hands + His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.” + +But when York blames him to his face and predicts that evil will befall +him and leaves him, Richard in spite of this at once creates: + + “Our uncle York, Lord Governor of England; + For he is just, and always loved us well.” + +This Richard of Shakespeare is so far, I submit, almost +incomprehensible. When reproved by Gaunt and warned, Richard rages and +threatens; when blamed by York much more severely, Richard rewards York: +the two scenes contradict each other. Moreover, though his callous +selfishness, greed and cruelty are apparently established, in the very +next scene of this act our sympathy with Richard is called forth by the +praise his queen gives him. She says: + + “I know no cause + Why I should welcome such a guest as grief, + Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest + As my sweet Richard.” + +And from this scene to the end of the play Shakespeare enlists all our +sympathy for Richard. Now, what is the reason of this right-about-face +on the part of the poet? + +It appears to me that Shakespeare began the play intending to present +the vile and cruel Richard of tradition. But midway in the play he saw +that there was no emotion, no pathos, to be got out of the traditional +view. If Richard were a vile, scheming, heartless murderer, the loss of +his crown and life would merely satisfy our sense of justice, but this +outcome did not satisfy Shakespeare's desire for emotion, and +particularly his desire for pathos, [Footnote: In the last scene of the +last act of “Lear,” Albany says: + “This judgement of the heavens, that makes us tremble + Touches us not with pity.”] +and accordingly he veers round, says nothing more of Richard's +vileness, lays stress upon his weakness and sufferings, discovers, too, +all manner of amiable qualities in him, and so draws pity from us for +his dethronement and murder. + +The curious thing is that while Shakespeare is depicting Richard's +heartlessness, he does his work badly; the traits, as I have shown, are +crudely extravagant and even contradictory; but when he paints Richard's +gentleness and amiability, he works like a master, every touch is +infallible: he is painting himself. + +It was natural for Shakespeare to sympathize deeply with Richard; he was +still young when he wrote the play, young enough to remember vividly how +he himself had been led astray by loose companions, and this formed a +bond between them. At this time of his life this was Shakespeare's +favourite subject: he treated it again in “Henry IV.,” which is at once +the epilogue to “Richard II.” and a companion picture to it; for the +theme of both plays is the same--youth yielding to unworthy +companions--though the treatment in the earlier play is incomparably +feebler than it became in “King Henry IV.” Bushy, Bagot, and Green, the +favourites of Richard, are not painted as Shakespeare afterwards painted +Falstaff and his followers. But partly because he had not yet attained +to such objective treatment of character, Shakespeare identified himself +peculiarly with Richard; and his painting of Richard is more intimate, +more subtle, more self-revealing and pathetic than anything in “Henry +IV.” + +As I have already said, from the time when Richard appoints York as +Regent, and leaves England, Shakespeare begins to think of himself as +Richard, and from this moment to the end no one can help sympathizing +with the unhappy King. At this point, too, the character-drawing +becomes, of a sudden, excellent. When Richard lands in England, he is +given speech after speech, and all he says and does afterwards throws +light, it seems to me, on Shakespeare's own nature. Let us mark each +trait First of all Richard is intensely, frankly emotional: he “weeps +for joy” to be in England again; “weeping, smiling,” he greets the earth +of England, and is full of hope. “The thief, the traitor,” Bolingbroke, +will not dare to face the light of the sun; for “every man that +Bolingbroke has in his pay,” he cries exultantly, God hath given Richard +a “glorious angel; ... Heaven still guards the right.” A moment later he +hears from Salisbury that the Welshmen whom he had relied upon as allies +are dispersed and fled. At once he becomes “pale and dead.” From the +height of pride and confidence he falls to utter hopelessness. + + “All souls that will be safe fly from my side; + For time hath set a blot upon my pride.” + +Aumerle asks him to remember who he is, and at once he springs from +dejection to confidence again. He cries: + + “Awake, thou sluggard majesty! thou sleepest. + Is not the king's name forty thousand names?” + +The next moment Scroop speaks of cares, and forthwith fitful Richard is +in the dumps once more. But this time his weakness is turned to +resignation and sadness, and the pathos of this is brought out by the +poet: + + “Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we? + Greater he shall not be; if he serve God + We'll serve him, too, and be his fellow so. + Revolt our subjects? that we cannot mend; + They break their faith to God, as well as us. + Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay; + The worst is death, and death will have his day.” + +Who does not hear Hamlet speaking in this memorable last line? Like +Hamlet, too, this Richard is quick to suspect even his friends' loyalty. +He guesses that Bagot, Bushy, and Green have made peace with +Bolingbroke, and when Scroop seems to admit this, Richard is as quick as +Hamlet to unpack his heart with words: + + “O villains, vipers, damned without redemption! + Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man! + Snakes,” + +and so forth. + +But as soon as he learns that his friends are dead he breaks out in a +long lament for them which ranges over everything from worms to kings, +and in its melancholy pessimism is the prototype of those meditations +which Shakespeare has put in the mouth of nearly all his favourite +characters. Who is not reminded of Hamlet's great monologue when he +reads: + + “For within the hollow crown, + That rounds the mortal temples of a king, + Keeps Death his court: and there the antic sits + Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; + Allowing him a breath, a little scene + To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks; + Infusing him with self and vain conceit, + As if this flesh, which walls about our life, + Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus, + Comes at the last, and with a little pin[1] + Bores through his castle wall, and--farewell, King!” + +[Footnote 1: In Hamlet's famous soliloquy the pin is a “bodkin.”] + +Let us take another two lines of this soliloquy: + + “For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground + And tell sad stories of the death of kings.” + +In the second scene of the third act of “Titus Andronicus” we find Titus +saying to his daughter: + + “I'll to thy closet; and go read with thee + Sad stories chancèd in the times of old.” + +Again, in the “Comedy of Errors,” Ægeon tells us that his life was +prolonged: + + “To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.” + +The similarity of these passages shows that in the very spring of life +and heyday of the blood Shakespeare had in him a certain romantic +melancholy which was developed later by the disappointments of life into +the despairing of Macbeth and Lear. + +When the Bishop calls upon Richard to act, the King's weathercock mind +veers round again, and he cries: + + “This ague fit of fear is over-blown, + An easy task it is to win our own.” + +But when Scroop tells him that York has joined with Bolingbroke, he +believes him at once, gives up hope finally, and turns as if for comfort +to his own melancholy fate: + + “Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth + Of that sweet way I was in to despair!” + +That “sweet way” of despair is Romeo's way, Hamlet's, Macbeth's and +Shakespeare's way. + +In the next scene Richard meets his foes, and at first plays the king. +Shakespeare tells us that he looks like a king, that his eyes are as +“bright as an eagle's”; and this poetic admiration of state and place +seems to have got into Richard's blood, for at first he declares that +Bolingbroke is guilty of treason, and asserts that: + + “My master, God omnipotent, + Is mustering in his clouds, on our behalf, + Armies of pestilence.” + +Of course, he gives in with fair words the next moment, and the next +rages against Bolingbroke; and then comes the great speech in which the +poet reveals himself so ingenuously that at the end of it the King he +pretends to be, has to admit that he has talked but idly. I cannot help +transcribing the whole of the passage, for it shows how easily +Shakespeare falls out of this King's character into his own: + + “What must the King do now? Must he submit? + The King shall do it. Must he be depos'd? + The King shall be contented: must he lose + The name of king? O! God's name, let it go: + I'll give my jewels for a set of beads; + My gorgeous palace for a hermitage; + My gay apparel for an alms-man's gown; + My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood; + My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff; + My subjects for a pair of carved saints; + And my large kingdom for a little grave, + A little, little grave, an obscure grave:-- + Or I'll be buried in the King's highway, + Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet + May hourly trample on their sovereign's head: + For on my heart they tread, now whilst I live; + And, buried once, why not upon my head?-- + Aumerle, thou weep'st; my tender-hearted cousin!-- + We'll make foul weather with despised tears; + Our sighs, and they, shall lodge the summer corn, + And make a dearth in this revolting land. + Or shall we play the wantons with our woes, + And make some pretty match with shedding tears? + As thus:--To drop them still upon one place, + Till they have fretted us a pair of graves + Within the earth; and, therein laid,--There lies + Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes. + Would not this ill do well?--Well, well, I see + I talk but idly, and you mock at me.-- + Most mighty prince, my lord Northumberland, + What says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty + Give Richard leave to live till Richard die? + You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.” + +Every one will admit that the poet himself speaks here, at least, from +the words “I'll give my jewels” to the words “Would not this ill do +well?” But the melancholy mood, the pathetic acceptance of the +inevitable, the tender poetic embroidery now suit the King who is +fashioned in the poet's likeness. + +The next moment Richard revolts once more against his fate: + + “Base court, where kings grow base, + To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.” + +And when Bolingbroke kneels to him he plays upon words, as Gaunt did a +little earlier in the play misery making sport to mock itself. He says: + + “Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know, + Thus high at least, although your knee be low”-- + +and then he abandons himself to do “what force will have us do.” + +The Queen's wretchedness is next used to heighten our sympathy with +Richard, and immediately afterwards we have that curious scene between +the gardener and his servant which is merely youthful Shakespeare, for +such a gardener and such a servant never yet existed. The scene +[Footnote: Coleridge gives this scene as an instance of Shakespeare's +“wonderful judgement”; the introduction of the gardener, he says, +“realizes the thing,” and, indeed, the introduction of a gardener would +have this tendency, but not the introduction of this pompous, priggish +philosopher togged out in old Adam's likeness. Here is the way this +gardener criticises the King: + + “All superfluous branches + We lop away, that bearing boughs may live; + Had he done so, himself had borne the crown, + Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.”] + +shows the extravagance of Shakespeare's love of hierarchy, and shows +also that his power of realizing character is as yet but slight. The +abdication follows, when Richard in exquisite speech after speech +unpacks his heavy heart. To the very last his irresolution comes to show +as often as his melancholy. Bolingbroke is sharply practical: + “Are you contented to resign the crown?” + +Richard answers: + + “Ay, no; no, ay;--for I must nothing be; + Therefore, no, no, for I resign to thee.” + +When he is asked to confess his sins in public, he moves us all to pity: + + “Must I do so? and must I ravel out + My weaved up follies? Gentle Northumberland, + If thy offences were upon record, + Would it not shame thee, in so fair a troop, + To read a lecture of them?” + +His eyes are too full of tears to read his own faults, and sympathy +brings tears to our eyes also. Richard calls for a glass wherein to see +his sins, and we are reminded of Hamlet, who advises the players to hold +the mirror up to nature. He jests with his grief, too, in quick-witted +retort, as Hamlet jests: + + “Rich. Say that again. + The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see:-- + 'Tis very true, my grief lies all within; + And these external manners of lament + Are merely shadows to the unseen grief, + That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.” + +Hamlet touches the self-same note: + + “'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, + Nor customary suits of solemn black, + - - - - - - - - - - + But I have that within which passeth show; + These but the trappings and the suits of woe.” + +In the fifth act, the scene between the Queen and Richard is used simply +to move our pity. She says he is “most beauteous,” but all too mild, and +he answers her: + + “I am sworn brother, sweet, + To grim necessity; and he and I + Will keep a league till death.” + +He bids her take, + + “As from my death-bed, my last living leave,” + +and for her consolation he turns again to the telling of romantic +melancholy stories: + + “In winter's tedious nights, sit by the fire + With good old folks; and let them tell thee tales + Of woeful ages long ago betid: + And, ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief, + Tell thou the lamentable fall of me, + And send the hearers weeping to their beds, + For why; the senseless brands will sympathize + The heavy accent of thy moving tongue.” + +I cannot copy this passage without drawing attention to the haunting +music of the third line. + +The scene in which York betrays his son to Bolingbroke and prays the +king not to pardon but “cut off” the offending member, is merely a +proof, if proof were wanted, of Shakespeare's admiration of kingship and +loyalty, which in youth, at least, often led him to silliest +extravagance. + +The dungeon scene and Richard's monologue in it are as characteristic of +Shakespeare as the similar scene in “Cymbeline” and the soliloquy of +Posthumus: + + “_K. Rich_., I have been studying how I may compare + This prison where I live unto the world: + And for because the world is populous, + And here is not a creature but myself, + I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out, + My brain I'll prove the female to my soul + My soul the father; and these two beget + A generation of still breeding thoughts, + And these same thoughts people this little world, + In humours like the people of this world, + For no thought is contented....” + +Here we have the philosopher playing with his own thoughts; but soon the +Hamlet-melancholy comes to tune the meditation to sadness, and +Shakespeare speaks to us directly: + + “Thus play I in one person many people, + And none contented: sometimes am I king; + Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, + And so I am: then crushing penury + Persuades me I was better when a king; + Then am I king'd again; and by and by + Think, that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke, + And straight am nothing; but whate'er I be, + Nor I nor any man that but man is + With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased + With being nothing.” + +Later, one hears Kent's lament for Lear in Richard's words: + + “How these vain weak nails + May tear a passage through the flinty ribs + Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls.” + +To Richard music is “sweet music,” as it is to all the characters that +are _merely_ Shakespeare's masks, and the scene in which Hamlet +asks Guildenstern to “play upon the pipe” is prefigured for us in +Richard's self-reproach: + + “And here have I the daintiness of ear, + To check time broke in a disordered string; + But for the concord of my state and time, + Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.” + +In the last three lines of this monologue which I am now about to quote, +I can hear Shakespeare speaking as plainly as he spoke in Arthur's +appeals; the feminine longing for love is the unmistakable note: + + “Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me! + For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard + Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.” + +And at the last, by killing the servant who assaults him, this Richard +shows that he has the “something desperate” in him of which Hamlet +boasted. + +The murderer's praise that this irresolute-weak and loving Richard is +“as full of valour as of royal blood” is nothing more than an excellent +instance of Shakespeare's self-illusion. He comes nearer the fact in +“Measure for Measure,” where the Duke, his other self, is shown to be +“an unhurtful opposite” too gentle-kind to remember an injury or punish +the offender, and he rings the bell at truth's centre when, in “Julius +Caesar,” his mask Brutus admits that he + + “... carries anger as the flint bears fire + Who much enforcèd shows a hasty spark + And straight is cold again.” + +If a hasty blow were proof of valour then Walter Scott's Eachin in “The +Fair Maid of Perth” would be called brave. But courage to be worth the +name must be founded on stubborn resolution, and all Shakespeare's +incarnations, and in especial this Richard, are as unstable as water. + +The whole play is summed up in York's pathetic description of Richard's +entrance into London: + + “No man cried, God save him; + No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home: + But dust was thrown upon his sacred head; + Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off-- + His face still combating with tears and smiles, + The badges of his grief and patience-- + That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd + The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, + And barbarism itself have pitied him.” + +This passage it seems to me both in manner and matter is as truly +characteristic of Shakespeare as any that can be found in all his works: +his loving pity for the fallen, his passionate sympathy with “gentle +sorrow” were never more perfectly expressed. + +Pity, indeed, is the note of the tragedy, as it was in the Arthur-scenes +in “King John,” but the knowledge of Shakespeare derived from “King +John” is greatly widened by the study of “King Richard II.” In the +Arthur of “King John” we found Shakespeare's exquisite pity for +weakness, his sympathy with suffering, and, more than all, his +girlish-tender love and desire of love. In “Richard II.,” the weakness +Shakespeare pities is not physical weakness, but mental irresolution and +incapacity for action, and these Hamlet-weaknesses are accompanied by a +habit of philosophic thought, and are enlivened by a nimble wit and +great lyrical power. In Arthur Shakespeare is bent on revealing his +qualities of heart, and in “Richard II.” his qualities of mind, and that +these two are but parts of the same nature is proved by the fact that +Arthur shows great quickness of apprehension and felicity of speech, +while Richard once or twice at least displays a tenderness of heart and +longing for love worthy of Arthur. + +It appears then that Shakespeare's nature even in hot, reckless youth +was most feminine and affectionate, and that even when dealing with +histories and men of action he preferred to picture irresolution and +weakness rather than strength, and felt more sympathy with failure +than with success. + + + +CHAPTER V. SHAKESPEARE'S MEN OF ACTION (_continued_). + +HOT-SPUR, HENRY V., RICHARD III. + +The conclusions we have already reached, will be borne out and +strengthened in unexpected ways by the study of Hotspur--Shakespeare's +master picture of the man of action. The setting sun of chivalry falling +on certain figures threw gigantic shadows across Shakespeare's path, and +of these figures no one deserved immortality better than Harry Percy. +Though he is not introduced in “The Famous Victories of Henry V.,” the +old play which gave Shakespeare his roistering Prince and the first +faint hint of Falstaff, Harry Percy lived in story and in oral +tradition. His nickname itself is sufficient evidence of the impression +he had made on the popular fancy. And both Prince Henry when mocking +him, and his wife when praising him, bear witness to what were, no +doubt, the accepted peculiarities of his character. Hotspur lived in the +memory of men, we may be sure, with thick, hasty speech, and hot, +impatient temper, and it is easy, I think, even at this late date, to +distinguish Shakespeare's touches on the traditional portrait. It is for +the reader to say whether Shakespeare blurred the picture, or bettered +it. + +Hotspur's first words to the King in the first act are admirable; they +bring the brusque, passionate soldier vividly before us; but I am sure +Shakespeare had the fact from history or tradition. + + “My liege, I did deny no prisoners. + But, I remember, when the fight was done, + When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, + Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, + Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed, + Fresh as a bridegroom.” + +Hotspur's picture of this “popinjay” with pouncet-box in hand, and +“perfumed like a milliner,” is splendid self-revelation: + + “he made me mad, + To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet, + And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman.” + +But immediately afterwards Hotspur's defence of Mortimer shows the poet +Shakespeare rather than the rude soldier who hates nothing more than +“mincing poetry.” The beginning is fairly good: + + “_Hot_. Revolted Mortimer! + He never did fall off, my sovereign liege, + But by the chance of war: to prove that true, + Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, + Those mouthed wounds which valiantly he took, + When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank.” + +This “gentle Severn's sedgy bank” is too poetical for Hotspur; but what +shall be said of his description of the river? + + “Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, + Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, + And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank + Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.” + +Shakespeare was still too young, too much in love with poetry to confine +himself within the nature of Hotspur. But the character of Hotspur was +so well known that Shakespeare could not long remain outside it. When +the King cuts short the audience with the command to send back the +prisoners, we find the passionate Hotspur again: + + “And if the devil come and roar for them, + I will not send them.--I will after straight, + And tell him so: for I will ease my heart, + Although it be with hazard of my head.” + +The last line strikes a false note; such a reflection throws cold water +on the heat of passion, and that is not intended, for though reproved by +his father Hotspur storms on: + + “Speak of Mortimer! + 'Zounds! I will speak of him; and let my soul + Want mercy, if I do not join with him....” + +The next long speech of Hotspur is mere poetic slush; he begins: + + “Nay, then, I cannot blame his cousin king, + That wish'd him on the barren mountains starve....” + +and goes on for thirty lines to reprove the conspirators for having put +down “Richard, that sweet lovely rose,” and planted “this thorn, +Bolingbroke.” This long speech retards the action, obscures the +character of Hotspur, and only shows Shakespeare poetising without a +flash of inspiration. Then comes Hotspur's famous speech about honour: + + “By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap, + To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon; + Or dive into the bottom of the deep ...” + +And immediately afterwards a speech in which his uncontrollable +impatience and the childishness which always lurks in anger, find +perfect expression. To soothe him, Worcester says he shall keep his +prisoners; Hotspur bursts out: + + “Nay, I will: that's flat. + He said, he would not ransom Mortimer; + Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer; + But I will find him when he lies asleep, + And in his ear I'll holla--'Mortimer!' Nay, + I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak + Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him, + To keep his anger still in motion.” + +No wonder Lord Worcester reproves him, and his father chides him as “a +wasp-stung and impatient fool,” who will only talk and not listen. But +again Hotspur breaks forth, and again his anger paints him to the life: + + “Why, look you, I am whipped and scourged with rods, + Nettled and stung with pismires, when I hear + Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke. + In Richard's time,--what do you call the place?-- + A plague upon 't--it is in Glostershire;-- + 'Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept,--...” + +The very ecstasy of impatience and of puerile passionate temper has +never been better rendered. + +His soliloquy, too, in the beginning of scene iii, when he reads the +letter which throws the cold light of reason on his enterprise, is +excellent, though it repeats qualities we already knew in Hotspur, and +does not reveal new ones: + + '“The purpose you undertake is dangerous';--why, + that's certain: 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to + drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle + danger, we pluck this flower safety.... What a frosty-spirited + rogue is this!... O, I could divide myself and + go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk + with so honourable an action! Hang him! Let him tell + the King: we are prepared. I will set forward to-night.” + +But the topmost height of self-revealing is reached in the scene with +his wife which immediately follows this. Lady Percy enters, and Hotspur +greets her: + + “How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.” + +The lady's reply is too long and too poetical. Hotspur interrupts her by +calling the servant and giving him orders. Then Lady Percy questions, +and Hotspur avoids a direct answer, and little by little Shakespeare +works himself into the characters till even Lady Percy lives for us: + + “_Lady_. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me + Directly unto this question that I ask. + In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, + An if thou wilt not tell me true. + _Hot_. Away, + Away, you trifler!--Love?--I love thee not, + I care not for thee, Kate; this is no world + To play with mammets and to tilt with lips....” + +It shows a certain immaturity of art that Hotspur should introduce the +theme of “love,” and not Lady Percy; but, of course, Lady Percy seizes +on the word: + + “_Lady_. Do you not love me? do you not, indeed, + Well, do not then; for since you love me not, + I will not love myself. Do you not love me? + Nay, tell me, if you speak in jest or no? + _Hot_. Come, wilt thou see me ride? + And when I am o' horseback, I will swear + I love thee infinitely....” + +All this is superb; Hotspur's coarse contempt of love deepens our sense +of his soldier-like nature and eagerness for action; but though the +qualities are rendered magically the qualities themselves are few: +Shakespeare still harps upon Hotspur's impatience; but even a soldier is +something more than hasty temper, and disdain of love's dalliance. But +the portrait is not finished yet. The first scene in the third act +between Hotspur and Glendower is on this same highest level; Hotspur's +impatience of Glendower's bragging at length finds an unforgetable +phrase: + + “_Glend_. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. + _Hot_. Why, so can I, or so can any man; + But will they come when you do call for them?” + +Then Hotspur disputes over the division of England; he wants a larger +share than that allotted to him; the trait is typical, excellent; but +the next moment Shakespeare effaces it. As soon as Glendower yields, +Hotspur cries: + + “I do not care; I'll give thrice so much land + Away to any well-deserving friend; + But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, + I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair....” + +This large generosity is a trait of Shakespeare and not of Hotspur; the +poet cannot bear to lend his hero a tinge of meanness, or of avarice, +and yet the character needs a heavy shadow or two, and no shadow could +be more appropriate than this, for greed of land has always been a +characteristic of the soldier-aristocrat. + +Shakespeare is perfectly willing to depict Hotspur as scorning the arts. +When Glendower praises poetry, Hotspur vows he'd “rather be a kitten and +cry mew ... than a metre ballad-monger. ...” Nothing sets his teeth on +edge “so much as mincing poetry”: and a little later he prefers the +howling of a dog to music. When he is reproved by Lord Worcester for +“defect of manners, want of government, ... pride, haughtiness, +disdain,” his reply is most characteristic: + + “Well, I am schooled: good manners be your speed, + Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.” + +He is too old to learn, and his self-assurance is not to be shaken; but +though he hates schooling he will school his wife: + + “Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art, + A good mouth-filling oath; and leave, 'in sooth,' + And such protest of pepper-gingerbread + To velvet guards and Sunday citizens.” + +This is merely a repetition of the trait shown in his first speech when +he sneered at the popinjay-lord for talking in “holiday and lady terms.” + But not only does Shakespeare repeat well-known traits in Hotspur, he +also uses him as a mere mouthpiece again and again, as he used him at +the beginning in the poetic description of the Severn. The fourth act +opens with a speech of Hotspur to Douglas, which is curiously +illustrative of this fault: + + “_Hot._. Well said, my noble Scot, if speaking truth + In this fine age were not thought flattery, + Such attribution should the Douglas have, + As not a soldier of this season's stamp + Should go so general current through the world. + By God, I cannot flatter; I defy + The tongues of soothers; but a braver place + In my heart's love hath no man than yourself. + Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.” + +In the first five lines of this skimble-skamble stuff I hear Shakespeare +speaking in his cheapest way; with the oath, however, he tries to get +into the character again, and succeeds indifferently. + +Immediately afterwards Hotspur is shocked by the news that his father is +sick and has not even sent the promised assistance; struck to the heart +by the betrayal, the hot soldier should now reveal his true character; +one expects him to curse his father, and rising to the danger, to cry +that he is stronger without traitors and faint-heart friends. But +Shakespeare the philosopher is chiefly concerned with the effect of such +news upon a rebel camp, and again he speaks through Hotspur: + + “Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect + The very life-blood of our enterprise; + 'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.” + +Then Shakespeare pulls himself up and tries to get into Hotspur's +character again by representing to himself the circumstance: + + “He writes me here, that inward sickness-- + And that his friends by deputation could not + So soon be drawn; nor did he think it meet--” + and so forth to the question: “...What say you to it?” + “_Wor_. Your father's sickness is a maim to us. + _Hot_. A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off:--” + +Shakespeare sees that he cannot go on exaggerating the injury--that is +not Hotspur's line, is indeed utterly false to Hotspur's nature; and so +he tries to stop himself and think of Hotspur: + + “And yet, in faith, it's not; his present want + Seems more than we shall find it: were it good + To set the exact wealth of all our states + All at one cast? to set so rich a main + On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? + It were not good; for therein should we read + The very bottom and the soul of hope, + The very list, the very utmost bound + Of all our fortunes.” + +After the first two lines, which Hotspur might have spoken, we have the +sophistry of the thinker poetically expressed, and not one word from the +hot, high-couraged soldier. Indeed, in the last four lines from the +bookish “we read” to the end, we have the gentle poet in love with +desperate extremities. The passage must be compared with Othello's-- + + “Here is my journey's end, here is my butt, + And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.” + +But at length when Worcester adds fear to danger Hotspur half finds +himself: + + “_Hot_, You strain too far. + I rather of his absence make this use:-- + It lends a lustre, and more great opinion, + A larger dare to our great enterprise, + Than if the earl were here; for men must think, + If we, without his help can make a head + To push against the kingdom; with his help + We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.-- + Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.” + +And this is all. The scene is designed, the situation constructed to +show us Hotspur's courage: here, if anywhere, the hot blood should +surprise us and make of danger the springboard of leaping hardihood. But +this is the best Shakespeare can reach--this fainting, palefaced “Yet +all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.” The inadequacy, the +feebleness of the whole thing is astounding. Milton had not the courage +of the soldier, but he had more than this: he found better words for his +Satan after defeat than Shakespeare found for Hotspur before the battle: + + “What though the field be lost? + All is not lost; the unconquerable will, + And study of revenge, immortal hate, + And courage never to submit or yield, + And what is else not to be overcome; + That glory never shall his wrath or might + Extort from me.” + +When Shakespeare has to render Hotspur's impatience he does it superbly, +when he has to render Hotspur's courage he fails lamentably. + +In the third scene of this fourth act we have another striking instance +of Shakespeare's shortcoming. Sir Walter Blount meets the rebels “with +gracious offers from the King,” whereupon Hotspur abuses the King +through forty lines; this is the kind of stuff: + “My father and my uncle and myself + Did give him that same royalty he wears; + And when he was not six and twenty strong, + Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low, + A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home, + My father gave him welcome to the shore; ...” + and so on and on, like Hamlet, he unpacks his heart with words, till +Blount cries: + +“Tut, I came not to hear this.” + +Hotspur admits the reproof, but immediately starts off again: + + “_Hot_. Then to the point. + In short time after he deposed the king; + Soon after that, deprived him of his life,” + +and so forth for twenty lines more, till Blount pulls him up again with +the shrewd question: + + “Shall I return this answer to the king?” + +Hotspur replies: + + “Not so, Sir Walter; we'll withdraw awhile. + Go to the king..... + And in the morning early shall mine uncle + Bring him our purposes; and so farewell.” + +And yet this Hotspur who talks interminably when he would do much better +to keep quiet, assures us a little later that he has not well “the gift +of tongue,” and again declares he's glad a messenger has cut him short, +for “I profess not talking.” + +The truth is the real Hotspur did not talk much, but Shakespeare had the +gift of the gab, if ever a man had, and Hotspur was a mouthpiece. It is +worth noting that though the dramatist usually works himself into a +character gradually, Hotspur is best presented in the earlier scenes: +Shakespeare began the work with the Hotspur of history and tradition +clear in his mind; but as he wrote he grew interested in Hotspur and +identified himself too much with his hero, and so almost spoiled the +portrait. This is well seen in Hotspur's end; Prince Henry has said he'd +crop his budding honours and make a garland for himself out of them, and +this is how the dying Hotspur answers him: + + “O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth! + I better brook the loss of brittle life + Than those proud titles thou hast won of me; + They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh:-- + But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool, + And time, that takes survey of all the world, + Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy, + But that the earthy and cold hand of death + Lies on my tongue:--no, Percy, thou art dust, + And food for ----” + +Of course, Prince Henry concludes the phrase, and continues the +Hamlet-like philosophic soliloquy: + + “_P. Henry_. For worms, brave Percy: fare thee well, + great heart!-- + Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk! + When that this body did contain a spirit, + A kingdom for it was too small a bound; + But now two paces of the vilest earth + Is room enough: ...” + +I have tried to do justice to this portrait of Hotspur, for Shakespeare +never did a better picture of a man of action, indeed, as we shall soon +see, he never did as well again. But take away from Hotspur the +qualities given to him by history and tradition, the hasty temper, and +thick stuttering speech, and contempt of women, and it will be seen how +little Shakespeare added. He makes Hotspur hate “mincing poetry,” and +then puts long poetic descriptions in his mouth; he paints the soldier +despising “the gift of tongue” and forces him to talk historic and +poetic slush in and out of season; he makes the aristocrat greedy and +sets him quarrelling with his associates for more land, and the next +moment, when the land is given him, Hotspur abandons it without further +thought; he frames an occasion calculated to show off Hotspur's courage, +and then allows him to talk faint-heartedly, and finally, when Hotspur +should die mutely, or with a bitter curse, biting to the last, +Shakespeare's Hotspur loses himself in mistimed philosophic reflection +and poetic prediction. Yet such is Shakespeare's magic of expression +that when he is revealing the qualities which Hotspur really did +possess, he makes him live for us with such intensity of life that no +number of false strokes can obliterate the impression. It is only the +critic working _sine ira et studio_ who will find this portrait +blurred by the intrusion of the poet's personality. + +It is the companion picture of Prince Henry that shows as in a glass +Shakespeare's poverty of conception when he is dealing with the +distinctively manly qualities. In order to judge the matter fairly we +must remember that Shakespeare did not create Prince Henry any more than +he created Hotspur. In the old play entitled “The Famous Victories of +Henry V.,” and in the popular mouth, Shakespeare found roistering Prince +Hal. The madcap Prince, like Harry Percy, was a creature of popular +sympathy; his high spirits and extravagances, the vigorous way in which +he had sown his wild oats, had taken the English fancy, the historic +personage had been warmed to vivid life by the popular emotion. + +Shakespeare was personally interested in this princely hero. As we have +seen, he dims Hotspur's portrait by intrusion of his own peculiarities; +and in the case of Harry Percy, this temptation will be stronger. + +The subject of the play, a young man of noble gifts led astray by loose +companions, was a favourite subject with Shakespeare at this time; he +had treated it already in “Richard II.”; and he handled it here again +with such zest that we are almost forced to believe in the tradition +that Shakespeare himself in early youth had sown wild oats in unworthy +company. Helped by a superb model, and in full sympathy with his theme, +Shakespeare might be expected to paint a magnificent picture. But Prince +Henry is anything but a great portrait; he is at first hardly more than +a prig, and later a feeble and colourless replica of Hotspur. It is very +curious that even in the comedy scenes with Falstaff Shakespeare has +never taken the trouble to realize the Prince: he often lends him his +own word-wit, and now and then his own high intelligence, but he never +for a moment discovers to us the soul of his hero. He does not even tell +us what pleasure Henry finds in living and carousing with Falstaff. Did +the Prince choose his companions out of vanity, seeking in the Eastcheap +tavern a court where he might throne it? Or was it the infinite humour +of Falstaff which attracted him? Or did he break bounds merely out of +high spirits, when bored by the foolish formalities of the palace? +Shakespeare, one would have thought, would have given us the key to the +mystery in the very first scene. But this scene, which paints Falstaff +to the soul, tells us nothing of the Prince; but rather blurs a figure +which everyone imagines he knows at least in outline. Prince Henry's +first speech is excellent as description; Falstaff asks him the time +of day; he replies: + + “Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and + unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches + after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly + which thou wouldst truly know....” + +This helps to depict Falstaff, but does not show us the Prince, for +good-humoured contempt of Falstaff is universal; it has nothing +individual and peculiar in it. + +Then comes the speech in which the Prince talks of himself in Falstaff's +strain as one of “the moon's men” who “resolutely snatch a purse of gold +on Monday night,” and “most dissolutely spend it on Tuesday morning.” A +little later he plays with Falstaff by asking: “Where shall we take a +purse to-morrow, Jack?” It looks as if the Prince were ripe for worse +than mischief. But when Falstaff wants to know if he will make one of +the band to rob on Gadshill, he cries out, as if indignant and +surprised: + + _P. Hen_. Who, I rob? la thief? Not I, by my faith. + + _Fal_. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship + in thee, nor thou earnest not of the blood royal, + if thou darest not stand for ten shillings. + + _P. Hen_. Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap. + + _Fal_. Why, that's well said. + + _P. Hen_. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home. + +He is only persuaded at length by Poins's proposal to rob the robbers. +It may be said that these changes of the Prince are natural in the +situation: but they are too sudden and unmotived; they are like the +nodding of the mandarin's head--they have no meaning; and surely, after +the Prince talks of himself as one of “the moon's men,” it would be more +natural of him, when the direct proposal to rob is made, not to show +indignant surprise, which seems forced or feigned; but to talk as if +repenting a previous folly. The scene, in so far as the Prince is +concerned, is badly conducted. When he yields to Poins and agrees to rob +Falstaff, his words are: “Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for +us,”--a phrase which hardly shows wild spirits or high courage, or even +the faculty of judging men, and the soliloquy which ends the scene +lamely enough is not the Prince's, but Shakespeare's, and unfortunately +Shakespeare the poet, and not Shakespeare the dramatist: + + “_P. Hen_. I know you all and will awhile uphold + The unyoked humour of your idleness. + Yet herein will I imitate the sun, + Who doth permit the base contagious clouds + To smother up his beauty from the world, + That, when he please again to be himself, + Being wanted, he may be more wondered at, + By breaking through the foul and ugly mists + Of vapours, that did seem to strangle him. ...” + +If we could accept this stuff we should take Prince Henry for the prince +of prigs; but it is impossible to accept it, and so we shrug our +shoulders with the regret that the madcap Prince of history is not +illuminated for us by Shakespeare's genius. In this “First Part of Henry +IV.,” when the Prince is not calling names with Falstaff, or playing +prig, he either shows us a quality of Harry Percy or of Shakespeare +himself. Everyone remembers the scene when Falstaff, carrying Percy's +corpse, meets the Princes, and tells them he has killed Percy: + + _P. John_. This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard. + _P. Hen_. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.-- + Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back: + For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, + I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have.” + +Both in manner and in matter these last two lines are pure Shakespeare, +and Shakespeare speaks to us, too, when Prince Henry gives up Douglas to +his pleasure “ransomless and free.” But not only does the poet lend the +soldier his own sentiments and lilt of phrase, he also presents him to +us as a shadowy replica of Hotspur, even during Hotspur's lifetime. We +have already noticed Hotspur's admirable answer when Glendower brags +that he can call spirits from the vasty deep: + + “_Hot_. Why, so can I, or so can any man; + But will they come, when you do call for them?” + +The same love of truth is given to Prince Henry in the previous act: + + “_Fal_. Owen, Owen,--the same;--and his son-in-law, + Mortimer; and old Northumberland; and that sprightly + Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill + perpendicular,-- + + _P. Hen_. He that rides at high speed, and with his + pistol kills a sparrow flying. + + _Fal_. You have hit it. + + _P. Hen_. So did he never the sparrow.” + +But this frank contempt of lying is not the only or the chief +characteristic possessed by Hotspur and Harry Percy in common. Hotspur +disdains the Prince: + + “_Hot_. Where is his son, + The nimble-footed mad-cap Prince of Wales, + And his comrádes that daffed the world aside + And bid it pass?” + +and the Prince mimics and makes fun of Hotspur: + + “_P. Hen._ He that kills me some six or seven dozen + of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands and says to his + wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.'” + +Then Hotspur brags of what he will do when he meets his rival: + + “_Hot._ Once ere night + I will embrace him with a soldier's arm, + That he shall shrink under my courtesy.” + +And in precisely the same strain Prince Henry talks to his father: + + “_P. Hen._ The time will come + That I shall make this northern youth exchange + His glorious deeds for my indignities.” + +It is true that Prince Henry on more than one occasion praises Hotspur, +while Hotspur is content to praise himself, but the differentiation is +too slight to be significant: such as it is, it is well seen when the +two heroes meet. + + “_Hot._ My name is Harry Percy. + _P. Hen._ Why, then I see + A very valiant rebel of that name.” + +but Prince Henry immediately doffs this kingly mood to imitate Hotspur. +He goes on: + + “I am the Prince of Wales, and think not, Percy, + To share with me in glory any more; + Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, + Nor can our England brook a double reign + Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales ...” + +And so the bombast rolls, and one brags against the other like systole +and diastole which balance each other in the same heart. But the worst +of the matter is, that Prince Henry and Hotspur, as we have already +noticed, have both the same soul and the same inspiring motive in love +of honour. They both avow this again and again, though Hotspur finds the +finer expression for it when he cries that he will “pluck bright honour +from the pale-faced moon.” + +To the student of the play it really looks as if Shakespeare could not +imagine any other incentive to noble or heroic deeds but this love of +glory: for nearly all the other serious characters in the play sing of +honour in the same key. King Henry IV. envies Northumberland + + “A son who is the theme of honour's tongue,” + +and declares that Percy hath got “never-dying honour against renownéd +Douglas.” The Douglas, too, can find no other word with which to praise +Hotspur--“thou art the king of honour”: even Vernon, a mere secondary +character, has the same mainspring: he says to Douglas: + + “If well-respected honour bid me on, + I hold as little counsel with weak fear + As you or any Scot that this day lives.” + +Falstaff himself declares that nothing “pricks him on but honour,” and +bragging Pistol admits that “honour is cudgelled” from his weary limbs. +The French, too, when they are beaten by Henry V. all bemoan their shame +and loss of honour, and have no word of sorrow for their ruined +homesteads and outraged women and children. The Dauphin cries: + + “Reproach and everlasting shame + Sits mocking in our plumes.” + +And Bourbon echoes him: + + “Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame.” + +It is curious that Bourbon falls upon the same thought which animated +Hotspur. Just before the decisive battle Hotspur cries: + + “O, gentlemen! the time of life is short; + To spend that shortness basely were too long.” + +And when the battle turns against the French, Bourbon exclaims: + + “The devil take order now! I'll to the throng: + Let life be short; else shame will be too long.” + +As Jaques in “As You Like It” says of the soldier: they are “jealous in +honour” and all seek “the bubble reputation, even in the cannon's +mouth.” + +It is only in Shakespeare that men have no other motive for brave deeds +but love of honour, no other fear but that of shame with which to +overcome the dread of death. We shall see later that the desire of fame +was the inspiring motive of his own youth. + +In the “Second Part of King Henry IV.” there is very little told us of +Prince Henry; he only appears in the second act, and in the fourth and +fifth; and in all he is the mouthpiece of Shakespeare and not the +roistering Prince: yet on his first appearance there are traces of +characterization, as when he declares that his “appetite is not +princely,” for he remembers “the poor creature, small beer,” whereas in +the last act he is merely the poetic prig. Let us give the best scene +first: + + “_P. Hen_. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins? + - - - - - - - - - - + _P. Hen_. Marry, I tell thee,--it is not meet that I should + be sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell to thee--as + to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my + friend--I could be sad, and sad, indeed, too. + + _Poins_. Very hardly upon such a subject. + _P. Hen._ By this hand, thou think'st me as far in the + devil's book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency: + let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my + heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and keeping + such vile company as thou art hath in reason taken + from me all ostentation of sorrow. + + _Poins_. The reason? + + _P. Hen_. What would'st thou think of me if I should + weep? + + _Poins_. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite. + + _P. Hen_. It would be every man's thought; and thou + art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks; never + a man's thought in the world keeps the roadway better + than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. + And what accites your most worshipful thought to + think so? + + _Poins_. Why, because you have been so lewd, and so + much engraffed to Falstaff.” + +By far the best thing in this page--the contempt for every man's thought +as certain to be mistaken--is, I need hardly say, pure Shakespeare. +Exactly the same reflection finds a place in “Hamlet”; the +student-thinker tells us of a play which in his opinion, and in the +opinion of the best judges, was excellent, but which was only acted +once, for it “pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general.” + Very early in life Shakespeare made the discovery, which all men of +brains make sooner or later, that the thoughts of the million are +worthless, and the judgment and taste of the million are execrable. + +There is nothing worthy to be called character-drawing in this scene; +but there's just a hint of it in the last remark of Poins. According to +his favourite companion the Prince was very “lewd,” and yet Shakespeare +never shows us his lewdness in action; does not “moralize” it as Jaques +or Hamlet would have been tempted to do. It is just mentioned and passed +over lightly. It is curious, too, that Shakespeare's _alter ego_, +Jaques, was also accused of lewdness by the exiled Duke; Vincentio, too, +another incarnation of Shakespeare, was charged with lechery by Lucio; +but in none of these cases does Shakespeare dwell on the failing. +Shakespeare seems to have thought reticence the better part in regard to +certain sins of the flesh. But it must be remarked that it is only when +his heroes come into question that he practises this restraint: he is +content to tell us casually that Prince Henry was a sensualist; but he +shows us Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet engaged at lips' length. To put it +briefly, Shakespeare attributes lewdness to his impersonations, but will +not emphasize the fault by instances. Nor will Shakespeare allow his +“madcap Prince” even to play “drawer” with hearty goodwill. While +consenting to spy on Falstaff in the tavern, the Prince tells Poins that +“from a Prince to a prentice” is “a low transformation,” and scarcely +has the fun commenced when he is called to the wars and takes his leave +in these terms: + + “_P. Hen._ By Heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame, + So idly to profane the precious time + When tempest of commotion, like the south + Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt + And drop upon our bare, unarmed heads.” + +The first two lines are priggish, and the last three mere poetic +balderdash. But it is in the fourth act, when Prince Henry is watching +by the bedside of his dying father, that Shakespeare speaks through him +without disguise: + + “Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow + Being so troublesome a bedfellow? + O polished perturbation! golden care! + That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide + To many a watchful night!--Sleep with it now, + Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet + As he whose brow with homely biggin bound + Snores out the watch of night.” + +In the third act we have King Henry talking in precisely the same way: + + “O sleep, O gentle sleep, + Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee?... + - - - - - - - - - - + Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast + Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains + In cradle of the rude imperious surge.”... + +The truth is that in both these passages, as in a hundred similar ones, +we find Shakespeare himself praising sleep as only those tormented by +insomnia can praise it. + +When his father reproaches him with “hunger for his empty chair,” this +is how Prince Henry answers: + + “O pardon me, my liege, but for my tears, + The moist impediments unto my speech, + I had forestalled this dear and deep rebuke. + Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard + The course of it so far.”... + +It might be Alfred Austin writing to Lord Salisbury--“the moist +impediments,” forsooth--and the daredevil young soldier goes on like +this for forty lines. + +The only memorable thing in the fifth act is the new king's contemptuous +dismissal of Falstaff: I think it appalling at least in matter: + + “I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers; + How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! + I have long dreamed of such a kind of man, + So surfeit-swelled, so old and so profane; + But being awake I do despise my dream. + - - - - - - - - - - + Reply not to me with a fool-born jest, + Presume not that I am the thing I was; + - - - - - - - - - - + Till then, I banish thee on pain of death, + As I have done the rest of my misleaders, + Not to come near our person by ten mile.” + +In the old play, “The Famous Victories,” the sentence of banishment is +pronounced; but this bitter contempt for the surfeit-swelled, profane +old man is Shakespeare's. It is true that he mitigates the severity of +the sentence in characteristic generous fashion: the King says: + + “For competence of life I will allow you + That lack of means enforce you not to evil: + And as we hear you do reform yourselves, + We will, according to your strength and qualities, + Give you advancement.” + +There is no mention in the old play of this “competence of life.” But in +spite of this generous forethought the sentence is painfully severe, and +Shakespeare meant every word of it, for immediately afterwards the Chief +Justice orders Falstaff and his company to the Fleet prison; and in +“King Henry V.” we are told that the King's condemnation broke +Falstaff's heart and made the old jester's banishment eternal. To find +Shakespeare more severe in judgement than the majority of spectators and +readers is so astonishing, so singular a fact, that it cries for +explanation. I think there can be no doubt that the tradition which +tells us that Shakespeare in his youth played pranks in low company +finds further corroboration here. He seems to have resented his own +ignominy and the contemptuous estimate put upon him by others somewhat +extravagantly. + + “Presume not that I am the thing I was;” + +--is a sentiment put again and again in Prince Henry's mouth; he is +perpetually assuring us of the change in himself, and the great results +which must ensue from it. It is this distaste for his own loose past and +“his misleaders,” which makes Shakespeare so singularly severe towards +Falstaff. As we have seen, he was the reverse of severe with Angelo in +“Measure for Measure,” though in that case there was better ground for +harshness. “Measure for Measure,” it is true, was written six or seven +years later than “Henry IV.,” and the tragedy of Shakespeare's life +separates the two plays. Shakespeare's ethical judgement was more +inclined to severity in youth and early manhood than it was later when +his own sufferings had deepened his sympathies, and he had been made +“pregnant to good pity,” to use his own words, “by the art of knowing +and feeling sorrows.” But he would never have treated old Jack Falstaff +as harshly as he did had he not regretted the results, at least, of his +own youthful errors. It looks as if Shakespeare, like other weak men, +were filled with a desire to throw the blame on his “misleaders.” He +certainly exulted in their punishment. + +It is difficult for me to write at length about the character of the +King in “Henry V.,” and fortunately it is not necessary. I have already +pointed out the faults in the painting of Prince Henry with such +fullness that I may be absolved from again dwelling on similar weakness +where it is even more obvious than it was in the two parts of “Henry +IV.” But something I must say, for the critics in both Germany and +England are agreed that “'Henry V.' must certainly be regarded as +Shakespeare's ideal of manhood in the sphere of practical achievement.” + Without an exception they have all buttered this drama with extravagant +praise as one of Shakespeare's masterpieces, though in reality it is one +of the worst pieces of work he ever did, almost as bad as “Titus +Andronicus” or “Timon” or “The Taming of the Shrew.” Unfortunately for +the would-be judges, Coleridge did not guide their opinions of “Henry +V.”; he hardly mentioned the play, and so they all write the absurdest +nonsense about it, praising because praise of Shakespeare has come to be +the fashion, and also no doubt because his bad work is more on the level +of their intelligence than his good work. + +It can hardly be denied that Shakespeare identified himself as far as he +could with Henry V. Before the King appears he is praised extravagantly, +as Posthumus was praised, but the eulogy befits the poet better than the +soldier. The Archbishop of Canterbury says: + + ... “When he speaks, + The air, a charter'd libertine, is still, + And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears + To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences.” + +the Bishop of Ely goes even further in excuse: + + ...“The prince obscured his contemplation + Under the veil of wildness.” + +And this is how the soldier-king himself talks: + + “My learned lord, we pray you to proceed + And justly and religiously unfold + Why the law Salique that they have in France + Or should, or should not bar us in our claim; + And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, + That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading ...” + +All this is plainly Shakespeare and Shakespeare at his very worst; and +there are hundreds of lines like these, jewelled here and there by an +unforgetable phrase, as when the Archbishop calls the bees: “The singing +masons building roofs of gold.” The reply made by the King when the +Dauphin sends him the tennis balls has been greatly praised for +manliness and modesty; it begins: + + “We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us; + His present and your pains we thank you for: + When we have match'd our rackets to these balls, + We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set + Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.” + +The first line is most excellent, but Shakespeare found it in the old +play, and the bragging which follows is hardly bettered by the pious +imprecation. + +Nor does the scene with the conspirators seem to me any better. The +soldier-king would not have preached at them for sixty lines before +condemning them. Nor would he have sentenced them with this +extraordinary mixture of priggishness and pious pity: + + “_K. Hen_. God quit you in his mercy. Hear your + sentence. + - - - - - - - - - - + Touching our person seek we no revenge; + But we our kingdom's safety must so tender, + Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws + We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence, + Poor miserable wretches, to your death, + The task whereof, God of His mercy give + You patience to endure, and true repentance + Of all your dear offences!” + +This “poor miserable wretches” would go better with a generous pardon, +and such forgiving would be more in Shakespeare's nature. Throughout +this play the necessity of speaking through the soldier-king embarrasses +the poet, and the infusion of the poet's sympathy and emotion makes the +puppet ridiculous. Henry's speech before Harfleur has been praised on +all hands; not by the professors and critics merely, but by those who +deserve attention. Carlyle finds deathless valour in the saying: “Ye, +good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England,” and not deathless valour +merely, but “noble patriotism” as well; “a true English heart breathes, +calm and strong through the whole business ... this man (Shakespeare) +too had a right stroke in him, had it come to that.” I find no valour in +it, deathless or otherwise; but the make-believe of valour, the +completest proof that valour was absent. Here are the words: + + “_K. Hen_. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, + once more; + Or close the wall up with our English dead. + In peace there's nothing so becomes a man + As modest stillness and humility: + But when the blast of war blows in our ears, + Then imitate the action of the tiger; + Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, + Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; + Then lend the eye a terrible aspect, + Let it pry through the portage of the head + Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it + As fearfully as doth a galled rock + O'erhang and jutty his confounded base....” + +And so on for another twenty lines. Now consider this stuff: first comes +the reflection, more suitable to the philosopher than the man of action, +“in peace there's nothing so becomes a man...”; then the soldier-king +wishes his men to “imitate” the tiger's looks, to “disguise fair +nature,” and “lend the eye a terrible aspect.” But the man who feels the +tiger's rage tries to control the aspect of it: he does not put on the +frown--that's Pistol's way. The whole thing is mere poetic description +of how an angry man looks and not of how a brave man feels, and that it +should have deceived Carlyle, surprises me. The truth is that as soon as +Shakespeare has to find, I will not say a magical expression for +courage, but even an adequate and worthy expression, he fails +absolutely. And is the patriotism in “Ye, good yeomen, whose limbs were +made in England” a “noble patriotism”? or is it the simplest, the +crudest, the least justifiable form of patriotism? There is a noble +patriotism founded on the high and generous things done by men of one's +own blood, just as there is the vain and empty self-glorification of +“limbs made in England,” as if English limbs were better than those made +in Timbuctoo. + +In the third scene of the fourth act, just before the battle, Henry +talks at his best, or rather Shakespeare's best: and we catch the true +accent of courage. Westmoreland wishes + + ...“That we now had here + But one ten thousand of those men in England + That do no work to-day!” + +but Henry lives on a higher plane: + + “No, my fair cousin: + If we are marked to die, we are enow + To do our country loss; and if to live, + The fewer men the greater share of honour.” + +But this high-couraged sentiment is taken almost word for word from +Holinshed. The rest of the speech shows us Shakespeare, as a splendid +rhetorician, glorifying glory; now and then the rhetoric is sublimated +into poetry: + + “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, + For he to-day that sheds his blood with me + Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, + This day shall gentle his condition.” + +Shakespeare's chief ambition about this time was to get a coat of arms +for his father, and so gentle his condition. In all the play not one +word of praise for the common archers, who won the battle; no mention +save of the gentle. + +Again and again in Henry V. the dissonance of character between the poet +and his soldier-puppet jars upon the ears, and this dissonance is +generally characteristic. For example, in the third act Shakespeare, +through King Henry, expressly charges his soldiers that “there be +nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of +the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity +and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest +winner.” Wise words, not yet learned even by statesmen; drops of +wisdom's life-blood from the heart of gentle Shakespeare. But an act +later, when the battle is over, on the mere news that the French have +reinforced their scattered men, Henry V., with tears in his eyes for the +Duke of York's death, gives orders to kill the prisoners: + + “Then every soldier kill his prisoners; + Give the word through.” + +The puppet is not even human: mere wood! + +In the fifth act King Henry takes on the voice and nature of buried +Hotspur. He woos Katherine exactly as Hotspur talked to his wife: he +cannot “mince” it in love, he tells her, in Hotspur's very words; but is +forthright plain; like Hotspur he despises verses and dancing; like +Hotspur he can brag, too; finds it as “easy” to conquer kingdoms as to +speak French; can “vault into his saddle with his armour on his back”; +he is no carpet-soldier; he never “looks in his glass for love of +anything he sees there,” and to make the likeness complete he disdains +those “fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into +ladies' favours ... a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad.” + But if Shakespeare had had any vital sympathy for soldiers and men of +action he would not have degraded Henry V. in this fashion, into a +feeble replica of the traditional Hotspur. In those narrow London +streets by the river he must have rubbed shoulders with great +adventurers; he knew Essex; had bowed to Raleigh at the Court; must have +heard of Drake: inclination was lacking, not models. He might even have +differentiated between Prince Henry and Hotspur without going outside +his history-books; but a most curious point is that he preferred to +smooth away their differences and accentuate the likeness. As a mere +matter of fact Hotspur was very much older than Prince Henry, for he +fought at Otterbourne in 1388, the year of the prince's birth; but +Shakespeare purposely and explicitly makes them both youths. The King, +speaking of Percy to Prince Henry, says: + + “And being no more in debt to years than thou.”... + +It would have been wiser, I cannot but think, and more dramatic for +Shakespeare to have left the hot-headed Percy as the older man who, in +spite of years, is too impatient-quick to look before he leaps, while +giving the youthful Prince the calm reflection and impersonal outlook +which necessarily belong to a great winner of kingdoms. The dramatist +could have further differentiated the rivals by making Percy greedy; he +should not only have quarrelled with his associates over the division of +the land, but insisted on obtaining the larger share, and even then have +grumbled as if aggrieved; the soldier aristocrat has always regarded +broad acres as his especial reward. On the other hand, Prince Henry +should have been open-handed and carelessly-generous, as the patron of +Falstaff was likely to be. Further, Hotspur might have been depicted as +inordinately proud of his name and birth; the provincial aristocrat +usually is, whereas Henry, the Prince, would surely have been too +certain of his own qualities to need adventitious aids to pride. Percy +might have been shown to us raging over imaginary slights; Worcester +says he was “governed by a spleen”; while the Prince should have been +given that high sense of honour and insatiate love of fame which were +the poles of chivalry. Finally, the dramatist might have painted +Hotspur, the soldier, as disdainful of women and the arts of music +and poetry, while gracing Prince Henry with a wider culture and sympathy. + +If I draw attention to such obvious points it is only to show how +incredibly careless Shakespeare was in making the conqueror a poor copy +of the conquered. He was drawn to Hotspur a little by his quickness and +impatience; but he was utterly out of sympathy with the fighter, and +never took the trouble even to think of the qualities which a leader of +men must possess. + + + + + +CHAPTER VI. SHAKESPEARE'S MEN OF ACTION (_concluded_): KING HENRY VI. AND RICHARD III. + + +I think it hardly necessary to extend this review of Shakespeare's +historical plays by subjecting the Three Parts of “King Henry VI.” and +“Richard III.” to a detailed and minute criticism. Yet if I passed them +over without mention it would probably be assumed that they made against +my theory, or at least that I had some more pertinent reason for not +considering them than their relative unimportance. In fact, however, +they help to buttress my argument, and so at the risk of being tedious I +shall deal with them, though as briefly as possible. Coleridge doubted +whether Shakespeare had had anything to do with the “First Part of Henry +VI.,” but his fellow-actors, Heminge and Condell, placed the Three Parts +of “King Henry VI.” in the first collected edition of Shakespeare's +plays, and our latest criticism finds good reasons to justify this +contemporary judgement. Mr. Swinburne writes: “The last battle of Talbot +seems to me as undeniably the master's work as the scene in the Temple +Gardens, or the courtship of Margaret by Suffolk”; and it would be easy +to prove that much of what the dying Mortimer says is just as certainly +Shakespeare's work as any of the passages referred to by Mr. Swinburne. +Like most of those who are destined to reach the heights, Shakespeare +seems to have grown slowly, and even at twenty-eight or thirty years of +age his grasp of character was so uncertain, his style so little formed, +so apt to waver from blank verse to rhyme, that it is difficult to +determine exactly what he did write. We may take it, I think, as certain +that he wrote more than we who have his mature work in mind are inclined +to ascribe to him. + +The “Second Part of King Henry VI.” is a poetic revision of the old play +entitled “The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses +of Yorke and Lancaster,” and so forth. It is now generally agreed that +Shakespeare's hand can be traced in the old drama, and with especial +certainty in the comic scenes wherein Cade and his followers play the +chief parts. Notwithstanding this, the revision was most thorough. Half +the lines in the “Second Part of Henry VI.” are new, and by far the +greater number of these are now ascribed to Shakespeare on good grounds. +But some of the changes are for the worse, and as my argument does not +stand in need of corroboration, I prefer to assume nothing, and shall +therefore confine myself to pointing out that whoever revised “The +Contention” did it, in the main, as we should have expected our youthful +Shakespeare to do it. For example, when Humphrey of Gloster is accused +of devising “strange torments for offenders,” he answers in the old +play: + + “Why, 'tis well known that whilst I was Protector, + Pitie was all the fault that was in me,” + +and the gentle reviser adds to this: + + “For I should melt at an offender's tears, + And lowly words were ransom for their fault.” + +Besides, the reviser adds a great deal to the part of the weak King with +the evident object of making his helplessness pathetic. He gives Henry, +too, his sweetest phrases, and when he makes him talk of bewailing +Gloster's case “with sad unhelpful tears” we catch the very cadence of +Shakespeare's voice. But he does not confine his emendations to +the speeches of one personage: the sorrows of the lovers interest him as +their affection interested him in the “First Part of Henry VI.,” and the +farewell words of Queen Margaret to Suffolk are especially +characteristic of our gentle poet: + + “Oh, go not yet; even thus two friends condemned + Embrace and kiss and take ten thousand leaves, + Leather a hundred times to part than die. + Yet now farewell; and farewell life with thee.” + +This reminds me almost irresistibly of Juliet's words when parting with +Romeo, and of Imogen's words when Posthumus leaves her. Throughout the +play Henry is the poet's favourite, and in the gentle King's lament for +Gloster's death we find a peculiarity of Shakespeare's art. It was a +part of the cunning of his exquisite sensibility to invent a new word +whenever he was deeply moved, the intensity of feeling clothing itself +aptly in a novel epithet or image. A hundred examples of this might be +given, such as “The multitudinous seas incarnadine”; and so we find here +“paly lips.” The passage is: + + “Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips + With twenty thousand kisses and to drain + Upon his face an ocean of salt tears, + To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk + And with my finger feel his hand unfeeling.” + +It must be noticed, too, that in this “Second Part” the reviser begins +to show himself as something more than the sweet lyric poet. He +transposes scenes in order to intensify the interest, and where enemies +meet, like Clifford and York, instead of making them rant in mere blind +hatred, he allows them to show a generous admiration of each other's +qualities; in sum, we find here the germs of that dramatic talent which +was so soon to bear such marvellous fruit. No better example of +Shakespeare's growth in dramatic power and humour could be found than +the way he revises the scenes with Cade. It is very probable, as I have +said, that the first sketch was his; when one of Cade's followers +declares that Cade's “breath stinks,” we are reminded that Coriolanus +spoke in the same terms of the Roman rabble. But though it is his own +work, Shakespeare evidently takes it up again with the keenest interest, +for he adds inimitable touches. For instance, in the first scene, where +the two rebels, George Bevis and John Holland, talk of Cade's rising and +his intention to set a “new nap upon the commonwealth,” George's remark: + + “Oh, miserable age! virtue is not regarded in handicraftsmen”-- + +an addition, and may be compared with Falstaff's: + + “there is no virtue extant.” + +John answers: + + “The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons,” + +which is in the first sketch. + +But George's reply-- + + “Nay, more; the King's Council are no good workmen”-- + +is only to be found in the revised version. The heightened humour of +that “Oh, miserable age! virtue is not regarded in handicraftsmen,” + assures us that the reviser was Shakespeare. + +What is true of the “Second Part” is true in the main of the “Third Part +of King Henry VI.” Shakespeare's revisions are chiefly the revisions of +a lyric poet, and he scatters his emendations about without much regard +for character. In the Third Part, as in the Second, however, he +transposes scenes, gives deeper life to the marionettes, and in various +ways quickens the dramatic interest. This Third Part resembles “King +John” in some respects and a similar inference can be drawn from it. As +in “King John” we have the sharply contrasted figures of the Bastard and +Arthur, so in this “Third Part” there are two contrasted characters, +Richard Duke of Gloster and King Henry VI., the one a wild beast whose +life is action, and who knows neither fear, love, pity, nor touch of any +scruple; the other, a saint-like King whose worst fault is gentle +weakness. In “The True Tragedie of Richard,” the old play on which this +“Third Part” was founded, the character of Richard is powerfully +sketched, even though the human outlines are sometimes confused by his +devilish malignity. Shakespeare takes this character from the old play, +and alters it but very slightly. Indeed, the most splendid piece of +character-revealing in his Richard is to be found in the old play: + + “I had no father, I am like no father, + I have no brother, I am like no brother; + And this word _Love_b, which greybeards call divine, + Be resident in men like one another, + And not in me:--I am myself alone.” + +The Satanic energy of this outburst proclaims its author, Marlowe. + +[Footnote: Mr. Swinburne was the first, I believe, to attribute this +passage to Marlowe; he praises the verses, too, as they deserve; but as +I had written the above before reading his work, I let it stand.] +Shakespeare copies it word for word, only omitting with admirable art +the first line. Indeed, though he alters the speeches of Richard and +improves them, he does nothing more; he adds no new quality; his Richard +is the Richard of “The True Tragedie.” But King Henry may be regarded as +Shakespeare's creation. In the old play the outlines of Henry's +character are so feebly, faintly sketched that he is scarcely +recognizable, but with two or three touches Shakespeare makes the saint +a living man. This King is happier in prison than in his palace; this is +how he speaks to his keeper, the Lieutenant of the Tower: + + “Nay, be thou sure, I'll well requite thy kindness, + For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure; + Ay, such a pleasure as encagèd birds + Conceive, when, after many moody thoughts, + At last by notes of household harmony + They quite forget their loss of liberty.” + +Just as the bird runs a little before he springs from the earth and +takes flight, so Shakespeare often writes, as in this instance, an +awkward weak line or two before his song-wings move with freedom. But +the last four lines are peculiarly his; his the thought; his, too, the +sweetness of the words “encagèd birds” and “household harmony.” + +Finally, Henry is not only shown to us as gentle and loving, but as a +man who prefers quiet and the country to a King's Court and state. Even +in eager, mounting youth this was Shakespeare's own choice: Prince +Arthur in “King John” longs to be a shepherd: and this crowned saint has +the same desire. From boyhood to old age Shakespeare preferred the “life +removed”: + + “O God, methinks it were a happy life + To be no better than a homely swain; + To sit upon a hill, as I do now, + To carve out dials quaintly point by point, + Thereby to see the minutes how they run; + How many make the hour full complete; + How many hours bring about the day; + How many days will finish up the year; + How many years a mortal man may live. + - - - - - - - - - - + So minutes, hours, days, months, and years, + Passed over to the end they were created, + Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.” + +All this it seems to me is as finely characteristic of the gentle +melancholy of Shakespeare's youth as Jaques' bitter words are of the +deeper melancholy of his manhood: + + “And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, + And then from hour to hour we rot and rot + And thereby hangs a tale.” + +The “Third Part of Henry VI.” leads one directly to “Richard III.” It +was Coleridge's opinion that Shakespeare “wrote hardly anything of this +play except the character of Richard. He found the piece a stock play +and re-wrote the parts which developed the hero's character; he +certainly did not write the scenes in which Lady Anne yielded to the +usurper's solicitations.” In this instance Coleridge's positive opinion +deserves to be weighed respectfully. At the time when “Richard III.” was +written Shakespeare was still rather a lyric than a dramatic poet, and +Coleridge was a good judge of the peculiarities of his lyric style. Of +course, Professor Dowden, too, is in doubt whether “Richard III.” should +be ascribed to Shakespeare. He says: “Its manner of conceiving and +presenting character has a certain resemblance, not elsewhere to be +found in Shakespeare's writings, to the ideal manner of Marlowe. As in +the plays of Marlowe, there is here one dominant figure distinguished by +a few strongly marked and inordinately developed qualities.” + +This faulty reasoning only shows how dangerous it is for a professor to +copy his teacher slavishly: in “Coriolanus,” too, we have the “one +dominant figure,” and all the rest of it. The truth seems to be that in +the “Third Part of Henry VI.” Shakespeare had been working with Marlowe, +or, at least, revising Marlowe's work; in either case he was so steeped +in Marlowe's spirit that he took, as we have seen, the most splendid +piece of Richard's self-revealing directly from the older poet. +Moreover, the words of deepest characterization in Shakespeare's +“Richard III.,” + + “Richard loves Richard--that is, I am I,” + +are manifestly a weak echo of the tremendous + + “I am myself alone” + +of Marlowe's Richard. At least to this extent, then, Shakespeare used +Marlowe in depicting Richard's character. But this trait, important as +it was did not carry him far, and he was soon forced to draw on his own +experience of life. Already he seems to have noticed that one +characteristic of men of action is a blunt plainness of speech; their +courage is shown in their frankness, and, besides, words stand for +realities with them, and are, therefore, used with sincerity. +Shakespeare's Richard III. uses plain speech as a hypocritical mask, but +already Shakespeare is a dramatist and in his clever hands Richard's +plain speaking is so allied with his incisive intelligence that it +appears to be now a mask, now native shamelessness, and thus the +characterization wins in depth and mystery. Every now and then, too, +this Richard sees things which no Englishman has been capable of seeing, +except Shakespeare himself. The whole of Plato's “Gorgias” is comprised +in the two lines: + + “Conscience is but a word that cowards use, + Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.” + +The declaration of the second murderer that conscience “makes a man a +coward ... it beggars any man that keeps it; it is turned out of all +towns and cities for a dangerous thing; and every man that means to live +well endeavours to trust to himself and to live without it,” should be +regarded as the complement of what Falstaff says of honour; in both the +humour of Shakespeare's characteristic irony is not to be mistaken. + +The whole play, I think, must be ascribed to Shakespeare; all the +memorable words in it are indubitably his, and I cannot believe that any +other hand drew for us that marvellous, masterful courtship of Anne +which Coleridge, naturally enough, was unwilling to appreciate. The +structure of the play, however, shows all the weakness of Marlowe's +method: the interest is concentrated on the protagonist; there is not +humour enough to relieve the gloomy intensity, and the scenes in which +Richard does not figure are unattractive and feeble. + +One has only to think of the two characters--Richard II. and Richard +III.--and to recall their handling in order to get a deep impression of +Shakespeare's nature. He cannot present the vile Richard II. at all; he +has no interest in him; but as soon as he thinks of Richard's youth and +remembers that he was led astray by others, he begins to identify +himself with him, and at once Richard's weakness is made amiable and his +sufferings affecting. In measure as Shakespeare lets himself go and +paints himself more and more freely, his portraiture becomes +astonishing, till at length the imprisoned Richard gives himself up to +melancholy philosophic musing, without a tinge of bitterness or envy or +hate, and every one with eyes to see, is forced to recognize in him a +younger brother to Hamlet and Posthumus. “Richard III.” was produced in +a very different way. It was Marlowe's daemonic power and intensity that +first interested Shakespeare in this Richard; under the spell of +Marlowe's personality Shakespeare conceived the play, and especially the +scene between Richard and Anne; but the original impulse exhausted +itself quickly, and then Shakespeare fell back on his own experience and +made Richard keen of insight and hypocritically blunt of speech--a sort +of sketch of Iago. A little later Shakespeare either felt that the +action was unsuitable to the development of such a character, or more +probably he grew weary of the effort to depict a fiend; in any case, the +play becomes less and less interesting, and even the character of +Richard begins to waver. There is one astonishing instance of this +towards the end of the drama. On the eve of the decisive battle Richard +starts awake from his terrifying dreams, and now, if ever, one would +expect from him perfect sincerity of utterance. This is what we find: + + “There is no creature loves me; + And if I die no soul shall pity me; + Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself + Find in myself no pity to myself?” + +The first two lines bespeak a loving, gentle nature, Shakespeare's +nature, the nature of a Henry VI. or an Arthur, a nature which Richard +III. would certainly have despised, and the last two lines are merely an +objective ethical judgement wholly out of place and very clumsily +expressed. + +To sum up, then, for this is not the place to consider Shakespeare's +share in “Henry VIII.,” I find that in the English historical plays the +manly characters, Hotspur, Harry V., the great Bastard, and Richard +III., are all taken from tradition or from old plays, and Shakespeare +did nothing more than copy the traits which were given to him; on the +other hand, the weak, irresolute, gentle, melancholy characters are his +own, and he shows extraordinary resource in revealing the secret +workings of their souls. Even in early manhood, and when handling +histories and men of action, Shakespeare cannot conceal his want of +sympathy for the practical leaders of men; he neither understands them +deeply nor loves them; but in portraying the girlish Arthur and the +Hamlet-like Richard II., and in drawing forth the pathos of their +weakness, he is already without a rival or second in all literature. + +I am anxious not to deform the truth by exaggeration; a caricature of +Shakespeare would offend me as a sacrilege, even though the caricature +were characteristic, and when I find him even in youth one-sided, a poet +and dreamer, I am minded to tell less than the truth rather than more. +He was extraordinarily sensitive, I say to myself, and lived in the +stress of great deeds; he treated Henry V., a man of action if ever +there was one, as an ideal, and lavished on him all his admiration, but +it will not do: I cannot shut my eyes to the fact; the effort is worse +than useless. He liked Henry V. because of his misled youth and his +subsequent rise to highest honour, and not because of his practical +genius. Where in his portrait gallery is the picture of a Drake, or even +of a Raleigh? The adventurer was the characteristic product of that +jostling time; but Shakespeare turned his head away; he was not +interested in him. In spite of himself, however, he became passionately +interested in the pitiful Richard II. and his untimely fate. +Notwithstanding the praise of the critics, his King Henry V. is a wooden +marionette; the intense life of the traditional madcap Prince has died +out of him; but Prince Arthur lives deathlessly, and we still hear his +childish treble telling Hubert of his love. + +Those who disagree with me will have to account for the fact that, even +in the historical plays written in early manhood, all his portraits of +men of action are mere copies, while his genius shines in the portraits +of a gentle saint like Henry VI., of a weakling like Richard II., or of +a girlish youth like Arthur--all these favourite studies being alike in +pathetic helplessness and tender affection. + +It is curious that no one of the commentators has noticed this +extraordinary one-sidedness of Shakespeare. In spite of his miraculous +faculty of expression, he never found wonderful phrases for the virile +virtues or virile vices. For courage, revenge, self-assertion, and +ambition we have finer words in English than any that Shakespeare +coined. In this field Chapman, Milton, Byron, Carlyle, and even Bunyan +are his masters. + +Of course, as a man he had the instinct of courage, and an admiration of +courage; his intellect, too, gave him some understanding of its range. +Dr. Brandes declares that Shakespeare has only depicted physical +courage, the courage of the swordsman; but that is beside the truth: Dr. +Brandes has evidently forgotten the passage in “Antony and Cleopatra,” + when Caesar contemptuously refuses the duel with Antony and speaks of +his antagonist as an “old ruffian.” Enobarbus, too, sneers at Antony's +proposed duel: + + “Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will + Unstate his happiness, and be staged to the show + Against a sworder.” + +Unhelped by memory, Dr. Brandes might have guessed that Shakespeare +would exhaust the obvious at first glance. But the soul of courage to +Shakespeare is, as we have seen, a love of honour working on quick +generous blood--a feminine rather than a masculine view of the matter. + +Carlyle has a deeper sense of this aboriginal virtue. With the fanatic's +trust in God his Luther will go to Worms “though it rain devils”; and +when in his own person Carlyle spoke of the small, honest minority +desperately resolved to maintain their ideas though opposed by a huge +hostile majority of fools and the insincere, he found one of the finest +expressions for courage in all our literature. The vast host shall be to +us, he cried, as “stubble is to fire.” It may be objected that this is +the voice of religious faith rather than of courage pure and simple, and +the objection is valid so far as it goes; but this genesis of courage is +peculiarly English, and the courage so formed is of the highest. Every +one remembers how Valiant-for-Truth fights in Bunyan's allegory: “I +fought till my sword did cleave to my hand; and when they were joined +together, as if a sword grew out of my arm, and when the blood ran +through my fingers, then I fought with most courage.” The mere +expression gives us an understanding of the desperate resolution of +Cromwell's Ironsides. + +But if desperate courage is not in Shakespeare, neither are its +ancillary qualities--cruelty, hatred, ambition, revenge. Whenever he +talks on these themes, he talks from the teeth outwards, as one without +experience of their violent delights. His Gloucester rants about +ambition without an illuminating or even a convincing word. Hatred and +revenge Shakespeare only studied superficially, and cruelty he shudders +from like a woman. + +It is astounding how ill-endowed Shakespeare was on the side of +manliness. His intellect was so fine, his power of expression so +magical, the men about him, his models, so brave--founders as they were +of the British empire and sea-tyranny--that he is able to use his +Hotspurs and Harrys to hide from the general the poverty of his +temperament. But the truth will out: Shakespeare was the greatest of +poets, a miraculous artist, too, when he liked; but he was not a hero, +and manliness was not his _forte_: he was by nature a neuropath and +a lover. + +He was a master of passion and pity, and it astonishes one to notice how +willingly he passed always to that extreme of sympathy where nothing but +his exquisite choice of words and images saved him from falling into the +silly. For example, in “Titus Andronicus,” with its crude, unmotived +horrors, Titus calls Marcus a murderer, and when Marcus replies: “Alas, +my lord, I have but killed a fly,” Titus answers: + + “But how, if that fly had a father and mother? + How would he hang his slender gilded wings, + And buzz lamenting doings in the air? + Poor harmless fly! + That with his pretty buzzing melody, + Came here to make us merry! and thou hast killed him.” + +Even in his earliest plays in the noontide of lusty youth, when the heat +of the blood makes most men cruel, or at least heedless of others' +sorrows, Shakespeare was full of sympathy; his gentle soul wept with the +stricken deer and suffered through the killing of a fly. Just as Ophelia +turned “thought and affliction, passion, hell itself” to “favour and to +prettiness,” so Shakespeare's genius turned the afflictions and passions +of man to pathos and to pity. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. SHAKESPEARE AS LYRIC POET: “TWELFTH NIGHT” + + +Shakespeare began the work of life as a lyric poet. It was to be +expected therefore that when he took up playwriting he would use the +play from time to time as an opportunity for a lyric, and in fact this +was his constant habit. From the beginning to the end of his career he +was as much a lyric poet as a dramatist. His first comedies are feeble +and thin in character-drawing and the lyrical sweetness is everywhere +predominant. His apprenticeship period may be said to have closed with +his first tragedy, “Romeo and Juliet.” I am usually content to follow +Mr. Furnival's “Trial Table of the order of Shakspere's Plays,” in which +“Richard II.,” “Richard III.,” and “King John” are all placed later than +“Romeo and Juliet,” and yet included in the first period that stretches +from 1585 to 1595. But “Romeo and Juliet” seems to me to be far more +characteristic of the poet's genius than any of these histories; it is +not only a finer work of art than any of them, and therefore of higher +promise, but in its lyrical sweetness far more truly representative of +Shakespeare's youth than any of the early comedies or historical plays. +Whatever their form may be, nearly all Shakespeare's early works are +love-songs, “Venus and Adonis,” “Lucrece,” “Love's Labour's Lost,” “The +Two Gentlemen of Verona,” and he may be said to have ended his +apprenticeship with the imperishable tragedy of first love “Romeo and +Juliet.” + +In the years from 1585 to 1595 Shakespeare brought the lyric element +into something like due subordination and managed to free himself almost +completely from his early habit of rhyming. Mr. Swinburne has written of +Shakespeare's use of rhymed verse with a fullness of knowledge and +sympathy that leaves little to be desired. He compares it aptly to the +use of the left hand instead of the right, and doubts cogently whether +Shakespeare ever attained such mastery of rhyme as Marlowe in “Hero and +Leander.” But I like to think that Shakespeare's singing quickly became +too sincere in its emotion and too complex in its harmonies to tolerate +the definite limits set by rhyme. In any case by 1595 Shakespeare had +learned to prefer blank verse to rhyme, at least for play-writing; he +thus made the first great step towards a superb knowledge of his +instrument. + +The period of Shakespeare's maturity defines itself sharply; it +stretches from 1595 to 1608 and falls naturally into two parts; the +first part includes the trilogy “Henry IV.” and “Henry V.” and his +golden comedies; the second, from 1600 to 1608, is entirely filled with +his great tragedies. The characteristic of this period so far as regards +the instrument is that Shakespeare has come to understand the proper +function of prose. He sees first that it is the only language suited to +broad comedy, and goes on to use it in moments of sudden excitement, or +when dramatic truth to character seems to him all important. At his best +he uses blank verse when some emotion sings itself to him, and prose as +the ordinary language of life, the language of surprise, laughter, +strife, and of all the commoner feelings. During these twelve or +fourteen years the lyric note is not obtrusive; it is usually +subordinated to character and suited to action. + +His third and last period begins with “Pericles” and ends with the +“Tempest”; it is characterized, as we shall see later, by bodily +weakness and by a certain contempt for the dramatic fiction. But the +knowledge of the instrument once acquired never left Shakespeare. It is +true that the lyric note becomes increasingly clear in his late +comedies; but prose too is used by him with the same mastery that he +showed in his maturity. + +In the first period Shakespeare was often unable to give his puppets +individual life; in maturity he was interested in the puppets themselves +and used them with considerable artistry; in the third period he had +grown a little weary of them and in “The Tempest” showed himself +inclined, just as Goethe in later life was inclined, to turn his +characters into symbols or types. + +The place of “Twelfth Night” is as clearly marked in Shakespeare's works +as “Romeo and Juliet” or “The Tempest.” It stands on the dividing line +between his light, joyous comedies and the great tragedies; it was all +done at the topmost height of happy hours, but there are hints in it +which we shall have to notice later, which show that when writing it +Shakespeare had already looked into the valley of disillusion which he +was about to tread. But “Twelfth Night” is written in the spirit of “As +You Like It” or “Much Ado,” only it is still more personal-ingenuous and +less dramatic than these; it is, indeed, a lyric of love and the joy of +living. + +There is no intenser delight to a lover of letters than to find +Shakespeare singing, with happy unconcern, of the things he loved +best--not the Shakespeare of Hamlet or Macbeth, whose intellect speaks +in critical judgements of men and of life, and whose heart we are fain +to divine from slight indications; nor Shakespeare the dramatist, who +tried now and again to give life to puppets like Coriolanus and Iago, +with whom he had little sympathy; but Shakespeare the poet, Shakespeare +the lover, Shakespeare whom Ben Jonson called “the gentle,” Shakespeare +the sweet-hearted singer, as he lived and suffered and enjoyed. If I +were asked to complete the portrait given to us by Shakespeare of +himself in Hamlet-Macbeth with one single passage, I should certainly +choose the first words of the Duke in “Twelfth Night.” I must transcribe +the poem, though it will be in every reader's remembrance; for it +contains the completest, the most characteristic, confession of +Shakespeare's feelings ever given in a few lines: + + “If music be the food of love, play on; + Give me excess of it, that surfeiting + The appetite may sicken, and so die. + That strain again;--it had a dying fall: + Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south + That breathes upon a bank of violets, + Stealing and giving odour.--Enough! no more + 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.” + +Every one will notice that Shakespeare as we know him in Romeo is here +depicted again with insistence on a few salient traits; here, too, we +have the poet of the Sonnets masquerading as a Duke and the protagonist +of yet another play. There is still less art used in characterizing this +Duke than there is in characterizing Macbeth; Shakespeare merely lets +himself go and sings his feelings in the most beautiful words. This is +his philosophy of music and of love: + + “Give me excess of it, that surfeiting, + The appetite may sicken, and so die”; + +and then: + + “Enough, no more; 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.” + +--the quick revulsion of the delicate artist-voluptuary who wishes to +keep unblunted in memory the most exquisite pang of pleasure. + +Speech after speech discovers the same happy freedom and absolute +abandonment to the “sense of beauty.” Curio proposes hunting the hart, +and at once the Duke breaks out: + + “Why, so I do, the noblest that I have. + O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first, + Methought she purged the air of pestilence. + That instant was I turned into a hart, + And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, + E'er since pursue me.”-- + +Valentine then comes to tell him that Olivia is still mourning for her +brother, and the Duke seizes the opportunity for another lyric: + + “O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame + To pay this debt of love but to a brother, + How will she love, when the rich golden shaft + Hath killed the flock of all affections else + That live in her; when liver, brain, and heart, + These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and filled-- + Her sweet perfections--with one self King!-- + Away before me to sweet beds of flowers, + Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.” + +The last two lines show clearly enough that Shakespeare was not troubled +with any thought of reality as he wrote: he was transported by Fancy +into that enchanted country of romance where beds of flowers are couches +and bowers, canopies of love. But what a sensuality there is in him! + + “When liver, brain, and heart, + These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and filled-- + Her sweet perfections--with one self King!--” + +Of course, too, this Duke is inconstant, and swings from persistent +pursuit of Olivia to love of Viola without any other reason than the +discovery of Viola's sex. In the same way Romeo turns from Rosaline to +Juliet at first sight. This trait has been praised by Coleridge and +others as showing singular knowledge of a young man's character, but I +should rather say that inconstancy was a characteristic of sensuality +and belonged to Shakespeare himself, for Orsino, like Romeo, has no +reason to change his love; and the curious part of the matter is that +Shakespeare does not seem to think that the quick change in Orsino +requires any explanation at all. Moreover, the love of Duke Orsino for +Olivia is merely the desire of her bodily beauty--the counterpart of the +sensual jealousy of Othello. Speaking from Shakespeare's very heart, the +Duke says: + + “Tell her, my love, more noble than the world, + Prizes not quantity of dirty lands; + The parts that Fortune hath bestowed upon her, + Tell her, I hold as giddily as Fortune; + But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems + That nature pranks her in attracts my soul.” + +So the body wins the soul according to this Orsino, who is, I repeat +again, Shakespeare in his most ingenuous and frankest mood; the contempt +of wealth--“dirty lands”--and the sensuality--“that miracle and queen of +gems”--are alike characteristic. A few more touches and the portrait of +this Duke will be complete; he says to the pretended Cesario when +sending him as ambassador to Olivia: + + “Cesario, Thou knowest no less but all; I have unclasped + To thee the book even of my secret soul; Therefore, good youth,”-- + +and so forth. + +It is a matter of course that this Duke should tell everything to his +friend; a matter of course, too, that he should love books and bookish +metaphors. Without being told, one knows that he delights in all +beautiful things--pictures with their faërie false presentment of forms +and life; the flesh-firm outline of marble, the warmth of ivory and the +sea-green patine of bronze--was not the poop of the vessel beaten gold, +the sails purple, the oars silver, and the very water amorous? + +This Duke shows us Shakespeare's most intimate traits even when the +action does not suggest the self-revelation. When sending Viola to woo +Olivia for him he adds: + + “Some four or five, attend him; + All if you will; for I myself am best + When least in company.” + +Like Vincentio, that other mask of Shakespeare, this Duke too loves +solitude and “the life removed”; he is “best when least in company.” + +If there is any one who still doubts the essential identity of Duke +Orsino and Shakespeare, let him consider the likeness in thought and +form between the Duke's lyric effusions and the Sonnets, and if that +does not convince him I might use a hitherto untried argument. When a +dramatist creates a man's character he is apt to make him, as the French +say, too much of a piece--too logical. But, in this instance, though +Shakespeare has given the Duke only a short part, he has made him +contradict himself with the charming ease that belongs peculiarly to +self-revealing. The Duke tells us: + + “For such as I am all true lovers are, + --Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, + Save in the constant image of the creature + That is beloved.” + +The next moment he repeats this: + + “For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, + Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, + More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, + Than women's are.” + +And the moment after he asserts: + + “There is no woman's sides + Can bide the beating of so strong a passion + As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart + So big, to hold so much; they lack retention. + Alas! their love may be called appetite, + No motion of the liver, but the palate, + That suffers surfeit, cloyment, and revolt!” + +Hamlet contradicts himself, too: at one moment he declares that his soul +is immortal, and at the next is full of despair. But Hamlet is so +elaborate a portrait, built up of so many minute touches, that +self-contradiction is a part, and a necessary part, of his many-sided +complexity. But the Duke in “Twelfth Night” reveals himself as it were +accidentally; we know little more of him than that he loves music and +love, books and flowers, and that he despises wealth and company; +accordingly, when he contradicts himself, we may suspect that +Shakespeare is letting himself speak freely without much care for the +coherence of characterization. And the result of this frankness is that +he has given a more intimate, a more confidential, sketch of himself in +Duke Orsino of “Twelfth Night” than he has given us in any play except +perhaps “Hamlet” and “Macbeth.” + +I hardly need to prove that Shakespeare in his earliest plays, as in his +latest, in his Sonnets as in his darkest tragedy, loved flowers and +music. In almost every play he speaks of flowers with affection and +delight. One only needs to recall the song in “A Midsummer's Night's +Dream,” “I know a bank,” or Perdita's exquisite words: + + “Daffodils, + That come before the swallow dares, and take + The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, + But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes + Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, + That die unmarried ere they can behold + Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady + Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and + The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds, + The flower-de-luce being one”; + +or Arviragus' praise of Imogen: + + “Thou shalt not lack + The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor + The azured harebell like thy veins; no, nor + The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander + Outsweetened not thy breath.” + +Shakespeare praises music so frequently and so enthusiastically that we +must regard the trait as characteristic of his deepest nature. Take this +play which we are handling now. Not only the Duke, but both the +heroines, Viola and Olivia, love music. Viola can sing “in many sorts of +music,” and Olivia admits that she would rather hear Viola solicit love +than “music from the spheres.” Romeo almost confounds music with love, +as does Duke Orsino: + + “How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night, + Like softest music to attending ears!” + +And again: + + “And let rich music's tongue + Unfold the imagin'd happiness that both + Receive in either by this dear encounter.” + +It is a curious and characteristic fact that Shakespeare gives almost +the same words to Ferdinand in the “Tempest” that he gave ten years +earlier to the Duke in “Twelfth Night.” In both passages music goes with +passion to allay its madness: + + “This music crept by me upon the waters, + Allaying both their fury and my passion + With its sweet air” + +and Duke Orsino says: + + “That old and antique song we heard last night, + Methought it did relieve my passion much.” + +This confession is so peculiar; shows, too, so exquisitely fine a +sensibility, that its repetition makes me regard it as Shakespeare's. +The most splendid lyric on music is given to Lorenzo in the “Merchant of +Venice,” and it may be remarked in passing that Lorenzo is not a +character, but, like Claudio, a mere name and a mouthpiece of +Shakespeare's feeling. Shakespeare was almost as well content, it +appears, to play the lover as to play the Duke. I cannot help +transcribing the magical verses, though they must be familiar to every +lover of our English tongue: + + “How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! + Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music + Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night + Become the touches of sweet harmony. + Sit, Jessica: Look how the floor of heaven + Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. + There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st + But in his motion like an angel sings, + Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims. + Such harmony is in immortal souls; + But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay + Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.” + +The first lines of this poem are conceived in the very spirit of the +poems of “Twelfth Night,” and in the last lines Shakespeare puts to use +that divine imagination which lifts all his best verse into the higher +air of life, and reaches its noblest in Prospero's solemn-sad lyric. + +Shakespeare's love of music is so much a part of himself that he +condemns those who do not share it; this argument, too, is given to +Lorenzo: + + “The man that hath no music to himself, + Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, + Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; + The motions of his spirit are dull as night, + And his affections dark as Erebus: + Let no such man be trusted.” + +That this view was not merely the expression of a passing mood is shown +by the fact that Shakespeare lends no music to his villains; but Timon +gives welcome to his friends with music, just as Hamlet welcomes the +players with music and Portia calls for music while her suitors make +their eventful choice. Titania and Oberon both seek the aid of music to +help them in their loves, and the war-worn and time-worn Henry IV. prays +for music to bring some rest to his “weary spirit”; in much the same +mood Prospero desires music when he breaks his wand and resigns his +magical powers. + +Here, again, in “Twelfth Night” in full manhood Shakespeare shows +himself to us as Romeo, in love with flowers and music and passion. +True, this Orsino is a little less occupied with verbal quips, a little +more frankly sensual, too, than Romeo; but then Romeo would have been +more frankly sensual had he lived from twenty-five to thirty-five. As an +older man, too, Orsino has naturally more of Hamlet-Shakespeare's +peculiar traits than Romeo showed; the contempt of wealth and love of +solitude are qualities hardly indicated in Romeo, while in Orsino as in +the mature Shakespeare they are salient characteristics. To sum up: +Hamlet-Macbeth gives us Shakespeare's mind; but in Romeo-Orsino he has +discovered his heart and poetic temperament to us as ingenuously, though +not, perhaps, so completely, as he does in the Sonnets. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. SHAKESPEARE'S HUMOUR: FALSTAFF + + +Shakespeare's portraits of himself are not to be mistaken; the changes +in him caused by age bring into clearer light the indestructible +individuality, and no difference of circumstance or position has any +effect upon this distinctive character: whether he is the lover, Romeo; +the murderer, Macbeth; the courtier, Hamlet; or the warrior, Posthumus; +he is always the same--a gentle yet impulsive nature, sensuous at once +and meditative; half poet, half philosopher, preferring nature and his +own reveries to action and the life of courts; a man physically +fastidious to disgust, as is a delicate woman, with dirt and smells and +common things; an idealist daintily sensitive to all courtesies, +chivalries, and distinctions. The portrait is not yet complete--far from +it, indeed; but already it is manifest that Shakespeare's nature was so +complex, so tremulously poised between world-wide poles of poetry and +philosophy, of what is individual and concrete on the one hand and what +is abstract and general on the other, that the task of revealing himself +was singularly difficult. It is not easy even to describe him as he +painted himself: it may be that, wishing to avoid a mere catalogue of +disparate qualities, I have brought into too great prominence the gentle +passionate side of Shakespeare's nature; though that would be difficult +and in any case no bad fault; for this is the side which has hitherto +been neglected or rather overlooked by the critics. + +My view of Shakespeare can be made clearer by examples. I began by +taking Hamlet the philosopher as Shakespeare's most profound and complex +study, and went on to prove that Hamlet is the most complete portrait +which Shakespeare has given of himself, other portraits being as it were +sides of Hamlet or less successful _replicas_ of him; and finally I +tried to complete the Hamlet by uniting him with Duke Orsino, Orsino the +poet-lover being, so to speak, Shakespeare's easiest and most natural +portrait. In Hamlet, if one may dare to say so, Shakespeare has +discovered too much of himself: Hamlet is at one and the same time +philosopher and poet, critic and courtier, lover and cynic--the extremes +that Shakespeare's intellect could cover--and he fills every part so +easily that he might almost be a bookish Admirable Crichton, a type of +perfection rather than an individual man, were it not for his feminine +gentleness and forgivingness of nature, and particularly for the +brooding melancholy and disbelief which darkened Shakespeare's outlook +at the time. But though the melancholy scepticism was an abiding +characteristic of Shakespeare, to be found in his Richard II. as in his +Prospero, it did not overshadow all his being as it does Hamlet's. There +was a summer-time, too, in Shakespeare's life, and in his nature a +capacity for sunny gaiety and a delight in life and love which came to +full expression in the golden comedies, “Much Ado,” “As You Like It” and +“Twelfth Night.” The complement to Hamlet the sad philosopher-sceptic is +the sensuous happy poet-lover Orsino, and when we take these seeming +antitheses and unite them we have a good portrait of Shakespeare. But +these two, Hamlet and Orsino, are in reality one; every quality of +Orsino is to be found or divined in Hamlet, and therefore the easiest +and surest way to get at Shakespeare is to take Hamlet and deepen those +peculiarities in him which we find in Orsino. + +Some critics are sure to say that I have now given a portrait of +Coleridge rather than a portrait of Shakespeare. This is not altogether +the fact, though I for one see no shame in acknowledging the likeness. +Coleridge had a “smack of Hamlet” in him, as he himself saw; indeed, in +his rich endowment as poet and philosopher, and in his gentleness and +sweetness of disposition, he was more like Shakespeare than any other +Englishman whom I can think of; but in Coleridge the poet soon +disappeared, and a little later the philosopher in him faded into the +visionary and sophist; he became an upholder of the English Church and +found reasons in the immutable constitution of the universe for aprons +and shovel-hats. Shakespeare, on the other hand, though similarly +endowed, was far more richly endowed: he had stronger passions and +greater depth of feeling; the sensuousness of Keats was in him; and this +richness of nature not only made him a greater lyric poet than Coleridge +and a far saner thinker, but carried him in spite of a constitutional +dislike of resolve and action to his astounding achievement. + +But even when we thus compare Shakespeare with Coleridge, as we compare +trees of the same species, showing that as the roots of the one go +deeper and take a firmer hold of earth, so in exact measure the crest +rises into higher air, still there is something lacking to our +comparison. Even when we hold Hamlet-Orsino before us as the best +likeness of the master-poet, our impression of him is still incomplete. + +There remains a host of creations from Launce to Autolycus, and from +Dame Quickly to Maria, which proves that Shakespeare was something more +than the gentle lover-thinker-poet whom we have shown. It is +Shakespeare's humour that differentiates him not only from Coleridge and +Keats, but also from the world-poets, Goethe, Dante, and Homer. It is +this unique endowment that brings him into vital touch with reality and +common life, and hinders us from feeling his all-pervading ideality as +disproportioned or one-sided. Strip him of his humour and he would have +been seen long ago in his true proportions. His sympathies are not more +broad and generous than Balzac's; his nature is too delicate, too +sensitive, too sensuous; but his humour blinds us to the truth. Of +course his comic characters, like his captains and men of action, are +due originally to his faculty of observation; but while his observation +of the fighting men is always superficial and at times indifferent, his +humorous observation is so intensely interested and sympathetic that its +creations are only inferior in artistic value to his portraits of the +poet-philosopher-lover. + +The intellect in him had little or nothing to go upon in the case of the +man of action; he never loved the Captain or watched him at work; it is +his mind and second-hand knowledge that made Henry V. and Richard III.; +and how slight and shallow are these portraits in comparison with the +portrait of a Parolles or a Sir Toby Belch, or the ever-famous Nurse, +where the same intellect has played about the humorous trait and +heightened the effect of loving observation. The critics who have +ignorantly praised his Hotspur and Bastard as if he had been a man of +deeds as well as a man of words have only obscured the truth that +Shakespeare the poet-philosopher, the lover _quand même_, only +reached a sane balance of nature through his overflowing humour. He +whose intellect and sensibilities inspired him with nothing but contempt +and loathing for the mass of mankind, the aristocrat who in a dozen +plays sneers at the greasy caps and foul breaths of the multitude, fell +in love with Dogberry, and Bottom, Quickly and Tearsheet, clod and +clown, pimp and prostitute, for the laughter they afforded. His humour +is rarely sardonic; it is almost purged of contempt; a product not of +hate but of love; full of sympathy; summer-lightning humour, harmless +and beautiful. + +Sometimes the sympathy fails and the laughter grows grim, and these +lapses are characteristic. He hates false friends and timeservers, the +whole tribe of the ungrateful, the lords of Timon's acquaintance and his +artists; he loathes Shylock, whose god is greed and who battens on +others' misfortunes; he laughs at the self-righteous Malvolio and not +with him, and takes pleasure in unmasking the pretended ascetic and +Puritan Angelo; but for the frailties of the flesh he has an ever-ready +forgiveness. Like the greatest of ethical teachers, he can take the +publican and the sinner to his heart, but not the hypocrite or the +Pharisee or the money-lender. + +It does not come within the scope of this essay to attempt a detailed +criticism of Shakespeare's comic characters; it will be enough for my +purpose to show that even in his masterpiece of humour, the incomparable +Falstaff, he betrays himself more than once: more than once we shall +find Shakespeare, the poet, or Shakespeare, the thinker, speaking +through Falstaff's mouth. Yet to criticize Falstaff is difficult, and if +easy, it would still be an offence to those capable of gratitude. I +would as soon find fault with Ariel's most exquisite lyric, or the +impeccable loveliness of the “Dove Sono,” as weigh the rich words of the +Lord of Comedy in small balances of reason. But such considerations must +not divert me from my purpose; I have undertaken to discover the very +soul of Shakespeare, and I must, therefore, trace him in Falstaff as in +Hamlet. + +Falstaff enters and asks the Prince the time. The Prince answers that +unless “hours were cups of sack and so forth, he can't understand why +Falstaff should care about anything so superfluous as time.” Falstaff +replies: “Indeed you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go +by the moon and the seven stars and not by Phoebus, he, 'that wandering +knight so fair.'” Here we have a sort of lyrical strain in Falstaff and +then a tag of poetry which gives food for thought; but his next speech +is unmistakable: + + “Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, + minions of the moon; and let men say we be men of + good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our + noble and chaste mistress, the moon, under whose + countenance we--steal.” + +This is Shakespeare speaking, and Shakespeare alone: the phrases sing to +us in the unmistakable music of the master-poet, though the fall at the +last to “--steal,” seems to be an attempt to get into the character of +Falstaff. It is, of course, difficult to make the first words of a +person sharply characteristic; a writer is apt to work himself into a +new character gradually; it is only the sensitive self-consciousness of +our time that demands an absolute fidelity in characterization from the +first word to the last. Yet this scene is so excellent and natural, that +the uncertainty in the painting of Falstaff strikes me as peculiar. But +this first speech is not the only speech of Falstaff in which +Shakespeare betrays himself; again and again we catch the very accent of +the poet. It is not Falstaff but Shakespeare who says that “the poor +abuses of the time want countenance”; and later in the play, when the +character of Falstaff is fully developed, it is Shakespeare, the +thinker, who calls Falstaff's ragged regiment “the cankers of a calm +world and a long peace.” In just the same way Hamlet speaks of the +expedition of Fortinbras: + + “This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace, + That inward breaks.” + +But though the belief that Shakespeare sometimes falls out of the +character and slips phrases of his own into Falstaff's mouth is +well-founded, it should nevertheless be put aside as a heresy, for the +true faith is that the white-bearded old footpad who cheered on his +fellow-ruffians with + + “Strike.... Bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth: + down with them! fleece them!” + +and again: + “On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves! young men + must live!” + +is the most splendid piece of humorous portraiture in the world's +fiction. + +Who but Falstaff would have found his self-justification in his +youth?--_splendide mendax_! and yet the excuse is as true to his +sack-heated blood when he uses it on Gadshill as it was true also to +fact when he first used it forty years before. And who but Falstaff +would have had the words of repentance always on his lips and never in +his heart? I ascribe these illuminating flashes to Falstaff, and not to +Shakespeare, for no imagination in the world has yet accomplished such a +miracle; as a miracle of representment Falstaff is astonishing enough, +as a miracle of creation he is simply unthinkable. I would almost as +soon believe that Falstaff made Shakespeare as that Shakespeare made +Falstaff without a living model. All hail to thee, inimitable, +incomparable Jack! Never before or since has poet been blessed with such +a teacher, as rich and laughterful, as mendacious and corrupting as life +itself. + +I must not be taken to mean that the living original of Falstaff was as +richly humorous, as inexhaustibly diverting as the dramatic counterfeit +who is now a citizen and chief personage in that world of literature +which outlasts all the fleeting shows of the so-called real world. It +seems to me to be possible for a good reader to notice not only +Shakespeare's lapses and faults in the drawing of this character, but +also to make a very fair guess at his heightening touches, and so arrive +at last at the humorous old lewdster who furnished the living model for +the inimitable portrait. The first scene in which Falstaff appears +talking with Prince Henry will supply examples to illustrate my meaning. + +Falstaff's very first speech after he asks Hal the time of day gives us +the key; he ends it with: + + “And I pr'ythee, sweet wag, when thou art king,--as, + God save thy grace--majesty, I should say, for grace + thou wilt have none,--” + +Here he is interrupted and breaks off, but a minute or two later he +comes back again to his argument, and curiously enough uses exactly the +same words: + + “But, I pr'ythee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows + standing in England when thou art king? and resolution + thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father + Antick, the law?” + +Now, this question and the hope it expresses that justice would be put +to shame in England on Prince Henry's accession to the throne is taken +from a speech of the Prince in the old play, “The Famous Victories of +Henry the Fifth.” Shakespeare would have done better to leave it out, +for Falstaff has far too good brains to imagine that all thieves could +ever have his licence and far too much conceit ever to desire so unholy +a consummation. And Shakespeare must have felt that the borrowed words +were too shallow-common, for he immediately falls back on his own brains +for the next phrase and gives us of his hoarded best. The second part of +the question, “resolution thus fobbed,” and so forth, is only another +statement of the famous couplet in “Richard III.”: + + “Conscience is but a word that cowards use, + Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.” + +These faults show that Shakespeare is at first unsure of his personage; +he fumbles a little; yet the vivacity, the roaring life, is certainly a +quality of the original Falstaff, for it attends him as constantly as +his shadow; the pun, too, is his, and the phrase “sweet wag” is probably +taken from his mouth, for he repeats it again, “sweet wag,” and again +“mad wag.” The shamelessness, too, and the lechery are marks of him, and +the love of witty word-warfare, and, above all, the pretended +repentance: + + “O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art, indeed, + able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm + upon me, Hal,--God forgive thee for it. Before I knew + thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man + should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. + I must give over this life, and I will give it over; by the + Lord, an I do not, I am a villain; I'll be damned for + never a king's son in Christendom.” + +In this first scene between Falstaff and Prince Henry, Shakespeare is +feeling his way, so to speak, blindfold to Falstaff, with gropings of +memory and dashes of poetry that lead him past the mark. In this first +scene, as we noticed, he puts fine lyric phrases in Falstaff's mouth; +but he never repeats the experiment; Falstaff and high poetry are +anti-podes--all of which merely proves that at first Shakespeare had not +got into the skin of his personage. But the real Falstaff had probably +tags of verse in memory and lilts of song, for Shakespeare repeats this +trait. Here we reach the test: Whenever a feature is accentuated by +repetition, we may guess that it belongs to the living model. There was +assuredly a strong dash of Puritanism in the real Falstaff, for when +Shakespeare comes to render this, he multiplies the brush-strokes with +perfect confidence; Falstaff is perpetually repenting. + +After the first scene Shakespeare seems to have made up his mind to keep +closely to his model and only to permit himself heightening touches. + +In order to come closer to the original, I will now take another passage +later in the play, when Shakespeare is drawing Falstaff with a sure +hand: + + “_Fal_. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance + too! marry and amen!--Give me a cup of sack, boy.-- + Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew netherstocks, and mend + them, and foot them, too. A plague of all cowards!-- + give me a cup of sack, rogue.--Is there no virtue extant? + [_Drinks_.]” + +Here is surely the true Falstaff; he will not lead this life long; this +is the soul of him; but the exquisite heightening phrase, “Is there no +virtue extant?” is pure Shakespeare, Shakespeare generalizing as we saw +him generalizing in just the same way in the scene where Cade is talked +of in the Second Part of “King Henry VI.” The form too is Shakespeare's. +Who does not remember the magic line in “The Two Noble Kinsmen “? + + “She is all the beauty extant.” + +And the next speech of Falstaff is just as illuminating: + + “_Fal_. You rogue, here's lime in this sack, too; there is + nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: yet a coward + is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it--a villainous + coward.--Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt, if manhood, + good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I + a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged in + England, and one of them is fat and grows old: God help the + while! A bad world I say----” + +At the beginning the concrete fact, then generalization, and then merely +a repetition of the traits marked in the first scene, with the addition +of bragging. Evidently Shakespeare has the model in memory as he writes. +I say “evidently,” for Falstaff is the only character in Shakespeare +that repeats the same words with damnable iteration, and in whom the +same traits are shown again and again and again. When Shakespeare is +painting himself in Richard II. he depicts irresolution again and again +as he depicts it also in Hamlet; but neither Hamlet nor Richard repeats +the same words, nor is any trait in either of them accentuated so +grossly as are the principal traits of Falstaff's character. The +features in Falstaff which are so harped upon, are to me the features of +the original model. Shakespeare did not know Falstaff quite as well as +he knew himself; so he has to confine himself to certain qualities which +he had observed, and stick, besides, to certain tags of speech, which +were probably favourites with the living man. + +In another important particular, too, Falstaff is unlike any other comic +character in Shakespeare: he tells the truth about himself in a magical +way. The passage I allude to is the first speech made by Falstaff in the +Second Part of “Henry IV.”; it shows us Shakespeare getting into the +character again--after a certain lapse of time: + + “_Fal_. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me; the + brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able + to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I + invent or is invented on me: I am not only witty in myself, + but the cause that wit is in other men--” + +Just as in the first act Shakespeare introducing Falstaff makes him talk +poetically, so here there is a certain exaltation and lyrical swing +which betrays the poet-creator. “Foolish-compounded,” too, shows +Shakespeare's hand, but the boast, I feel sure, was a boast often made +by the original, and thus brings Shakespeare into intimate union with +the character; for after this introduction Falstaff goes on to talk pure +Falstaff, unmixed with any slightest dash of poetry. + +Who was the original of Falstaff? Is a guess possible? It seems to me it +must have been some lover of poetry--perhaps Chettle, the Chettle who +years before had published Greene's attack upon Shakespeare and who +afterwards made amends for it. In Dekker's tract, “A Knight's +Conjuring,” Chettle figures among the poets in Elysium: “In comes +Chettle sweating and blowing by reason of his fatnes; to welcome whom, +because hee was of olde acquaintance, all rose up, and fell presentlie +on their knees, to drinck a health to all the louers of Hellicon.” Here +we have a fat man greeted with laughter and mock reverence by the +poets--just such a model as Shakespeare needed, but the guess is mere +conjecture: we don't know enough about Chettle to be at all sure. Yet +Chettle was by way of being a poet, and Falstaff uses tags of +verse--still, as I say, it is all pure guesswork. The only reason I put +his name forward is that some have talked of Ben Jonson as Falstaff's +original merely because he was fat. I cannot believe that gentle +Shakespeare would ever have treated Jonson with such contempt; but +Chettle seems to have been a butt by nature. + +That Falstaff was taken from one model is to me certain. Shakespeare +very seldom tells us what his characters look like; whenever he gives us +a photograph, so to speak, of a person, it is always taken from life and +extraordinarily significant. We have several portraits of Falstaff: the +Prince gives a picture of the “old fat man,...” that trunk of humours +“... that old white-bearded Satan”; the Chief Justice gives us another +of his “moist eye, white beard, increasing belly and double chin.” + Falstaff himself has another: “a goodly portly man, i' faith and a +corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble +carriage.” Such physical portraiture alone would convince me that there +was a living model for Falstaff. But there are more obvious arguments: +the other humorous characters of Shakespeare are infinitely inferior to +Falstaff, and the best of them are merely sides of Falstaff or poor +reflections of him. Autolycus and Parolles have many of his traits, but +they are not old, and taken together, they are only a faint +_replica_ of the immortal footpad. + +Listening with my heart in my ears, I catch a living voice, a round, fat +voice with tags of “pr'ythee,” “wag,” and “marry,” and behind the +inimitable dramatic counterfeit I see a big man with a white head and +round belly who loved wine and women and jovial nights, a Triton among +the minnows of boon companions, whose shameless effrontery was backed by +cunning, whose wit though common was abundant and effective through long +practice--a sort of licensed tavern-king, whose mere entrance into a +room set the table in a roar. Shakespeare was attracted by the +many-sided racy ruffian, delighted perhaps most by his easy mastery of +life and men; he studied him with infinite zest, absorbed him wholly, +and afterwards reproduced him with such richness of sympathy, such magic +of enlarging invention that he has become, so to speak, the symbol of +laughter throughout the world, for men of all races the true Comic Muse. + +In any case I may be allowed one last argument. The Falstaff of “The +Merry Wives of Windsor” is not the Falstaff of the two parts of “King +Henry IV.”; it is but a shadow of the great knight that we see, an echo +of him that we hear in the later comedy. Falstaff would never have +written the same letter to Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page; there was too much +fancy in him, too much fertility, too much delight in his own mind- and +word-wealth ever to show himself so painfully stinted and barren. Nor is +it credible that Falstaff would ever have fallen three times running +into the same trap; Falstaff made traps; he did not fall into them. We +know, too, that Falstaff would not fight “longer than he saw reason”; +his instinct of self-preservation was largely developed; but he could +face a sword; he drew on Pistol and chased him from the room; he was not +such a pitiful coward as to take Ford's cudgelling. Finally, the +Falstaff whom we all know could never have been befooled by the Welshman +and his child-fairies. And this objection Shakespeare himself felt, for +he meets it by making Falstaff explain how near he came to discovering +the fraud, and how wit is made “a Jack-a-Lent when 'tis upon ill +employment.” But the fact that some explanation is necessary is an +admission of the fault. Falstaff must indeed have laid his brains in the +sun before he could have been taken in by foppery so gross and palpable. +This is not the same man who at once recognized the Prince and Poins +through their disguise as drawers. Yet there are moments when the +Falstaff of “The Merry Wives” resumes his old nature. For example, when +he is accused by Pistol of sharing in the proceeds of the theft, he +answers with all the old shameless wit: + + “Reason, you rogue, reason; think'st thou I'll endanger + my soul gratis?” + +and, again, when he has been cozened and beaten, he speaks almost in the +old way: + + “I never prospered since I forswore myself at primero. + Well, if my wind were but long enough to say my + prayers, I would repent.” + +But on the whole the Falstaff of “The Merry Wives” is but a poor thin +shadow of the Falstaff of the two parts of “Henry IV.” + +Had “The Merry Wives” been produced under ordinary conditions, one would +have had to rack one's brains to account for its feebleness. Not only is +the genial Lord of Humour degraded in it into a buffoon, but the +amusement of it is chiefly in situation; it is almost as much a farce as +a comedy. For these and other reasons I believe in the truth of the +tradition that Elizabeth was so pleased with the character of Falstaff +that she ordered Shakespeare to write another play showing the fat +knight in love, and that in obedience to this command Shakespeare wrote +“The Merry Wives” in a fortnight. For what does a dramatist do when he +is in a hurry to strike while the iron is hot and to catch a Queen's +fancy before it changes? Naturally he goes to his memory for his +characters, to that vivid memory of youth which makes up by precision of +portraiture for what it lacks in depth of comprehension. And this is the +distinguishing characteristic of “The Merry Wives,” particularly in the +beginning. Even without “the dozen white luces” in his coat, one would +swear that this Justice Shallow, with his pompous pride of birth and his +stilted stupidity, is a portrait from life, some Sir Thomas Lucy or +other, and Justice Shallow is not so deeply etched in as his cousin, +Master Slender--“a little wee face, with a little yellow beard,--a +cane-coloured beard.” Such physical portraiture, as I have said, is very +rare and very significant in Shakespeare. This photograph is slightly +malevolent, too, as of one whose malice is protected by a Queen's +commission. Those who do not believe traditions when thus +circumstantially supported would not believe though one rose from the +dead to witness to them. “The Merry Wives” is worthful to me as the only +piece of Shakespeare's journalism that we possess; here we find him +doing task-work, and doing it at utmost speed. Those who wish to measure +the difference between the conscious, deliberate work of the artist and +the hurried slap-dash performance of the journalist, have only to +compare the Falstaff of “The Merry Wives” with the Falstaff of the two +parts of “Henry IV.” But if we take it for granted that “The Merry +Wives” was done in haste and to order, can any inference be fairly drawn +from the feebleness of Falstaff and the unreality of his love-making? I +think so; it seems to me that, if Falstaff had been a creation, +Shakespeare must have reproduced him more effectively. His love-making +in the second part of “Henry IV.” is real enough. But just because +Falstaff was taken from life, and studied from the outside, Shakespeare +having painted him once could not paint him again, he had exhausted his +model and could only echo him. + +The heart of the matter is that, whereas Shakespeare's men of action, +when he is not helped by history or tradition, are thinly conceived and +poorly painted, his comic characters--Falstaff, Sir Toby Belch, and +Dogberry; Maria, Dame Quickly, and the Nurse, creatures of observation +though they be, are only inferior as works of art to the portraits of +himself which he has given us in Romeo, Hamlet, Macbeth, Orsino, and +Posthumus. It is his humour which makes Shakespeare the greatest of +dramatists, the most complete of men. + + + + + +BOOK II. + + + + +CHAPTER I. SHAKESPEARE'S EARLY ATTEMPTS TO PORTRAY HIMSELF +AND HIS WIFE: BIRON, ADRIANA, VALENTINE + +In the preceding chapters I have considered those impersonations of +Shakespeare which revealed most distinctly the salient features of his +character. I now regard this part of my work as finished: the outlines +at least of his nature are established beyond dispute, and I may +therefore be permitted to return upon my steps, and beginning with the +earliest works pass in review most of the other personages who discover +him, however feebly or profoundly. Hitherto I have rather challenged +contradiction than tried to conciliate or persuade; it was necessary to +convince the reader that Shakespeare was indeed Hamlet-Orsino, plus an +exquisite sense of humour; and as the proofs of this were almost +inexhaustible, and as the stability of the whole structure depended on +the firmness of the foundations, I was more than willing to call forth +opposition in order once for all to strangle doubt. But now that I have +to put in the finer traits of the portrait I have to hope for the +goodwill at least of my readers. Even then my task is not easy. The +subtler traits of a man's character often elude accurate description, to +say nothing of exact proof; the differences in tone between a +dramatist's own experiences of life and his observation of the +experiences of others are often so slight as to be all but unnoticeable. +In the case of some peculiarities I have only a mere suggestion to go +upon, in that of others a bare surmise, a hint so fleeting that it may +well seem to the judicious as if the meshes of language were too coarse +to catch such evanescent indication. + +Fortunately in this work I am not called on to limit myself to that +which can be proved beyond question, or to the ordinary man. I think my +reader will allow me, or indeed expect me, now to throw off constraint +and finish my picture as I please. + +In this second book then I shall try to correct Shakespeare's portraits +of himself by bringing out his concealed faults and vices--the +shortcomings one's vanity slurs over and omits. Above all I shall try to +notice anything that throws light upon his life, for I have to tell here +the story of his passion and his soul's wreck. At the crisis of his life +he revealed himself almost without affectation; in agony men forget to +pose. And this more intimate understanding of the man will enable us to +reconstruct, partially at least, the happenings of his life, and so +trace not only his development, but the incidents of his life's journey +from his school days in 1575 till he crept home to Stratford to die +nearly forty years later. + +The chief academic critics, such as Professor Dowden and Dr. Brandes, +take pains to inform us that Biron in “Love's Labour's Lost” is nothing +but an impersonation of Shakespeare. This would show much insight on the +part of the Professors were it not that Coleridge as usual has been +before them, and that Coleridge's statement is to be preferred to +theirs. Coleridge was careful to say that the whole play revealed many +of Shakespeare's characteristic features, and he added finely, “as in a +portrait taken of him in his boyhood.” This is far truer than Dowden's +more precise statement that “Berowne is the exponent of Shakespeare's +own thought.” For though, of course, Biron is especially the mouthpiece +of the poet, yet Shakespeare reveals himself in the first speech of the +King as clearly as he does in any speech of Biron: + + “Let Fame, that all hunt after in their lives, + Live registered upon our brazen tombs, + And then grace us in the disgrace of death; + When, spite of cormorant devouring Time, + The endeavour of this present breath may buy + That honour which shall 'bate his scythe's keen edge, + And make us heirs of all eternity.” + +The King's criticism, too, of Armado in the first scene is more finely +characteristic of Shakespeare than Biron's criticism of Boyet in the +last act. In this, his first drama, Shakespeare can hardly sketch a +sympathetic character without putting something of himself into it. + +I regard “Love's Labour's Lost” as Shakespeare's earliest comedy, not +only because the greater part of it is in rhymed verse, but also because +he was unable in it to individualize his serious personages at all; the +comic characters, on the other hand, are already carefully observed and +distinctly differenced. Biron himself is scarcely more than a charming +sketch: he is almost as interested in language as in love, and he plays +with words till they revenge themselves by obscuring his wit; he is +filled with the high spirits of youth; in fact, he shows us the form and +pressure of the Renaissance as clearly as the features of Shakespeare. +It is, however, Biron-Shakespeare, who understands that the real world +is built on broader natural foundations than the King's womanless +Academe, and therefore predicts the failure of the ascetic experiment. +Another trait in Biron that brings us close to Shakespeare is his +contempt for book-learning; + + “Small have continual plodders ever won + Save bare authority from others' books. + - - - - - - - - - - + Too much to know is to know nought but fame; + And every godfather can give a name.” + +Again and again he returns to the charge: + + “To study now it is too late, + Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.” + +The summing up is triumphant: + + “So, study evermore is overshot.” + +In fine, Biron ridicules study at such length and with such earnestness +and pointed phrase that it is manifest the discussion was intensely +interesting to Shakespeare himself. But we should have expected +Shakespeare's _alter ego_ to be arguing on the other side; for +again and again we have had to notice that Shakespeare was a confirmed +lover of books; he was always using bookish metaphors, and Hamlet was a +student by nature. This attitude on the part of Biron, then, calls for +explanation, and it seems to me that the only possible explanation is to +be found in Shakespeare's own experience. Those who know England as she +was in the days of Elizabeth, or as she is to-day, will hardly need to +be told that when Shakespeare first came to London he was regarded as an +unlettered provincial (“with little Latin and less Greek”), and had to +bear the mocks and flouts of his beschooled fellows, who esteemed +learning and gentility above genius. In his very first independent play +he answered the scorners with scorn. But this disdain of study was not +Shakespeare's real feeling; and his natural loyalty to the deeper truth +forced him to make Biron contradict and excuse his own argument in a way +which seems to me altogether charming; but is certainly undramatic: + + “--Though I have for barbarism spoke more + Than for that angel knowledge you can say.” + +Undramatic the declaration is because it is at war with the length and +earnestness with which Biron has maintained his contempt for learning; +but here undoubtedly we find the true Shakespeare who as a youth speaks +of “that angel, knowledge,” just as in “Cymbeline” twenty years later he +calls reverence, “that angel of the world.” + +When we come to his “Life” we shall see that Shakespeare, who was thrown +into the scrimmage of existence as a youth, and had to win his own way +in the world, had, naturally enough, a much higher opinion of books and +book-learning than Goethe, who was bred a student and knew life only as +an amateur: + + “Einen Blick in's Buch hinein und zwei in's Leben + Das muss die rechte Form dem Geiste geben.” + +Shakespeare would undoubtedly have given “two glances” to books and one +to life, had he been free to choose; but perhaps after all Goethe was +right in warning us that life is more valuable to the artist than any +transcript of it. + +To return to our theme; Biron is not among Shakespeare's successful +portraits of himself. As might be expected in a first essay, the drawing +is now over-minute, now too loose. When Biron talks of study, he +reveals, as we have seen, personal feelings that are merely transient; +on the other hand, when he talks about Boyet he talks merely to hear +“the music of his own vain tongue.” He is, however, always nimble-witted +and impulsive; “quick Biron” as the Princess calls him, a gentleman of +charming manners, of incomparable fluent, graceful, and witty speech, +which qualities afterwards came to blossom in Mercutio and Gratiano. The +faults in portraiture are manifestly due to inexperience: Shakespeare +was still too youthful-timid to paint his chief features boldly, and it +is left for Rosaline to picture Biron for us as Shakespeare doubtless +desired to appear: + + “A merrier man, + Within the limits of becoming mirth, + I never spent an hour's talk withal. + His eye begets occasion for his wit; + For every object that the one doth catch, + The other turns to a mirth-moving jest, + Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor, + Delivers in such apt and gracious words + That agèd ears play truant at his tales, + And younger hearings are quite ravishèd, + So sweet and voluble is his discourse.” + +Every touch of this self-painted portrait deserves to be studied: it is +the first photograph of our poet which we possess--a photograph, too, +taken in early manhood. Shakespeare's wit we knew, his mirth too, and +that his conversation was voluble and sweet enough to ravish youthful +ears and enthrall the aged we might have guessed from Jonson's report. +But it is delightful to hear of his mirth-moving words and to know that +he regarded himself as the best talker in the world. But just as the +play at the end turns from love-making and gay courtesies to thoughts of +death and “world-without-end” pledges, so Biron's merriment is only the +effervescence of youth, and love brings out in him Shakespeare's +characteristic melancholy: + + “By heaven, I do love, and it hath taught me to + rhyme, and to be melancholy.” + +Again and again, as in his apology to Rosaline and his appeal at the end +of the play to “honest plain words,” he shows a deep underlying +seriousness. The soul of quick talkative mirthful Biron is that he loves +beauty whether of women or of words, and though he condemns “taffeta +phrases,” he shows his liking for the “silken terms precise” in the very +form of his condemnation. + +Of course all careful readers know that the greater seriousness of the +last two acts of “Love's Labour's Lost,” and the frequent use of blank +verse instead of rhymed verse in them, are due to the fact that +Shakespeare revised the play in 1597, some eight or nine years probably +after he had first written it. Every one must have noticed the +repetitions in Biron's long speech at the end of the fourth act, which +show the original garment and the later, finer embroidery. As I shall +have to return to this revision for other reasons, it will be enough +here to remark that it is especially the speeches of Biron which +Shakespeare improved in the second handling + +Dr. Brandes, or rather Coleridge, tells us that in Biron and his +Rosaline we have the first hesitating sketch of the masterly Benedick +and Beatrice of “Much Ado about Nothing”; but in this I think Coleridge +goes too far. Unformed as Biron is, he is Shakespeare in early youth, +whereas in Benedick the likeness is not by any means so clear. In fact, +Benedick is merely an admirable stage silhouette and needs to be filled +out with an actor's personality. Beatrice, on the other hand, is a woman +of a very distinct type, whereas Rosaline needs pages of explanation, +which Coleridge never dreamed of. A certain similarity rather of +situation than of character seems to have misled Coleridge in this +instance. Boyet jests with Maria and Rosaline just as Biron does, and +just as Benedick jests with Beatrice: all these scenes simply show how +intensely young Shakespeare enjoyed a combat of wits, spiced with the +suggestiveness that nearly always shows itself when the combatants are +of different sexes. + +It is almost certain that “Love's Labour's Lost” was wholly conceived +and constructed as well as written by Shakespeare; no play or story has +yet been found which might, in this case, have served him as a model. +For the first and probably the last time he seems to have taken the +entire drama from his imagination, and the result from a playwright's +point of view is unfortunate; “Love's Labour's Lost” is his slightest +and feeblest play. It is scarcely ever seen on the stage--is, indeed, +practically unactable. This fact goes to confirm the view already put +forth more than once in these pages, that Shakespeare was not a good +playwright and took little or no interest in the external incidents of +his dramas. The plot and action of the story, so carefully worked out by +the ordinary playwright and so highly esteemed by critics and +spectators, he always borrows, as if he had recognized the weakness of +this first attempt, and when he sets himself to construct a play, it has +no action, no plot--is, indeed, merely a succession of fantastic +occurrences that give occasion for light love-making and brilliant talk. +Even in regard to the grouping of characters the construction of his +early plays is puerile, mechanical; in “Love's Labour's Lost” the King +with his three courtiers is set against the Princess and her three +ladies; in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” there is the faithful Valentine +opposed to the inconstant Proteus, and each of them has a comic servant; +and when later his plays from this point of view were not manufactured +but grew, and thus assumed the beautiful irregular symmetry of life, the +incidents were still neglected. Neither the poet nor the philosopher in +Shakespeare felt much of the child's interest in the story; he chose his +tales for the sake of the characters and the poetry, and whether they +were effective stage-tales or not troubled him but little. There is +hardly more plot or action in “Lear” than in “Love's Labour's Lost.” + +It is probable that “The Comedy of Errors” followed hard on the heels of +“Love's Labour's Lost.” It practically belongs to the same period: it +has fewer lines of prose in it than “Love's Labour's Lost”; but, on the +other hand, the intrigue-spinning is clever, and the whole play shows a +riper knowledge of theatrical conditions. Perhaps because the intrigue +is more interesting, the character-drawing is even feebler than that of +the earlier comedy: indeed, so far as the men go there is hardly +anything worth calling character-drawing at all. Shakespeare speaks +through this or that mask as occasion tempts him: and if the women are +sharply, crudely differentiated, it is because Shakespeare, as I shall +show later, has sketched his wife for us in Adriana, and his view of her +character is decided enough if not over kind. Still, any and every +peculiarity of character deserves notice, for in these earliest works +Shakespeare is compelled to use his personal experience, to tell us of +his own life and his own feelings, not having any wider knowledge to +draw upon. Every word, therefore, in these first comedies, is important +to those who would learn the story of his youth and fathom the +idiosyncrasies of his being. When AEgeon, in the opening scenes, tells +the Duke about the shipwreck in which he is separated from his wife and +child, he declares that he himself “would gladly have embraced immediate +death.” No reason is given for this extraordinary contempt of living. It +was the “incessant weepings” of his wife, the “piteous plainings of the +pretty babes,” that forced him, he says, to exert himself. But wives +don't weep incessantly in danger, nor are the “piteous plainings of the +pretty babes” a feature of shipwreck; I find here a little picture of +Shakespeare's early married life in Stratford--a snapshot of memory. +AEgeon concludes his account by saying that his life was prolonged in +order + + “To tell sad stories of my own mishaps” + +--which reminds one of similar words used later by Richard II. This +personal, melancholy note is here forced and false, for Aegeon surely +lives in hope of finding his wife and child and not in order to tell of +his misfortunes. Aegeon is evidently a breath of Shakespeare himself, +and not more than a breath, because he only appears again when the play +is practically finished. Deep-brooding melancholy was the customary +habit of Shakespeare even in youth. + +Just as in “Love's Labour's Lost” we find Shakespeare speaking first +through the King and then more fully through the hero, Biron, so here he +first speaks through Aegeon and then at greater length through the +protagonist Antipholus of Syracuse. Antipholus is introduced to us as +new come to Ephesus, and Shakespeare is evidently thinking of his own +first day in London when he puts in his mouth these words: + + “Within this hour it will be dinner-time: + Till that, I'll view the manners of the town, + Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings, + And then return and sleep within mine inn; + For with long travel I am stiff and weary.” + +Though “stiff and weary” he is too eager-young to rest; he will see +everything--even “peruse the traders”--how the bookish metaphor always +comes to Shakespeare's lips!--before he will eat or sleep. The utterly +needless last line, with its emphatic description--“stiff and +weary”--corroborates my belief that Shakespeare in this passage is +telling us what he himself felt and did on his first arrival in London. +In the second scene of the third act Antipholus sends his servant to the +port: + + “I will not harbour in this town to-night + If any bark put forth.” + +From the fact that Shakespeare represented Antipholus to himself as +wishing to leave Ephesus by sea, it is probable that he pictured him +coming to Ephesus in a ship. But when Shakespeare begins to tell us what +he did on reaching London he recalls his own desires and then his own +feelings; he was “stiff and weary” on that first day because he rode, or +more probably walked, into London; one does not become “stiff and weary” + on board ship. This is another snapshot at that early life of +Shakespeare, and his arrival in London, which one would not willingly +miss. And surely it is the country-bred lad from Stratford who, fearing +all manner of town-tricks, speaks in this way: + + “They say this town is full of cozenage; + As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, + Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind, + Soul-killing witches that deform the body, + Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, + And many such-like liberties of sin: + - - - - - - - - - - + I greatly fear my money is not safe.” + +This Antipholus is most ingenuous-talkative; without being questioned he +tells about his servant: + + “A trusty villain, sir; that very oft, + When I am dull with care and melancholy, + Lightens my humour with his merry jests.” + +And as if this did not mark his peculiar thoughtful temperament +sufficiently, he tells the merchant: + + “I will go lose myself, + And wander up and down to view the city.” + +And when the merchant leaves him, commending him to his own content, he +talks to himself in this strain: + + “He that commends me to mine own content, + Commends me to the thing I cannot get, + - - - - - - - - - - + So I, to find a mother and a brother, + In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.” + +A most curious way, it must be confessed, to seek for any one; but +perfectly natural to the refined, melancholy, meditative, book-loving +temperament which was already Shakespeare's. In this “unhappy” and +“mother” I think I hear an echo of Shakespeare's sorrow at parting from +his own mother. + +This Antipholus, although very free and open, has a reserve of dignity, +as we see in the second scene of the second act, when he talks with his +servant, who, as he thinks, has played with him: + + “Because that I familiarly sometimes + Do use you for my fool, and chat with you, + Your sauciness will jest upon my love, + And make a common of my serious hours. + When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport, + But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.” + +The self-esteem seems a little exaggerated here; but, after all, it is +only natural; the whole scene is taken from Shakespeare's experience: +the man who will chat familiarly with his servant, and jest with him as +well, must expect to have to pull him up at times rather sharply. +Antipholus proceeds to play with his servant in a fencing match of +wit--a practice Shakespeare seems to have delighted in. But it is when +Antipholus falls in love with Luciana that he shows us Shakespeare at +his most natural as a lover. Luciana has just taken him to task for not +loving her sister Adriana, who, she thinks, is his wife. Antipholus +answers her thus: + + “Sweet mistress,--what your name is else, I know not, + Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine,-- + Less in your knowledge and your face you show not, + Than our earth's wonder; more than earth divine, + Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak; + Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit, + Smother'd in errors, feeble, shallow, weak, + The folded meaning of your words' deceit. ...” + +He declares, in fact, that he loves her and not her sister: + + “Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote: + Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs, + And as a bed I'll take them and there lie; + - - - - - - - - - - + It is thyself, mine own self's better part, + Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart.” + +And as if this were not enough he goes on: + + “My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim, + My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.” + +The word-conceits were a fashion of the time; but in spite of the verbal +affectation, the courting shows the cunning of experience, and has, +besides, a sort of echo of sincere feeling. How Shakespeare delights in +making love! It reminds one of the first flutings of a thrush in early +spring; over and over again he tries the notes with delighted iteration +till he becomes a master of his music and charms the copses to silence +with his song: and so Shakespeare sings of love again and again till at +length we get the liquid notes of passion and the trills of joy all +perfected in “Romeo and Juliet”; but the voice is the voice we heard +before in “Venus and Adonis” and “The Comedy of Errors.” + +Antipholus' other appearances are not important. He merely fills his +part till in the last scene he assures Luciana that he will make good +his earlier protestations of love; but so far as he has any character at +all, or distinctive individuality, he is young Shakespeare himself and +his experiences are Shakespeare's. + +Now a word or two about Adriana. Shakespeare makes her a jealous, +nagging, violent scold, who will have her husband arrested for debt, +though she will give money to free him. But the comedy of the play would +be better brought out if Adriana were pictured as loving and constant, +inflicting her inconvenient affection upon the false husband as upon the +true. Why did Shakespeare want to paint this unpleasant bitter-tongued +wife? + +When Adriana appears in the first scene of the second act she is at once +sketched in her impatience and jealousy. She wants to know why her +husband should have more liberty than she has, and declares that none +but asses will be bridled so. Then she will strike her servant. In the +first five minutes of this act she is sketched to the life, and +Shakespeare does nothing afterwards but repeat and deepen the same +strokes: it seems as if he knew nothing about her or would depict +nothing of her except her jealousy and nagging, her impatience and +violence. We have had occasion to notice more than once that when +Shakespeare repeats touches in this way, he is drawing from life, from +memory, and not from imagination. Moreover, in this case, he shows us at +once that he is telling of his wife, because she defends herself against +the accusation of age, which no one brings against her, though every one +knows that Shakespeare's wife was eight years older than himself. + + “His company must do his minions grace, + Whilst I at home starve for a merry look. + Hath homely age the alluring beauty took + From my poor cheek? then he hath wasted it ... + ... My decayed fair + A sunny look of his would soon repair: + But, poor unruly deer, he breaks the pale, + And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.” + +The appeal is pathetic; but Luciana will not see it. She cries: + + “Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence!” + +In the second scene of this second act Adriana goes on nagging in almost +the same way. + +In the second scene of the third act there is a phrase from the hero, +Antipholus of Syracuse, about Adriana which I find significant: + + “She that doth call me husband, even my soul + Doth for a wife abhor!” + +There is no reason in the comedy for such strong words. Most men would +be amused or pleased by a woman who makes up to them as Adriana makes up +to Antipholus. I hear Shakespeare in this uncalled-for, over-emphatic +“even my soul doth for a wife abhor.” + +In the fifth act Adriana is brought before the Abbess, and is proved to +be a jealous scold. Shakespeare will not be satisfied till some +impartial great person of Adriana's own sex has condemned her. Adriana +admits that she has scolded her husband in public and in private, too; +the Abbess replies: + + “And thereof came it that the man was mad.” + +And she adds: + + “The venom clamours of a jealous woman + Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.” + +Again, a needlessly emphatic condemnation. But Adriana will not accept +the reproof: she will have her husband at all costs. The whole scene +discovers personal feeling. Adriana is the portrait that Shakespeare +wished to give us of his wife. + +The learned commentators have seemingly conspired to say as little about +“The Two Gentlemen of Verona” as possible. No one of them identifies the +protagonist, Valentine, with Shakespeare, though all of them identified +Biron with Shakespeare, and yet Valentine, as we shall see, is a far +better portrait of the master than Biron. This untimely blindness of the +critics is, evidently, due to the fact that Coleridge has hardly +mentioned “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” and they have consequently been +unable to parrot his opinions. + +“The Two Gentlemen of Verona” is manifestly a later work than “Love's +Labour's Lost”; there is more blank verse and less rhyme in it, and a +considerable improvement in character-drawing. Julia, for example, is +individualized and lives for us in her affection and jealousy; her talks +with her maid Lucetta are taken from life; they are indeed the first +sketch of the delightful talks between Portia and Nerissa, and mark an +immense advance upon the wordy _badinage_ of the Princess and her +ladies in “Love's Labour's Lost,” where there was no attempt at +differentiation of character. It seems indubitable to me that “The Two +Gentlemen of Verona” is also later than “The Comedy of Errors,” and just +as far beyond doubt that it is earlier than “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” + in spite of Dr. Furnival's “Trial Table.” + +The first three comedies, “Love's Labour's Lost,” “The Comedy of +Errors,” and “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” are all noteworthy for the +light they throw on Shakespeare's early life. + +In “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” Shakespeare makes similar youthful +mistakes in portraiture to those we noticed in “Love's Labour's Lost”; +mistakes which show that he is thinking of himself and his own +circumstances. At the beginning of the play the only difference between +Proteus and Valentine is that one is in love, and the other, heart-free, +is leaving home to go to Milan. In this first scene Shakespeare speaks +frankly through both Proteus and Valentine, just as he spoke through +both the King and Biron in the first scene of “Love's Labour's Lost,” + and through both AEgeon and Antipholus of Syracuse in “The Comedy of +Errors.” But whilst the circumstances in the earliest comedy are +imaginary and fantastic, the circumstances in “The Two Gentlemen of +Verona” are manifestly, I think, taken from the poet's own experience. +In the dialogue between Valentine and Proteus I hear Shakespeare +persuading himself that he should leave Stratford. Some readers may +regard this assumption as far-fetched, but it will appear the more +plausible, I think, the more the dialogue is studied. Valentine begins +the argument: + + “Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits,”-- + +he will “see the wonders of the world abroad” rather than live “dully +sluggardiz'd at home,” wearing out “youth with shapeless idleness.” But +all these reasons are at once superfluous and peculiar. The audience +needs no persuasion to believe that a young man is eager to travel and +go to Court. Shakespeare's quick mounting spirit is in the lines, and +the needlessness of the argument shows that we have here a personal +confession. Valentine, then, mocks at love, because it was love that +held Shakespeare so long in Stratford, and when Proteus defends it, he +replies: + + “Even so by Love the young and tender wit + Is turned to folly; blasting in the bud, + Losing his verdure even in the prime, + And all the fair effects of future hopes.” + +Here is Shakespeare's confession that his marriage had been a failure, +not only because of his wife's mad jealousy and violent temper, which we +have been forced to realize in “The Comedy of Errors,” but also because +love and its home-keeping ways threatened to dull and imprison the eager +artist spirit. In the last charming line I find not only the music of +Shakespeare's voice, but also one of the reasons--perhaps, indeed, the +chief because the highest reason--which drew him from Stratford to +London. And what the “future hope” was, he told us in the very first +line of “Love's Labour's Lost.” The King begins the play with” + + “Let Fame, that all hunt after in their lives.” + +Now all men don't hunt after fame; it was Shakespeare who felt that Fame +pieced out Life's span and made us “heirs of all eternity”; it was young +Shakespeare who desired fame so passionately that he believed all other +men must share his immortal longing, the desire in him being a forecast +of capacity, as, indeed, it usually is. If any one is inclined to think +that I am here abusing conjecture let him remember that Proteus, too, +tells us that Valentine is hunting after honour. + +When Proteus defends love we hear Shakespeare just as clearly as when +Valentine inveighs against it: + + “Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud + The eating canker dwells, so eating love + Inhabits in the finest wits of all.” + +Shakespeare could not be disloyal to that passion of desire in him which +he instinctively felt was, in some way or other, the necessary +complement of his splendid intelligence. We must take the summing-up of +Proteus when Valentine leaves him as the other half of Shakespeare's +personal confession: + + “He after honour hunts, I after love: + He leaves his friends to dignify them more; + I leave myself, my friends, and all for love. + Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphosed me,-- + Made me neglect my studies, lose my time, + War with good counsel, set the world at naught; + Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.” + +Young Shakespeare hunted as much after love as after honour, and these +verses show that he has fully understood what a drag on him his foolish +marriage has been. That all this is true to Shakespeare appears from the +fact that it is false to the character of Proteus. Proteus is supposed +to talk like this in the first blush of passion, before he has won +Julia, before he even knows that she loves him. Is that natural? Or is +it not rather Shakespeare's confession of what two wasted years of +married life in Stratford had done for him? It was ambition--desire of +fame and new love--that drove the tired and discontented Shakespeare +from Anne Hathaway's arms to London. + +When his father tells Proteus he must to Court on the morrow, instead of +showing indignation or obstinate resolve to outwit tyranny, he +generalizes in Shakespeare's way, exactly as Romeo and Orsino generalize +in poetic numbers: + + “O, how this spring of love resembleth + The uncertain glory of an April day.” + +Another reason for believing that this play deals with Shakespeare's own +experiences is to be found in the curious change that takes place in +Valentine. In the first act Valentine disdains love: he prefers to +travel and win honour; but as soon as he reaches Milan and sees Silvia, +he falls even more desperately in love than Proteus. What was the +object, then, in making him talk so earnestly against love in the first +act? It may be argued that Shakespeare intended merely to contrast the +two characters in the first act; but he contrasts them in the first act +on this matter of love, only in the second act to annul the distinction +himself created. Moreover, and this is decisive, Valentine rails against +love in the first act as one who has experienced love's utmost rage: + + “To be + In love: when scorn is bought with groans; coy looks, + With heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth, + With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights.” + +The man who speaks like this is not the man who despises love and +prefers honour, but one who has already given himself to passion with an +absolute abandonment. Such inconsistencies and flaws in workmanship are +in themselves trivial, but, from my point of view, significant; for +whenever Shakespeare slips in drawing character, in nine cases out of +ten he slips through dragging in his own personality or his personal +experience, and not through carelessness, much less incompetence; his +mistakes, therefore, nearly always throw light on his nature or on his +life's story. From the beginning, too, Valentine like Shakespeare is a +born lover. + +As soon, moreover, as he has gone to the capital and fallen in love he +becomes Shakespeare's avowed favourite. He finds Silvia's glove and +cries: + + “Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine--” + +the exclamation reminding us of how Romeo talks of Juliet's glove. Like +other men, Shakespeare learned life gradually, and in youth poverty of +experience forces him to repeat his effects. + +Again, when Valentine praises his friend Proteus to the Duke, we find a +characteristic touch of Shakespeare. Valentine says: + + “His years but young; but his experience old; + His head unmellowed; but his judgement ripe.” + +In “The Merchant of Venice” Bellario, the learned doctor of Padua, +praises Portia in similar terms: + +“I never knew so young a body with so old a head.” + +But it is when Valentine confesses his love that Shakespeare speaks +through him most clearly: + + “Ay, Proteus, but that life is altered now, + I have done penance for contemning love; + - - - - - - - - - - + For in revenge of my contempt of love + Love hath chased sleep from my enthralled eyes + And made them watchers of my own heart's sorrow. + O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,”-- + +and so on. + +Every word in this confession is characteristic of the poet and +especially the fact that his insomnia is due to love. Valentine then +gives himself to passionate praise of Silvia, and ends with the “She is +alone” that recalls “She is all the beauty extant” of “The Two Noble +Kinsmen.” Valentine the lover reminds us of Romeo as the sketch +resembles the finished picture; when banished, he cries: + +“And why not death, rather than living torment? To die is to be banished +from myself; And Silvia is myself: banished from her, Is self from self; +a deadly banishment. What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What +joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by +And feed upon the shadow of perfection. Except I be by Silvia in the +night There is no music in the nightingale,” + +and so forth. I might compare this with what Romeo says of his +banishment, and perhaps infer from this two-fold treatment of the theme +that Shakespeare left behind in Stratford some dark beauty who may have +given Anne Hathaway good cause for jealous rage. It must not be +forgotten here that Dryasdust tells us he was betrothed to another girl +when Anne Hathaway's relations forced him to marry their kinswoman. + +A moment later and this lover Valentine uses the very words that we +found so characteristic in the mouth of the lover Orsino in Twelfth +Night”: + + “O I have fed upon this woe already, + And now excess of it will make me surfeit.” + +Valentine, indeed, shows us traits of nearly all Shakespeare's later +lovers, and this seems to me interesting, because of course all the +qualities were in the youth, which were later differenced into various +characters. His advice to the Duke, who pretends to be in love, is far +too ripe, too contemptuous-true, to suit the character of such a votary +of fond desire as Valentine was; it is mellow with experience and +man-of-the-world wisdom, and the last couplet of it distinctly +fore-shadows Benedick: + + “Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces; + Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces. + That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man + If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.” + +But this is only an involuntary _aperçu_ of Valentine, as indeed +Benedick is only an intellectual mood of Shakespeare. And here Valentine +is contrasted with Proteus, who gives somewhat different advice to +Thurio, and yet advice which is still more characteristic of Shakespeare +than Valentine-Benedick's counsel. Proteus says: + + “You must lay lime to tangle her desires + By wailful sonnets, whose composéd rhymes + Should be full fraught with serviceable vows.” + +In this way the young poet sought to give expression to different views +of life, and so realize the complexity of his own nature. + +The other traits of Valentine's character that do not necessarily belong +to him as a lover are all characteristic traits of Shakespeare. When he +is playing the banished robber-chief far from his love, this is how +Valentine consoles himself: + + “This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, + I better brook than flourishing peopled towns: + Here can I sit alone unseen of any, + And to the nightingale's complaining notes + Tune my distresses and record my woes.” + +This idyllic love of nature, this marked preference for the country over +the city, however peculiar in a highway robber, are characteristics of +Shakespeare from youth to age. Not only do his comedies lead us +continually from the haunts of men to the forest and stream, but also +his tragedies. He turns to nature, indeed, in all times of stress and +trouble for its healing unconsciousness, its gentle changes that can be +foreseen and reckoned upon, and that yet bring fresh interests and +charming surprises; and in times of health and happiness he pictures the +pleasant earth and its diviner beauties with a passionate intensity. +Again and again we shall have to notice his poet's love for +“unfrequented woods,” his thinker's longing for “the life removed.” + +At the end of the drama Valentine displays the gentle forgivingness of +disposition which we have already had reason to regard as one of +Shakespeare's most marked characteristics. As soon as “false, fleeting +Proteus” confesses his sin Valentine pardons him with words that echo +and re-echo through Shakespeare's later dramas: + + “Then I am paid, + And once again I do receive thee honest. + Who by repentance is not satisfied + Is nor of heaven nor earth; for these are pleased; + By patience the Eternal's wrath's appeased.” + +He even goes further than this, and confounds our knowledge of human +nature by adding: + + “And that my love may appear plain and free + All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.” + +And that the meaning may be made more distinct than words can make it, +he causes Julia to faint on hearing the proposal. One cannot help +recalling the passage in “The Merchant of Venice” when Bassanio and +Gratiano both declare they would sacrifice their wives to free Antonio, +and a well-known sonnet which seems to prove that Shakespeare thought +more of a man's friendship for a man than of a man's love for a woman. +But as I shall have to discuss this point at length when I handle the +Sonnets, I have, perhaps, said enough for the moment. Nor need I +consider the fact here that the whole of this last scene of the last act +was manifestly revised or rewritten by Shakespeare _circa_ +1598--years after the rest of the play. + +I think every one will admit now that Shakespeare revealed himself in +“The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” and especially in Valentine, much more +fully than in Biron and in “Love's Labour's Lost” The three earliest +comedies prove that from the very beginning of his career Shakespeare's +chief aim was to reveal and realize himself. + + + + +CHAPTER II. SHAKESPEARE AS ANTONIO, THE MERCHANT + + +No one, so far as I know, has yet tried to identify Antonio, the +Merchant of Venice, with Shakespeare, and yet Antonio is Shakespeare +himself, and Shakespeare in what to us, children of an industrial +civilization, is the most interesting attitude possible. Here in Antonio +for the first time we discover Shakespeare in direct relations with real +life, as real life is understood in the twentieth century. From Antonio +we shall learn what Shakespeare thought of business men and business +methods--of our modern way of living. Of course we must be on our guard +against drawing general conclusions from this solitary example, unless +we find from other plays that Antonio's attitude towards practical +affairs was indeed Shakespeare's. But if this is the case, if +Shakespeare has depicted himself characteristically in Antonio, how +interesting it will be to hear his opinion of our money-making +civilization. It will be as if he rose from the dead to tell us what he +thinks of our doings. He has been represented by this critic and by that +as a master of affairs, a prudent thrifty soul; now we shall see if this +monstrous hybrid of tradesman-poet ever had any foundation in fact. + +The first point to be settled is: Did Shakespeare reveal himself very +ingenuously and completely in Antonio, or was the “royal merchant” a +mere pose of his, a mood or a convention? Let us take Antonio's first +words, the words, too, which begin the play: + + “In sooth, I know not why I am so sad: + It wearies me; you say it wearies you; + But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, + What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, + I am to learn; + And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, + That I have much ado to know myself.” + +It is this very sadness that makes it easy for us to know Shakespeare, +even when he disguises himself as a Venetian merchant. A little later +and Jaques will describe and define the disease as “humorous +melancholy”; but here it is already a settled habit of mind. + +Antonio then explains that his sadness has no cause, and incidentally +attributes his wealth to fortune and not to his own brains or endeavour. +The modern idea of the Captain of Industry who enriches others as well +as himself, had evidently never entered into Shakespeare's head. +Salarino says Antonio is “sad to think upon his merchandise”; but +Antonio answers: + + “Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for it. + My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, + Nor to one place: nor is my whole estate + Upon the fortune of this present year: + Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.” + +This tone of modest gentle sincerity is Shakespeare's habitual tone from +about his thirtieth year to the end of his life: it has the accent of +unaffected nature. In bidding farewell to Salarino Antonio shows us the +exquisite courtesy which Shakespeare used in life. Salarino, seeing +Bassanio approaching, says: + + “I would have stayed till I had made you merry, + If worthier friends had not prevented me.” + +Antonio answers: + + “Your worth is very dear in my regard. + I take it, your own business calls on you, + And you embrace the occasion to depart.” + +More characteristic still is the dialogue between Gratiano and Antonio +in the same scene. Gratiano, the twin-brother surely of Mercutio, tells +Antonio that he thinks too much of the things of this world, and warns +him: + + “They lose it that do buy it with much care.” + +Antonio replies: + + “I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; + A stage, where every man must play a part, + And mine a sad one.” + +Every one who has followed me so far will admit that this is +Shakespeare's most usual and most ingenuous attitude towards life; “I do +not esteem worldly possessions,” he says; “life itself is too transient, +too unreal to be dearly held.” Gratiano's reflection, too, is +Shakespeare's, and puts the truth in a nutshell: + + “They lose it that do buy it with much care.” + +We now come to the most salient peculiarity in this play. When Bassanio, +his debtor, asks him for more money, Antonio answers: + + “My purse, my person, my extremes! means, + Lie all unlocked to your occasions.” + +And, though Bassanio tells him his money is to be risked on a romantic +and wild adventure, Antonio declares that Bassanio's doubt does him more +wrong than if his friend had already wasted all he has, and the act +closes by Antonio pressing Bassanio to use his credit “to the +uttermost.” Now, this contempt of money was, no doubt, a pose, if not a +habit of the aristocratic society of the time, and Shakespeare may have +been aping the tone of his betters in putting to show a most lavish +generosity. But even if his social superiors encouraged him in a +wasteful extravagance, it must be admitted that Shakespeare betters +their teaching. The lord was riotously lavish, no doubt, because he had +money, or could get it without much trouble; but, put in Antonio's +position, he would not press his last penny on his friend, much less +strain his credit “to the uttermost” for him as Antonio does for +Bassanio. Here we have the personal note of Shakespeare: “Your +affection,” says the elder man to the younger, “is all to me, and +money's less than nothing in the balance. Don't let us waste a word on +it; a doubt of me were an injury!” But men will do that for affection +which they would never do in cool blood, and therefore one cannot help +asking whether Shakespeare really felt and practised this extreme +contempt of wealth? For the moment, if we leave his actions out of the +account, there can be, I think, no doubt about his feelings. His dislike +of money makes him disfigure reality. No merchant, it may fairly be +said, either of the sixteenth century or the twentieth, ever amassed or +kept a fortune with Antonio's principles. In our day of world-wide +speculation and immense wealth it is just possible for a man to be a +millionaire and generous; but in the sixteenth century, when wealth was +made by penurious saving, by slow daily adding of coin to coin, +merchants like this Antonio were unheard of, impossible. + +Moreover all the amiable characters in this play regard money with +unaffected disdain; Portia no sooner hears of Shylock's suit than she +cries: + + “Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond; + Double six thousand, and then treble that, + Before a friend of this description + Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.” + +And if we attribute this outburst to her love we must not forget that, +when it comes to the test in court, and she holds the Jew in her hand +and might save her gold, she again reminds him: + + “Shylock, there's thrice thy money offered thee.” + +A boundless generosity is the characteristic of Portia, and Bassanio, +the penniless fortune-hunter, is just as extravagant; he will pay the +Jew's bond twice over, and, + + “If that will not suffice, + I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er, + On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart.” + +It may, of course, be urged that these Christians are all prodigal in +order to throw Shylock's avarice and meanness into higher light; but +that this disdain of money is not assumed for the sake of any artistic +effect will appear from other plays. At the risk of being accused of +super-subtlety, I must confess that I find in Shylock himself traces of +Shakespeare's contempt of money; Jessica says of him: + + “I have heard him swear + To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen, + That he would rather have Antonio's flesh + Than twenty times the value of the sum + That he did owe him.” + +Even Shylock, it appears, hated Antonio more than he valued money, and +this hatred, though it may have its root in love of money, half redeems +him in our eyes. Shakespeare could not imagine a man who loved money +more than anything else; his hated and hateful usurer is more a man of +passion than a Jew. + +The same prodigality and contempt of money are to be found in nearly all +Shakespeare's plays, and, curiously enough, the persons to show this +disdain most strongly are usually the masks of Shakespeare himself. A +philosophic soliloquy is hardly more characteristic of Shakespeare than +a sneer at money. It should be noted, too, that this peculiarity is not +a trait of his youth chiefly, as it is with most men who are +free-handed. It rather seems, as in the case of Antonio, to be a +reasoned attitude towards life, and it undoubtedly becomes more and more +marked as Shakespeare grows older. Contempt of wealth is stronger in +Brutus than in Antonio; stronger in Lear than in Brutus, and stronger in +Timon than in Lear. + +But can we be at all certain that Antonio's view of life in this respect +was Shakespeare's? It may be that Shakespeare pretended to this +generosity in order to loosen the purse-strings of his lordly patrons. +Even if his motive for writing in this strain were a worthy motive, who +is to assure us that he practised the generosity he preached? When I +come to his life I think I shall be able to prove that Shakespeare was +excessively careless of money; extravagant, indeed, and generous to a +fault. Shakespeare did not win to eminence as a dramatist without +exciting the envy and jealousy of many of his colleagues and +contemporaries, and if these sharp-eyed critics had found him in drama +after drama advocating lavish free-handedness while showing meanness or +even ordinary prudence in his own expenditure, we should probably have +heard of it as we heard from Greene how he took plays from other +playwrights. But the silence of his contemporaries goes to confirm the +positive testimony of Ben Jonson, that he was of “an open and free +nature,”--openhanded always, and liberal, we may be sure, to a fault. In +any case, the burden of proof lies with those who wish us to believe +that Shakespeare was “a careful and prudent man of business,” for in a +dozen plays the personages who are his heroes and incarnations pour +contempt on those who would lock “rascal counters” from their friends, +and, in default of proof to the contrary, we are compelled to assume +that he practised the generosity which he so earnestly and sedulously +praised. At least it will be advisable for the moment to assume that he +pictured himself as generous Antonio, without difficulty or conscious +self-deception. + +But this Antonio has not only the melancholy, courtesy and boundless +generosity of Shakespeare; he has other qualities of the master which +need to be thrown into relief. + +First of all, Antonio has that submission to misfortune, that +resignation in face of defeat and suffering which we have already seen +as characteristics of Richard II. The resignation might almost be called +saintly, were it not that it seems to spring rather from the natural +melancholy and sadness of Shakespeare's disposition; “the world is a +hard, all-hating world,” he seems to say, “and misery is the natural lot +of man; defeat comes to all; why should I hope for any better fortune?” + At the very beginning of the trial he recognizes that he is certain to +lose; Bassanio and Gratiano appeal to the Duke for him; but he never +speaks in his own defence; he says of his opponent at the outset: + + “I do oppose + My patience to his fury, and am arm'd + To suffer, with a quietness of spirit, + The very tyranny and rage of his.” + +and again he will not contend, but begs the Court, + + “.... with all brief and plain conveniency + Let me have judgement and the Jew his will.” + +Even when Bassanio tries to cheer him, + + “What, man, courage yet! + The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones and all, + Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.” + +Antonio answers: + + “I am a tainted wether of the flock, + Meetest for death: the weakest kind of fruit + Drops earliest to the ground: and so let me: + You cannot better be employed, Bassanio, + Than to live still and write mine epitaph.” + +He will not be saved: he gives himself at once to that “sweet way of +despair” which we have found to be the second Richard's way and +Shakespeare's way. + +Just as we noticed, when speaking of Posthumus in “Cymbeline,” that +Shakespeare's hero and _alter ego_ is always praised by the other +personages of the drama, so this Antonio is praised preposterously by +the chief personages of the play, and in the terms of praise we may see +how Shakespeare, even in early manhood, liked to be considered. He had +no ambition to be counted stalwart, or bold, or resolute like most young +males of his race, much less “a good hater,” as Dr. Johnson confessed +himself: he wanted his gentle qualities recognized, and his intellectual +gifts; Hamlet wished to be thought a courtier, scholar, gentleman; and +here Salarino says of Antonio: + + “A kinder gentleman treads not the earth,” + +and he goes on to tell how Antonio, when parting from Bassanio, had +“eyes big with tears”: + + “Turning his face, he put his hand behind him, + And with affection wondrous sensible + He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted.” + +This Antonio is as tender-hearted and loving as young Arthur. And +Lorenzo speaks of Antonio to Portia just as Salarino spoke of him: + + “_Lor_. But if you knew to whom you show this honour. + How true a gentleman you send relief, + How dear a lover of my lord your husband, + I know you would be prouder of the work + Than customary bounty can enforce you.” + +and finally Bassanio sums Antonio up in enthusiastic superlatives: + + “The dearest friend to me, the kindest man, + The best-condition'd and unwearied spirit + In doing courtesies, and one in whom + The ancient Roman honour more appears + Than any that draws breath in Italy.” + +It is as a prince of friends and most courteous gentleman that Antonio +acts his part from the beginning to the end of the play with one notable +exception to which I shall return in a moment. It is astonishing to find +this sadness, this courtesy, this lavish generosity and contempt of +money, this love of love and friendship and affection in any man in +early manhood; but these qualities were Shakespeare's from youth to old +age. + +I say that Antonio was most courteous to all with one notable exception, +and that exception was Shylock. + +It has become the custom on the English stage for the actor to try to +turn Shylock into a hero; but that was assuredly not Shakespeare's +intention. True, he makes Shylock appeal to the common humanity of both +Jew and Christian. + + “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew + hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? + fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, + subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, + warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as + a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you + tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not + die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” + +But if Shakespeare was far in advance of his age in this intellectual +appreciation of the brotherhood of man; yet as an artist and thinker and +poet he is particularly contemptuous of the usurer and trader in other +men's necessities, and therefore, when Antonio meets Shylock, though he +wants a favour from him, he cannot be even decently polite to him. He +begins by saying in the third scene of the first act: + + “Although I neither lend nor borrow + By taking nor by giving of excess, + Yet to supply the ripe wants of my friend, + I'll break a custom.” + +The first phrase here reminds me of Polonius: “neither a borrower nor a +lender be.” When Shylock attempts to defend himself by citing the way +Jacob cheated Laban, Antonio answers contemptuously “The devil can cite +Scripture for his purpose.” Shylock then goes on: + + “Signor Antonio, many a time and oft, + In the Rialto you have rated me + About my moneys and my usances: + Still, I have borne it with a patient shrug, + For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. + You call me mis-believer, cut-throat dog, + And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, + And all for use of that which is mine own. + Well then, it now appears you need my help: + Go to, then; you come to me, and you say, + 'Shylock, we would have moneys:' you say so + You that did void your rheum upon my beard + And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur + Over your threshold: moneys is your suit. + What should I say to you? Should I not say + 'Hath a dog money? is it possible + A cur can lend three thousand ducats?'” + +Antonio answers this in words which it would be almost impossible to +take for Shakespeare's because of their brutal rudeness, were it not, as +we shall see later, that Shakespeare loathed the Jew usurer more than +any character in all his plays. Here are the words: + + “_Ant_. I am as like to call thee so again, + To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too. + If thou will lend this money, lend it not + As to thy friends; for when did friendship take + A breed for barren metal of his friend? + But lend it rather to thine enemy + Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face + Exact the penalty.” + +Then Shylock makes peace, and proposes his modest penalty. Bassanio +says: + + “You shall not seal to such a bond for me: + I'll rather dwell in my necessity.” + +Antonio is perfectly careless and content: he says: + + “Content, i' faith: I'll seal to such a bond, + And say there is much kindness in the Jew.” + +Antonio's heedless trust of other men and impatience are qualities most +foreign to the merchant; but are shown again and again by Shakespeare's +impersonations. + +Perhaps it will be well here to prove once for all that Shakespeare did +really hate the Jew. In the first place he excites our sympathy again +and again for him on the broad grounds of common humanity; but the +moment it comes to a particular occasion he represents him as hateful, +even where a little thought would have taught him that the Jew must be +at his best. It is a peculiarity of humanity which Shakespeare should +not have overlooked, that all pariahs and outcasts display intense +family affection; those whom the world scouts and hates are generally at +their noblest in their own homes. The pressure from the outside, Herbert +Spencer would say, tends to bring about cohesion among the members of +the despised caste. The family affection of the Jew, his kindness to his +kindred, have become proverbial. But Shakespeare admits no such kindness +in Shylock: when his daughter leaves Shylock one would think that +Shakespeare would picture the father's desolation and misery, his sorrow +at losing his only child; but here there is no touch of sympathy in +gentle Shakespeare: + + “.... I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in + her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her + coffin!” + +But there is even better proof than this: when Shylock is defeated in +his case and leaves the Court penniless and broken, Shakespeare allows +him to be insulted by a gentleman. Shylock becomes pathetic in his +defeat, for Shakespeare always sympathized with failure, even before he +came to grief himself: + + “_Shy_. Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that: + You take my house when you do take the prop + That doth sustain my house; you take my life + When you do take the means whereby I live.” + + “_Por_. What mercy can you render him, Antonio? + + _Gra_. A halter gratis; nothing else for God's sake.” + +And then Antonio offers to “quit the fine for one-half his goods.” + Utterly broken now, Shylock says: + + “I pray you, give me leave to go from hence; + I am not well: send the deed after me, + And I will sign it. + + _Duke_. Get thee gone, but do it. + + _Gra<i/>. In christening shalt thou have two godfathers: + Had I been judge, thou should'st have had ten more, + To bring thee to the gallows, not the font.” + +A brutal insult from a gallant gentleman to the broken Jew: it is the +only time in all Shakespeare when a beaten and ruined man is so +insulted. + +Antonio, it must be confessed, is a very charming sketch of Shakespeare +when he was about thirty years of age, and it is amusing to reflect that +it is just the rich merchant with all his wealth at hazard whom he picks +out to embody his utter contempt of riches. The “royal merchant,” as he +calls him, trained from youth to barter, is the very last man in the +world to back such a venture as Bassanio's--much less would such a man +treat money with disdain. But Shakespeare from the beginning of the play +put himself quite naively in Antonio's place, and so the astounding +antinomy came to expression. + + + + +CHAPTER III. THE SONNETS: PART I. + + +Ever since Wordsworth wrote that the sonnets were the key to +Shakespeare's heart, it has been taken for granted (save by those who +regard even the sonnets as mere poetical exercises) that Shakespeare's +real nature is discovered in the sonnets more easily and more surely +than in the plays. Those readers who have followed me so far in +examining his plays will hardly need to be told that I do not agree with +this assumption. The author whose personality is rich and complex enough +to create and vitalize a dozen characters, reveals himself more fully in +his creations than he can in his proper person. It was natural enough +that Wordsworth, a great lyric poet, should catch Shakespeare's accent +better in his sonnets than in his dramas; but that is owing to +Wordsworth's limitations. And if the majority of later English critics +have agreed with Wordsworth, it only shows that Englishmen in general +are better judges of lyric than of dramatic work. We have the greatest +lyrics in the world; but our dramas, with the exception of +Shakespeare's, are not remarkable. And in that modern extension of the +drama, the novel, we are distinctly inferior to the French and Russians. +This inferiority must be ascribed to the new-fangled prudery of language +and thought which emasculates all our later fiction; but as that prudery +is not found in our lyric verse it is evident that here alone the +inspiration is full and rich enough to overflow the limits of epicene +convention. + +Whether the reader agrees with me or not on this point, it may be +accepted that Shakespeare revealed himself far more completely in his +plays than as a lyric poet. Just as he chose his dramatic subjects with +some felicity to reveal his many-sided nature, so he used the sonnets +with equal artistry to discover that part of himself which could hardly +be rendered objectively. Whatever is masculine in a man can be depicted +superbly on the stage, but his feminine qualities--passionate +self-abandonment, facile forgivingness, self-pity--do not show well in +the dramatic struggle. What sort of a drama would that be in which the +hero would have to confess that when in the vale of years he had fallen +desperately in love with a girl, and that he had been foolish enough to +send a friend, a young noble, to plead his cause, with the result that +the girl won the friend and gave herself to him? The protagonist would +earn mocking laughter and not sympathy, and this Shakespeare no doubt +foresaw. Besides, to Shakespeare, this story, which is in brief the +story of the sonnets, was terribly real and intimate, and he felt +instinctively that he could not treat it objectively; it was too near +him, too exquisitely painful for that. + +At some time or other life overpowers the strongest of us, and that +defeat we all treat lyrically; when the deepest depth in us is stirred +we cannot feign, or depict ourselves from the outside dispassionately; +we can only cry our passion, our pain and our despair; this once we use +no art, simple truth is all we seek to reach. The crisis of +Shakespeare's life, the hour of agony and bloody sweat when his weakness +found him out and life's handicap proved too heavy even for his +strength--that is the subject of the sonnets. + +Now what was Shakespeare's weakness? his besetting temptation? “Love is +my sin,” he says; “Love of love and her soft hours” was his weakness: +passion the snare that meshed his soul. No wonder Antony cries: + + “Whither hast thou led me, Egypt?” + +for his gipsy led Shakespeare from shame to shame, to the verge of +madness. The sonnets give us the story, the whole terrible, sinful, +magical story of Shakespeare's passion. + +As might have been expected, Englishmen like Wordsworth, with an intense +appreciation of lyric poetry, have done good work in criticism of the +sonnets, and one Englishman has read them with extraordinary +understanding. Mr. Tyler's work on the sonnets ranks higher than that of +Coleridge on the plays. I do not mean to say that it is on the same +intellectual level with the work of Coleridge, though it shows wide +reading, astonishing acuteness, and much skill in the marshalling of +argument. But Mr. Tyler had the good fortune to be the first to give to +the personages of the sonnets a local habitation and a name, and that +unique achievement puts him in a place by himself far above the mass of +commentators. Before his book appeared in 1890 the sonnets lay in the +dim light of guess-work. It is true that Hallam had adopted the +hypothesis of Boaden and Bright, and had identified William Herbert, +Earl of Pembroke, with the high-born, handsome youth for whom +Shakespeare, in the sonnets, expressed such passionate affection; but +still, there were people who thought that the Earl of Southampton filled +the requirements even better than William Herbert, and as I say, the +whole subject lay in the twilight of surmise and supposition. + +Mr. Tyler, working on a hint of the Rev. W. A. Harrison, identified +Shakespeare's high-born mistress, the “dark lady” of the sonnets, with +Mistress Mary Fitton, a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth. + +These, then, are the personages of the drama, and the story is very +simple: Shakespeare loved Mistress Fitton and sent his friend, the young +Lord Herbert, to her on some pretext, but with the design that he should +commend Shakespeare to the lady. Mistress Fitton fell in love with +William Herbert, wooed and won him, and Shakespeare had to mourn the +loss of both friend and mistress. + +It would be natural to speak of this identification of Mr. Tyler's as +the best working hypothesis yet put forward; but it would be unfair to +him; it is more than this. Till his book appeared, even the date of the +sonnets was not fixed; many critics regarded them as an early work, as +early indeed, as 1591 or 1592; he was the first person to prove that the +time they cover extends roughly from 1598 to 1601. Mr. Tyler then has +not only given us the names of the actors, but he has put the tragedy in +its proper place in Shakespeare's life, and he deserves all thanks for +his illuminating work. + +I bring to this theory fresh corroboration from the plays. Strange to +say, Mr. Tyler has hardly used the plays, yet, as regards the story told +in the sonnets, the proof that it is a real and not an imaginary story +can be drawn from the plays. I may have to point out, incidentally, what +I regard as mistakes and oversights in Mr. Tyler's work; but in the main +it stands four-square, imposing itself on the reason and satisfying at +the same time instinct and sympathy. + +Let us first see how far the story told in the sonnets is borne out by +the plays. For a great many critics, even to-day, reject the story +altogether, and believe that the sonnets were nothing but poetic +exercises. + +The sonnets fall naturally into two parts: from 1 to 126 they tell how +Shakespeare loved a youth of high rank and great personal beauty; sonnet +127 is an _envoi_; from 128 to 152 they tell of Shakespeare's love +for a “dark lady.” What binds the two series together is the story told +in both, or at least told in one and corroborated in the other, that +Shakespeare first sent his friend to the lady, most probably to plead +his cause, and that she wooed his friend and gave herself to him. Now +this is not a common or easily invented story. No one would guess that +Shakespeare could be so foolish as to send his friend to plead his love +for him. That's a mistake that no man who knows women would be likely to +make: but the unlikelihood of the story is part of the evidence of its +truth--_credo quia incredibile_ has an element of persuasion in it. + +No one has yet noticed that the story of the sonnets is treated three +times in Shakespeare's plays. The first time the story appears it is +handled so lightly that it looks to me as if he had not then lived +through the incidents which he narrates. In the “Two Gentlemen of +Verona” Proteus is asked by the Duke to plead Thurio's cause with +Silvia, and he promises to do so; but instead, presses his own suit and +is rejected. The incident is handled so carelessly (Proteus not being +Thurio's friend) that it seems to me to have no importance save as a +mere coincidence. When the scene between Proteus and Silvia was written +Shakespeare had not yet been deceived by his friend. Still in “The Two +Gentlemen of Verona” there is one speech which certainly betrays +personal passion. It is in the last scene of the fifth act, when +Valentine surprises Proteus offering violence to Silvia. + + “_Val.(coming forward)_ Ruffian, let go that rude uncivil + touch,-- + Thou friend of an ill fashion! + + _Pro_. Valentine! + + _Val. Thou common friend, that's without faith or love,-- + For such is a friend now;_--treacherous man! + Thou hast beguiled my hopes: nought but mine eye + Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say + I have one friend alive: thou would'st disprove me. + Who should be trusted when one's own right hand + Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus, + I am sorry I must never trust thee more, + But count the world a stranger for thy sake. + _The private wound is deepest: time most accurst + 'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!_” + +The first lines which I have italicised are too plain to be misread; +when they were written Shakespeare had just been cheated by his friend; +they are his passionate comment on the occurrence--“For such is a friend +now”--can hardly be otherwise explained. The last couplet, too, which I +have also put in italics, is manifestly a reflection on his betrayal: it +is a twin rendering of the feeling expressed in sonnet 40: + + “And yet love knows it is a greater grief + To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.” + +It contrasts “foe and friend,” just as the sonnet contrasts “love and +hate.” + +Mr. Israel Gollancz declares that “several critics are inclined to +attribute this final scene to another hand,” and to his mind “it bears +evident signs of hasty composition.” No guess could be wider from the +truth. The scene is most manifestly pure Shakespeare--I take the +soliloquy of Valentine, with which the scene opens, as among +Shakespeare's most characteristic utterances--but the whole scene is +certainly later than the rest of the play. The truth probably is that +after his friend had deceived him, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” was +played again, and that Shakespeare rewrote this last scene under the +influence of personal feeling. The 170 lines of it are full of phrases +which might be taken direct from the sonnets. Here 's such a couplet: + + “O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approved, + When women cannot love where they're beloved.” + +The whole scene tells the story a little more frankly than we find it in +the sonnets, as might be expected, seeing that Shakespeare's rival was a +great noble and not to be criticised freely. This fact explains to me +Valentine's unmotived renunciation of Silvia; explains, too, why he is +reconciled to his friend with such unseemly haste. Valentine's last +words in the scene are illuminating: + + “'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.” + +The way this scene in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” is told throws more +light on Shakespeare's feelings at the moment of his betrayal than the +sonnets themselves. Under the cover of fictitious names Shakespeare +ventured to show the disgust and contempt he felt for Lord Herbert's +betrayal more plainly than he cared, or perhaps dared, to do when +speaking in his own person. + +There is another play where the same incident is handled in such fashion +as to put the truth of the sonnet-story beyond all doubt. + +In “Much Ado about Nothing” the incident is dragged in by the ears, and +the whole treatment is most remarkable. Every one will remember how +Claudio tells the Prince that he loves Hero, and asks his friend's +assistance: “your highness now may do me good.” There's no reason for +Claudio's shyness: no reason why he should call upon the Prince for help +in a case where most men prefer to use their own tongues; but Claudio is +young, and so we glide over the inherent improbability of the incident. +The Prince at once promises to plead for Claudio with Hero and with her +father: + + “And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end + That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?” + +Now comes the peculiar handling of the incident. Claudio knows the +Prince is wooing Hero for him, therefore when Don John tells him that +the Prince “is enamoured on Hero,” he should at once infer that Don John +is mistaken through ignorance of this fact; but instead of that he falls +suspicious, and questions: + + “How know you he loves her? + + _D. John_. I heard him swear his affection. + + _Bor_. So did I too, and he swore he would marry her + to-night.” + +There is absolutely nothing even in this corroboration by Borachio to +shake Claudio's trust in the Prince: neither Don John nor Borachio knows +what he knows, that the Prince is wooing for him (Claudio) and at his +request. He should therefore smile at the futile attempt to excite his +jealousy. But at once he is persuaded of the worst, as a man would be +who had already experienced such disloyalty: he cries: + + “'Tis certain so; the prince woos for himself.” + +And then we should expect to hear him curse the prince as a traitorous +friend, and dwell on his own loyal service by way of contrast, and so +keep turning the dagger in the wound with the thought that no one but +himself was ever so repaid for such honesty of love. But, no! Claudio +has no bitterness in him, no reproachings; he speaks of the whole matter +as if it had happened months and months before, as indeed it had; for +“Much Ado about Nothing” was written about 1599. Reflection had already +shown Shakespeare the unreason of revolt, and he puts his own thought in +the mouth of Claudio: + + “'Tis certain so; the prince woos for himself. + Friendship is constant in all other things + Save in the office and affairs of love: + Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; + Let every eye negotiate for itself, + And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch, + Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. + _This is an accident of hourly proof, + Which I mistrusted not_. Farewell, therefore, Hero.” + +The Claudio who spoke like this in the first madness of love lost and +friendship cheated would be a monster. Here we have Shakespeare speaking +in all calmness of something that happened to himself a considerable +time before. The lines I have put in italics admit no other +interpretation: they show Shakespeare's philosophic acceptance of things +as they are; what has happened to him is not to be assumed as singular +but is the common lot of man--“an accident of hourly proof”--which he +blames himself for not foreseeing. In fact, Claudio's temper here is as +detached and impartial as Benedick's. Benedick declares that Claudio +should be whipped: + + “_D. Pedro_. To be whipped! What's his fault? + + _Benedick_. The flat transgression of a schoolboy, who + being overjoyed with finding a bird's nest, shows it his + companion and he steals it.” + +That is the view of the realist who knows life and men, and plays the +game according to the rules accepted. Shakespeare understood this side +of life as well as most men. But Don Pedro is a prince--a Shakespearean +prince at that--full of all loyalties and ideal sentiments; he answers +Benedick from Shakespeare's own heart: + + “Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? + The transgression is in the stealer.” + +It is curious that Shakespeare doesn't see that Claudio must feel this +truth a thousand times more keenly than the Prince. As I have said, +Claudio's calm acceptance of the fact is a revelation of Shakespeare's +own attitude, an attitude just modified by the moral reprobation put in +the mouth of the Prince. The recital itself shows that the incident was +a personal experience of Shakespeare, and as one might expect in this +case it does not accelerate but retard the action of the drama; it is, +indeed, altogether foreign to the drama, an excrescence upon it and not +an improvement but a blemish. Moreover, the reflective, disillusioned, +slightly pessimistic tone of the narrative is alien and strange to the +optimistic temper of the play; finally, this garb of patient sadness +does not suit Claudio, who should be all love and eagerness, and +diminishes instead of increasing our sympathy with his later actions. +Whoever considers these facts will admit that we have here Shakespeare +telling us what happened to himself, and what he really thought of his +friend's betrayal. + + “The transgression is in the stealer.” + +That is Shakespeare's mature judgement of Lord Herbert's betrayal. + +The third mention of this sonnet-story in a play is later still: it is +in “Twelfth Night.” The Duke, as we have seen, is an incarnation of +Shakespeare himself, and, indeed, the finest incarnation we have of his +temperament. In the fourth scene of the first act he sends Viola to +plead his cause for him with Olivia, much in the same way, no doubt, as +Shakespeare sent Pembroke to Miss Fitton. The whole scene deserves +careful reading. + + “Cesario, + Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd + To thee the book even of my secret soul: + Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her + Be not denied access, stand at her doors, + And tell them, there thy fixed foot shall grow + Till thou have audience. + + _Vio_. Sure, my noble lord, + If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow + As it is spoke, she never will admit me. + + _Duke_. Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds + Rather than make unprofited return. + + _Vio_. Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then? + + _Duke_. O, then unfold the passion of my love, + Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith: + It shall become thee well to act my woes; + _She will attend it better in thy youth + Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect._ + + _Vio_. I think not so, my lord. + + _Duke_. Dear lad, believe it; + For they shall yet belie thy happy years, + That say thou art a man: Diana's lip + Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe + Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound; + And all is semblative a woman's part. + I know thy constellation is right apt + For this affair. Some four or five attend him; + All if you will; for I myself am best + When least in company.” + +I do not want to find more here than is in the text: the passage simply +shows that this idea of sending some one to plead his love was +constantly in Shakespeare's mind in these years. The curious part of the +matter is that he should pick a youth as ambassador, and a youth who is +merely his page. He can discover no reason for choosing such a boy as +Viola, and so simply asserts that youth will be better attended to, +which is certainly not the fact. Lord Herbert's youth was in his mind: +but he could not put the truth in the play that when he chose his +ambassador he chose him for his high position and personal beauty and +charm, and not because of his youth. The whole incident is treated +lightly as something of small import; the bitterness in “Much Ado” has +died out: “Twelfth Night” was written about 1601, a year or so later +than “Much Ado.” + +I do not want to labour the conclusion I have reached; but it must be +admitted that I have found in the plays, and especially in “The Two +Gentlemen of Verona” and “Much Ado,” the same story which is told in the +sonnets; a story lugged into the plays, where, indeed, its introduction +is a grave fault in art and its treatment too peculiar to be anything +but personal. Here in the plays we have, so to speak, three views of the +sonnet-story; the first in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” when the +betrayal is fresh in Shakespeare's memory and his words are embittered +with angry feeling: + + “Thou common friend that's without faith or love.” + +The second view is taken in “Much Ado About Nothing” when the pain of +the betrayal has been a little salved by time. Shakespeare now moralizes +the occurrence. He shows us how it would be looked upon by a philosopher +(for that is what the lover, Claudio, is in regard to his betrayal) and +by a soldier and man of the world, Benedick, and by a Prince. +Shakespeare selects the prince to give effect to the view that the fault +is in the transgressor and not in the man who trusts. The many-sided +treatment of the story shows all the stages through which Shakespeare's +mind moved, and the result is to me a more complete confession than is +to be found in the sonnets. Finally the story is touched upon in +“Twelfth Night,” when the betrayal has faded into oblivion, but the poet +lets out the fact that his ambassador was a youth, and the reason he +gives for this is plainly insufficient. If after these three recitals +any one can still believe that the sonnet-story is imaginary, he is +beyond persuasion by argument. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. THE SONNETS: PART II. + +Now that we have found the story of the sonnets repeated three times in +the plays, it may be worth our while to see if we can discover in the +plays anything that throws light upon the circumstances or personages of +this curious triangular drama. At the outset, I must admit that save in +these three plays I can find no mention whatever of Shakespeare's +betrayer, Lord Herbert. He was “a false friend,” the plays tell us, a +“common friend without faith or love,” “a friend of an ill fashion”; +young, too, yet trusted; but beyond this summary superficial +characterization there is silence. _Me judice_ Lord Herbert made no +deep or peculiar impression on Shakespeare; an opinion calculated to +give pause to the scandal-mongers. For there can be no doubt whatever +that Shakespeare's love, Mistress Fitton, the “dark lady” of the +sonnet-series from 128 to 152 is to be found again and again in play +after play, profoundly modifying the poet's outlook upon life and art. +Before I take in hand this identification of Miss Fitton and her +influence upon Shakespeare, let me beg the reader to bear in mind the +fact that Shakespeare was a sensualist by nature, a lover, which is as +rare a thing as consummate genius. The story of his idolatrous passion +for Mary Fitton is the story of his life. This is what the commentators +and critics hitherto have failed to appreciate. Let us now get at the +facts and see what light the dramas throw upon the chief personage of +the story, Mistress Fitton. The study will probably teach us that +Shakespeare was the most impassioned lover and love-poet in all +literature. + +History tells us that Mary Fitton became a maid of honour to Queen +Elizabeth in 1595 at the age of seventeen. From a letter addressed by +her father to Sir Robert Cecil on January 29th, 1599, it is fairly +certain that she had already been married at the age of sixteen; the +union was probably not entirely valid, but the mere fact suggests a +certain recklessness of character, or overpowering sensuality, or both, +and shows that even as a girl Mistress Fitton was no shrinking, timid, +modest maiden. Wrapped in a horseman's cloak she used to leave the +Palace at night to meet her lover, Lord William Herbert. Though twice +married, she had an illegitimate child by Herbert, and two later by Sir +Richard Leveson. + +This extraordinary woman is undoubtedly the sort of woman Shakespeare +depicted as the “dark lady” of the sonnets. Nearly every sonnet of the +twenty-six devoted to his mistress contains some accusation against her; +and all these charges are manifestly directed against one and the same +woman. First of all she is described in sonnet 131 as “tyrannous”; then +in sonnet 133 as “faithless”; in sonnet 137 as “the bay where all men +ride ... the wide world's commonplace”; in sonnet 138 as “false”; in +139, she is “coquettish”; 140, “proud”; “false to the bonds of love”; +“black as hell... dark as night”--in both looks and character; “full of +foul faults “; “cruel”; “unworthy,” but of “powerful” personality; +“unkind--inconstant... unfaithful... forsworn.” + +Now, the first question is: Can we find this “dark lady” of the sonnets +in the plays? The sonnets tell us she was of pale complexion with black +eyes and hair; do the plays bear out this description? And if they do +bear it out do they throw any new light upon Miss Fitton's character? +Did Miss Fitton seem proud and inconstant, tyrannous and wanton, to +Shakespeare when he first met her, and before she knew Lord Herbert? + +The earliest mention of the poet's mistress in the plays is to be found, +I think, in “Romeo and Juliet.” “Romeo and Juliet” is dated by Mr. +Furnival 1591-1593; it was first mentioned in 1595 by Meres; first +published in 1597. I think in its present form it must be taken to date +from 1597. Romeo, who as we have already seen, is an incarnation of +Shakespeare, is presented to us in the very first scene as in love with +one Rosaline. This in itself tells me nothing; but the proof that +Shakespeare stands in intimate relation to the girl called Rosaline +comes later, and so the first introductory words have a certain +significance for me. Romeo himself tells us that “she hath Dian's wit,” + one of Shakespeare's favourite comparisons for his love, and speaks of +her chastity, or rather of her unapproachableness; he goes on: + + “O she is rich in beauty, only poor + That, when she dies, with beauty dies her store.” + +which reminds us curiously of the first sonnets. In the second scene +Benvolio invites Romeo to the feast of Capulet, where his love, “the +fair Rosaline,” is supping, and adds: + + “Compare her face with some that I shall shew, + And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.” + +Romeo replies that there is none fairer than his love, and Benvolio +retorts: + + “Tut! You saw her fair, none else being by.” + +This bantering is most pointed if we assume that Rosaline was dark +rather than fair. + +In the second act Mercutio comes upon the scene, and, mocking Romeo's +melancholy and passion, cries: + + “I conjure thee, by Rosaline's bright eyes, + By her high forehead and her scarlet lip....” + +This description surprises me. Shakespeare rarely uses such physical +portraiture of his personages, and Mercutio is a side of Shakespeare +himself; a character all compact of wit and talkativeness, a character +wholly invented by the poet. + +A little later my suspicion is confirmed. In the fourth scene of the +second act Mercutio talks to Benvolio about Romeo; they both wonder +where he is, and Mercutio says: + + “Ah, that same pale-hearted wench, that Rosaline, + Torments him so that he will sure run mad.” + +And again, a moment later, Mercutio laughs at Romeo as already dead, +“stabbed with a white wench's black eye.” Now, here is confirmation of +my suspicion. It is most unusual for Shakespeare to give the physical +peculiarities of any of his characters; no one knows how Romeo looked, +or Juliet or even Hamlet or Ophelia; and here he repeats the +description. + +The only other examples we have as yet found in Shakespeare of such +physical portraiture is the sketching of Falstaff in “Henry IV.” and the +snapshot of Master Slender in “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” as a “little +wee face, with a little yellow beard,--a cane-coloured beard.” Both +these photographs, as we noticed at the time, were very significant, and +Slender's extraordinarily significant by reason of its striking and +peculiar realism. Though an insignificant character, Slender +is photographed for us by Shakespeare's contempt and hatred, just as this +Rosaline is photographed by his passionate love, photographed again and +again. + +Shakespeare's usual way of describing the physical appearance of a man +or woman, when he allowed himself to do it at all, which was seldom, was +what one might call the ideal or conventional way. A good example is to +be found in Hamlet's description of his father; he is speaking to his +mother: + + “Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, + An eye like Mars, to threaten and command, + A station like the herald Mercury + New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill.” + +In the special case I am considering Rosaline is less even than a +secondary character; she is not a personage in the play at all. She is +merely mentioned casually by Benvolio and then by Mercutio, and even +Mercutio is not the protagonist; yet his mention of her is strikingly +detailed, astonishingly realistic, in spite of its off-hand brevity. We +have a photographic snapshot, so to speak, of this girl: she “torments” + Romeo; she is “hard-hearted”; a “white wench” with “black eyes”; twice +in four lines she is called now “pale,” now “white”--plainly her +complexion had no red in it, and was in startling contrast to her black +eyes and hair. Manifestly this picture is taken from life, and it is +just as manifestly the portrait of the “dark lady” of the sonnets. + +As if to make assurance doubly sure, there is another description of +this same Rosaline in another play, so detailed and striking, composed +as it is of contrasting and startling peculiarities that I can only +wonder that its full significance has not been appreciated ages ago. To +have missed its meaning only proves that men do not read Shakespeare +with love's fine wit. + +The repetition of the portrait is fortunate for another reason: it tells +us when the love story took place. The allusion to the “dark lady” in +“Romeo and Juliet” is difficult to date exactly; the next mention of her +in a play can be fixed in time with some precision. “Love's Labour's +Lost” was revised by Shakespeare for production at Court during the +Christmas festivities of 1597. When the quarto was published in 1598 it +bore on its title-page the words, “A pleasant conceited comedy called +'Love's Labour's Lost.' As it was presented before Her Highnes this last +Christmas. Newly corrected and augmented By W. Shakespeare.” It is in +the revised part that we find Shakespeare introducing his dark love +again, and this time, too, curiously enough, under the name of Rosaline. +Evidently he enjoyed the mere music of the word. Biron is an incarnation +of Shakespeare himself, as we have already seen, and the meeting of +Biron and his love, Rosaline, in the play is extremely interesting for +us as Shakespeare in this revised production, one would think, would +wish to ingratiate himself with his love, more especially as she would +probably be present when the play was produced. Rosaline is made to +praise Biron, before he appears, as a merry man and a most excellent +talker; but when they meet they simply indulge in a tourney of wit, in +which Rosaline more than holds her own, showing indeed astounding +self-assurance, spiced with a little contempt of Biron; “hard-hearted” + Mercutio called it. Every word deserves to be weighed: + + “_Biron_. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once? + + _Ros_. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once? + + _Biron_. I know you did. + + _Ros_. How needless was it, then, to ask the question! + + _Biron_. You must not be so quick. + + _Ros_. 'Tis long of you that spur me with such questions. + + _Biron_. Your wit's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire. + + _Ros_. Not till it leave the rider in the mire. + + _Biron_. What time o' day? + + _Ros_. The hour that fools should ask. + + _Biron_. Now fair befall your mask! + + _Ros_. Fair fall the face it covers! + + _Biron_. And send you many lovers! + + _Ros_. Amen, so you be none. + + _Biron_. Nay, then will I be gone.” + +Clearly this Rosaline, too, has Dian's wit and is not in love with +Biron, any more than the Rosaline of “Romeo and Juliet” was in love with +Romeo. + +The next allusion is even more characteristic. Biron and Longaville and +Boyet are talking; Longaville shows his admiration for one of the +Princess's women, “the one in the white” he declares, is a most sweet +lady....” + + _Biron_. What is her name in the cap? + + _Boyet_. Rosaline, by good hap. + + _Biron_. Is she wedded or no? + + _Boyet_. To her will, sir, or so. + + _Biron_. You are welcome, sir: adieu.” + +This, “To her will, sir, or so,” is exactly in the spirit of the +sonnets: every one will remember the first two lines of sonnet 135: + +“Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy _Will_, And _Will_ to +boot, and _Will_ in overplus;” + +That, “To her will, sir, or so,” I find astonishingly significant, for +not only has it nothing to do with the play and is therefore unexpected, +but the character-drawing is unexpected, too; maids are not usually +wedded to their will in a double sense, and no other of these maids of +honour is described at all. + +A little later Biron speaks again of Rosaline in a way which shocks +expectation. First of all, he rages at himself for being in love at all. +“And I, forsooth in love! I, that have been love's whip!” Here I pause +again, it seems to me that Shakespeare is making confession to us, just +as when he admitted without reason that Jaques was lewd. Be that as it +may, he certainly goes on in words which are astounding, so utterly +unforeseen are they, and therefore the more characteristic: + + “Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all; + And, among three, to love the worst of all;” + +The first line of this couplet, that he is perjured in loving Rosaline +may be taken as applying to the circumstances of the play; but +Shakespeare also talks of himself in sonnet 152 as “perjured,” for he +only swears in order to misuse his love, or with a side glance at the +fact that he is married and therefore perjured when he swears love to +one not his wife. It is well to keep this “perjured” in memory. + +But it is the second line which is the more astonishing; there Biron +tells us that among the three of the Princess's women he loves “the +worst of all.” Up to this moment we have only been told kindly things of +Rosaline and the other ladies; we had no idea that any one of them was +bad, much less that Rosaline was “the worst of all.” The suspicion grows +upon us, a suspicion which is confirmed immediately afterwards, that +Shakespeare is speaking of himself and of a particular woman; else we +should have to admit that his portraiture of Rosaline's character was +artistically bad, and bad without excuse, for why should he lavish all +this wealth of unpleasant detail on a mere subsidiary character? He goes +on, however, to make the fault worse; he next speaks of his love +Rosaline as-- + + “A whitely wanton with a velvet brow, + With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes; + Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed; + Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard: + And I to sigh for her! to watch for her! + To pray for her! Go to! it is a plague.” + +It is, of course, a blot upon the play for Biron to declare that his +love is a wanton of the worst. It is not merely unexpected and +uncalled-for; it diminishes our sympathy with Biron and his love, and +also with the play. But we have already found the rule trustworthy that +whenever Shakespeare makes a mistake in art it is because of some strong +personal feeling and not for want of wit, and this rule evidently holds +good here. Shakespeare-Biron is picturing the woman he himself loves; +for not only does he describe her as a wanton to the detriment of the +play; but he pictures her precisely, and this Rosaline is the only +person in the play of whom we have any physical description at all. +Moreover, he has given such precise and repeated photographs of no other +character in any of his plays: + + “A whitely wanton with a velvet brow, + With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes.” + +This is certainly the same Rosaline we found depicted in “Romeo and +Juliet”; but the portraiture here, both physical and moral, is more +detailed and peculiar than it was in the earlier play. Shakespeare now +knows his Rosaline intimately. The mere facts that here again her +physical appearance is set forth with such particularity, and that the +“hard-heartedness” which Mercutio noted in her has now become +“wantonness” is all-important, especially when we remember that Miss +Fitton was probably listening to the play. Even at Christmas, 1597, +Shakespeare's passion has reached the height of a sex-duel. Miss Fitton +has tortured him so that he delights in calling her names to her face in +public when the play would have led one to expect ingratiating or +complimentary courtesies. It does not weaken this argument to admit that +the general audience would not perhaps have understood the allusions. + +It is an almost incredible fact that not a single one of his hundreds of +commentators has even noticed any peculiarity in this physical +portraiture of Rosaline; Shakespeare uses this realism so rarely one +would have thought that every critic would have been astounded by it; +but no, they all pass over it without a word, Coleridge, Mr. Tyler, all +of them. + +The fourth act of “Love's Labour's Lost” begins with a most +characteristic soliloquy of Biron: + + “_Biron_. The king he is hunting the deer; I am coursing + myself: they have pitched a toil; I am toiling in a + pitch--pitch that defiles: defile! a foul word.” + +Here Biron is manifestly playing on the “pitch-balls” his love has for +eyes, and also on the “foul faults” Shakespeare speaks of in the sonnets +and in Othello. Biron goes on: + + “O, but her eye--by this light, but for her eye, I + would not love her; yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do + nothing in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By + heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme, and + to be melancholy; and here is part of my rhyme, and + here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets + already: the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady + hath it: sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady!” + +This proves to me that some of Shakespeare's sonnets were written in +1597. True, Mr. Tyler would try to bind all the sonnets within the three +years from 1598 to 1601, the three years which Shakespeare speaks about +in sonnet 104: + + “Three winters cold + Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, + Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd + In process of the seasons have I seen. + Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, + Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.” + +Lord Herbert first came to Court in the spring of 1598, and so sonnet +104 may have represented the fact precisely so far as Herbert was +concerned; but I am not minded to take the poet so literally. Instead of +beginning in the spring of 1598, some of the sonnets to the lady were +probably written in the autumn of 1597, or even earlier, and yet +Shakespeare would be quite justified in talking of three years, if the +period ended in 1601. A poet is not to be bound to an almanack's +exactitude. + +In the fourth act of “Love's Labour's Lost,” when Biron confesses his +love for “the heavenly Rosaline,” the King banters him in the spirit of +the time: + + “_King_. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony. + + _Biron_. Is ebony like her? O wood divine! + A wife of such wood were felicity. + O, who can give an oath? Where is a book? + That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack, + If that she learn not of her eye to look: + No face is fair that is not full so black.” + +Here we have Shakespeare again describing his mistress for us, though he +has done it better earlier in the play; he harps upon her dark beauty +here to praise it, just as he praised it in sonnet 127; it is passion's +trick to sound the extremes of blame and praise alternately. + +In the time of Elizabeth it was customary for poets and courtiers to +praise red hair and a fair complexion as “beauty's ensign,” and so +compliment the Queen. The flunkeyism, which is a characteristic of all +the Germanic races, was peculiarly marked in England from the earliest +times, and induced men, even in those “spacious days,” not only to +overpraise fair hair, but to run down dark hair and eyes as ugly. The +King replies: + + “O paradox! Black is the badge of hell, + The hue of dungeons and the school of night; + And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.” + +Biron answers: + + “Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light. + O, if in black my lady's brow be deck'd + It mourns that painting and usurping hair + Should ravish doters with a false aspect; + And therefore is she born to make black fair. + Her favour turns the fashion of the days, + For native blood is counted painting now; + And therefore red that would avoid dispraise, + Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.” + +Our timid poet is bold enough, when cloaked under a stage-name, to +uphold the colour of his love's hair against the Queen's; the mere fact +speaks volumes to those who know their Shakespeare. + +Sonnet 127 runs in almost the same words; though now the poet speaking +in his own person is less bold: + + “In the old age black was not counted fair, + Or, if it were, it bore not beauty's name; + But now is black beauty's successive heir, + And beauty slandered with a bastard shame: + For since each hand hath put on nature's power, + Fairing the soul with art's false borrow'd face, + Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower, + But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace. + Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, + Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem + At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack, + Slandering creation with a false esteem: + Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe + That every tongue says beauty should look so.” + + +There can be no doubt that in this Rosaline of “Romeo and Juliet” and of +“Love's Labour's Lost,” Shakespeare is describing the “dark lady” of the +second sonnet-series, and describing her, against his custom in +play-writing, even more exactly than he described her in the lyrics. + +There is a line at the end of this act which is very characteristic when +considered with what has gone before; it is clearly a confession of +Shakespeare himself, and a perfect example of what one might call the +conscience that pervades all his mature work: + + “Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn.” + +We were right, it seems, in putting some stress on that “perjured” when +we first met it. + +In the second scene of the fifth act, which opens with a talk between +the Princess and her ladies, our view of Rosaline is confirmed. +Katherine calls Rosaline light, and jests upon this in lewd fashion; +declares, too, that she is “a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,” in fact, +tells her that she is + + “A light condition in a beauty dark.” + +All these needless repetitions prove to me that Shakespeare is +describing his mistress as she lived and moved. Those who disagree with +me should give another instance in which he has used or abused the same +precise portraiture. But there is more in this light badinage of the +girls than a description of Rosaline. When Rosaline says that she will +torture Biron before she goes, and turn him into her vassal, the +Princess adds, + + “None are so surely caught when they are catch'd + As wit turned fool.” + +Rosaline replies, + + “The blood of youth burns not with such excess + As gravity's revolt to wantonness.” + +This remark has no pertinence or meaning in Rosaline's mouth. Biron is +supposed to be young in the play, and he has never been distinguished +for his gravity, but for his wit and humour: the Princess calls him +“quick Biron.” The two lines are clearly Shakespeare's criticism of +himself. When he wrote the sonnets he thought himself old, and certainly +his years (thirty-four) contrasted badly with those of Mary Fitton who +was at this time not more than nineteen. + +Late in 1597 then, before William Herbert came upon the scene at all, +Shakespeare knew that his mistress was a wanton: + + “Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed; + Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.” + +Shakespeare has painted his love for us in these plays as a most +extraordinary woman: in person she is tall, with pallid complexion and +black eyes and black brows, “a gipsy,” he calls her; in nature +imperious, lawless, witty, passionate--a “wanton”; moreover, a person of +birth and position. That a girl of the time has been discovered who +united all these qualities in herself would bring conviction to almost +any mind; but belief passes into certitude when we reflect that this +portrait of his mistress is given with greatest particularity in the +plays, where in fact it is out of place and a fault in art. When +studying the later plays we shall find this gipsy wanton again and +again; she made the deepest impression on Shakespeare; was, indeed, the +one love of his life. It was her falseness that brought him to +self-knowledge and knowledge of life, and turned him from a +light-hearted writer of comedies and histories into the author of the +greatest tragedies that have ever been conceived. Shakespeare owes the +greater part of his renown to Mary Fitton. + + + + +CHAPTER V. THE SONNETS: PART III. + + +The most interesting question in the sonnets, the question the vital +importance of which dwarfs all others, has never yet been fairly tackled +and decided. As soon as English critics noticed, a hundred years or so +ago, that the sonnets fell into two series, and that the first, and +longer, series was addressed to a young man, they cried, “shocking! +shocking!” and registered judgement with smug haste on evidence that +would not hang a cat. Hallam, “the judicious,” held that “it would have +been better for Shakespeare's reputation if the sonnets had never been +written,” and even Heine, led away by the consensus of opinion, accepted +the condemnation, and regretted “the miserable degradation of humanity” + to be found in the sonnets. But before giving ourselves to the novel +enjoyment of moral superiority over Shakespeare, it may be worth while +to ask, is the fact proved? is his guilt established? + +No one, I think, who has followed me so far will need to be told that I +take no interest in white-washing Shakespeare: I am intent on painting +him as he lived and loved, and if I found him as vicious as Villon, or +as cruel as a stoat, I would set it all down as faithfully as I would +give proof of his generosity or his gentleness. + +Before the reader can fairly judge of Shakespeare's innocence or guilt, +he must hold in mind two salient peculiarities of the man which I have +already noted; but which must now be relieved out into due prominence so +that one will make instinctive allowance for them at every moment, his +sensuality and his snobbishness. + +His sensuality is the quality, as we have seen, which unites the +creatures of his temperament with those of his intellect, his poets with +his thinkers, and proves that Romeo and Jaques, the Duke of “Twelfth +Night” and Hamlet, are one and the same person. If the matter is fairly +considered it will be found that this all-pervading sensuality is the +source, or at least a natural accompaniment of his gentle kindness and +his unrivalled sympathy. + +Shakespeare painted no portrait of the hero or of the adventurer; found +no new word for the virile virtues or virile vices, but he gave immortal +expression to desire and its offspring, to love, jealousy, and despair, +to every form of pathos, pleading and pity, to all the gentler and more +feminine qualities. Desire in especial has inspired him with phrases +more magically expressive even than those gasped out by panting Sappho +when lust had made her body a lyre of deathless music. Her lyric to the +belovèd is not so intense as Othello's: + + “O, thou weed + Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet + That the sense aches at thee”; + +or as Cleopatra's astonishing: + + “There is gold, and here + My bluest veins to kiss”; + +--the revelation of a lifetime devoted to vanity and sensuality, +sensuality pampered as a god and adored with an Eastern devotion. + +I do not think I need labour this point further; as I have already +noticed, Orsino, the Duke of “Twelfth Night,” sums up Shakespeare's +philosophy of love in the words: + + “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, + The appetite may sicken, and so die.”-- + +Shakespeare told us the truth about himself when he wrote in sonnet 142, +“Love is my sin.” We can expect from him new words or a new method in +the painting of passionate desire. + +The second peculiarity of Shakespeare which we must establish firmly in +our minds before we attempt to construe the sonnets is his extraordinary +snobbishness. + +English snobbishness is like a London fog, intenser than can be found in +any other country; it is so extravagant, indeed, that it seems different +in kind. One instance of this: when Mr. Gladstone was being examined +once in a case, he was asked by counsel, Was he a friend of a certain +lord? Instead of answering simply that he was, he replied that he did +not think it right to say he was a friend of so great a noble: “he had +the honour of his acquaintance.” Only in England would the man who could +make noblemen at will be found bowing before them with this humility of +soul. + +In Shakespeare's time English snobbishness was stronger than it is +to-day; it was then supported by law and enforced by penalties. To speak +of a lord without his title was regarded as defamation, and was punished +as such more than once by the Star Chamber. Shakespeare's position, too, +explains how this native snobbishness in him was heightened to +flunkeyism. He was an aristocrat born, as we have seen, and felt in +himself a kinship for the courtesies, chivalries, and generosities of +aristocratic life. This tendency was accentuated by his calling. The +middle class, already steeped in Puritanism, looked upon the theatre as +scarcely better than the brothel, and showed their contempt for the +players in a thousand ways. The groundlings and common people, with +their “greasy caps” and “stinking breath” were as loathsome to +Shakespeare as the crop-headed, gain-loving citizens who condemned him +and his like pitilessly. He was thrown back, therefore, upon the young +noblemen who had read the classics and loved the arts. His works show +how he admires them. He could paint you Bassanio or Benedick or Mercutio +to the life. Everybody has noticed the predilection with which he lends +such characters his own poetic spirit and charm. His lower orders are +all food for comedy or farce: he will not treat them seriously. + +His snobbishness carries him to astounding lengths. One instance: every +capable critic has been astonished by the extraordinary fidelity to fact +he shows in his historical plays; he often takes whole pages of an +earlier play or of Plutarch, and merely varying the language uses them +in his drama. He is punctiliously careful to set down the fact, whatever +it may be, and explain it, even when it troubles the flow of his story; +but as soon as the fact comes into conflict with his respect for +dignitaries, he loses his nice conscience. He tells us of Agincourt +without ever mentioning the fact that the English bowmen won the battle; +he had the truth before him; the chronicler from whom he took the story +vouched for the fact; but Shakespeare preferred to ascribe the victory +to Henry and his lords. Shakespeare loved a lord with a passionate +admiration, and when he paints himself it is usually as a duke or +prince. + +Holding these truths in our mind, Shakespeare's intense sensitiveness +and sensuality, and his almost inconceivable snobbishness, we may now +take up the sonnets. + +The first thing that strikes one in the sonnets is the fact that, though +a hundred and twenty-five of them are devoted to a young man, and +Shakespeare's affection for him, and only twenty-six to the woman, every +one of those to the woman is characterized by a terrible veracity of +passion, whereas those addressed to the youth are rather conventional +than convincing. He pictures the woman to the life; strong, proud, with +dark eyes and hair, pale complexion--a wanton with the rare power of +carrying off even a wanton's shame. He finds a method new to literature +to describe her. He will have no poetic exaggeration; snow is whiter +than her breasts; violets sweeter than her breath: + + “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare + As any she belied with false compare.” + +His passion is so intense that he has no desire to paint her seduction +as greater than it was. She has got into his blood, so to speak, and +each drop of it under the microscope would show her image. Take any +sonnet at haphazard, and you will hear the rage of his desire. + +But what is the youth like?--“the master-mistress” of his passion, to +give him the title which seems to have convinced the witless of +Shakespeare's guilt. Not one word of description is to be found +anywhere; no painting epithet--nothing. Where is the cry of this +terrible, shameless, outrageous passion that mastered Shakespeare's +conscience and enslaved his will? Hardly a phrase that goes beyond +affection--such affection as Shakespeare at thirty-four might well feel +for a gifted, handsome aristocrat like Lord Herbert, who had youth, +beauty, wealth, wit to recommend him. Herbert was a poet, too: a patron +unparagoned! “If Southampton gave me a thousand pounds,” Shakespeare may +well have argued, “perhaps Lord Herbert will get me made Master of the +Revels, or even give me a higher place.” An aristocratic society tends +to make parasites even of the strong, as Dr. Johnson's famous letter to +Lord Chesterfield proves. But let us leave supposition and come to the +sonnets themselves, which are addressed to the youth. The first sonnet +begins: + + “From fairest creatures we desire increase, + That thereby beauty's rose might never die.” + +This is a very good argument indeed when addressed to a woman; but when +addressed to a man by a man it rings strained and false. Yet it is the +theme of the first seventeen sonnets. It is precisely the same argument +which Shakespeare set forth in “Venus and Adonis” again and again: + + “Seeds spring from seeds and beauty breedeth beauty; + Thou wast begot; to get it is thy duty.” + “And so, in spite of death, thou dost survive, + In that thy likeness still is left alive ...” + (173-4.) + + “Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets, + But gold that's put to use more gold begets.” + (767-8.) + +At the end of the third sonnet we find the same argument: + + “But if thou live, remember'd not to be, + Die single, and thine image dies with thee.” + +Again, in the fourth, sixth, and seventh sonnets the same plea is urged. +In the tenth sonnet the poet cries: + + “Make thee another self, for love of me, + That beauty still may live in thine or thee.” + +And again at the end of the thirteenth sonnet: + + “You had a father; let your son say so.” + +Every one of these sonnets contains simply the argument which is set +forth with equal force and far superior pertinence in “Venus and +Adonis.” + +That is, Shakespeare makes use of the passion he has felt for a woman to +give reality to the expression of his affection for the youth. No better +proof could be imagined of the fact that he never loved the youth with +passion. + +In sonnet 18 Shakespeare begins to alter his note. He then tells the +youth that he will achieve immortality, not through his children, but +through Shakespeare's verses. Sonnet 19 is rounded with the same +thought: + + “Yet do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong, + My love shall in my verse ever live young.” + +Sonnet 20 is often referred to as suggesting intimacy: + + “A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted, + Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion; + A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted + With shifting change, as is false woman's fashion; + An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling + Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth; + A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling, + Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth. + And for a woman wert thou first created; + Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting, + And by addition me of thee defeated, + By adding one thing to my purpose nothing. + But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure + Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure.” + +The sextet of this sonnet absolutely disproves guilty intimacy, and is, +I believe, intended to disprove it; Shakespeare had already fathomed the +scandal-loving minds of his friends, and wanted to set forth the noble +disinterestedness of his affection. + +Sonnet 22 is more sincere, though not so passionate; it neither +strengthens nor rebuts the argument. Sonnet 23 is the sonnet upon which +all those chiefly rely who wish to condemn Shakespeare. Here it is: + + “As an unperfect actor on the stage, + Who with his fear is put beside his part, + Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, + Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart; + So I, for fear of trust, forget to say + The perfect ceremony of love's rite, + And in mine own love's strength seem to decay, + O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might. + O, let my looks be then the eloquence + And dumb presagers of my speaking breast; + Who plead for love, and look for recompense, + More than that tongue that more hath more express'd. + O, learn to read what silent love hath writ: + To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.” + +We can interpret the phrases, “the perfect ceremony of love's rite” and +“look for recompense” as we will; but it must be admitted that even when +used to the uttermost they form an astonishingly small base on which to +raise so huge and hideous a superstructure. + +But we shall be told that the condemnation of Shakespeare is based, not +upon any sonnet or any line; but upon the way Shakespeare speaks as soon +as he discovers that his mistress has betrayed him in favour of his +friend. One is inclined to expect that he will throw the blame on the +friend, and, after casting him off, seek to win again the affections of +his mistress. Nine men out of ten would act in this way. But the sonnets +tell us with iteration and most peculiar emphasis that Shakespeare does +not condemn the friend. As soon as he hears of the traitorism he cries +(sonnet 33): + + “Full many a glorious morning have I seen + Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, + Kissing with golden face the meadows green, + Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy; + Anon permit the basest clouds to ride + With ugly rack on his celestial face, + And from the forlorn world his visage hide, + Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: + Even so my sun one early morn did shine + With all triumphant splendour on my brow; + But out! alack! he was but one hour mine, + The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. + Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; + Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.” + +It is the loss of his friend he regrets, rather than the loss of his +mistress; she is not mentioned save by comparison with “basest clouds.” + Yet even when read by Gradgrind and his compeers the thirteenth line of +this sonnet is utterly inconsistent with passion. + +In the next sonnet the friend repents, and weeps the “strong offence,” + and Shakespeare accepts the sorrow as salve that “heals the wound”; his +friend's tears are pearls that “ransom all ill deeds.” The next sonnet +begins with the line: + + “No more be griev'd at that which thou hast done”; + +Shakespeare will be an “accessory” to his friend's “theft,” though he +admits that the robbery is still sour. Then come four sonnets in which +he is content to forget all about the wrong he has suffered, and simply +exhausts himself in praise of his friend. Sonnet 40 begins: + + “Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all; + What hast thou then more than thou hadst before? + No love, my love, that thou may'st true love call; All mine was +thine, before thou hadst this more.” + +This is surely the very soul of tender affection; but it is significant +that even here the word “true” is emphasized and not “love”; he goes on: + + “I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief, + Although thou steal thee all my poverty; + And yet love knows it is a greater grief + To bear love's wrong, than hate's known injury.” + +Never before was a man so gentle-kind; we might be listening to the +lament of a broken-hearted woman who smiles through her tears to +reassure her lover; yet there is no attempt to disguise the fact that +Herbert has done “wrong.” The next sonnet puts the poet's feeling as +strongly as possible. + + “Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits, + When I am sometime absent from thy heart, + Thy beauty and thy years full well befits, + For still temptation follows where thou art. + Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won, + Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assail'd; + And when a woman woos, what woman's son + Will sourly leave her till she have prevail'd? + Ay me! but yet thou might'st my seat forbear, + And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, + Who lead thee in their riot even there + Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth; + Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, + Thine by thy beauty being false to me.” + +The first lines show that Shakespeare is pretending; he attempts not +only to minimize the offence, but to find it charming. A mother who +caught her young son kissing a girl would reproach him in this fashion; +to her his faults would be the “pretty wrongs that liberty commits.” But +this is not the way passion speaks, and here again the sextet condemns +Herbert in the plainest terms. At length we have the summing-up: + + “That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, + And yet it may be said I lov'd her dearly; + That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, + A loss in love that touches me more nearly. + Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye: + Thou dost love her, because thou know'st I love her; + And for my sake even so doth she abuse me, + Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her. + If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain, + And losing her, my friend hath found that loss; + Both find each other, and I lose both twain, + And both for my sake lay on me this cross: + But here's the joy; my friend and I are one; + Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.” + +This sonnet, with its affected word-play and wire-drawn consolation, +leaves one gaping: Shakespeare's verbal affectations had got into his +very blood. To my mind the whole sonnet is too extravagant to be +sincere; it is only to be explained by the fact that Shakespeare's +liking for Herbert was heightened by snobbishness and by the hope of +patronage. None of it rings true except the first couplet. Yet the +argument of it is repeated, strange to say, and emphasized in the +sonnets addressed to the “dark lady” whom Shakespeare loved. Sonnet 144 +is clear enough: + + “Two loves I have of comfort and despair, + Which like two spirits do suggest me still: + The better angel is a man, right fair, + The worser spirit a woman, colour'd ill. + To win me soon to hell, my female evil + Tempteth my better angel from my side, + And would corrupt my saint to be a devil, + Wooing his purity with her foul pride. + And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend + Suspect I may, yet not directly tell; + But being both from me, both to each friend, + I guess one angel in another's hell: + Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt, + Till my bad angel fire my good one out.” + +As soon as his mistress comes on the scene Shakespeare's passionate +sincerity cannot be questioned. The truth is the intensity of his +passion leads him to condemn and spite the woman, while the absence of +passion allows him to pretend affection for the friend. Sonnet 133, +written to the woman, is decisive: + + “Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan + For that deep wound it gives my friend and me! + Is't not enough to torture me alone, + But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be? + Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken, + And my next self thou harder hast engross'd: + Of him, myself, and thee, I am forsaken; + A torment thrice threefold thus to be cross'd. + Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward, + But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail; + Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard; + Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol: + And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee, + Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.” + +The last couplet is to me “perforce” conclusive. But let us take it that +these sonnets prove the contention of the cry of critics that +Shakespeare preferred friendship to love, and held his friend dearer +than his mistress, and let us see if the plays corroborate the sonnets +on this point. We may possibly find that the plays only strengthen the +doubt which the sonnets implant in us. + +“The Merchant of Venice” has always seemed to me important as helping to +fix the date of the sonnets. Antonio, as I have shown, is an +impersonation of Shakespeare himself. It seems to me Shakespeare would +have found it impossible to write of Antonio's self-sacrificing love for +Bassanio after he himself had been cheated by his friend. This play then +must have been written shortly before his betrayal, and should give us +Shakespeare's ordinary attitude. Many expressions in the play remind us +of the sonnets, and one in especial of sonnet 41. In the sixth scene of +the second act, Jessica, when escaping from her father's house, uses +Shakespeare's voice to say: + + “But love is blind and lovers cannot see + The pretty follies that themselves commit.” + +Here we have “the pretty follies” which is used again as “pretty wrongs” + in sonnet 41. Immediately afterwards Lorenzo, another mask of +Shakespeare, praises Jessica as “wise, fair, and true,” just as in +sonnet 105 Shakespeare praises his friend as “kind, fair, and true,” + using again words which his passion for a woman has taught him. + +The fourth act sets forth the same argument we find in the sonnets. When +it looks as if Antonio would have to give his life as forfeit to the +Jew, Bassanio exclaims: + + “Antonio, I am married to a wife + Which is as dear to me as life itself; + But life itself, my wife and all the world + Are not with me esteem'd above thy life. + I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all + Here to this devil to deliver you.” + +This is the language of passionate exaggeration, one might say. +Antoniois suffering in Bassanio's place, paying the penalty, so to +speak, for Bassanio's happiness. No wonder Bassanio exaggerates his +grief and the sacrifice he would be prepared to make. But Gratiano has +no such excuse for extravagant speech, and yet Gratiano follows in the +self-same vein: + + “I have a wife whom, I protest, I love: + I would she were in heaven, so she could + Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.” + +The peculiarity of this attitude is heightened by the fact that the two +wives, Portia and Nerissa, both take the ordinary view. Portia says: + + “Your wife would give you little thanks for that + If she were by to hear you make the offer.” + +And Nerissa goes a little further: + + “Tis well you offer it behind her back, + The wish would make else an unquiet house.” + +The blunder is monstrous; not only is the friend prepared to sacrifice +all he possesses, including his wife, to save his benefactor, but the +friend's friend is content to sacrifice his wife too for the same +object. Shakespeare then in early manhood was accustomed to put +friendship before love; we must find some explanation of what seems to +us so unnatural an attitude. + +In the last scene of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” which is due to a +later revision, the sonnet-case is emphasized. And at this time +Shakespeare has suffered Herbert's betrayal. As soon as the false friend +Proteus says he is sorry and asks forgiveness, Valentine, another +impersonation of Shakespeare, replies: + + “Then I am paid; + And once again I do receive thee honest: + Who by repentance is not satisfied, + Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleas'd; + By penitence the Eternal's wrath's appeased; + And that my love may appear plain and free, + All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.” + +This incarnation of Shakespeare speaks of repentance in Shakespeare's +most characteristic fashion, and then coolly surrenders the woman he +loves to his friend without a moment's hesitation, and without even +considering whether the woman would be satisfied with the transfer. The +words admit of no misconstruction; they stand four-square, not to be +shaken by any ingenuity of reason, and Shakespeare supplies us with +further corroboration of them. + +“Coriolanus” was written fully ten years after “The Merchant of Venice,” + and long after the revision of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” And yet +Shakespeare's attitude at forty-three is, in regard to this matter, just +what it was at thirty-three. When Aufidius finds Coriolanus in his +house, and learns that he has been banished from Rome and is now +prepared to turn his army against his countrymen, he welcomes him as +“more a friend than e'er an enemy,” and this is the way he takes to show +his joy: + + “Know thou first, + I loved the maid I married: never man + Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here, + Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart + Than when I first my wedded mistress saw + Bestride my threshold.” + +Here's the same attitude; the same extravagance; the same insistence on +the fact that the man loves the maid and yet has more delight in the +friend. What does it mean? When we first find it in “The Merchant of +Venice” it must give the reader pause; in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” + it surprises us; in the sonnets, accompanied as it is by every +flattering expression of tender affection for the friend, it brings us +to question; but its repetition in “Coriolanus” must assure us that it +is a mere pose. Aufidius was not such a friend of Coriolanus that we can +take his protestation seriously. The argument is evidently a stock +argument to Shakespeare: a part of the ordinary furniture of his mind: +it is like a fashionable dress of the period--the wearer does not notice +its peculiarity. + +The truth is, Shakespeare found in the literature of his time, and in +the minds of his contemporaries, a fantastically high appreciation of +friendship, coupled with a corresponding disdain for love as we moderns +understand it. In “Wit's Commonwealth,” published in 1598, we find: “The +love of men to women is a thing common and of course, but the friendship +of man to man, infinite and immortal.” Passionate devotion to friendship +is a sort of mark of the Renaissance, and the words “love” and “lover” + in Elizabethan English were commonly used for “friend” and “friendship.” + Moreover, one must not forget that Lyly, whose euphuistic speech +affected Shakespeare for years, had handled this same incident in his +“Campaspe,” where Alexander gives up his love to his rival, Apelles. +Shakespeare, not to be outdone in any loyalty, sets forth the same +fantastical devotion in the sonnets and plays. He does this, partly +because the spirit of the time infected him, partly out of sincere +admiration for Herbert, but oftener, I imagine, out of self-interest. It +is pose, flunkeyism and the hope of benefits to come and not passion +that inspired the first series of sonnets. + +Whoever reads the scene carefully in “Much Ado About Nothing,” cannot +avoid seeing that Shakespeare at his best not only does not minimize his +friend's offence, but condemns it absolutely: + + “The transgression is in the stealer.” + +And in the sonnets, too, in spite of himself, the same true feeling +pierces through the snobbish and affected excuses. + + “Ay me! but yet them might'st my seat forbear, + And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth, + Who lead thee in their riot even there + Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth, + Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee, + Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.” + +Shakespeare was a sycophant, a flunkey if you will, but nothing worse. + +Further arguments suggest themselves. Shakespeare lived, as it were, in +a glass house with a score of curious eyes watching everything he did +and with as many ears pricked for every word he said; but this foul +accusation was never even suggested by any of his rivals. In especial +Ben Jonson was always girding at Shakespeare, now satirically, now +good-humouredly. Is it not manifest that if any such sin had ever been +attributed to him, Ben Jonson would have given the suspicion utterance? +There is a passage in his “Bartholomew Fair” which I feel sure is meant +as a skit upon the relations we find in the Sonnets. In Act V, scene +iii, there is a puppet-show setting forth “the ancient modern history of +Hero and Leander, otherwise called the Touchstone of true Love, with as +true a trial of Friendship between Damon and Pythias, two faithful +friends o' the Bankside.” Hero is a “wench o' the Bankside,” and Leander +swims across the Thames to her. Damon and Pythias meet at her lodgings, +and abuse each other violently, only to finish as perfect good friends. + + “_Damon_. Whore-master in thy face; + Thou hast lain with her thyself, I'll prove it in this place. + + _Leatherhead_. They are whore-masters both, sir, that's + a plain case. + + _Pythias_. Thou lie like a rogue. + + _Leatherhead_. Do I lie like a rogue? + + _Pythias_. A pimp and a scab. + + _Leatherhead_. A pimp and a scab! + I say, between you you have both but one drab. + + _Pythias and Damon_. Come, now we'll go together to + breakfast to Hero. + + _Leatherhead_. Thus, gentles, you perceive without any + denial + 'Twixt Damon and Pythias here friendship's true trial.” + +Rare Ben Jonson would have been delighted to set forth the viler charge +if it had ever been whispered. + +Then again, it seems to me certain that if Shakespeare had been the sort +of man his accusers say he was, he would have betrayed himself in his +plays. Consider merely the fact that young boys then played the girls' +parts on the stage. Surely if Shakespeare had had any leaning that way, +we should have found again and again ambiguous or suggestive expressions +given to some of these boys when aping girls; but not one. The +temptation was there; the provocation was there, incessant and prolonged +for twenty-five years, and yet, to my knowledge, Shakespeare has never +used one word that malice could misconstrue. Yet he loved suggestive and +lewd speech. + +Luckily, however, there is stronger proof of Shakespeare's innocence +than even his condemnation of his false friend, proof so strong, that if +all the arguments for his guilt were tenfold stronger than they are, +this proof would outweigh them all and bring them to nought. Nor should +it be supposed, because I have only mentioned the chief arguments for +and against, that I do not know all those that can be urged on either +side. I have confined myself to the chief ones simply because by merely +stating them, their utter weakness must be admitted by every one who can +read Shakespeare, by every one who understands his impulsive +sensitiveness, and the facility with which affectionate expressions came +to his lips. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that while the sonnets +were being written he was in rivalry with Chapman for this very patron's +favour, and this rivalry alone would explain a good deal of the fervour, +or, should I say, the affected fervour he put into the first series of +sonnets; but now for the decisive and convincing argument for +Shakespeare's innocence. + +Let us first ask ourselves how it is that real passion betrays itself +and proves its force. Surely it is by its continuance; by its effect +upon the life later. I have assumed, or inferred, as my readers may +decide, that Shakespeare's liking for Herbert was chiefly snobbish, and +was deepened by the selfish hope that he would find in him a patron even +more powerful and more liberally disposed than Lord Southampton. He +probably felt that young Herbert owed him a great deal for his +companionship and poetical advice; for Herbert was by way of being a +poet himself. If my view is correct, after Shakespeare lost Lord +Herbert's affection, we should expect to hear him talking of man's +forgetfulness and ingratitude, and that is just what Lord Herbert left +in him, bitterness and contempt. Never one word in all his works to show +that the loss of this youth's affection touched him more nearly. As we +have seen, he cannot keep the incident out of his plays. Again and again +he drags it in; but in none of these dramas is there any lingering +kindness towards the betrayer. And as soon as the incident was past and +done with, as soon as the three or four years' companionship with Lord +Herbert was at an end, not one word more do we catch expressive of +affection. Again and again Shakespeare rails at man's ingratitude, but +nothing more. Think of it. Pembroke, under James, came to great power; +was, indeed, made Lord Chamberlain, and set above all the players, so +that he could have advanced Shakespeare as he pleased with a word: with +a word could have made him Master of the Revels, or given him a higher +post. He did not help him in any way. He gave books every Christmas to +Ben Jonson, but we hear of no gift to Shakespeare, though evidently from +the dedication to him of the first folio, he remained on terms of +careless acquaintance with Shakespeare. Ingratitude is what Shakespeare +found in Lord Pembroke; ingratitude is what he complains of in him. What +a different effect the loss of Mary Fitton had upon Shakespeare. Just +consider what the plays teach us when the sonnet-story is finished. The +youth vanishes; no reader can find a trace of him, or even an allusion +to him. But the woman comes to be the centre, as we shall see, of +tragedy after tragedy. She flames through Shakespeare's life, a fiery +symbol, till at length she inspires perhaps his greatest drama, “Antony +and Cleopatra,” filling it with the disgrace of him who is “a strumpet's +fool,” the shame of him who has become “the bellows and the fan to cool +a harlot's lust.” + +The passion for Mary Fitton was the passion of Shakespeare's whole life. +The adoration of her, and the insane desire of her, can be seen in every +play he wrote from 1597 to 1608. After he lost her, he went back to her; +but the wound of her frailty cankered and took on proud flesh in him, +and tortured him to nervous breakdown and to madness. When at length he +won to peace, after ten years, it was the peace of exhaustion. His love +for his “gipsy-wanton” burned him out, as one is burnt to ashes at the +stake, and his passion only ended with his life. + +There is no room for doubt in my mind, no faintest suspicion. Hallam and +Heine, and all the cry of critics, are mistaken in this matter. +Shakespeare admired Lord Herbert's youth and boldness and beauty, hoped +great things from his favour and patronage; but after the betrayal, he +judged him inexorably as a mean traitor, “a stealer” who had betrayed “a +twofold trust”; and later, cursed him for his ingratitude, and went +about with wild thoughts of bloody revenge, as we shall soon see in +“Hamlet” and “Othello,” and then dropped him into oblivion without a +pang. + +It is bad enough to know that Shakespeare, the sweetest spirit and +finest mind in all literature, should have degraded himself to pretend +such an affection for the profligate Herbert as has given occasion for +misconstruction. It is bad enough, I say, to know that Shakespeare could +play flunkey to this extent; but after all, that is the worst that can +be urged against him, and it is so much better than men have been led to +believe that there may be a certain relief in the knowledge. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. THE FIRST-FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE: BRUTUS + + +The play of “Julius Caesar” was written about 1600 or 1601. As “Twelfth +Night” was the last of the golden comedies, so “Julius Caesar” is the +first of the great tragedies, and bears melancholy witness to us that +the poet's young-eyed confidence in life and joy in living are dying, if +not dead. “Julius Caesar” is the first outcome of disillusion. Before it +was written Shakespeare had been deceived by his mistress, betrayed by +his friend; his eyes had been opened to the fraud and falsehood of life; +but, like one who has just been operated on for cataract, he still sees +realities as through a mist, dimly. He meets the shock of traitorous +betrayal as we should have expected Valentine or Antonio or Orsino to +meet it--with pitying forgiveness. Suffering, instead of steeling his +heart and drying up his sympathies, as it does with most men, softened +him, induced him to give himself wholly to that “angel, Pity.” He will +not believe that his bitter experience is universal; in spite of +Herbert's betrayal, he still has the courage to declare his belief in +the existence of the ideal. At the very last his defeated Brutus cries: + + “My heart doth joy that yet in all my life + I found no man but he was true to me.” + +The pathos of this attempt still to believe in man and man's truth is +over the whole play. But the belief was fated to disappear. No man who +lives in the world can boast of loyalty as Brutus did; even Jesus had a +Judas among the Twelve. But when Shakespeare wrote “Julius Caesar” he +still tried to believe, and this gives the play an important place in +his life's story. + +Before I begin to consider the character of Brutus I should like to draw +attention to three passages which place Brutus between the melancholy +Jaques of “As You Like It,” whose melancholy is merely temperamental, +and the almost despairing Hamlet. Jaques says: + + “Invest me in my motley; give me leave + To speak my mind, and I will through and through + Cleanse the foul body of the infected world, + If they will patiently receive my medicine.” + +This is the view of early manhood which does not doubt its power to cure +all the evils which afflict mortality. Then comes the later, more +hopeless view, to which Brutus gives expression: + + “Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this; + Brutus had rather be a villager + Than to repute himself a son of Rome + Under these hard conditions as this time + Is like to lay upon us.” + +And later still, and still more bitter, Hamlet's: + + “The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, + That ever I was born to set it right!” + +But Shakespeare is a meliorist even in Hamlet, and believes that the +ailments of man can all be set right. + +The likenesses between Brutus and Hamlet are so marked that even the +commentators have noticed them. Professor Dowden exaggerates the +similarities. “Both (dramas),” he writes, “are tragedies of thought +rather than of passion; both present in their chief characters the +spectacle of noble natures which fail through some weakness or +deficiency rather than through crime; upon Brutus as upon Hamlet a +burden is laid which he is not able to bear; neither Brutus nor Hamlet +is fitted for action, yet both are called to act in dangerous and +difficult affairs.” Much of this is Professor Dowden's view and not +Shakespeare's. When Shakespeare wrote “Julius Caesar” he had not reached +that stage in self-understanding when he became conscious that he was a +man of thought rather than of action, and that the two ideals tend to +exclude each other. In the contest at Philippi Brutus and his wing win +the day; it is the defeat of Cassius which brings about the ruin; +Shakespeare evidently intended to depict Brutus as well “fitted for +action.” + +Some critics find it disconcerting that Shakespeare identified himself +with Brutus, who failed, rather than with Caesar, who succeeded. But +even before he himself came to grief in his love and trust, Shakespeare +had always treated the failures with peculiar sympathy. He preferred +Arthur to the Bastard, and King Henry VI. to Richard III., and Richard +II. to proud Bolingbroke. And after his agony of disillusion, all his +heroes are failures for years and years: Brutus, Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, +Troilus, Antony, and Timon--all fail as he himself had failed. + +There is some matter for surprise in the fact that Brutus is an ideal +portrait of Shakespeare. Disillusion usually brings a certain bitter +sincerity, a measure of realism, into artistic work; but its first +effect on Shakespeare was to draw out all the kindliness in him; Brutus +is Shakespeare at his sweetest and best. Yet the soul-suffering of the +man has assuredly improved his art: Brutus is a better portrait of him +than Biron, Valentine, Romeo, or Antonio, a more serious and bolder +piece of self-revealing even than Orsino. Shakespeare is not afraid now +to depict the deep underlying kindness of his nature, his essential +goodness of heart. A little earlier, and occupied chiefly with his own +complex growth, he could only paint sides of himself; a little later, +and the personal interest absorbed all others, so that his dramas became +lyrics of anguish and despair. Brutus belongs to the best time, +artistically speaking, to the time when passion and pain had tried the +character without benumbing the will or distracting the mind: it is a +masterpiece of portraiture, and stands in even closer relation to Hamlet +than Romeo stands to Orsino. As Shakespeare appears to us in Brutus at +thirty-seven, so he was when they bore him to his grave at +fifty-two--the heart does not alter greatly. + +Let no one say or think that in all this I am drawing on my imagination; +what I have said is justified by all that Brutus says and does from one +end of the play to the other. According to his custom, Shakespeare has +said it all of himself very plainly, and has put his confession into the +mouth of Brutus on his very first appearance (Act i. sc. 2): + + “Cassius + Be not deceived: if I have veiled my look + I turn the trouble of my countenance + Merely upon myself. Vexed I am + Of late with passions of some difference, + Conceptions only proper to myself, + Which gives some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours, + But let not therefore my good friends be grieved,-- + Among which number, Cassius, be you one,-- + Nor construe any further in neglect, + Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, + Forgets the shows of love to other men.” + +What were these “different passions,” complex personal passions, too, +which had vexed Brutus and changed his manners even to his friends? +There is no hint of them in Plutarch, no word about them in the play. It +was not “poor Brutus,” but poor Shakespeare, racked by love and +jealousy, tortured by betrayal, who was now “at war with himself.” + +I assume the identity of Brutus with Shakespeare before I have +absolutely proved it because it furnishes the solution to the +difficulties of the play. As usual, Coleridge has given proof of his +insight by seeing and stating the chief difficulty, without, however, +being able to explain it, and as usual, also, the later critics have +followed him as far as they can, and in this case have elected to pass +over the difficulty in silence. Coleridge quotes some of the words of +Brutus when he first thinks of killing Caesar, and calls the passage a +speech of Brutus, but it is in reality a soliloquy of Brutus, and must +be considered in its entirety. Brutus says: + + “It must be by his death: and for my part, + I know no personal cause to spurn at him + But for the general. He would be crowned:-- + How that might change his nature, there's the question? + It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, + And that craves wary walking. Crown him?--that; + And then, I grant, we put a sting in him + That at his will he may do danger with. + The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins + Remorse from power: and to speak truth of Caesar, + I have known his affections swayed + More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof, + That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, + Whereto the climber-upwards turns his face; + But when he once attains the topmost round, + He then unto the ladder turns his back, + Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees + By which he did ascend. So Caesar may: + Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel + Will bear no colour for the thing he is, + Fashion it thus: that, what he is, augmented, + Would run to these and these extremities: + And therefore think him as a serpent's egg, + Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous; + And kill him in the shell.” + +Coleridge's comment on this deserves notice. He wrote: “This speech is +singular; at least, I do not at present see into Shakespeare's motive, +his _rationale_, or in what point of view he meant Brutus' +character to appear. For surely ... nothing can seem more discordant +with our historical preconceptions of Brutus, or more lowering to the +intellect of the Stoico-Platonic tyrannicide, than the tenets here +attributed to him--to him, the stern Roman republican; namely, that he +would have no objection to a king, or to Caesar, a monarch in Rome, +would Caesar but be as good a monarch as he now seems disposed to be! +How, too, could Brutus say that he found no personal cause--none in +Caesar's past conduct as a man? Had he not passed the Rubicon? Had he +not entered Rome as a conqueror? Had he not placed his Gauls in the +Senate? Shakespeare, it may be said, has not brought these things +forward. True;--and this is just the ground of my perplexity. What +character did Shakespeare mean his Brutus to be?” + +All this is sound criticism, and can only be answered by the truth that +Shakespeare from the beginning of the play identified himself with +Brutus, and paid but little attention to the historic Brutus whom he had +met in Plutarch. Let us push criticism a little further, and we shall +see that this is the only possible way to read the riddle. We all know +why Plutarch's Brutus killed Caesar; but why does Shakespeare's Brutus +kill the man he so esteems? Because Caesar may change his nature when +king; because like the serpent's egg he may “grow mischievous”? But when +he speaks “truth” of Caesar he has to admit Caesar's goodness. The +“serpent's egg” reason then is inapplicable. Besides, when speaking of +himself on the plains of Philippi, Shakespeare's Brutus explicitly +contradicts this false reasoning: + + “I know not how + But I do find it cowardly and vile, + _For fear of what might fall_, so to prevent + The term of life.” + +It would seem, therefore, that Brutus did not kill Caesar, as one +crushes a serpent's egg, to prevent evil consequences. It is equally +manifest that he did not do it for “the general,” for if ever “the +general” were shown to be despicable and worthless it is in this very +play, where the citizens murder Cinna the poet because he has the same +name as Cinna the conspirator, and the lower classes are despised as the +“rabblement,” “the common herd,” with “chapped hands,” “sweaty +night-caps,” and “stinking breath.” + +It is Dr. Brandes' idea and not Shakespeare's that Brutus is a “man of +uncompromising character and principle.” That is the Brutus of Plutarch, +who finds in his stern republican love of the common good an ethical +motive for killing the ambitious Caesar. But Shakespeare had no +understanding of the republican ideal, and no sympathy with the public; +accordingly, his Brutus has no adequate reason for contriving Caesar's +death. Shakespeare followed Plutarch in freeing Brutus from the +suspicion of personal or interested motive, but he didn't see that by +doing this he made his Brutus a conspirator without a cause, a murderer +without a motive. The truth is our gentle poet could never find a +convincing ground for cold-blooded murder. It will be remembered that +Macbeth only murders, as the deer murders, out of fear, and the fact +that his Brutus can find no justification of any sort for killing +Caesar, confirms our view of Shakespeare's gentle kindness. The +“uncompromising character and principle” of the severe republican we +find in Plutarch, sit uneasily on Shakespeare's Brutus; it is apparent +that the poet had no conception of what we call a fanatic. His +difficulties arise from this limitation of insight. He begins to write +the play by making Brutus an idealized portrait of himself; he, +therefore, dwells on Brutus' perfect nobility, sincerity, and +unselfishness, but does not realize that the more perfect he makes +Brutus, the more clear and cogent Brutus' motive must be for undertaking +Caesar's assassination. + +In this confusion Shakespeare's usually fine instinct is at fault, and +he blunders from mistake to mistake. His idealizing tendency makes him +present Brutus as perfect, and at the same time he uses the historical +incident of the anonymous letters, which goes to show Brutus as +conceited and vain. If these letters influenced Brutus--and they must be +taken to have done so, or else why were they introduced?--we have a noble +and unselfish man murdering out of paltry vanity. In Plutarch, +where Brutus is depicted as an austere republican, the incident of the +letters only throws a natural shade of doubt on the rigid principles by +which alone he is supposed to be guided. We all feel that rigid +principles rest on pride, and may best be led astray through pride. But +Shakespeare's Brutus is pure human sweetness, and the letters are worse +than out of place when addressed to him. Shakespeare should never have +used this incident; it is a blot on his conception. + +All through the first acts of the play Brutus is incredible, for he is +in an impossible position. Shakespeare simply could not find any valid +reason why his _alter ego_, Brutus, should kill Caesar. But from +the moment the murder is committed to the end of the play Brutus- +Shakespeare is at peace with himself. And as soon as the dramatist lets +himself go and paints Brutus with entire freedom and frankness, he rises +to the height of tragic pathos, and we can all recognize the original of +the portrait. At first Brutus is merely ideal; his perfect +unsuspiciousness--he trusts even Antony; his transparent honesty--he +will have no other oath among the conspirators + + “Than honesty to honesty engaged”; + +his hatred of bloodshed--he opposes Cassius, who proposes to murder +Antony; all these noble qualities may be contrasted with the subtler +shortcomings which make of Hamlet so vital a creation. Hamlet is +suspicious even of Ophelia; Hamlet is only “indifferent honest”; Hamlet +makes his friends swear to keep the ghost's appearance a profound +secret; Hamlet lives from the beginning, while Brutus at first is a mere +bundle of perfections individualized only by that personal intimate +confession which I have already quoted, which, however, has nothing to +do with the play. But later in the drama Shakespeare begins to lend +Brutus his own weaknesses, and forthwith Brutus lives. His insomnia is +pure Shakespeare: + + “Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, + I have not slept.” + +The character of Brutus is superbly portrayed in that wonderful scene +with Cassius in the fourth act. With all the superiority of conscious +genius he treats his confederate as a child or madman, much as Hamlet +treats Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: + + “Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?” + +Cassius is mean, too, whereas Brutus is kindly and generous to a degree: + + “For I can raise no money by vile means: + By heaven, I had rather coin my heart, + And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring + From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash + By any indirection.... + - - - - - - - - - - + When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, + To lock such rascal counters from his friends, + Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts, + Dash him to pieces.” + +And, above all, as soon as Cassius appeals to his affection, Brutus is +disarmed: + + “O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb + That carries anger, as the flint bears fire; + Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, + And straight is cold again.” + +This is the best expression of Shakespeare's temper; the “hasty spark” + is Hamlet's temper, as we have seen, and Macbeth's, and Romeo's. + +And now everything that Brutus does or says is Shakespeare's best. In a +bowl of wine he buries “all unkindness.” His affection for Cassius is +not a virtue to one in especial. The scene in the fourth act, in which +he begs the pardon of his boy Lucius, should be learned by heart by +those who wish to understand our loving and lovable Shakespeare. This +scene, be it remarked, is not in Plutarch, but is Shakespeare's own +invention. His care for the lad's comfort, at a time when his own life +is striking the supreme hour, is exquisitely pathetic. Then come his +farewell to Cassius and his lament over Cassius' body; then the second +fight and the nobly generous words that hold in them, as flowers their +perfume, all Shakespeare's sweetness of nature: + + “My heart doth joy, that yet in all my life + I found no man, but he was true to me.” + +And then night hangs upon the weary, sleepless eyes, and we are all +ready to echo Antony's marvellous valediction: + + “This was the noblest Roman of them all; + - - - - - - - - - - - - + His life was gentle; and the elements + So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up + And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'” + +But this Brutus was no murderer, no conspirator, no narrow republican +fanatic, but simply gentle Shakespeare discovering to us his own sad +heart and the sweetness which suffering had called forth in him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. DRAMAS OF REVENGE AND JEALOUSY: HAMLET. + + +“A beautiful, pure and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve +which makes the hero, sinks beneath a burden which it can neither bear +nor throw off; every duty is holy to him,--this too hard. The impossible +is required of him,--not the impossible in itself, but the impossible to +him. How he winds, turns, agonizes, advances and recoils, ever reminded, +ever reminding himself, and at last almost loses his purpose from his +thoughts, without ever again recovering his peace of +mind....”--“_Hamlet_” by _Goethe_. + +Goethe's criticism of Hamlet is so much finer than any English criticism +that I am glad to quote it. It will serve, I think, as a standard to +distinguish the best criticism of the past from what I shall set forth +in the course of this analysis. In this chapter I shall try to show what +new light our knowledge of Shakespeare throws on the play, and +conversely what new light the play throws on its maker. + +The first moment of disillusion brought out, as we have seen in Brutus, +all the kindness in Shakespeare's nature. He will believe in men in +spite of experience; but the idealistic pose could not be kept up: +sooner or later Shakespeare had to face the fact that he had been +befooled and scorned by friend and mistress--how did he meet it? Hamlet +is the answer: Shakespeare went about nursing dreams of revenge and +murder. Disillusion had deeper consequences; forced to see other men as +they were, he tried for a moment to see himself as he was. The outcome +of that objective vision was Hamlet--a masterpiece of self-revealing. + +Yet, when he wrote “Hamlet,” nothing was clear to him; the significance +of the catastrophe had only dawned upon him; he had no notion how +complete his soul-shipwreck was, still less did he dream of painting +himself realistically in all his obsequious flunkeyism and ungovernable +sensuality. He saw himself less idealistically than heretofore, and, +trying to look at himself fairly, honestly, he could not but accuse +himself of irresolution at the very least; he had hung on with Herbert, +as the sonnets tell us, hoping to build again the confidence which had +been ruined by betrayal, hoping he knew not what of gain or place, to +the injury of his own self-respect; while brooding all the time on quite +impossible plans of revenge, impossible, for action had been “sicklied +o'er with the pale cast of thought.” Hamlet could not screw his courage +to the sticking point, and so became a type for ever of the philosopher +or man of letters who, by thinking, has lost the capacity for action. + +Putting ourselves in Shakespeare's place for the moment we see at once +why he selected this story for treatment at this time. He knew, none +better, that no young aristocrat would have submitted patiently to the +wrong he had suffered from Lord Herbert; he created Laertes to show how +instant and determined such a man would be in taking murderous revenge; +but he still felt that what others would regard as faults, his +irresolution and shrinking from bloodshed were in themselves nobler, and +so, whilst half excusing, half realizing himself, he brought forth a +masterpiece. This brooding on revenge, which is the heart and +explanation of his great play, shows us how little Shakespeare cared for +Herbert, how completely he had condemned him. The soliloquy on this +point in “Hamlet” is the most characteristic thing in the drama: + + “This is most brave, + That I, the son of a dear father murder'd + Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, + Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, + And fall a-cursing like a very drab.” + +Shakespeare is thinking of Herbert's betrayal; “here I am,” he says, +“prompted to revenge by reason and custom, yet instead of acting I fall +a-cursing like a drab.” But behind his irresolution is his hatred of +bloodshed: he could whip out his sword and on a sudden kill Polonius, +mistaking him for the king (Herbert), but he could not, in cold blood, +make up his mind to kill and proceed to execution. Like his own Hubert, +Shakespeare had to confess: + + “Within this bosom never enter'd yet + The dreadful motion of a murderous thought.” + +He had none of the direct, passionate, conscienceless resolution of +Laertes. He whips himself to anger against the king by thinking of +Herbert in the king's place; but lackey-like has to admit that mere +regard for position and power gives him pause: Lord Herbert was too far +above him: + + “There's such divinity doth hedge a king, + That treason can but peep to what it would.” + +Shakespeare's personal feeling dominates and inspires the whole play. +One crucial instance will prove this. Why did Hamlet hate his mother's +lechery? Most men would hardly have condemned it, certainly would not +have suffered their thoughts to dwell on it beyond the moment; but to +Hamlet his mother's faithlessness was horrible, shameful, degrading, +simply because Hamlet-Shakespeare had identified her with Miss Fitton, +and it was Miss Fitton's faithlessness, it was her deception he was +condemning in the bitterest words he could find. He thus gets into a +somewhat unreal tragedy, a passionate intensity which is otherwise +wholly inexplicable. This is how he talks to his mother: + + “Have you eyes? + Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, + And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes ... + ... ... ... What devil was't + That thus cozen'd you at hoodman-blind? + Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, + Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, + Or but a sickly part of one true sense + Could not so mope. + O, shame! where is thy blush?” + +If anyone can imagine that this is the way a son thinks of a mother's +slip he is past my persuading. In all this Shakespeare is thinking of +himself in comparison with Herbert; and his advice to his mother is +almost as self-revealing, showing, as it does, what he would wish to say +to Miss Fitton: + + “Repent what's past; avoid what is to come; + And do not spread the compost on the weeds + To make them ranker.... + Assume a virtue if you have it not....” + +In his description of the king and queen we get Shakespeare's view of +Lord Herbert and Miss Fitton: the king (Herbert) is “mildew'd” and foul +in comparison with his modest poet-rival--“A satyr to Hyperion.” + +Hamlet's view of his mother (Miss Fitton), though bitterer still, is yet +the bitterness of disappointed love: he will have her repent, refrain +from the adultery, and be pure and good again. When the Queen asks: + + “What shall I do?” + +Hamlet answers: + + “Not this, by no means, that I bid you do: + Let the king tempt you again to bed; + Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse; + And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, + Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers....” + +Maddened with jealousy he sees the act, scourges himself with his own +lewd imagining as Posthumus scourges himself. No one ever felt this +intensity of jealous rage about a mother or a sister. The mere idea is +absurd; it is one's own passion-torture that speaks in such words as I +have here quoted. + +Hamlet's treatment of Ophelia, too, and his advice to her are all the +outcome of Shakespeare's own disappointment: + + “Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a + breeder of sinners?” + +We all expect from Hamlet some outburst of divine tenderness to Ophelia; +but the scenes with the pure and devoted girl whom he is supposed to +love are not half realized, are nothing like so intense as the scenes +with the guilty mother. It is jealousy that is blazing in Shakespeare at +this time, and not love; when Hamlet speaks to the Queen we hear +Shakespeare speaking to his own faithless, guilty love. Besides, Ophelia +is not even realized; she is submissive affection, an abstraction, and +not a character. Shakespeare did not take interest enough in her to give +her flesh and blood. + +Shakespeare's jealousy and excessive sensuality come to full light in +the scene between Hamlet and Ophelia, when they are about to witness the +play before the king: he persists in talking smut to her, which she +pretends not to understand. The lewdness, we all feel, is out of place +in “Hamlet,” horribly out of place when Hamlet is talking to Ophelia, +but Shakespeare's sensuality has been stung to ecstasy by Miss Fitton's +frailty, and he cannot but give it voice. As soon as Ophelia goes out of +her mind she, too, becomes coarse--all of which is but a witness to +Shakespeare's tortured animality. Yet Goethe can talk of Hamlet's “pure +and most moral nature.” A goat is hardly less pure, though Hamlet was +moral enough in the high sense of the word. + +There are one or two minor questions still to be considered, and the +chief of these is how far, even in this moment of disillusion, did our +Shakespeare see himself as he was? Hamlet says: + + “I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more + offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, + +imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such +fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, +all; believe none of us.” + +All this is mere rhetoric, and full of clever self-excusing. Hamlet is +not very revengeful or very ambitious; he is weakly-irresolute, and +excessively sensual, with all the faults that accompany these frailties. +Even at this moment, when he must know that he is not very revengeful, +that forgiveness were easier to him, Shakespeare will pose to himself, +and call himself revengeful: he is such an idealist that he absolutely +refuses to see himself as he is. In later dramas we shall find that he +grows to deeper self-knowledge. Hamlet is but the half-way house to +complete understanding. + +Fortunately we have each of us an infallible touchstone by which we can +judge of our love of truth. Any of us, man or woman, would rather be +accused of a mental than a physical shortcoming. Do we see our bodily +imperfections as they are? Can we describe ourselves pitilessly with +snub nose, or coarse beak, bandy legs or thin shanks; gross paunch or +sedgy beard? Shakespeare in Hamlet can hardly bear even to suggest his +physical imperfections. Hamlet lets out inadvertently that he was fat, +but he will not say so openly. His mother says to Hamlet: + + “You are fat and scant of breath.” + +Many people, especially actors, have been so determined to see Hamlet as +slight and student-like, that they have tried to criticize this phrase, +and one of them, Mr. Beerbohm Tree, even in our day, went so far as to +degrade the text to “faint and scant of breath.” But the fatness is +there, and comes to view again in another phrase of Hamlet: + + “O, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, + Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.” + +No thin man ever spoke of his flesh in that way. Shakespeare was +probably small, too. We know that he used to play Adam in “As You Like +it,” and in the play Orlando has to take Adam up and carry him off the +stage, a thing no actor would attempt if the Adam had been a big man. +Shakespeare was probably of middle height, or below it, and podgy. I +always picture him to myself as very like Swinburne. Yet even in Hamlet +he would make himself out to be a devil of a fellow: “valiant Hamlet,” a +swordsman of the finest, a superb duellist, who can touch Laertes again +and again, though lacking practice. At the last push of fate Shakespeare +will pose and deceive himself. + +It is curiously characteristic of Shakespeare that when Hamlet broods on +retaliation he does not brood like a brave man, who gloats on +challenging his enemy to a fair fight, and killing him by sheer force or +resolution; his passion, his revenge, is almost that of an Italian +bravo. Not once does Hamlet think of forcing the king (Herbert) to +a duel; he goes about with ideas of assassination, and not of combat. + + “Now might I do it pat” + +he cries as he sees the king praying; and he does not do it because he +would thus send the king's soul to Heaven--shrill wordy intensity to +excuse want of nerve. Whenever we get under the skin, it is +Shakespeare's femininity which startles us. + +One cannot leave this great picture of Hamlet-Shakespeare without +noticing one curious fact, which throws a flood of light on the +relations of literary art to life. Shakespeare, as we have seen, is +boiling with jealous passion, brooding continually on murderous revenge, +and so becomes conscious of his own irresolution. He dwells on this, and +makes this irresolution the chief feature of Hamlet's character, and yet +because he is writing about himself he manages to suggest so many other +qualities, and such amiable and noble ones, that we are all in love with +Hamlet, in spite of his irresolution, erotic mania and bloody thoughts. + +In later dramas Shakespeare went on to deal with the deeper and more +elemental things in his nature, with jealousy in “Othello,” and +passionate desire in “Antony and Cleopatra”; but he never, perhaps, did +much better work than in this drama where he chooses to magnify a +secondary and ancillary weakness into the chief defect of his whole +being. The pathos of the drama is to be found in the fact that +Shakespeare realizes he is unable to take personal vengeance on Herbert. +“Hamlet” is a drama of pathetic weakness, strengthened by a drama of +revenge and jealousy. In these last respects it is a preparatory study +for “Othello.” + +In “Hamlet” Shakespeare let out some of the foul matter which Herbert's +mean betrayal had bred in him. Even in “Hamlet,” however, his passion +for Mary Fitton, and his jealousy of her, constitute the real theme. We +shall soon see how this passion coloured all the rest of his life and +art, and at length brought about his ruin. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. DRAMAS OF REVENGE AND JEALOUSY: PART II “OTHELLO” + + +There is perhaps no single drama which throws such light on Shakespeare +and his method of work as “Othello”: it is a long conflict between the +artist in him and the man, and, in the struggle, both his artistic +ideals and his passionate soul come to clearest view. From it we see +that Shakespeare's nature gave itself gradually to jealousy and revenge. +The fire of his passion burned more and more fiercely for years; was +infinitely hotter in 1604, when “Othello” was written, than it had been +when “Julius Caesar” was written in 1600. This proves to me that +Shakespeare's connection with Mary Fitton did not come to an end when he +first discovered her unfaithfulness. The intimacy continued for a dozen +years. In Sonnet 136 he prays her to allow him to be one of her lovers. +That she was liberal enough to consent appears clearly from the growth +of passion in his plays. It is certain, too, that she went on deceiving +him with other lovers, or his jealousy would have waned away, ebbing +with fulfilled desire. But his passion increases in intensity from 1597 +to 1604, whipped no doubt to ecstasy by continual deception and wild +jealousy. Both lust and jealousy swing to madness in “Othello,” But +Shakespeare was so great an artist that, when he took the story from +Cinthio, he tried to realize it without bringing in his own personality: +hence a conflict between his art and his passion. + +At first sight “Othello” reminds one of a picture by Titian or Veronese; +it is a romantic conception; the personages are all in gala dress; the +struggle between Iago and the Moor is melodramatic; the whole picture +aglow with a superb richness of colour. It is Shakespeare's finest play, +his supreme achievement as a playwright. It is impossible to read +“Othello” without admiring the art of it. The beginning is so easy: the +introduction of the chief characters so measured and impressive that +when the action really begins, it develops and increases in speed as by +its own weight to the inevitable end; inevitable--for the end in this +case is merely the resultant of the shock of these various +personalities. But if the action itself is superbly ordered, the +painting of character leaves much to be desired, as we shall see. There +is one notable difference between “Othello” and those dramas, “Hamlet,” + “Macbeth,” and “Cymbeline,” wherein Shakespeare has depicted himself as +the protagonist. In the self-revealing dramas not only does Shakespeare +give his hero licence to talk, in and out of season, and thus hinder the +development of the story, but he also allows him to occupy the whole +stage without a competitor. The explanation is obvious enough. Dramatic +art is to be congratulated on the fact that now and then Shakespeare +left himself for a little out of the play, for then not only does the +construction of the play improve, but the play grows in interest through +the encounter of evenly-matched antagonists. The first thing we notice +in “Othello” is that Iago is at least as important a character as the +hero himself. “Hamlet,” on the other hand, is almost a lyric; there is +no counterpoise to the student-prince. + +Now let us get to the play itself. Othello's first appearance in +converse with Iago in the second scene of the first act does not seem to +me to deserve the praise that has been lavished on it. Though Othello +knows that “boasting is (not) an honour,” he nevertheless boasts himself +of royal blood. We have noticed already Shakespeare's love of good +blood, and belief in its wondrous efficacy; it is one of his permanent +and most characteristic traits. The passage about royal descent might be +left out with advantage; if these three lines are omitted, Othello's +pride in his own nature--his “parts and perfect soul”--is far more +strongly felt. But such trivial flaws are forgotten when Brabantio +enters and swords are drawn. + + “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.” + +is excellent in its contemptuous irony. A little later, however, Othello +finds an expression which is intensely characteristic of a great man of +action: + + “Hold your hands, + Both you of my inclining, and the rest; + Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it + Without a prompter.” + +This last line and a half is addressed especially to Iago who is bent on +provoking a fight, and is, I think, the best piece of character-painting +in all “Othello”; the born general knows instinctively the moment to +attack just as the trained boxer's hand strikes before he consciously +sees the opening. When Othello speaks before the Duke, too, he reveals +himself with admirable clearness and truth to nature. His pride is so +deep-rooted, his self-respect so great, that he respects all other +dignitaries: the Senators are his “very noble and approved good +masters.” Every word weighed and effectual. Admirable, too, is the +expression “round unvarnished tale.” + +But pride and respect for others' greatness are not qualities peculiar +to the man of action; they belong to all men of ability. As soon as +Othello begins to tell how he won Desdemona, he falls out of his +character. Feeling certain that he has placed his hero before us in +strong outlines, Shakespeare lets himself go, and at once we catch him +speaking and not Othello. In “antres vast and deserts idle” I hear the +poet, and when the verse swings to-- + + “.... men whose heads + Do grow beneath their shoulders,” + +it is plain that Othello, the lord and lover of realities, has deserted +the firm ground of fact. But Shakespeare pulls himself in almost before +he has yielded to the charm of his own words, and again Othello speaks: + + “This to hear + Would Desdemona seriously incline, + But still the house-affairs would draw her thence, + +and so forth. + +The temptation, however, was overpowering, and again Shakespeare yields +to it: + + “And often did beguile her of her tears + When I did speak of some distressful stroke + That my youth suffered.” + +It is a characteristic of the man of action that he thinks lightly of +reverses; he loves hard buffets as a swimmer high waves, and when he +tells his life-story he does not talk of his “distress.” This +“distressful stroke that my youth suffered” is manifestly pure +Shakespeare--tender-hearted Shakespeare, who pitied himself and the +distressful strokes his youth suffered very profoundly. The +characterization of Othello in the rest of this scene is anything but +happy. He talks too much; I miss the short sharp words which would show +the man used to command, and not only does he talk too much, but he +talks in images like a poet, and exaggerates: + + “The tyrant Custom, most grave senators, + Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war + My thrice-driven bed of down.” + +Even the matter here is insincere; this is the poet's explanation of the +Captain's preference for a hard bed and hard living: “has been +accustomed to it,” says Shakespeare, not understanding that there are +born hunter and soldier natures who absolutely prefer hardships to +effeminate luxury. Othello's next speech is just as bad; he talks too +much of things particular and private, and the farther he goes, the +worse he gets, till we again hear the poet speaking, or rather mouthing: + + “No, when light-winged toys + Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness + My speculative and officed instruments, + That my disports corrupt and taint my business, + Let housewives make a skillet of my helm, + And all indign and base adversities + Make head against my estimation.” + +Again when he says-- + + “Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour + Of love, of worldly matters and direction + To spend with thee; we must obey the time,” + +I find no sharp impatience to get to work such as Hotspur felt, but a +certain reluctance to leave his love--a natural touch which indicates +that the poet was thinking of himself and not of his puppet. + +The first scene of the second act shows us how Shakespeare, the +dramatist, worked. Cassio is plainly Shakespeare the poet; any of his +speeches taken at haphazard proves it. When he hears that Iago has +arrived he breaks out: + + “He has had most favourable and happy speed; + Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds, + The guttered rocks and congregated sands-- + Traitors ensteeped to clog the guiltless keel-- + As having sense of beauty, do omit + Their mortal natures, letting go safely by + The divine Desdemona.” + +And when Desdemona lands, Cassio's first exclamation is sufficient to +establish the fact that he is merely the poet's mask: + + “O, behold, + The riches of the ship is come on shore!” + +And just as clearly as Cassio is Shakespeare, the lyric poet, so is +Iago, at first, the embodiment of Shakespeare's intelligence. Iago has +been described as immoral; he does not seem to me to be immoral, but +amoral, as the intellect always is. He says to the women: + + “Come on, come on; you're pictures out of doors, + Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens, + Saints in your injuries, devils being offended, + Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your + beds.” + +Iago sees things as they are, fairly and not maliciously; he is “nothing +if not critical,” but his criticism has a touch of Shakespeare's erotic +mania in it. Think of that “housewives in your beds”! He will not +deceive himself, however; in spite of Cassio's admiration of Desdemona +Iago does not imagine that Cassio is in love with her; “well kissed,” he +says, “an excellent courtesy,” finding at once the true explanation. +[Footnote: At the end of this scene Iago says: + + “That Cassio loves her I do well believe it,” + +but that is merely one of the many inconsistencies in Shakespeare's +drawing of Iago. There are others; at one time he talks of Cassio as a +mere book soldier, at another equals him with Cæsar. Had Coleridge noted +these contradictions he would have declared them to be a higher +perfection than logical unity, and there is something to be said for the +argument, though in these instances I think the contradictions are due +to Shakespeare's carelessness rather than to his deeper insight.] + +But having taken up this intellectual attitude in order to create Iago, +Shakespeare tries next to make his puppet concrete and individual by +giving him revenge for a soul, but in this he does not succeed, for +intellect is not maleficent. At moments Iago lives for us; “drown cats +and blind puppies ... put money in your purse”--his brains delight us; +but when he pursues Desdemona to her end, we revolt; such malignity is +inhuman. Shakespeare was so little inclined to evil, knew so little of +hate and revenge that his villain is unreal in his cruelty. Again and +again the reader asks himself why Iago is so venomous. He hates Othello +because Othello has passed him over and preferred Cassio; because he +thinks he has had reason to be jealous of Othello, because-----but every +one feels that these are reasons supplied by Shakespeare to explain the +inexplicable; taken all together they are inadequate, and we are apt to +throw them aside with Coleridge as the “motive hunting of motiveless +malignity.” But such a thing as “motiveless malignity” is not in nature, +Iago's villainy is too cruel, too steadfast to be human; perfect +pitiless malignity is as impossible to man as perfect innate goodness. + +Though Iago and Othello hold the stage for nine-tenths of the play +Shakespeare does not realize them so completely as he realizes Cassio, +an altogether subordinate character. The drinking episode of Cassio was +not found by Shakespeare in Cinthio, and is, I think, clearly the +confession of Shakespeare himself, for though aptly invented to explain +Cassio's dismissal it is unduly prolonged, and thus constitutes perhaps +the most important fault in the construction of the play. Consider, too, +how the moral is applied by Iago to England in especial, with which +country neither Iago nor the story has anything whatever to do. + +Othello's appearance stilling the riot, his words to Iago and his +dismissal of Cassio are alike honest work. The subsequent talk between +Cassio and Iago about “reputation” is scarcely more than a repetition of +what Falstaff said of “honour.” + +Coleridge has made a great deal of the notion that Othello was justified +in describing himself as “not easily jealous”; but poor Coleridge's +perverse ingenuity never led him further astray. The exact contrary +must, I think, be admitted; Othello was surely very quick to suspect +Desdemona; he remembers Iago's first suspicious phrase, ponders it and +asks its meaning; he is as quick as Posthumus was to believe the worst +of Imogen, as quick as Richard II. to suspect his friends Bagot and +Green of traitorism, and this proneness to suspicion is the soul of +jealousy. And Othello is not only quick to suspect but easy to +convince--impulsive at once and credulous. His quick wits jump to the +conclusion that Iago, “this honest creature!” doubtless + + “Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.” + +On hinted imputation he is already half persuaded, and persuaded as only +a sensualist would be that it is lust which has led Desdemona astray: + + “O curse of marriage! + That we can call these delicate creatures ours, + And not their appetites.” + +He is, indeed, so disposed to catch the foul infection that Iago cries: + + “Trifles light as air + Are to the jealous confirmations strong + As proofs of holy writ.” + +And well he may, for before he uses the handkerchief or any evidence, on +mere suspicion Othello is already racked with doubt, distraught with +jealousy, maddened with passion; “his occupation's gone”; he rages +against Iago and demands proof, Iago answers: + + “I do not like the office; + But, sith I am entered in this cause so far + - - - - - - - - - - - - + I will go on.” + +This is the same paltry reason Richard III. and Macbeth adduced for +adding to the number of their crimes, the truth being that Shakespeare +could find no reason in his own nature for effective hatred. + +Othello gives immediate credence to Iago's dream, thinks it “a shrewd +doubt”; he is a “credulous fool,” as Iago calls him, and it is only our +sense of Iago's devilish cleverness that allows us to excuse Othello's +folly. The strawberry-spotted handkerchief is not needed: the magic in +its web is so strong that the mere mention of it blows his love away and +condemns both Cassio and Desdemona to death. If this Othello is not +easily jealous then no man is prone to doubt and quick to turn from love +to loathing. + +The truth of the matter is that in the beginning of the play Othello is +a marionette fairly well shaped and exceedingly picturesque; but as soon +as jealousy is touched upon, the mask is thrown aside; Othello, the +self-contained captain, disappears, the poet takes his place and at once +shows himself to be the aptest subject for the green fever. The emotions +then put into Othello's mouth are intensely realized; his jealousy is +indeed Shakespeare's own confession, and it would be impossible to find +in all literature pages of more sincere and terrible self-revealing. +Shakespeare is not more at home in showing us the passion of Romeo and +Juliet or the irresolution of Richard II. or the scepticism of Hamlet +than in depicting the growth and paroxysms of jealousy; his overpowering +sensuality, the sensuality of Romeo and of Orsino, has sounded every +note of love's mortal sickness: + + “_Oth._ I had been happy if the general camp, + Pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body, + So I had nothing known. + - - - - - - - - - - + Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!” + +We have here the proof that the jealousy of Othello was Shakespeare's +jealousy; it is all compounded of sensuality. But, and this is the +immediate point of my argument, the captain, Othello, is not presented +to us as a sensualist to whom such a suspicion would be, of course, the +nearest thought. On the contrary, Othello is depicted as sober +[Footnote: Shakespeare makes Lodovico speak of Othello's “solid +virtue”--“the nature whom passion could not shake.” Even Iago finds +Othello's anger ominous because of its rarity: + + “There's matter in't, indeed, if he be angry.”] +and solid, slow to anger, and master of himself and his desires; he +expressly tells the lords of Venice that he does not wish Desdemona to +accompany him: + + “To please the palate of my appetite + Nor to comply with heat--the young affects, + In me defunct--and proper satisfaction.” + +Shakespeare goes out of his way to put this unnecessary explanation in +Othello's mouth; he will not have us think of him as passion's fool, but +as passion's master; Othello is not to be even suspicious; he tells +Iago: + + “'Tis not to make me jealous + To say--my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company, + Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well; + Where virtue is, these are more virtuous: + Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw + The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt; + For she had eyes and chose me.” + +It was all this, no doubt, that misled Coleridge. He did not realize +that this Othello suddenly changes his nature; the sober lord of himself +becomes in an instant very quick to suspect, and being jealous, is +nothing if not sensual; he can think of no reason for Desdemona's fall +but her appetite; the imagination of the sensual act throws him into a +fit; it is this picture which gives life to his hate. The conclusion is +not to be avoided; as soon as Othello becomes jealous he is transformed +by Shakespeare's own passion. For this is the way Shakespeare conceived +jealousy and the only way. The jealousy of Leontes in “The Winter's +Tale” is precisely the same; Hermione gives her hand to Polixenes, and +at once Leontes suspects and hates, and his rage is all of “paddling +palms [1] and pinching fingers.” The jealousy of Posthumus, too, is of +the same kind: + + “Never talk on 't; + She hath been colted by him.” + +[Footnote 1: Iago's expression, too; cf. “Othello,” II. 1, and “Hamlet,” + III. 4.] + +It is the imagining of the sensual act that drives him to incoherence +and the verge of madness, as it drove Othello. In all these characters +Shakespeare is only recalling the stages of the passion that desolated +his life. + +The part that imagination usually plays in tormenting the jealous man +with obscene pictures is now played by Iago; the first scene of the +fourth act is this erotic self-torture put in Iago's mouth. As Othello's +passion rises to madness, as the self-analysis becomes more and more +intimate and personal, we have Shakespeare's re-lived agony clothing +itself in his favourite terms of expression: + + “O! it comes o'er my memory, + As doth the raven o'er the infected house, + Boding to all,--he had my handkerchief.” + +The interest swings still higher; the scene in which Iago uses Cassio's +conceit and laughter to exasperate further the already mad Othello is +one of the notable triumphs of dramatic art. But just as the quick +growth of his jealousy, and its terrible sensuality, have shown us that +Othello is not the self-contained master of his passions that he +pretends to be and that Shakespeare wishes us to believe, so this scene, +in which the listening Othello rages in savagery, reveals to us an +intense femininity of nature. For generally the man concentrates his +hatred upon the woman who deceives him, and is only disdainful of his +rival, whereas the woman for various reasons gives herself to hatred of +her rival, and feels only angry contempt for her lover's traitorism. But +Othello--or shall we not say Shakespeare?--discovers in the sincerest +ecstasy of this passion as much of the woman's nature as of the man's. +After seeing his handkerchief in Bianca's hands he asks: + + “How shall I murder him, Iago?” + +Manifestly, Shakespeare is thinking of Herbert and his base betrayal. +Othello would have Cassio thrown to the dogs, would have him “nine years +a-killing”; and though he adds that Desdemona shall “rot and perish and +be damned to-night,” immediately afterwards we see what an infinite +affection for her underlies his anger: + + “O, the world hath not a sweeter creature: she might + lie by an emperor's side and command him tasks.” + +And then Shakespeare uses his brains objectively, so to speak, to excuse +his persistent tenderness, and at once he reveals himself and proves to +us that he is thinking of Mary Fitton, and not of poor Desdemona: + +“Hang her! I do but say what she is.--So delicate with her needle!--An +admirable musician! O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear.--Of +so high and plenteous wit and invention.” + +Shakespeare himself speaks in this passage. For when has Desdemona shown +high and plenteous wit or invention? She is hardly more than a symbol of +constancy. It is Mary Fitton who has “wit and invention,” and is “an +admirable musician.” + +The feminine tenderness in Shakespeare comes to perfect expression in +the next lines; no woman has a more enduring affection: + +“_Iago_. She's the worse for all this. + +_Oth_. O! a thousand, a thousand times. And, then of so gentle a +condition! + +_Iago_. Ay, too gentle. + +_Oth_. Nay, that's certain:--but yet the pity of it, Iago!--O, +Iago, the pity of it, Iago!” + +The tenderness shrills to such exquisite poignancy that it becomes a +universal cry, the soul's lament for traitorism: “The pity of it, Iago! +O, Iago, the pity of it!” Othello's jealous passion is at its height in +the scene with Desdemona when he gives his accusations precise words, +and flings money to Emilia as the guilty confidante. And yet even here, +where he delights to soil his love, his tenderness reaches its most +passionate expression: + + “O thou weed, + Who art so lovely fair, and smell'st so sweet, + That the sense aches at thee--would thou hadst ne'er + been born!” + +As soon as jealousy reaches its end, and passes into revenge, +Shakespeare tries to get back into Othello the captain again. Othello's +first speech in the bedchamber is clear enough in all conscience, but it +has been so mangled by unintelligent actors such as Salvini that it +cries for explanation. Every one will remember how Salvini and others +playing this part stole into the room like murderers, and then bellowed +so that they would have waked the dead. And when the foolish mummers +were criticised for thus misreading the character, they answered boldly +that Othello was a Moor, that his passion was Southern, and I know not +what besides. It is clear that Shakespeare's Othello enters the room +quietly as a justicer with a duty to perform: he keeps his resolution to +the sticking-point by thinking of the offence; he says solemnly: + + “It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul--” + +and, Englishman-like, finds a moral reason for his intended action: + + “Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.” + +But the reason fades and the resolution wavers in the passion for her +“body and beauty,” and the tenderness of the lover comes to hearing +again: + + “[_Kissing her_.”] O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade + Justice to break her sword!--one more, one more.-- + Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, + And love thee after.--One more, and this the last. + So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep, + But they are cruel tears; this sorrow's heavenly; + It strikes where it doth love.--She wakes.” + +So gentle a murderer was never seen save Macbeth, and the “heavenly +sorrow” that strikes where it doth love is one of the best examples in +literature of the Englishman's capacity for hypocritical self-deception. +The subsequent dialogue shows us in Othello the short, plain phrases of +immitigable resolution; in this scene Shakespeare comes nearer to +realizing strength than anywhere else in all his work. But even here his +nature shows itself; Othello has to be misled by Desdemona's weeping, +which he takes to be sorrow for Cassio's death, before he can pass to +action, and as soon as the murder is accomplished, he regrets: + + “O, insupportable! O heavy hour!” + +His frank avowal, however, is excellently characteristic of the soldier +Othello: + + “'Twas I that killed her.” + +A moment later there is a perfect poetic expression of his love: + + “Nay, had she been true + If Heaven would make me such another world + Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, + I'd not have sold her for it.” + +Then comes a revelation of sensuality and physical fastidiousness so +peculiar that by itself it proves much of what I have said of +Shakespeare: + + “_Oth. ... Ay 'twas he that told me first; + An honest man he is, and hates the slime + That sticks on filthy deeds.” + +For a breathing-space now before he is convinced of his fatal error, +Othello speaks as the soldier, but in spite of the fact that he has +fulfilled his revenge, and should be at his sincerest, we have no word +of profound self-revealing. But as soon as he realizes his mistake, his +regret becomes as passionate as a woman's and magical in expression: + + “Cold, cold, my girl! + Even like thy chastity.” + +Another proof that Shakespeare discards the captain, Othello, in order +to give utterance to his own jealousy and love, is to be found in the +similarity between this speech of Othello and the corresponding speech +of Posthumus in “Cymbeline.” As soon as Posthumus is convinced of his +mistake, he calls Iachimo “Italian fiend” and himself “most credulous +fool,” “egregious murderer,” and so forth. He asks for “some upright +justicer” to punish him as he deserves with “cord or knife or poison,” + nay, he will have “torturers ingenious.” He then praises Imogen as “the +temple of virtue,” and again shouts curses at himself and finally calls +upon his love: + + “O Imogen! + My queen, my life, my wife! O Imogen, + Imogen, Imogen!” + +Othello behaves in precisely the same manner; he calls Iago that +“demi-devil,” and himself “an honourable murderer”; and Iago calls him a +“credulous fool.” Othello, too, cries for punishment; instead of +“torturers ingenious,” he will have “devils” to “whip” him, and “roast +him in sulphur.” He praises Desdemona as chaste, “ill-starred wench,” + “my girl,” and so forth; then curses himself lustily and ends his lament +with the words: + + “O Desdemon! dead, Desdemon! dead! O!” + +The same changes in mood, the same words even--the likeness is so close +that it can only be explained as I have explained it; from beginning to +end of “Cymbeline” Posthumus is Shakespeare, and as soon as jealousy, +pity, remorse, or any tender emotion seizes Othello he becomes +Shakespeare too, and speaks with Shakespeare's voice. + +From here on, it is all good work if not great work to Othello's last +speech, which merits particular consideration. He begins as the captain, +but soon passes into the poet; and then towards the end talks again in +quick measure as the man of action. I quote the whole speech, [Footnote: +This speech is curiously like the long speech of Richard II. which I +have already noticed; at the beginning Shakespeare speaks as a king for +a few lines, then naturally as a poet, and at the end pulls himself up +and tries to resume the character.] putting into italics the phrases in +which the poet betrays himself: + + “_Oth_. Soft you; a word or two, before you go. + I have done the State some service, and they know it; + No more of that.--_I pray you_ in your letters, + When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, + Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, + Nor set down aught in malice; then must you speak + _Of one that loved not wisely, but too well; + Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought + Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, + Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away + Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, + Albeit unuséd to the melting mood, + Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees + Their medicinal gum._ Set you down this; + And say, besides, that in Aleppo once, + When a malignant and a turban'd Turk + Beat a Venetian, and traduced the State, + I took by the throat the circumcized dog + And smote him--thus.” + +All the memorable words here are the words of the gentle poet revealing +his own nature ingenuously. The relief given by tears is exquisitely +expressed, but the relief itself is a feminine experience; men usually +find that tears humiliate them, and take refuge from their scalding +shame in anger. The deathless phrases of the poet's grief must be +contrasted with the braggart mouthings of the captain at the end in +order to realize how impossible it was for Shakespeare to depict a man +of deeds. + +In the first two acts Shakespeare has tried to present Othello with some +sincerity and truth to the dramatic fiction. But as soon as jealousy +touches Othello, he becomes the transparent vessel of Shakespeare's own +emotion, and is filled with it as with his heart's blood. All the +magical phrases in the play are phrases of jealousy, passion, and pity. +The character of the captain in Othello is never deeply realized. It is +a brave sketch, but, after all, only the merest sketch when compared +with Hamlet or Macbeth. We know what they thought of life and death, and +of all things in the world and over it; but what do we know of Othello's +thoughts upon the deepest matters that concern man? Did he believe even +in his stories to Desdemona?--in the men whose heads do grow beneath +their shoulders? in his magic handkerchief? in what Iago calls his +“fantastical lies”? This, I submit, is another important indication that +Shakespeare drew Othello, the captain, from the outside; the jealous, +tender heart of him is Shakespeare's, but take that away and we scarcely +know more of him than the colour of his skin. What interests us in +Othello is not his strength, but his weakness, Shakespeare's +weakness--his passion and pity, his torture, rage, jealousy and remorse, +the successive stages of his soul's Calvary! + + + + +CHAPTER IX. DRAMAS OF LUST: PART I. _Troilus and Cressida_ + + “He probed from hell to hell + Of human passions, but of love deflowered + His wisdom was not....” + --_Meredith's Sonnet on Shakespeare_. + +With “Hamlet” and his dreams of an impossible revenge Shakespeare got +rid of some of the perilous stuff which his friend's traitorism had bred +in him. In “Othello” he gave deathless expression to the madness of his +jealous rage and so cleared his soul, to some extent, of that poisonous +infection. But passion in Shakespeare survived hatred of the betrayer +and jealousy of him; he had quickly finished with Herbert; but Mary +Fitton lived still for him and tempted him perpetually--the lust of the +flesh, the desire of the eye, insatiable, cruel as the grave. He will +now portray his mistress for us dramatically--unveil her very soul, show +the gipsy-wanton as she is. He who has always painted in high lights is +now going to paint French fashion, in blackest shadows, for with the +years his passion and his bitterness have grown in intensity. Mary +Fitton is now “false Cressid.” Pandarus says of her in the first scene +of the first act: + + “An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen's--well, + go to--there were no more comparison between + the women.” + +Mary Fitton's hair, we know, was raven-black, but the evidence +connecting Shakespeare's mistress with “false Cressid” is stronger, as +we shall see, than any particular line or expression. + +“Troilus and Cressida” is a wretched, invertebrate play without even a +main current of interest. Of course there are fine phrases in it, as in +most of the productions of Shakespeare's maturity; but the +characterization is worse than careless, and at first one wonders why +Shakespeare wrote the tedious, foolish stuff except to get rid of his +own bitterness in the railing of Thersites, and in the depicting of +Cressida's shameless wantonness. It is impossible to doubt that “false +Cressid” was meant for Mary Fitton. The moment she appears the play +begins to live; personal bitterness turns her portrait into a +caricature; every fault is exaggerated and lashed with rage; it is not +so much a drama as a scene where Shakespeare insults his mistress. + +Let us look at this phase of his passion in perspective. Almost as soon +as he became acquainted with Miss Fitton, about Christmas 1597, +Shakespeare wrote of her as a wanton; yet so long as she gave herself to +him he appears to have been able to take refuge in his tenderness and +endure her strayings. But passion in him grew with what it fed on, and +after she faulted with Lord Herbert, we find him in a sonnet threatening +her that his “pity-wanting pain” may induce him to write of her as she +was. No doubt her pride and scornful strength revolted under this +treatment and she drew away from him. Tortured by desire he would then +praise her with some astonishing phrases; call her “the heart's blood of +beauty, love's invisible soul,” and after some hesitation she would +yield again. No sooner was the “ruined love” rebuilt than she would +offend again, and again he would curse and threaten, and so the +wretched, half-miserable, half-ecstatic life of passion stormed along, +one moment in Heaven, the next in Hell. + +All the while Shakespeare was longing, or thought he was longing for +truth and constancy, and at length he gave form and name to his desire +for winnowed purity of love and perfect constancy, and this consoling +but impalpable ideal he called Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia. But again +and again Miss Fitton reconquered him and at length his accumulated +bitterness compelled him to depict his mistress realistically. Cressida +is his first attempt, the first dramatic portrait of the mistress who +got into Shakespeare's blood and infected the current of his being, and +the portrait is spoiled by the poet's hatred and contempt just as the +whole drama is spoiled by a passion of bitterness that is surely the +sign of intense personal suffering. Cressida is depicted as a vile +wanton, a drab by nature; but it is no part even of this conception to +make her soulless and devilish. On the contrary, an artist of +Shakespeare's imaginative sympathy loves to put in high relief the grain +of good in things evil and the taint of evil in things good that give +humanity its curious complexity. Shakespeare observed this rule of +dramatic presentation more consistently than any of his predecessors or +contemporaries--more consistently, more finely far than Homer or +Sophocles, whose heroes had only such faults as their creators thought +virtues; why then did he forget nature so far as to picture “false +Cressida” without a redeeming quality? He first shows her coquetting +with Troilus, and her coquetry even is unattractive, shallow, and +obvious; then she gives herself to Troilus out of passionate desire; but +Shakespeare omits to tell us why she takes up with Diomedes immediately +afterwards. We are to understand merely that she is what Ulysses calls a +“sluttish spoil of opportunity,” and “daughter of the game.” But as +passionate desire is not of necessity faithless we are distressed and +puzzled by her soulless wantonness. And when she goes on to present +Diomedes with the scarf that Troilus gave her, we revolt; the woman is +too full of blood to be so entirely heartless. Here is the scene +embittered by the fact that Troilus witnesses Cressida's betrayal: + + “_Diomedes._ I had your heart before, this follows it. + + _Troilus._ [_Aside._] I did swear patience. + + _Cressida._ You shall not have it, Diomed, faith you shall not; + I'll give you something else. + + _Diomedes._ I will have this: whose was it? + + _Cressida._ It is no matter. + + _Diomedes._ Come, tell me whose it was? + + _Cressida_. 'Twas one that loved me better than you will, + But, now you have it, take it.” + +The scene is a splendid dramatic scene, a piece torn from life, so +realistic that it convinces, and yet we revolt; we feel that we have not +got to the heart of the mystery. There is so much evil in Cressida that +we want to see the spark of goodness in her, however fleeting and +ineffective the spark may be. But Shakespeare makes her attempt at +justification a confession of absolute faithlessness: + + “Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee, + But with my heart the other eye doth see. + Ah! poor our sex! This fault in us I find, + The error of our eye directs our mind.” + +This is plainly Shakespeare's reflection and not Cressida's apology, and +if we contrast this speech with the dialogue given above, it becomes +plain, I think, that the terrible scene with Diomedes is taken from +life, or is at least Shakespeare's vision of the way Mary Fitton +behaved. There's a magic in those devilish words of Cressida that +outdoes imagination: + + “'Twas one that loved me better than you will, + But, now you have it, take it.” + +And then: + + “Sweet, honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly:” + +The very power of the characterization makes the traitress hateful. If +Mary Fitton ever gave any gift of Shakespeare to Lord Herbert, the +dramatist should have known that she no longer loved him, had in reality +already forgotten him in her new passion; but to paint a woman as +remembering a lover, indeed as still loving him, and yet as giving his +gift to another, is an offence in art though it may be true to nature. +It is a fault in art because it is impossible to motive it in a few +lines. The fact of the gift is bad enough; without explanation it is +horrible. For this and other reasons I infer that Shakespeare took the +fact from his own experience: he had suffered, it seems to me, from some +such traitorism on the part of his mistress, or he ascribed to Mary +Fitton some traitorism of his own. + +In sonnet 122 he finds weighty excuse for having given away the +table-book which his friend had given to him. His own confessed +shortcoming might have taught him to exercise more lenient judgment +towards his frail love. + +But when Shakespeare wrote “Troilus and Cressida” a passion of +bitterness possessed him; he not only vilified Cressida but all the +world, Agamemnon, Nestor, Achilles, Ajax; he seems indeed to have taken +more pleasure in the railing of Thersites than in any other part of the +work except the scourging of Cressida. He shocks us by the picture of +Achilles and his myrmidons murdering Hector when they come upon him +unarmed. + +One or two incidental difficulties must be settled before we pass to a +greater play. + +“Troilus and Cressida” has always been regarded as a sort of enigma. +Professor Dowden asks: “With what intention and in what spirit did +Shakespeare write this strange comedy? All the Greek heroes who fought +against Troy are pitilessly exposed to ridicule?” And from this fact and +the bitterness of “Timon” some German critics have drawn the inference +that Shakespeare was incapable of comprehending Greek life, and that +indeed he only realized his Romans so perfectly because the Roman was +very like the Briton in his mastery of practical affairs, of the details +of administration and of government. This is an excellent instance of +German prejudice. No one could have been better fitted than Shakespeare +to understand Greek civilization and Greek art with its supreme love of +plastic beauty, but his master Plutarch gave him far better pictures of +Roman life than of Greek life, partly because Plutarch lived in the time +of Roman domination and partly because he was in far closer sympathy +with the masters of practical affairs than with artists in stone like +Phidias or artists in thought like Plato. The true explanation of +Shakespeare's caricatures of Greek life, whether Homeric or Athenian, is +to be found in the fact that he was not only entirely ignorant of it but +prejudiced against it. And this prejudice in him had an obvious root. +Chapman had just translated and published the first books of his Iliad, +and Chapman was the poet whom Shakespeare speaks of as his rival in +Sonnets 78-86. He cannot help smiling at the “strained touches” of +Chapman's rhetoric and his heavy learning. Those who care to remember +the first scene of “Love's Labour's Lost” will recall how Shakespeare in +that early work mocked at learning and derided study. When he first +reached London he was no doubt despised for his ignorance of Greek and +Latin; he had had to bear the sneers and flouts of the many who +appraised learning, an university training and gentility above genius. +He took the first opportunity of answering his critics: + + “Small have continual plodders ever won, + Save bare authority from others' books.” + +But the taunts rankled, and when the bitter days came of disappointment +and disillusion he took up that Greek life which his rival had tried to +depict in its fairest colours, and showed what he thought was the seamy +side of it. But had he known anything of Greek life and Greek art it +would have been his pleasure to outdo his rival by giving at once a +truer and a fairer presentation of Greece than Chapman could conceive. +It is the rivalry of Chapman that irritates Shakespeare into pouring +contempt on Greek life in “Troilus and Cressida.” As Chapman was for the +Greeks, Shakespeare took sides with the Trojans. + +But why do I assume that “Troilus and Cressida” is earlier than “Antony +and Cleopatra?” Some critics, and among them Dr. Brandes, place it +later, and they have some reason for their belief. The bitterness in +“Troilus and Cressida,” they say rightly, is more intense; and as +Shakespeare's disappointment with men and things appears to have +increased from “Hamlet” to “Timon,” or from 1602 to 1607-8, they put the +bitterer play later. Cogent as is this reasoning, I cannot believe that +Shakespeare could have painted Cressida after having painted Cleopatra. +The same model has evidently served for both women; but while Cleopatra +is perhaps the most superb portrait of a courtesan in all literature, +Cressida is a crude and harsh sketch such as a Dumas or a Pinero might +have conceived. + +It is more than probable, I think, that “Troilus and Cressida” was +planned and the love-story at least written about 1603, while +Shakespeare's memory of one of his mistress's betrayals was still vivid +and sharp. The play was taken up again four or five years later and the +character of Ulysses deepened and strengthened. In this later revision +the outlook is so piercing-sad, the phrases of such pregnancy, that the +work must belong to Shakespeare's ripest maturity. Moreover, he has +grown comparatively careless of characterization as in all his later +work; he gives his wise sayings almost as freely to Achilles as to +Ulysses. + +“Troilus and Cressida” is interesting because it establishes the opinion +that Chapman was indeed the rival poet whom Shakespeare referred to in +the sonnets, and especially because it shows us the poet's mistress +painted in a rage of erotic passion so violent that it defeats itself, +and the portrait becomes an incredible caricature--that way madness +lies. “Troilus and Cressida” points to “Lear” and “Timon.” + + + + +CHAPTER X. DRAMAS OF LUST: PART II. _Antony and Cleopatra_ + + +We now come to the finest work of Shakespeare's maturity, to the drama +in which his passion for Mary Fitton finds supreme expression. + +“Antony and Cleopatra” is an astonishing production not yet fairly +appreciated even in England, and perhaps not likely to be appreciated +anywhere at its full worth for many a year to come. But when we English +have finally left that dark prison of Puritanism and lived for some time +in the sun-light where the wayside crosses are hidden under climbing +roses, we shall probably couple “Antony and Cleopatra” with “Hamlet” in +our love as Shakespeare's supremest works. It was fitting that the same +man who wrote “Romeo and Juliet,” the incomparable symphony of first +love, should also write “Antony and Cleopatra,” the far more wonderful +and more terrible tragedy of mature passion. + +Let us begin with the least interesting part of the play, and we shall +see that all the difficulties in it resolve themselves as soon as we +think of it as Shakespeare's own confession. Wherever he leaves +Plutarch, it is to tell his own story. + +Some critics have reproached Shakespeare with the sensualism of “Romeo +and Juliet”; no one, so far as I can remember, has blamed the Sapphic +intensity of “Antony and Cleopatra,” where the lust of the flesh and +desire of the eye reign triumphant. Professor Dowden indeed says: “The +spirit of the play, though superficially it appear voluptuous, is +essentially severe. That is to say, Shakespeare is faithful to the +fact.” Antony and Cleopatra kill themselves, forsooth, and thus +conventional virtue is justified by self-murder. So superficial and +false a judgement is a quaint example of mid-Victorian taste: it reminds +me of the horsehair sofa and the antimacassar. Would Professor Dowden +have had Shakespeare alter the historical facts, making Antony conquer +Caesar and Cleopatra triumph over death? Would this have been sufficient +to prove to the professor that Shakespeare's morals are not his, and +that the play is certainly the most voluptuous in modern literature? +Well, this is just what Shakespeare has done. Throughout the play Caesar +is a subordinate figure while Antony is the protagonist and engages all +our sympathies; whenever they meet Antony shows as the larger, richer, +more generous nature. In every act he conquers Caesar; leaving on us the +gorgeous ineffaceable impression of a great personality whose superb +temperament moves everyone to admiration and love; Caesar, on the other +hand, affects one as a calculating machine. + +But Shakespeare's fidelity to the fact is so extraordinary that he gives +Caesar one speech which shows his moral superiority to Antony. When his +sister weeps on hearing that Antony has gone back to Cleopatra, Caesar +bids her dry her tears, + + ... + But let determined things to destiny + Hold unbewailed their way ...” + +This line alone suffices to show why Antony was defeated; the force of +imperial Rome is in the great phrase; but Shakespeare will not admit his +favourite's inferiority, and in order to explain Antony's defeat +Shakespeare represents luck as being against him, luck or fate, and this +is not the only or even the chief proof of the poet's partiality. +Pompey, who scarcely notices Caesar when Antony is by, says of Antony: + + “his soldiership + Is twice the other twain.” + +And, indeed, Antony in the play appears to be able to beat Caesar +whenever he chooses or whenever he is not betrayed. + +All the personages of the play praise Antony, and when he dies the most +magnificent eulogy of him is pronounced by Agrippa, Caesar's friend: + + “A rarer spirit never + Did steer humanity; but you, Gods, will give us + Some faults to make us men.” + +Antony is even permitted at the last to console himself; he declares +exultantly that in the other world the ghosts shall come to gaze at him +and Cleopatra, and: + + “Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops.” + +Shakespeare makes conquering Caesar admit the truth of this boast: + + “No grave upon the earth shall clip in it + A pair so famous.” + +To win in life universal admiration and love, and in death imperishable +renown, is to succeed in spite of failure and suicide, and this is the +lesson which Shakespeare read into Plutarch's story. Even Enobarbus is +conquered at the last by Antony's noble magnanimity. But why does +Shakespeare show this extraordinary, this extravagant liking for him who +was “the bellows and the fan to cool a gipsy's lust,” for that Marc +Antony who might have been the master of the world, and who threw away +empire, life, and honour to be “a strumpet's fool?” There is only one +possible explanation: Shakespeare felt the most intense, the most +intimate sympathy with Antony because he, too, was passion's slave, and +had himself experienced with his dark mistress, Mary Fitton, the +ultimate degradation of lust. For this reason he took Plutarch's +portrait of Antony, and, by emphasizing the kingly traits, transformed +it. In the play, as Dr. Brandes sees, Antony takes on something of the +“artist-nature.” It is Antony's greatness and weakness; the spectacle of +a high intellect struggling with an overpowering sensuality; of a noble +nature at odds with passionate human frailty, that endeared him to +Shakespeare. The pomp of Antony's position, too, and his kingly +personality pleased our poet. As soon as Shakespeare reached maturity, +he began to depict himself as a monarch; from “Twelfth Night” on he +assumed royal state in his plays, and surely in this figure of Antony he +must for the moment have satisfied his longing for regal magnificence +and domination. From the first scene to the last Antony is a king of men +by right divine of nature. + +It is, however, plain that Antony's pride, his superb mastery of life, +the touch of imperious brutality in him, are all traits taken from +Plutarch, and are indeed wholly inconsistent with Shakespeare's own +character. Had Shakespeare possessed these qualities his portraits of +men of action would have been infinitely better than they are, while his +portraits of the gentle thinker and lover of the arts, his Hamlets and +his Dukes, would have been to seek. + +The personal note of every one of his great tragedies is that +Shakespeare feels he has failed in life, failed lamentably. His Brutus, +we feel, failed of necessity because of his aloofness from practical +life; his Coriolanus, too, had to fail, and almost forgoes sympathy by +his faults; but this Antony ought not to have failed: we cannot +understand why the man leaves the sea-battle to follow Cleopatra's +flight, who but an act or two before, with lesser reason, realized his +danger and was able to break off from his enchantress. Yet the passion +of desire that sways Antony is so splendidly portrayed; is, too, so +dominant in all of us, that we accept it at once as explaining the +inexplicable. + +In measure as Shakespeare ennobled Antony, the historical fact of +ultimate defeat and failure allowed him to degrade Cleopatra. And this +he did willingly enough, for from the moment he took up the subject he +identified the Queen of Egypt with his own faithless mistress, Mary +Fitton, whom he had already tried to depict as “false Cressid.” This +identification of himself and his own experience of passion with the +persons and passions of the story explains some of the faults of the +drama; while being the source, also, of its singular splendour. + +In this play we have the finest possible example of the strife between +Shakespeare's yielding poetic temperament and the severity of his +intellect. He heaps praises on Antony, as we have seen, from all sides; +he loved the man as a sort of superb _alter ego_, and yet his +intellectual fairness is so extraordinary that it compelled him to +create a character who should uphold the truth even against his heart's +favourite. Dr. Brandes speaks of Enobarbus as a “sort of chorus”; he is +far more than that; he is the intellectual conscience of the play, a +weight, so to speak, to redress the balance which Shakespeare used this +once and never again. What a confession this is of personal partiality! +A single instance will suffice to prove my point: Shakespeare makes +Antony cast the blame for the flight at Actium on Cleopatra, and manages +almost to hide the unmanly weakness of the plaint by its infinitely +pathetic wording: + + “Whither hast them led me, Egypt? + +A little later Cleopatra asks: + + “Is Antony or we in fault for this?” + +and at once Enobarbus voices the exact truth: + + “Antony only, that would make his will + Lord of his reason. What though you fled + . . . . . . + . . . why should he follow?” + +Again and again Antony reproaches Cleopatra, and again and again +Enobarbus is used to keep the truth before us. Some of these reproaches, +it seems to me, are so extravagant and so ill-founded that they discover +the personal passion of the poet. For example, Antony insults Cleopatra: + + “You have been a boggler ever.” + +And the proof forsooth is: + + “I found you as a morsel cold upon + Dead Caesar's trencher.” + +But to have been Caesar's mistress was Cleopatra's chief title to fame. +Shakespeare is here probably reviling Mary Fitton for being deserted by +some early lover. Curiously enough, this weakness of Antony increases +the complexity of his character, while the naturalistic passion of his +words adds enormously to the effect of the play. Again and again in this +drama Shakespeare's personal vindictiveness serves an artistic purpose. +The story of “Troilus and Cressida” is in itself low and vile, and when +loaded with Shakespeare's bitterness outrages probability; but the love +of Antony and Cleopatra is so overwhelming that it goes to ruin and +suicide and beyond, and when intensified by Shakespeare's personal +feeling becomes a world's masterpiece. + +We have already seen that the feminine railing Shakespeare puts in the +mouth of Antony increases the realistic effect, and just in the same way +the low cunning, temper, and mean greed which he attributes to +Cleopatra, transform her from a somewhat incomprehensible historical +marionette into the most splendid specimen of the courtesan in the +world's literature. Heine speaks of her contemptuously as a “kept +woman,” but the epithet only shows how Heine in default of knowledge +fell back on his racial gift of feminine denigration. Even before she +enters we see that Shakespeare has not forgiven his dark scornful +mistress; Cleopatra is the finest picture he ever painted of Mary +Fitton; but Antony's friends tell us, at the outset, she is a “lustful +gipsy,” a “strumpet,” and at first she merely plays on Antony's +manliness; she sends for him, and when he comes, departs. A little later +she sends again, telling her messenger: + + “I did not send you: if you find him sad, + Say, I am dancing; if in mirth, report + That I am sudden sick: quick, and return.” + +And when Charmian, her woman, declares that the way to keep a man is to +“cross him in nothing,” she replies scornfully: + + “Thou teachest, like a fool, the way to lose him.” + +She uses a dozen taunts to prevent her lover from leaving her; but when +she sees him resolved, she wishes him victory and success. And so +through a myriad changes of mood and of cunning wiles we discover that +love for Antony which is the anchor to her unstable nature. + +The scene with the eunuch Mardian is a little gem. She asks: + + “Hast thou affections? + _Mar_. Yes, gracious madam. + _Cleo_. Indeed? + _Mar_. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing. + But what indeed is honest to be done; + Yet have I fierce affections, and think + What Venus did with Mars. + _Cleo_. O, Charmian! + Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?” + +She is with her lover again, and recalls his phrase for her, “my serpent +of old Nile,” and feeds herself with love's “delicious poison.” + +No sooner does she win our sympathy by her passion for Antony than +Shakespeare chills our admiration by showing her as the courtesan: + + “_Cleo_. Did I, Charmian, + Ever love Caesar so? + + _Char_. O, that brave Caesar! + + _Cleo_. Be choked with such another emphasis! + Say, the brave Antony. + + _Char_. The valiant Caesar! + + _Cleo_. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth + If thou with Caesar paragon again + My man of men. + + _Char_. By your most gracious pardon, + I sing but after you. + + _Cleo_. My salad days, + When I was green in judgement: cold in blood, + To say as I said then!” + +Already we see and know her, her wiles, her passion, her quick temper, +her chameleon-like changes, her subtle charms of person and of word, and +yet we have not reached the end of the first act. Next to Falstaff and +to Hamlet, Cleopatra is the most astonishing piece of portraiture in all +Shakespeare. Enobarbus gives the soul of her: + + “_Ant_. She is cunning past man's thought. + + _Eno_. Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing + but the finest part of pure love.... + + _Ant_. Would I had never seen her! + + _Eno_. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful + piece of work; which not to have been blest withal would + have discredited your travel.” + +Here Shakespeare gives his true opinion of Mary Fitton: then comes the +miraculous expression: + + “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale + Her infinite variety. Other women cloy + The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry + Where most she satisfies.” + +Act by act Shakespeare makes the portrait more complex and more perfect. +In the second act she calls for music like the dark lady of the Sonnets: + + “Music--moody food of us that trade in love,” + +and then she'll have no music, but will play billiards, and not +billiards either, but will fish and think every fish caught an Antony. +And again she flies to memory: + + “That time--O times!-- + I laughed him out of patience; and that night + I laughed him into patience; and next morn, + Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed; + Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst + I wore his sword Philippan.” + +The charm of it all, the deathless charm and the astounding veracity! +The messenger enters, and she promises him for good news “gold and her +bluest veins to kiss.” When she hears that Antony is well she pours more +gold on him, but when he pauses in his recital she has a mind to strike +him. When he tells that Caesar and Antony are friends, it is a fortune +she'll give; but when she learns that Antony is betrothed to Octavia she +turns to her women with “I am pale, Charmian,” and when she hears that +Antony is married she flies into a fury, strikes the messenger down and +hales him up and down the room by his hair. When he runs from her knife +she sends for him: + + “I will not hurt him. + These hands do lack nobility, that they strike + A meaner than myself.” + +She has the fascination of great pride and the magic of manners. When +the messenger returns she is a queen again, most courteous-wise: + + “Come hither, sir. + Though it be honest, it is never good + To bring bad news.” + +She wants to know the features of Octavia, her years, her inclination, +the colour of her hair, her height--everything. + +A most veracious full-length portrait, with the minute finish of a +miniature; it shows how Shakespeare had studied every fold and foible of +Mary Fitton's soul. In the third act Cleopatra takes up again the theme +of Octavia's appearance, only to run down her rival, and so salve her +wounded vanity and cheat her heart to hope. The messenger, too, who +lends himself to her humour now becomes a proper man. Shakespeare seizes +every opportunity to add another touch to the wonderful picture. + +Cleopatra appears next in Antony's camp at Actium talking with +Enobarbus: + + “_Cleo_. I will be even with thee, doubt it not. + + _Eno_. But why, why, why? + + _Cleo_. Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars, + And say'st it is not fit.” + +Each phrase of the dialogue reveals her soul, dark fold on fold. + +She is the only person who strengthens Antony in his quixotic-foolish +resolve to fight at sea. + + “_Cleo_. I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.” + +And then the shameful flight. + +I have pursued this bald analysis thus far, not for pleasure merely, but +to show the miracle of that portraiture the traits of which can bear +examination one by one. So far Cleopatra is, as Enobarbus calls her, “a +wonderful piece of work,” a woman of women, inscrutable, cunning, +deceitful, prodigal, with a good memory for injuries, yet as quick to +forgiveness as to anger, a minion of the moon, fleeting as water yet +loving-true withal, a sumptuous bubble, whose perpetual vagaries are but +perfect obedience to every breath of passion. But now Shakespeare +without reason makes her faithless to Antony and to love. In the second +scene of the third act Thyreus comes to her with Caesar's message: + + “_Thyr_. He knows that you embrace not Antony + As you did love but as you feared him. + + _Cleo_. O! + + _Thyr_. The scars upon your honour therefore he + Does pity as constrained blemishes, + Not as deserved. + + _Cleo_. He is a god, and knows + What is most right. Mine honour was not yielded, + But conquered merely. + + _Eno_. [_Aside_.] To be sure of that + I will ask Antony.--Sir, sir, thou'rt so leaky + That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for + Thy dearest quit thee.” + +And when Thyreus asks her to leave Antony and put herself under Caesar's +protection, who “desires to give,” she tells him: + + “I am prompt + To lay my crown at his feet, and there to kneel.” + +Thyreus then asks for grace to lay his duty on her hand. She gives it to +him with the words: + + “Your Caesar's father oft, + When he hath mused of taking kingdoms in, + Bestowed his lips on that unworthy place + As it rained kisses.” + +It is as if Antony were forgotten, clean wiped from her mind. The whole +scene is a libel upon Cleopatra and upon womanhood. When betrayed, women +are faithless out of anger, pique, desire of revenge; they are faithless +out of fear, out of ambition, for fancy's sake--for fifty motives, but +not without motive. It would have been easy to justify this scene. All +the dramatist had to do was to show us that Cleopatra, a proud woman and +scorned queen, could not forget Antony's faithlessness in leaving her to +marry Octavia; but she never mentions Octavia, never seems to remember +her after she has got Antony back. This omission, too, implies a slur +upon her. Nor does she kiss Caesar's “conquering hand” out of fear. +Thyreus has told her it would please Caesar if she would make of his +fortunes a staff to lean upon; she has no fear, and her ambitions are +wreathed round Antony: Caesar has nothing to offer that can tempt her, +as we shall see later. The scene is a libel upon her. The more one +studies it, the clearer it becomes that Shakespeare wrote it out of +wounded personal feeling. Cleopatra's prototype, Mary Fitton, had +betrayed him again and again, and the faithlessness rankled. Cleopatra, +therefore, shall be painted as faithless, without cause, as Cressid was, +from incurable vice of nature. Shakespeare tried to get rid of his +bitterness in this way, and if his art suffered, so much the worse for +his art. Curiously enough, in this instance, for reasons that will +appear later, the artistic effect is deepened. + +The conclusion of this scene, where Thyreus is whipped and Cleopatra +overwhelmed with insults by Antony, does not add much to our knowledge +of Cleopatra's character: one may notice, however, that it is the +reproach of cold-heartedness that she catches up to answer. The scene +follows in which she plays squire to Antony and helps to buckle on his +armour. But this scene (invented by Shakespeare), which might bring out +the sweet woman-weakness in her, and so reconcile us to her again, is +used against her remorselessly by the poet. When Antony wakes and cries +for his armour she begs him to “sleep a little”; the touch is natural +enough, but coming after her faithlessness to her lover and her +acceptance of Caesar it shows more than human frailty. It is plain that, +intent upon ennobling Antony, Shakespeare is willing to degrade +Cleopatra beyond nature. Then comes Antony's victory, and his passion at +length finds perfect lyrical expression: + + “O thou day o' the world, + Chain mine armed neck; leap thou, attire and all, + Through proof of harness to my heart, and there + Ride on the pants triumphing.” + +At once Cleopatra catches fire with that responsive flame of womanhood +which was surely her chiefest charm: + + “Lord of lords! + O infinite virtue! Com'st thou smiling from + The world's great snare uncaught?” + +What magic in the utterance, what a revelation of Cleopatra's character +and of Shakespeare's! To Cleopatra's feminine weakness the world seems +one huge snare which only cunning may escape. + +Another day, and final irremediable defeat drives her in fear to the +monument and to that pretended suicide which is the immediate cause of +Antony's despair: + + “Unarm, Eros: the long day's task is done, + And we must sleep.” + +When Antony leaves the stage, Shakespeare's idealizing vision turns to +Cleopatra. About this point, too, the historical fact fetters +Shakespeare and forces him to realize the other side of Cleopatra. After +Antony's death Cleopatra did kill herself. One can only motive and +explain this suicide by self-immolating love. It is natural that at +first Shakespeare will have it that Cleopatra's nobility of nature is +merely a reflection, a light borrowed from Antony. She will not open the +monument to let the dying man enter, but her sincerity and love enable +us to forgive this: + + “I dare not, dear,-- + Dear my lord, pardon,--I dare not, + Lest I be taken....” + +Here occurs a fault of taste which I find inexplicable. While Cleopatra +and her women are drawing Antony up, he cries; + + “O quick, or I am gone.” + +And Cleopatra answers: + + “Here's sport, indeed!--How heavy weighs my lord! + Our strength has all gone into heaviness, + That makes the weight.” + +The “Here's sport, indeed”! seems to me a terrible fault, an inexcusable +lapse of taste. I should like to think it a misprint or misreading, but +it is unfortunately like Shakespeare in a certain mood, possible to him, +at least, here as elsewhere. + +Cleopatra's lament over Antony's dead body is a piece of Shakespeare's +self-revealing made lyrical by beauty of word and image. The allusion to +his boy-rival, Pembroke, is unmistakable; for women are not contemptuous +of youth: + + “Young boys and girls + Are level now with men; the odds is gone, + And there is nothing left remarkable + Beneath the visiting moon.” + +When Cleopatra comes to herself after swooning, her anger is +characteristic because wholly unexpected; it is one sign more that +Shakespeare had a living model in his mind: + + “It were for me + To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods; + To tell them that this world did equal theirs + Till they had stolen our jewel. All's but naught.” + +Her resolve to kill herself is borrowed: + + “We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble, + Let's do it after the high Roman fashion, + And make death proud to take us.” + +But the resolution holds: + + “It is great + To do that thing that ends all other deeds, + Which shackles accidents and bolts up change.” + +It is this greatness of soul in Cleopatra which Shakespeare has now to +portray. Caesar's messenger, Proculeius, whom Antony has told her to +trust, promises her everything in return for her “sweet dependency.” On +being surprised she tries to kill herself, and when disarmed shows again +that characteristic petulant anger: + + “Sir, I will eat no meat, I'll not drink, sir; + . . . . . This mortal house I'll ruin, + Do Caesar what he can.” + +And her reasons are all of pride and hatred of disgrace. She'll not be +“chastised with the sober eye of dull Octavia,” nor shown “to the +shouting varletry of censuring Rome.” Her imagination is at work now, +that quick forecast of the mind that steels her desperate resolve: + + “Rather on Nilus' mud + Lay me stark nak'd, and let the water-flies + Blow me into abhorring.” + +The heroic mood passes. She tries to deceive Caesar as to her wealth, +and is shamed by her treasurer Seleucus. The scene is appalling; poor +human nature stripped to the skin--all imperfections exposed; Cleopatra +cheating, lying, raging like a drab; her words to Seleucus are merciless +while self-revealing: + + “O slave, of no more trust + Than love that's hired.” + +This scene deepens and darkens the impression made by her unmotived +faithlessness to Antony. It is, however, splendidly characteristic and I +think needful; but it renders that previous avowal of faithlessness to +Antony altogether superfluous, the sole fault in an almost perfect +portrait. For, as I have said already, Shakespeare's mistakes in +characterization nearly always spring from his desire to idealize; but +here his personal vindictiveness comes to help his art. The historical +fact compels him now to give his harlot, Cleopatra, heroic attributes; +in spite of Caesar's threats to treat her sons severely if she dares to +take her own life and thus deprive his triumph of its glory, she outwits +him and dies a queen, a worthy descendant, as Charmian says, of “many +royal kings.” Nothing but personal bitterness could have prevented +Shakespeare from idealizing such a woman out of likeness to humanity. +But in this solitary and singular case his personal suffering bound him +to realism though the history justified idealization. The high lights +were for once balanced by the depths of shadow, and a masterpiece was +the result. + +Shakespeare leaves out Caesar's threats to put Cleopatra's sons to +death; had he used these menaces he would have made Caesar more natural +in my opinion, given a touch of characteristic brutality to the +calculating intellect; but he omitted them probably because he felt that +Cleopatra's pedestal was high enough without that addition. + +The end is very characteristic of Shakespeare's temper. Caesar becomes +nobly generous; he approves Cleopatra's wisdom in swearing falsehoods +about her treasure; he will not reckon with her like “a merchant,” and +Cleopatra herself puts on the royal robes, and she who has played wanton +before us so long becomes a queen of queens. And yet her character is +wonderfully maintained; no cunning can cheat this mistress of duplicity: + + “He words me, girls, he words me that I should not + Be noble to myself.” + +She holds to her heroic resolve; she will never be degraded before the +base Roman public; she will not see + + “Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness.” + +It is, perhaps, worth noting here that Shakespeare lends Cleopatra, as +he afterwards lent Coriolanus, his own delicate senses and neuropathic +loathing for mechanic slaves with “greasy aprons” and “thick breaths +rank of gross diet”; it is Shakespeare too and not Cleopatra who speaks +of death as bringing “liberty.” In “Cymbeline,” Shakespeare's mask +Posthumus dwells on the same idea. But these lapses are momentary; the +superb declaration that follows is worthy of the queen: + + “My resolution's placed, and I have nothing + Of woman in me: now from head to foot + I am marble-constant; now the fleeting moon + No planet is of mine.” + +The scene with the clown who brings the “pretty worm” is the solid +ground of reality on which Cleopatra rests for a breathing space before +rising into the blue: + + “_Cleo_. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have + Immortal longings in me. Now no more + The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip.-- + Yare, yare, good Iras! quick.--Methinks I hear + Antony call; I see him rouse himself + To praise my noble act; I hear him mock + The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men + To excuse their after-wrath. Husband, I come, + Now to that name my courage prove my title! + I am fire and air; my other elements + I give to baser life.” + +The whole speech is miraculous in speed of mounting emotion, and when +Iras dies first, this Cleopatra finds again the perfect word in which +truth and beauty meet: + + “This proves me base: + If she first meet the curled Antony + He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss + Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou mortal wretch, + [_To the asp, which she applies to her breast_.] + With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate + Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool, + Be angry, and despatch. O, could'st thou speak, + That I might hear thee call great Caesar, ass + Unpolicied!” + +The characteristic high temper of Mary Fitton breaking out again--“ass +unpolicied”--and then the end: + + “Peace, peace! + Dost thou not see my baby at my breast, + That sucks the nurse asleep?” + +The final touch is of soft pleasure: + + “As sweet a balm, as soft as air, as gentle,-- + Antony!--Nay, I will take thee too. + [_Applying another asp to her arm_.] + What should I stay--” + +For ever fortunate in her self-inflicted death Cleopatra thereby frees +herself from the ignominy of certain of her actions: she is woman at +once and queen, and if she cringes lower than other women, she rises, +too, to higher levels than other women know. The historical fact of her +self-inflicted death forced the poet to make false Cressid a +Cleopatra--and his wanton gipsy-mistress was at length redeemed by a +passion of heroic resolve. The majority of critics are still debating +whether indeed Cleopatra is the “dark lady” of the sonnets or not. +Professor Dowden puts forward the theory as a daring conjecture; but the +identity of the two cannot be doubted. It is impossible not to notice +that Shakespeare makes Cleopatra, who was a fair Greek, gipsy-dark like +his sonnet-heroine. He says, too, of the “dark lady” of the sonnets: + + “Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, + That in the very refuse of thy deeds + There is such strength and warrantise of skill, + That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?” + +Enobarbus praises Cleopatra in precisely the same words: + + “Vilest things, + Become themselves in her.” + +Antony, too, uses the same expression: + + “Fie, wrangling queen! + Whom everything becomes--to chide, to laugh, + To weep; whose every passion fully strives + To make itself, in thee, fair and admired.” + +These professors have no distinct mental image of the “dark lady” or of +Cleopatra, or they would never talk of “daring conjecture” in regard to +this simple identification. The points of likeness are numberless. +Ninety-nine poets and dramatists out of a hundred would have followed +Plutarch and made Cleopatra's love for Antony the mainspring of her +being, the _causa causans_ of her self-murder. Shakespeare does not +do this; he allows the love of Antony to count with her, but it is +imperious pride and hatred of degradation that compel his Cleopatra to +embrace the Arch-fear. And just this same quality of pride is attributed +to the “dark lady.” Sonnet 131 begins: + + “Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, + As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel.” + +Both are women of infinite cunning and small regard for faith or truth; +hearts steeled with an insane pride, and violent tempers suited with +scolding slanderous tongues. Prolonged analysis is not needed. A point +of seeming difference between them establishes their identity. Cleopatra +is beautiful, “a lass unparalleled,” as Charmian calls her, and +accordingly we can believe that all emotions became her, and that when +hopping on the street or pretending to die she was alike be-witching; +beauty has this magic. But how can all things become a woman who is not +beautiful, whose face some say “hath not the power to make love groan,” + who cannot even blind the senses with desire? And yet the “dark lady” of +the sonnets who is thus described, has the “powerful might” of +personality in as full measure as Egypt's queen. The point of seeming +unlikeness is as convincing as any likeness could be; the peculiarities +of both women are the same and spring from the same dominant quality. +Cleopatra is cunning, wily, faithless, passionately unrestrained in +speech and proud as Lucifer, and so is the sonnet-heroine. We may be +sure that the faithlessness, scolding, and mad vanity of his mistress +were defects in Shakespeare's eyes as in ours; these, indeed, were “the +things ill” which nevertheless became her. What Shakespeare loved in her +was what he himself lacked or possessed in lesser degree--that dæmonic +power of personality which he makes Enobarbus praise in Cleopatra and +which he praises directly in the sonnet-heroine. Enobarbus says of +Cleopatra: + + “I saw her once + Hop forty paces through the public street, + And, having lost her breath, she spoke and panted, + That she did make defect perfection, + And, breathless, power breathe forth.” + +One would be willing to wager that Shakespeare is here recalling a +performance of his mistress; but it is enough for my purpose now to draw +attention to the unexpectedness of the attribute “power.” The sonnet +fastens on the same word: + + “O, from what power hast thou this powerful might + With insufficiency my heart to sway?” + +In the same sonnet he again dwells upon her “strength”: she was bold, +too, to unreason, and of unbridled tongue, for, “twice forsworn +herself,” she had yet urged his “amiss,” though guilty of the same +fault. What he admired most in her was force of character. Perhaps the +old saying held in her case: _ex forti dulcedo_; perhaps her +confident strength had abandonments more flattering and complete than +those of weaker women; perhaps in those moments her forceful dark face +took on a soulful beauty that entranced his exquisite susceptibility; +perhaps--but the suppositions are infinite. + +Though a lover and possessed by his mistress Shakespeare was still an +artist. In the sonnets he brings out her overbearing will, boldness, +pride--the elemental force of her nature; in the play, on the other +hand, while just mentioning her “power,” he lays the chief stress upon +the cunning wiles and faithlessness of her whose trade was love. But +just as Cleopatra has power, so there can be no doubt of the wily +cunning--“the warrantise of skill”--of the sonnet-heroine, and no doubt +her faithlessness was that “just cause of hate” which Shakespeare +bemoaned. + +It is worth while here to notice his perfect comprehension of the powers +and limits of the different forms of his art. Just as he has used the +sonnets in order to portray certain intimate weaknesses and maladies of +his own nature that he could not present dramatically without making his +hero ridiculously effeminate, so also he used the sonnets to convey to +us the domineering will and strength of his mistress--qualities which if +presented dramatically would have seemed masculine-monstrous. + +By taking the sonnets and the play together we get an excellent portrait +of Shakespeare's mistress. In person she was probably tall and vain of +her height, as Cleopatra is vain of her superiority in this respect to +Octavia, with dark complexion, black eyebrows and hair, and pitch-black +eyes that mirrored emotion as the lakelet mirrors the ever-changing +skies; her cheeks are “damask'd white”; her breath fragrant with health, +her voice melodious, her movements full of dignity--a superb gipsy to +whom beauty may be denied but not distinction. + +If we have a very good idea of her person we have a still better idea of +her mind and soul. I must begin by stating that I do not accept +implicitly Shakespeare's angry declarations that his mistress was a mere +strumpet. A nature of great strength and pride is seldom merely wanton; +but the fact stands that Shakespeare makes a definite charge of +faithlessness against his mistress; she is, he tells us, “the bay where +all men ride”; no “several plot,” but “the wide world's common place.” + The accusation is most explicit. But if it were well founded why should +he devote two sonnets (135 and 136) to imploring her to be as liberal as +the sea and to receive his love-offering as well as the tributes of +others? + + “Among a number one is reckon'd none + Then in the number let me pass untold.” + +It is plain that Mistress Fitton drew away from Shakespeare after she +had given herself to his friend, and this fact throws some doubt upon +his accusations of utter wantonness. A true “daughter of the game,” as +he says in “Troilus and Cressida,” is nothing but “a sluttish spoil of +opportunity” who falls to Troilus or to Diomedes in turn, knowing no +reserve. It must be reckoned to the credit of Mary Fitton, or to her +pride, that she appears to have been faithful to her lover for the time +being, and able to resist even the solicitings of Shakespeare. But her +desires seem to have been her sole restraint, and therefore we must add +an extraordinary lewdness to that strength, pride, and passionate temper +which Shakespeare again and again attributes to her. Her boldness is so +reckless that she shows her love for his friend even before +Shakespeare's face; she knows no pity in her passion, and always defends +herself by attacking her accuser. But she is cunning in love's ways and +dulls Shakespeare's resentment with “I don't hate you.” Unwilling +perhaps to lose her empire over him and to forego the sweetness of his +honeyed flatteries, she blinded him to her faults by occasional +caresses. Yet this creature, with the soul of a strumpet, the tongue of +a fishwife and the “proud heart” of a queen, was the crown and flower of +womanhood to Shakespeare, his counterpart and ideal. Hamlet in love with +Cleopatra, the poet lost in desire of the wanton--that is the tragedy of +Shakespeare's life. + +In this wonderful world of ours great dramatic writers are sure to have +dramatic lives. Again and again in his disgrace Antony cries: + + “Whither hast thou led me, Egypt?” + +Shakespeare's passion for Mary Fitton led him to shame and madness and +despair; his strength broke down under the strain and he never won back +again to health. He paid the price of passion with his very blood. It is +Shakespeare and not Antony who groans: + + “O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,-- + - - - - - - - - - - + Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose, + Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss.” + +Shakespeare's love for Mary Fitton is to me one of the typical tragedies +of life--a symbol for ever. In its progress through the world genius is +inevitably scourged and crowned with thorns and done to death; +inevitably, I say, for the vast majority of men hate and despise what is +superior to them: Don Quixote, too, was trodden into the mire by the +swine. But the worst of it is that genius suffers also through its own +excess; is bound, so to speak, to the stake of its own passionate +sensibilities, and consumed, as with fire. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. THE DRAMA OF MADNESS: “LEAR” + + +Ever since Lessing and Goethe it has been the fashion to praise +Shakespeare as a demi-god; whatever he wrote is taken to be the rose of +perfection. This senseless hero-worship, which reached idolatry in the +superlatives of the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” and elsewhere in England, +was certain to provoke reaction, and the reaction has come to vigorous +expression in Tolstoi, who finds nothing to praise in any of +Shakespeare's works, and everything to blame in most of them, especially +in “Lear.” Lamb and Coleridge, on the other hand, have praised “Lear” as +a world's masterpiece. Lamb says of it: + +“While we read it, we see not Lear; but we are Lear,--we are in his +mind, we are sustained by a grandeur which baffles the malice of +daughters and storms; in the aberrations of his reason we discover a +mighty irregular power of reasoning, immethodised from the ordinary +purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the wind bloweth where it +listeth, at will upon the corruptions and abuses of mankind.” + +Coleridge calls “Lear,” “the open and ample playground of Nature's +passions.” + +These dithyrambs show rather the lyrical power of the writers than the +thing described. + +Tolstoi, on the other hand, keeps his eyes on the object, and sets +himself to describe the story of “Lear” “as impartially as possible.” He +says of the first scene: + + “Not to mention the pompous, characterless language + of King Lear, the same in which all Shakespeare's kings + speak, the reader or spectator cannot conceive that a + king, however old and stupid he may be, could believe + the words of the vicious daughters with whom he had + passed his whole life, and not believe his favourite + daughter, but curse and banish her; and therefore, the + spectator or reader cannot share the feelings of the + persons participating in this unnatural scene.” + +He goes on to condemn the scene between Gloucester and his sons in the +same way. The second act he describes as “absurdly foolish.” The third +act is “spoiled, by the characteristic Shakespearean language.” The +fourth act is “marred in the making,” and of the fifth act, he says: +“Again begin Lear's awful ravings, at which one feels ashamed, as at +unsuccessful jokes.” He sums up in these words: + + “Such is this celebrated drama. However absurd it + may appear in my rendering (which I have endeavoured + to make as impartial as possible), I may confidently say + that in the original it is yet more absurd. For any man + of our time--if he were not under the hypnotic suggestion + that this drama is the height of perfection--it would + be enough to read it to its end (were he to have sufficient + patience for this) in order to be convinced that, far from + being the height of perfection, it is a very bad, carelessly-composed + production, which, if it could have been of + interest to a certain public at a certain time, cannot evoke + amongst us anything but aversion and weariness. Every + reader of our time who is free from the influence of suggestion + will also receive exactly the same impression from + all the other extolled dramas of Shakespeare, not to mention + the senseless dramatized tales, 'Pericles,' 'Twelfth + Night,' 'The Tempest,' 'Cymbeline,' and 'Troilus and + Cressida.'” + +Every one must admit, I think, that what Tolstoi has said of the +hypothesis of the play is justified. Shakespeare, as I have shown, was +nearly always an indifferent playwright, careless of the architectural +construction of his pieces, contemptuous of stage-craft. So much had +already been said in England, if not with the authority of Tolstoi. + +It may be conceded, too, that the language which Shakespeare puts into +Lear's mouth in the first act is “characterless and pompous,” even +silly; but Tolstoi should have noticed that as soon as Lear realizes the +ingratitude of his daughters, his language becomes more and more simple +and pathetic. Shakespeare's kings are apt to rant and mouth when first +introduced; he seems to have thought pomp of speech went with royal +robes; but when the action is engaged even his monarchs speak naturally. + +The truth is, that just as the iambics of Greek drama were lifted above +ordinary conversation, so Shakespeare's language, being the language +mainly of poetic and romantic drama, is a little more measured and, if +you will, more pompous than the small talk of everyday life, which seems +to us, accustomed as we are to prose plays, more natural. Shakespeare, +however, in his blank verse, reaches heights which are not often reached +by prose, and when he pleases, his verse becomes as natural-easy as any +prose, even that of Tolstoi himself. Tolstoi finds everything Lear says +“pompous,” “artificial,” “unnatural,” but Lear's words: + + “Pray do not mock me, + I am a very foolish-fond old man + Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less, + And, to deal plainly + I fear I am not in my perfect mind.” + +touch us poignantly, just because of their childish simplicity; we feel +as if Lear, in them, had reached the heart of pathos. Tolstoi, I am +afraid, has missed all the poetry of Lear, all the deathless phrases. +Lear says: + + “I am a man, + More sinn'd against than sinning,” + +and the new-coined phrase passed at once into the general currency. Who, +too, can ever forget his description of the poor? + + “Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, + That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, + How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, + Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you + From seasons such as these?” + +The like of that “looped and windowed raggedness” is hardly to be found +in any other literature. In the fourth and fifth acts Lear's language is +simplicity itself, and even in that third act which Tolstoi condemns as +“incredibly pompous and artificial,” we find him talking naturally: + + “Ha! here 's three on's are sophisticated: thou art + the thing itself, unaccommodated man is no more but + such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.” + +There is still another reason why some of us cannot read “Lear” with the +cold eyes of reason, contemptuously critical. “Lear” marks a stage in +Shakespeare's agony. We who know the happy ingenuousness of his youth +undimmed by doubts of man or suspicions of woman, cannot help +sympathizing with him when we see him cheated and betrayed, drinking the +bitter cup of disillusion to the dregs. In “Lear” the angry brooding +leads to madness; and it is only fitting that the keynote of the +tragedy, struck again and again, should be the cry. + + “O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet Heaven! + Keep me in temper: I would not be mad.” + +“Lear” is the first attempt in all literature to paint madness, and not +the worst attempt. + +In “Lear,” Shakespeare was intent on expressing his own disillusion and +naked misery. How blind Lear must have been, says Tolstoi; how +incredibly foolish not to know his daughters better after living with +them for twenty years; but this is just what Shakespeare wishes to +express: How blind I was, he cries to us, how inconceivably trusting and +foolish! How could I have imagined that a young noble would be grateful, +or a wanton true? “Lear” is a page of Shakespeare's autobiography, and +the faults of it are the stains of his blistering tears. + +“Lear” is badly constructed, but worse was to come. The next tragedy, +“Timon,” is merely a scream of pain, and yet it, too, has a deeper than +artistic interest for us as marking the utmost limit of Shakespeare's +suffering. The mortal malady of perhaps the finest spirit that has ever +appeared among men has an interest for us profounder than any tragedy. +And to find that in Shakespeare's agony and bloody sweat he ignores the +rules of artistry is simply what might have been expected, and, to some +of us, deepens the personal interest in the drama. + +In “Lear” Edgar is peculiarly Shakespeare's mouthpiece, and to Edgar +Shakespeare gives some of the finest words he ever coined: + + “The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices + Make instruments to plague us.” + +Here, too, in what Edgar says of himself, is the moral of all passion: +it is manifestly Shakespeare's view of himself: + + “A most poor man, made tame to Fortune's blows, + Who by the art of knowing and feeling sorrows + Am pregnant to good pity.” + +Then we find the supreme phrase--perhaps the finest ever written: + + “Men must endure + Their going hence even as their coming hither. + Ripeness is all.” + +Shakespeare speaks through Lear in the last acts as plainly as through +Edgar. In the third scene of the fifth act Lear talks to Cordelia in the +very words Shakespeare gave to the saint Henry VI. at the beginning of +his career. Compare the extracts on pages 118-9 with the following +passage, and you will see the similarity and the astounding growth in +his art. + + “... Come, let's away to prison: + We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: + When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down + And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live, + And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh + At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues + Talk of court news; ...” + +More characteristic still of Shakespeare is the fact that when Lear is +at his bitterest in the fourth act, he shows the erotic mania which is +the source of all Shakespeare's bitterness and misery; but which is +utterly out of place in Lear. The reader will mark how “adultery” is +dragged in: + + “... Ay, every inch a king: + When I do stare, see how the subject quakes. + I pardon that man's life. What was thy cause? + Adultery? + Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No: + The wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly + Does lecher in my sight. + Let copulation thrive; ... + ... + Down from the waist they are Centaurs, + Though women all above; + But to the girdle do the gods inherit, + Beneath is all the fiends'; ...” + +Thus Lear raves for a whole page: Shakespeare on his hobby: in the same +erotic spirit he makes both Goneril and Regan lust after Edmund. + +The note of this tragedy is Shakespeare's understanding of his insane +blind trust in men; but the passion of it springs from erotic mania and +from the consciousness that he is too old for love's lists. Perhaps his +imagination never carried him higher than when Lear appeals to the +heavens because they too are old: + + “... O heavens, + If you do love old men, if your sweet sway + Allow obedience, if yourselves are old, + Make it your cause.” + + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE DRAMA OF DESPAIR: “TIMON OF ATHENS” + + +“Timon” marks the extremity of Shakespeare's suffering. It is not to be +called a work of art, it is hardly even a tragedy; it is the causeless +ruin of a soul, a ruin insufficiently motived by complete trust in men +and spendthrift generosity. If there was ever a man who gave so lavishly +as Timon, if there was ever one so senseless blind in trusting, then he +deserved his fate. There is no gradation in his giving, and none in his +fall; no artistic crescendo. The whole drama is, as I have said, a +scream of suffering, or rather, a long curse upon all the ordinary +conditions of life. The highest qualities of Shakespeare are not to be +found in the play. There are none of the magnificent phrases which +bejewel “Lear”; little of high wisdom, even in the pages which are +indubitably Shakespeare's, and no characterization worth mentioning. The +honest steward, Flavius, is the honest Kent again of “Lear,” honest and +loyal beyond nature; Apemantus is another Thersites. Words which throw a +high light on Shakespeare's character are given to this or that +personage of the play without discrimination. One phrase of Apemantus is +as true of Shakespeare as of Timon and is worth noting: + + “The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the + extremity of both ends.” + +The tragic sonnet-note is given to Flavius: + “What viler thing upon the earth than friends + Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!” + +In so far as Timon is a character at all he is manifestly Shakespeare, +Shakespeare who raves against the world, because he finds no honesty in +men, no virtue in women, evil everywhere--“boundless thefts in limited +professions.” This Shakespeare-Timon swings round characteristically as +soon as he finds that Flavius is honest: + + “Had I a steward + So true, so just, and now so comfortable? + It almost turns my dangerous nature mild. + Let me behold thy face. Surely this man + Was born of woman. + _Forgive my general and exceptless rashness, + You perpetual-sober gods_! I do proclaim + One honest man--mistake me not--but one ...” + +I cannot help putting the great and self-revealing line [Footnote: This +passage is among those rejected by the commentators as un-Shakespearean: +“it does not stand the test,” says the egregious Gollancz.] in italics; +a line Tolstoi would, no doubt, think stupid-pompous. Timon ought to +have known his steward, one might say in Tolstoi's spirit, as Lear +should have known his daughters; but this is still the tragedy, which +Shakespeare wishes to emphasize that his hero was blind in trusting. + +Towards the end Shakespeare speaks through Timon quite unfeignedly: +Richard II. said characteristically: + + “Nor I nor any man that but man is + With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased + With being nothing:” + +And Timon says to Flavius: + + “My long sickness + Of health and living now begins to mend + And nothing brings me all things.” + +Then the end: + + “Timon hath made his everlasting mansion + Upon the beachèd verge of the salt flood....” + +We must not leave this play before noticing the overpowering erotic +strain in Shakespeare which suits Timon as little as it suited Lear. The +long discussion with Phrynia and Timandra is simply dragged in: neither +woman is characterized: Shakespeare-Timon eases himself in pages of +erotic raving: + + “... Strike me the counterfeit matron; + It is her habit only that is honest, + Herself's a bawd:...” + +And then: + + “Consumptions sow + In hollow bones of man........... + ...............Down with the nose, + Down with it flat; take the bridge quite away ...” + +The “damned earth” even is “the common whore of mankind.” + +“Timon” is the true sequel to “The Merchant of Venice.” Antonio gives +lavishly, but is saved at the crisis by his friends. Timon gives with +both hands, but when he appeals to his friends, is treated as a bore. +Shakespeare had travelled far in the dozen years which separate the two +plays. + +All Shakespeare's tragedies are phases of his own various weaknesses, +and each one brings the hero to defeat and ruin. Hamlet cannot carry +revenge to murder and fails through his own irresolution. Othello comes +to grief through mad jealousy. Antony fails and falls through excess of +lust; Lear through trust in men, and Timon through heedless generosity. +All these are separate studies of Shakespeare's own weaknesses; but the +ruin is irretrievable, and reaches its ultimate in Timon. Trust and +generosity, Shakespeare would like to tell us, were his supremest +faults. In this he deceived himself. Neither “Lear” nor “Timon” is his +greatest tragedy; but “Antony and Cleopatra,” for lust was his chief +weakness, and the tragedy of lust his greatest play. + +Much of “Timon” is not Shakespeare's, the critics tell us, and some of +it is manifestly not his, though many of the passages rejected with the +best reason have, I think, been touched up by him. The second scene of +the first act is as bad as bad can be; but I hear his voice in the line: + + “Methinks, I could deal kingdoms to my friends, + And ne'er be weary.” + +At any rate, this is the keynote of the tragedy, which is struck again +and again. Shakespeare probably exaggerated his generosity out of +aristocratic pose; but that he was careless of money and freehanded to a +fault, is, I think, certain from his writings, and can be proved from +the facts known to us of his life. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. SHAKESPEARE'S LAST ROMANCES: ALL COPIES. + +_“Winters Tale”: “Cymbeline”: “The Tempest.”_ + + +The wheel has swung full circle: Timon is almost as weak as “Titus +Andronicus”; the pen falls from the nerveless hand. Shakespeare wrote +nothing for some time. Even the critics make a break after “Timon,” + which closes what they are pleased to call his third period; but they do +not seem to see that the break was really a breakdown in health. In +“Lear” he had brooded and raged to madness; in “Timon” he had spent +himself in futile, feeble cursings. His nerves had gone to pieces. He +was now forty-five years of age, the forces of youth and growth had left +him. He was prematurely old and feeble. + +His recovery, it seems certain, was very slow, and he never again, if I +am right, regained vigorous health, I am almost certain he went down to +Stratford at this crisis and spent some time there, probably a couple of +years, trying, no doubt, to staunch the wound in his heart, and win back +again to life. The fear of madness had frightened him from brooding: he +made up his mind to let the dead past bury its dead; he would try to +forget and live sanely. After all, life is better than death. + +It was probably his daughter who led him back from the brink of the +grave. Almost all his latest works show the same figure of a young girl. +He seems now, for the first time, to have learned that a maiden can be +pure, and in his old idealizing way which went with him to the end, he +deified her. Judith became a symbol to him, and he lent her the ethereal +grace of abstract beauty. In “Pericles” she is Marina; in “The Winter's +Tale” Perdita; in “The Tempest” Miranda. It is probable when one comes +to think of it, that Ward was right when he says that Shakespeare spent +his “elder years” in Stratford; he was too broken to have taken up his +life in London again. + +The assertion that Shakespeare broke down in health, and never won back +to vigorous life, will be scorned as my imagining. The critics who have +agreed to regard “Cymbeline,” “The Winter's Tale,” and “The Tempest” as +his finest works are all against me on this point, and they will call +for “Proofs, proofs. Give us proofs,” they will cry, “that the man who +went mad and raved with Lear, and screamed and cursed in “Timon” did +really break down, and was not imagining madness and despair.” The +proofs are to be found in these works themselves, plain for all men to +read. + +The three chief works of his last period are romances and are all +copies; he was too tired to invent or even to annex; his own story is +the only one that interests him. The plot of “The Winter's Tale” is the +plot of “Much Ado about Nothing.” Hero is Hermione. Another phase of +“Much Ado About Nothing” is written out at length in “Cymbeline”; Imogen +suffers like Hero and Hermione, under unfounded accusation. It is +Shakespeare's own history turned from this world to fairyland: what +would have happened, he asks, if the woman whom I believed false, had +been true? This, the theme of “Much Ado,” is the theme also of “The +Winter's Tale” and of “Cymbeline.” The idealism of the man is +inveterate: he will not see that it was his own sensuality which gave +him up to suffering, and not Mary Fitton's faithlessness. “The Tempest” + is the story of “As you Like it.” We have again the two dukes, the +exiled good Duke, who is Shakespeare, and the bad usurping Duke, +Shakespeare's rival, Chapman, who has conquered for a time. Shakespeare +is no longer able or willing to discover a new play: he can only copy +himself, and in one of the scenes which he wrote into “Henry VIII.” the +copy is slavish. + +I allude to the third scene in the second act; the dialogue between Anne +Bullen and the Old Lady is extraordinarily reminiscent. When Anne Bullen +says-- + + “'Tis better to be lowly born, + And range with humble livers in content, + Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief + And wear a golden sorrow” + +I am reminded of Henry VI. And the contention between Anne Bullen and +the Old Lady, in which Anne Bullen declares that she would not be a +queen, and the Old Lady scorns her: + + “Beshrew me, I would, + And venture maidenhead for't; and so would you, + For all this spice of your hypocrisy.” + +is much the same contention, and is handled in the same way as the +contention between Desdemona and Emilia in “Othello.” + +There are many other proofs of Shakespeare's weakness of hand throughout +this last period, if further proofs were needed. The chief +characteristics of Shakespeare's health are his humour, his gaiety, and +wit--his love of life. A correlative characteristic is that all his +women are sensuous and indulge in coarse expressions in and out of +season. This is said to be a fault of his time; but only professors +could use an argument which shows such ignorance of life. Homer was +clean enough, and Sophocles, Spenser, too; sensuality is a quality of +the individual man. Still another characteristic of Shakespeare's +maturity is that his characters, in spite of being idealized, live for +us a vigorous, pulsing life. + +All these characteristics are lacking in the works after “Timon.” There +is practically no humour, no wit, the clowns even are merely +boorish-stupid with the solitary exception of Autolycus, who is a pale +reflex of one or two characteristics of Falstaff. Shakespeare's humour +has disappeared, or is so faint as scarcely to be called humour; all the +heroines, too, are now vowed away from sensuality: Marina passes through +the brothel unsoiled; Perdita might have milk in her veins, and not +blood, and Miranda is but another name for Perdita. Imogen, too, has no +trace of natural passion in her: she is a mere washing-list, so to +speak, of sexless perfections. In this last period Shakespeare will have +nothing to do with sensuality, and his characters, and not the female +characters alone, are hardly more than abstractions; they lack the blood +of emotion; there is not one of them could cast a shadow. How is it that +the critics have mistaken these pale, bloodless silhouettes for +Shakespeare's masterpieces? + +In his earliest works he was compelled, as we have seen, to use his own +experiences perpetually, not having had any experience of life, and in +these, his latest plays, he also uses when he can his own experiences to +give his pictures of the world from which he had withdrawn, some sense +of vivid life. For example, in “Winter's Tale” his account of the death +of the boy Mamillius is evidently a reflex of his own emotion when he +lost his son, Hamnet, an emotion which at the time he pictured +deathlessly in Arthur and the grief of the Queen-mother Constance. +Similarly, in “Cymbeline,” the joy of the brothers in finding the sister +is an echo of his own pleasure in getting to know his daughter. + +I have an idea about the genesis of these last three plays as regards +their order which may be wholly false, though true, I am sure, to +Shakespeare's character. I imagine he was asked by the author to touch +up “Pericles.” On reading the play, he saw the opportunity of giving +expression to the new emotion which had been awakened in him by the +serious sweet charm of his young daughter, and accordingly he wrote the +scenes in which Marina figures. Judith's modesty was a perpetual wonder +to him. + +His success induced him to sketch out “The Winter's Tale,” in which tale +he played sadly with what might have been if his accused love, Mary +Fitton, had been guiltless instead of guilty. I imagine he saw that the +play was not a success, or supreme critic as he was, that his hand had +grown weak, and seeking for the cause he probably came to the conclusion +that the comparative failure was due to the fact that he did not put +himself into “The Winter's Tale,” and so he determined in the next play +to draw a full-length portrait of himself again, as he had done in +“Hamlet,” and accordingly he sketched Posthumus, a staider, older, +idealized Hamlet, with lymph in his veins, instead of blood. In the same +idealizing spirit, he pictured his rose of womanhood for us in Imogen, +who is, however, not a living woman at all, any more than his earliest +ideal, Juliet, was a woman. The contrast between these two sketches is +the contrast between Shakespeare's strength and his weakness. Here is +how the fourteen-year-old Juliet talks of love: + + “Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, + That runaways' eyes may wink, and Romeo + Leap to these arms, untalk'd of and unseen. + Lovers can see to do their amorous rites + By their own beauties.” + +And here what Posthumus says of Imogen: + + “Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd, + And pray'd me oft forbearance: did it with + A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't + Might well have warmed old Saturn.” + +Neither of these statements is very generally true: but the second is +out of character. When Shakespeare praises restraint in love he must +have been very weak; in full manhood he prayed for excess of it, and +regarded a surfeit as the only rational cure. + +I think Shakespeare liked Posthumus and Imogen; but he could not have +thought “Cymbeline” a great work, and so he pulled himself together for +a masterpiece. He seems to have said to himself, “All that fighting of +Posthumus is wrong; men do not fight at forty-eight; I will paint myself +simply in the qualities I possess now; I will tell the truth about +myself so far as I can.” The result is the portrait of Prospero in “The +Tempest.” + +Let me just say before I begin to study Prospero that I find the +introduction of the Masque in the fourth act extraordinarily +interesting. Ben Jonson had written classic masques for this and that +occasion; masques which were very successful, we are told; they had +“caught on,” in fact, to use our modern slang. Shakespeare will now show +us that he, too, can write a masque with classic deities in it, and +better Jonson's example. It is pitiful, and goes to prove, I think, that +Shakespeare was but little esteemed by his generation. + +Jonson answered him conceitedly, as Jonson would, in the Introduction to +his “Bartholomew Fair” (1612-14), “If there be never a _Servant +monster_ i' the Fayre, who can help it, he sayes; nor a nest of +_Antiques_. He is loth to make nature afraid in his _Playes_, +like those that beget _Tales_, _Tempests_, and such like +_Drolleries_.” + +At the very end, the creator of Hamlet, the finest mind in the world, +was eager to show that he could write as well in any style as the author +of “Every Man in his Humour.” To me the bare fact is full of interest, +and most pitiful. + +Let us now turn to “The Tempest,” and see how our poet figures in it. It +is Shakespeare's last work, and one of his very greatest; his testament +to the English people; in wisdom and high poetry a miracle. + +The portrait of Shakespeare we get in Prospero is astonishingly faithful +and ingenuous, in spite of its idealization. His life's day is waning to +the end; shadows of the night are drawing in upon him, yet he is the +same bookish, melancholy student, the lover of all courtesies and +generosities, whom we met first as Biron in “Love's Labour's Lost.” The +gaiety is gone and the sensuality; the spiritual outlook is infinitely +sadder--that is what the years have done with our gentle Shakespeare. + +Prospero's first appearance in the second scene of the first act is as a +loving father and magician; he says to Miranda: + + “I have done nothing but in care of thee, + Of thee, my dear one! thee, my daughter.” + +He asks Miranda what she can remember of her early life, and reaches +magical words: + + “What seest thou else + In the dark backward and abysm of time?” + +Miranda is only fifteen years of age. Shakespeare turned Juliet, it will +be remembered, from a girl of sixteen into one of fourteen; now, though +the sensuality has left him, he makes Miranda only fifteen; clearly he +is the same admirer of girlish youth at forty-eight as he was twenty +years before. Then Prospero tells Miranda of himself and his brother, +the “perfidious” Duke: + + “And Prospero, the prime Duke, being so reputed + In dignity, and for the liberal arts + Without a parallel; those being all my study.” + +He will not only be a Prince now, but a master “without a parallel” in +the liberal arts. He must explain, too, at undue length, how he allowed +himself to be supplanted by his false brother, and speaks about himself +in Shakespeare's very words: + + “I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate + To closeness, and the bettering of my mind + With that, which, but by being so retired, + O'erprized all popular rate, in my false brother + Awaked an evil nature: and my trust, + Like a good parent, did beget of him, + A falsehood, in its contrary as great + As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit, + A confidence sans bound.” + +Shakespeare, too, “neglecting worldly ends,” had dedicated himself to +“bettering of his mind,” we may be sure. Prospero goes on to tell us +explicitly how Shakespeare loved books, which we were only able to infer +from his earlier plays: + + “Me, poor man, my library + Was dukedom large enough.” + +And again, Gonzalo (another name for Kent and Flavius) having given him +some books, he says: + + “Of his gentleness, + Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me + From my own library, with volumes that + I prize above my dukedom.” + +His daughter grieves lest she had been a trouble to him: forthwith +Shakespeare-Prospero answers: + + “O, a cherubim + Thou wast, that did preserve me. Thou didst smile + Infused with a fortitude from heaven, + When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt + Under my burden groan'd; which raised in me + An undergoing stomach, to bear up + Against what should ensue.” + +But why should the magician weep or groan under a burden? had he no +confidence in his miraculous powers? All this is Shakespeare's +confession. Every word is true; his daughter did indeed “preserve” + Shakespeare, and enable him to bear up under the burden of life's +betrayals. + +No wonder Prospero begins to apologize for this long-winded confession, +which indeed is “most impertinent” to the play, as he admits, though +most interesting to him and to us, for he is simply Shakespeare telling +us his own feelings at the time. The gentle magician then hears from +Ariel how the shipwreck has been conducted without harming a hair of +anyone. + +The whole scene is an extraordinarily faithful and detailed picture of +Shakespeare's soul. I find significance even in the fact that Ariel +wants his freedom “a full year” before the term Prospero had originally +proposed. Shakespeare finished “The Tempest,” I believe, and therewith +set the seal on his life's work a full year earlier than he had +intended; he feared lest death might surprise him before he had put the +pinnacle on his work. Ariel's torment, too, is full of meaning for me; +for Ariel is Shakespeare's “shaping spirit of imagination,” who was once +the slave of “a foul witch,” and by her “imprisoned painfully” for “a +dozen years.” + +That “dozen years” is to me astonishingly true and interesting: it shows +that my reading of the duration of his passion-torture was absolutely +correct--Shakespeare's “delicate spirit” and best powers bound to Mary +Fitton's “earthy” service from 1597 to 1608. + +We can perhaps fix this latter date with some assurance. Mistress Fitton +married for the second time a Captain or Mr. Polwhele late in 1607, or +some short time before March, 1608, when the fact of her recent marriage +was recorded in the will of her great uncle. It seems to me probable, or +at least possible, that this event marks her complete separation from +Shakespeare; she may very likely have left the Court and London on +ceasing to be a Maid of Honour. + +Shakespeare is so filled with himself in this last play, so certain that +he is the most important person in the world, that this scene is more +charged with intimate self-revealing than any other in all his works. +And when Ferdinand comes upon the stage Shakespeare lends him, too, his +own peculiar qualities. His puppets no longer interest him; he is +careless of characterization. Ferdinand says: + + “This music crept by me upon the waters + Allaying both their fury and my passion + With its sweet air.” + +Music, it will be remembered, had precisely the same peculiar effect +upon Duke Orsino in “Twelfth Night.” Ferdinand, too, is extraordinarily +conceited: + + “I am the best of them that speak this speech. + .... Myself am Naples.” + +Shakespeare's natural aristocratic pride as a Prince reinforced by his +understanding of his own real importance. Ferdinand then declares he +will be content with a prison if he can see Miranda in it: + + “Space enough + Have I in such a prison.” + +Which is Hamlet's: + + “I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself + a king of infinite space.” + +The second act, with its foiled conspiracy, is wretchedly bad, and the +meeting of Caliban and Trinculo with Stephanie does not improve it much, +Shakespeare has little interest now in anything outside himself: age and +greatness are as self-centred as youth. + +In the third act the courtship of Ferdinand and Miranda is pretty, but +hardly more. Ferdinand is bloodless, thin, and Miranda swears “by her +modesty,” as the jewel in her dower, which takes away a little from the +charming confession of girl-love: + + “I would not wish + Any companion in the world but you.” + +The comic relief which follows is unspeakably dull; but the words of +Ariel, warning the King of Naples and the usurping Duke that the wrong +they have done Prospero is certain to be avenged unless blotted out by +“heart-sorrow and a clear life ensuing,” are most characteristic and +memorable. + +In the fourth act Prospero preaches, as we have seen, self-restraint to +Ferdinand in words which, in their very extravagance, show how deeply he +regretted his own fault with his wife before marriage. I shall consider +the whole passage when treating of Shakespeare's marriage as an incident +in his life. Afterwards comes the masque, and the marvellous speech of +Prospero, which touches the highest height of poetry: + + “These our actors, + As I foretold you, were all spirits, and + Are melted into air, into thin air: + And, like the baseless fabric of this vision + The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, + The solemn temples, the great globe itself, + Yea, all which it inhabit, shall dissolve + And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, + Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff + As dreams are made of; and our little life + Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd; + Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled: + Be not disturb'd with my infirmity: + If you be pleased, retire into my cell, + And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, + To still my beating mind.” + +I have given the verses to the very end, for I find the insistence on +his age and weakness (which are not in keeping with the character of a +magician), a confession of Shakespeare himself: the words “beating mind” + are extraordinarily characteristic, proving as they do that his thoughts +and emotions were too strong for his frail body. + +In the fifth act Shakespeare-Prospero shows himself to us at his +noblest: he will forgive his enemies: + + “Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, + Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury + Do I take part: the rarer action is + In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, + The sole drift of my purpose doth extend + Not a frown further.” + +In “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” we saw how Shakespeare-Valentine +forgave his faithless friend as soon as he repented: here is the same +creed touched to nobler expression. + +And then, with all his wishes satisfied, his heart's desire +accomplished, Prospero is ready to set out for Milan again and home. We +all expect some expression of joy from him, but this is what we get: + + “And thence retire me to my Milan, where + Every third thought shall be my grave.” + +The despair is wholly unexpected and out of place, as was the story of +his weakness and infirmity, his “beating mind.” It is evidently +Shakespeare's own confession. After writing “The Tempest” he intends to +retire to Stratford, where “every third thought shall be my grave.” + +I have purposely drawn special attention to Shakespeare's weakness and +despair at this time, because the sad, rhymed Epilogue which has to be +spoken by Prospero has been attributed to another hand by a good many +scholars. It is manifestly Shakespeare's, out of Shakespeare's very +heart indeed; though Mr. Israel Gollancz follows his leaders in saying +that the “Epilogue to the play is evidently by some other hand than +Shakespeare's”: “evidently” is good. Here it is: + + “Now my charms are all o'erthrown, + And what strength I have's mine own, + Which is most faint: now, 'tis true, + I must be here confined by you, + Or sent to Naples. Let me not + Since I have my dukedom got, + And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell + In this bare island by your spell; + But release me from my bands + With the help of your good hands: + Gentle breath of yours my sails + Must fill, or else my project fails, + Which was to please. Now I want, + Spirits to enforce, art to enchant; + And my ending is despair, + Unless I be relieved by prayer, + Which pierces so that it assaults + Mercy itself, and frees all faults + As you from crimes would pardon'd be + Let your indulgence set me free.” + +From youth to age Shakespeare occupied himself with the deepest problems +of human existence; again and again we find him trying to pierce the +darkness that enshrouds life. Is there indeed nothing beyond the +grave--nothing? Is the noble fabric of human thought, achievement and +endeavour to fade into nothingness and pass away like the pageant of a +dream? He will not cheat himself with unfounded hopes, nor delude +himself into belief; he resigns himself with a sigh--it is the +undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns. But +Shakespeare always believed in repentance and forgiveness, and now, +world-weary, old and weak, he turns to prayer, [Footnote: Hamlet, too, +after speaking with his father's ghost, cries: “I'll go pray.”] prayer +that-- + + “assaults + Mercy itself and frees all faults.” + +Poor, broken Shakespeare! “My ending is despair”: the sadness of it, and +the pity, lie deeper than tears. + +What a man! to produce a masterpiece in spite of such weakness. What a +play is this “Tempest”! At length Shakespeare sees himself as he is, a +monarch without a country; but master of a very “potent art,” a great +magician, with imagination as an attendant spirit, that can conjure up +shipwrecks, or enslave enemies, or create lovers at will; and all his +powers are used in gentle kindness. Ariel is a higher creation, more +spiritual and charming than any other poet has ever attempted; and +Caliban, the earth-born, half-beast, half-man--these are the poles of +Shakespeare's genius. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE + + +Our long travail is almost at an end. We have watched Shakespeare +painting himself at various periods of his life, and at full length in +twenty dramas, as the gentle, sensuous poet-thinker. We have studied him +when given over to wild passion in the sonnets and elsewhere, and to +insane jealousy in “Othello”; we have seen him as Hamlet brooding on +revenge and self-murder, and in “Lear,” and “Timon” raging on the verge +of madness, and in these ecstasies, when the soul is incapable of +feigning, we have discovered his true nature as it differed from the +ideal presentments which his vanity shaped and coloured. We have +corrected his personal estimate by that “story of faults conceal'd” + which Shakespeare himself referred to in sonnet 88. It only remains for +me now to give a brief account of his life and the incidents of it to +show that my reading of his character is borne out by the known facts, +and thus put the man in his proper setting, so to speak. + +On the other hand, our knowledge of Shakespeare's character will help us +to reconstruct his life-story. What is known positively of his life +could be given in a couple of pages; but there are traditions of him, +tales about him, innumerable scraps of fact and fiction concerning him +which are more or less interesting and authentic; and now that we know +the man, we shall be able to accept or reject these reports with some +degree of confidence, and so arrive at a credible picture of his life's +journey, and the changes which Time wrought in him. In all I may say +about him I shall keep close to the facts as given in his works. When +tradition seems consonant with what Shakespeare has told us about +himself, or with what Ben Jonson said of him, I shall use it with +confidence. + +Shakespeare was a common name in Warwickshire; other Shakespeares +besides the poet's family were known there in the sixteenth century, and +at least one other William Shakespeare in the neighbourhood of +Stratford. The poet's father, John Shakespeare, was of farmer stock, and +seems to have had an adventurous spirit: he left Snitterfield, his +birthplace, as a young man, for the neighbouring town of Stratford, +where he set up in business for himself. Aubrey says he was a butcher; +he certainly dealt in meat, skins, and leather, as well as in corn, +wool, and malt--an adaptable, quick man, who turned his hand to +anything--a Jack-of-all-trades. He appears to have been successful at +first, for in 1556, five years after coming to Stratford, he purchased +two freehold tenements, one with a garden in Henley Street, and the +other in Greenhill Street, with an orchard. In 1557 he was elected +burgess, or town councillor, and shortly afterwards did the best stroke +of business in his life by marrying Mary Arden, whose father had been a +substantial farmer. Mary inherited the fee simple of Asbies, a house +with some fifty acres of land at Wilmcote, and an interest in property +at Snitterfield; the whole perhaps worth some £80 or £90, or, say, £600 +of our money. His marriage turned John Shakespeare into a well-to-do +citizen; he filled various offices in the borough, and in 1568 became a +bailiff, the highest position in the corporation. During his year of +office, we are told, he entertained two companies of actors at +Stratford. + +Mary Arden seems to have been her father's favourite child, and though +she could not sign her own name, must have possessed rare qualities; for +the poet, as we learn from “Coriolanus,” held her in extraordinary +esteem and affection, and mourned her after her death as “the noblest +mother in the world.” + +William Shakespeare, the first son and third child of this couple, was +born on the 22nd or 23rd April, 1564, no one knows which day; the +Stratford parish registers prove that he was baptized on 26th April. And +if the date of his birth is not known, neither is the place of it; his +father owned two houses in Henley Street, and it is uncertain which he +was born in. + +John Shakespeare had, fortunately, nothing to pay for the education of +his sons. They had free tuition at the Grammar School at Stratford. The +poet went to school when he was seven or eight years of age, and +received an ordinary education together with some grounding in Latin. He +probably spent most of his time at first making stories out of the +frescoes on the walls. There can be no doubt that he learned easily all +he was taught, and still less doubt that he was not taught much. He +mastered Lyly's “Latin Grammar,” and was taken through some conversation +books like the “Sententiae Pueriles,” and not much further, for he puts +Latin phrases in the mouth of the schoolmasters, Holofernes in “Love's +Labour's Lost,” and Hugh Evans in “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” and all +these phrases are taken word for word either from Lyly's Grammar or from +the “Sententiae Pueriles.” In “Titus Andronicus,” too, one of Tamora's +sons, on reading a Latin couplet, says it is a verse of Horace, but he +“read it in the grammar,” which was probably the author's case. Ben +Jonson's sneer was well-founded, Shakespeare had “little Latine and +lesse Greeke.” His French, as shown in his “Henry V.,” was anything but +good, and his Italian was probably still slighter. + +It was lucky for Shakespeare that his father's increasing poverty +withdrew him from school early, and forced him into contact with life. +Aubrey says that “when he was a boy he exercised his father's trade [of +butcher]; but when he kill'd a calfe he would doe it in high style and +make a speech.” I daresay young Will flourished about with a knife and +made romantic speeches; but I am pretty sure he never killed a calf. +Killing a calf is not the easiest part of a butcher's business; nor a +task which Shakespeare at any time would have selected. The tradition is +simply sufficient to prove that the town folk had already noticed the +eager, quick, spouting lad. + +Of Shakespeare's life after he left school, say from thirteen to +eighteen, we know almost nothing. He probably did odd jobs for his +father from time to time; but his father's business seems to have run +rapidly from bad to worse; for in 1586 a creditor informed the local +Court that John Shakespeare had no goods on which distraint could be +levied, and on 6th September of the same year he was deprived of his +alderman's gown. During this period of steadily increasing poverty in +the house it was only to be expected that young Will Shakespeare would +run wild. + +The tradition as given by Rowe says that he fell “into low company, and +amongst them some that made a frequent practice of deer-stealing engaged +him with them more than once in robbing the park of Sir Thomas Lucy of +Charlecot, near Stratford. For this he was prosecuted by that gentleman, +as he then thought somewhat too severely, and in order to revenge that +ill-usage he made a ballad upon him.” + +Another story has it that Sir Thomas Lucy got a lawyer from Warwick to +prosecute the boys, and that Shakespeare stuck his satirical ballad to +the park gates at Charlecot. The ballad is said to have been lost, but +certain verses were preserved which fit the circumstances and suit +Shakespeare's character so perfectly that I for one am content to accept +them. I give the first and the last verses as most characteristic: + +SONG + + “A parliament member, a Justice of peace, + At home a poor scarecrow, in London an asse, + If Lowsie is lucy, as some volke miscalle it + Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befalle it. + He thinks himself greate + Yet an asse in his state, + We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate. + If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it + Sing lowsie Lucy whatever befalle it. + - - - - - - - - - - + “If a juvenile frolick he cannot forgive, + We'll sing lowsie Lucy as long as we live, + And Lucy, the lowsie, a libel may calle it + Sing lowsie Lucy whatever befalle it. + He thinks himself greate + Yet an asse in his state, + We allowe by his ears but with asses to mate. + If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it + Sing lowsie Lucy, Whatever befalle it.” + +The last verse, so out of keeping in its curious impartiality with the +scurrilous refrain, appears to me to carry its own signature. There can +be no doubt that the verses give us young Shakespeare's feelings in the +matter. It was probably reading ballads and tales of “Merrie Sherwood” + that first inclined him to deer-stealing; and we have already seen from +his “Richard II.” and “Henry IV.” and “Henry V.” that he had been led +astray by low companions. + +In his idle, high-spirited youth, Shakespeare did worse than break +bounds and kill deer; he was at a loose end and up to all sorts of +mischief. At eighteen he had already courted and won Anne Hathaway, a +farmer's daughter of the neighbouring village of Shottery. Anne was +nearly eight years older than he was. Her father had died a short time +before and left Anne, his eldest daughter, £6 13_s_. 4_d_., +or, say, £50 of our money. The house at Shottery, now shown as Anne +Hathaway's cottage, once formed part of Richard Hathaway's farmhouse, +and there, and in the neighbouring lanes, the lovers did their courting. +The wooing on Shakespeare's side was nothing but pastime, though it led +to marriage. + +His marriage is perhaps the first serious mistake that Shakespeare made, +and it certainly influenced his whole life. It is needful, therefore, to +understand it as accurately as may be, however we may judge it. A man's +life, like a great river, may be limpid-pure in the beginning, and when +near its source; as it grows and gains strength it is inevitably sullied +and stained with earth's soilure. + +The ordinary apologists would have us believe that the marriage was +happy; they know that Shakespeare was not married in Stratford, and, +though a minor, his parents' consent to the marriage was not obtained; +but they persist in talking about his love for his wife, and his wife's +devoted affection for him. Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, the bell-wether of +the flock, has gone so far as to tell us how on the morning of the day +he died “his wife, who had smoothed the pillow beneath his head for the +last time, felt that her right hand was taken from her.” Let us see if +there is any foundation for this sentimental balderdash. Here are some +of the facts. + +In the Bishop of Worcester's register a licence was issued on 27th +November, 1582, authorizing the marriage of William Shakespeare with +Anne Whately, of Temple Grafton. On the very next day in the register of +the same Bishop there is a deed, wherein Fulk Sandells and John +Richardson, farmers of Shottery, bound themselves in the Bishop's court +under a surety of £40 to free the Bishop of all liability should a +lawful impediment--“by reason of any pre-contract or consanguinity”--be +subsequently disclosed to imperil the validity of the marriage, then in +contemplation, of William Shakespeare with Anne Hathaway. + +Dryasdust, of course, argues that there is no connection whatever +between these two events. He is able to persuade himself easily that the +William Shakespeare who got a licence to marry Anne Whately, of Temple +Grafton, on 27th November, 1582, is not the same William Shakespeare who +is being forced to marry Anne Hathaway on the next day by two friends of +Anne Hathaway's father. Yet such a coincidence as two William +Shakespeares seeking to be married by special licence in the same court +at the same moment of time is too extraordinary to be admitted. Besides, +why should Sandells and Richardson bind themselves as sureties in £40 to +free the Bishop of liability by reason of any pre-contract if there were +no pre-contract? The two William Shakespeares are clearly one and the +same person. Sandells was a supervisor of the will of Richard Hathaway, +and was described in the will as “my trustie friende and neighbour.” He +showed himself a trusty friend of the usual sort to his friend's +daughter, and when he heard that loose Will Shakespeare was attempting +to marry Anne Whately, he forthwith went to the same Bishop's court +which had granted the licence, pledged himself and his neighbour, +Richardson, as sureties that there was no pre-contract, and so induced +the Bishop, who no doubt then learned the unholy circumstances for the +first time, to grant a licence in order that the marriage with Anne +Hathaway could be celebrated, “with once asking of the bannes” and +without the consent of the father of the bridegroom, which was usually +required when the bridegroom was a minor. + +Clearly Fulk Sandells was a masterful man; young Will Shakespeare was +forced to give up Anne Whately, poor lass, and marry Anne Hathaway, much +against his will. Like many another man, Shakespeare married at leisure, +and repented in hot haste. Six months later a daughter was born to him, +and was baptized in the name of Susanna at Stratford Parish Church on +the 26th of May, 1583. There was, therefore, an importunate reason for +the wedding, as Sandells, no doubt, made the Bishop understand. + +The whole story, it seems to me, is in perfect consonance with +Shakespeare's impulsive, sensual nature; is, indeed, an excellent +illustration of it. Hot, impatient, idle Will got Anne Hathaway into +trouble, was forced to marry her, and at once came to regret. Let us see +how far these inferences from plain facts are borne out from his works. + +The most important passages seem to have escaped critical scholarship. I +have already said that the earliest works of Shakespeare, and the +latest, are the most fruitful in details about his private life. In the +earliest works he was compelled to use his own experience, having no +observation of life to help him, and at the end of his life, having said +almost everything he had to say, he again went back to his early +experience for little vital facts to lend a colour to the fainter +pictures of age. In “The Winter's Tale,” a shepherd finds the child +Perdita, who has been exposed; one would expect him to stumble on the +child by chance and express surprise; but this shepherd of Shakespeare +begins to talk in this way: + +“I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that +youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but +getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting. +Hark you now! Would any but these boiled brains of nineteen and +two-and-twenty hunt this weather?” + +Now this passage has nothing to do with the play, nor with the +shepherd's occupation; nor is it at all characteristic of a shepherd +boy. Between ten and three-and-twenty a poor shepherd boy is likely to +be kept hard at work; he is not idle and at a loose end like young +Shakespeare, free to rob the ancientry, steal, fight, and get wenches +with child. That, in my opinion, is Shakespeare's own confession. + +Of course, every one has noticed how Shakespeare again and again in his +plays declares that a woman should take in marriage an “elder than +herself,” and that intimacy before marriage is productive of nothing but +“barren hate and discord.” In “Twelfth Night” he says: + + “Let still the woman take + An elder than herself: so wears she to him, + So sways she level in her husband's heart.” + +In “The Tempest” he writes again: + + “If thou dost break her virgin knot before + All sanctimonious ceremonies may + With full and holy rite be minister'd, + No sweet aspersions shall the heavens let fall + To make this contract grow; but barren hate, + Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew + The union of your bed with weeds so loathly + That you shall hate it both.” + +These admonitions are so far-fetched and so emphatic that they plainly +discover personal feeling. We have, besides, those quaint, angry +passages in the “Comedy of Errors,” to which we have already drawn +attention, which show that the poet detested his wife. + +The known facts, too, all corroborate this inference: let us consider +them a little. The first child was born within six months of the +marriage; twins followed in 1585; a little later Shakespeare left +Stratford not to return to it for eight or nine years, and when he did +return there was probably no further intimacy with his wife; at any +rate, there were no more children. Yet Shakespeare, one fancies, was +fond of children. When his son Hamnet died his grief showed itself in +his work--in “King John” and in “The Winter's Tale.” He was full of +loving kindness to his daughters, too, in later life; it was his wife +alone for whom he had no affection, no forgiveness. + +There are other facts which establish this conclusion. While Shakespeare +was in London he allowed his wife to suffer the extremes of poverty. +Sometime between 1585 and 1595 she appears to have borrowed forty +shillings from Thomas Whittington, who had formerly been her father's +shepherd. The money was still unpaid when Whittington died, in 1601, and +he directed his executor to recover the sum from the poet, and +distribute it among the poor of Stratford. Now Shakespeare was rich when +he returned to Stratford in 1595, and always generous. He paid off his +father's heavy debts; how came it that he did not pay this trifling debt +of his wife? The mere fact proves beyond doubt that Shakespeare disliked +her and would have nothing to do with her. + +Even towards the end of his life, when he was suffering from increasing +weakness, which would have made most men sympathetic, even if it did not +induce them completely to relent, Shakespeare shows the same aversion to +his poor wife. In 1613, when on a short visit to London, he bought a +house in Blackfriars for £140; in the purchase he barred his wife's +dower, which proceeding seems even to Dryasdust “pretty conclusive proof +that he had the intention of excluding her from the enjoyment of his +possessions after his death.” + +In the first draft of his will Shakespeare did not mention his wife. The +apologists explain this by saying that, of course, he had already given +her all that she ought to have. But if he loved her he would have +mentioned her with affection, if only to console her in her widowhood. +Before the will was signed he inserted a bequest to her of his +“second-best bed,” and the apologists have been at pains to explain that +the best bed was kept for guests, and that Shakespeare willed to his +wife the bed they both occupied. How inarticulate poor William +Shakespeare must have become! Could the master of language find no +better word than the contemptuous one? Had he said “our bed” it would +have been enough; “the second-best bed” admits of but one +interpretation. His daughters, who had lived with their mother, and who +had not been afflicted by her jealousy and scolding tongue, begged the +dying man to put in some mention of her, and he wrote in that +“second-best bed”--bitter to the last. If his own plain words and these +inferences, drawn from indisputable facts, are not sufficient, then let +us take one fact more, and consider its significance; one fact, so to +speak, from the grave. + +When Shakespeare died he left some lines to be placed over his tomb. +Here they are: + + “Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare + To Digg the dust enclosed heare. + Blessed be ye man yt spares thes stones + And Curst be ye yt moves my bones.” + +Now, why did Shakespeare make this peculiar request? No one seems to +have seen any meaning in it. It looks to me as if Shakespeare wrote the +verses in order to prevent his wife being buried with him. He wanted to +be free of her in death as in life. At any rate, the fact is that she +was not buried with him, but apart from him; he had seen to that. His +grave was never opened, though his wife expressed a desire to be buried +with him. The man who needs further proofs would not be persuaded though +one came from the dead to convince him. + +The marriage was an unfortunate one for many reasons, as an enforced +marriage is apt to be, even when it is not the marriage of a boy in his +teens to a woman some eight years his senior. Shakespeare takes trouble +to tell us in “The Comedy of Errors” that his wife was spitefully +jealous, and a bitter scold. She must have injured him, poisoned his +life with her jealous nagging, or Shakespeare would have forgiven her. +There is some excuse for him, if excuse be needed. At the time the +marriage must have seemed the wildest folly to him, seething as he was +with inordinate conceit. He was wise beyond his years, and yet he had +been forced to give hostages to fortune before he had any means of +livelihood, before he had even found a place in life. What a position +for a poet--penniless, saddled with a jealous wife and three children +before he was twenty-one. And this poet was proud, and vain, and in love +with all distinctions. + +But why did Shakespeare nurse such persistent enmity all through his +life to jealous, scolding Anne Hathaway? Shakespeare had wronged her; +the keener his moral sense, the more certain he was to blame his partner +in the fault, for in no other way could he excuse himself. + +It was overpowering sensuality and rashness which had led Shakespeare +into the noose, and now there was nothing for it but to cut the rope. He +had either to be true to his higher nature or to the conventional view +of his duty; he was true to himself and fled to London, and the world is +the richer for his decision. The only excuse he ever made is to be found +in the sonnet-line: + + “Love is too young to know what conscience is.” + +For my part I do not see that any excuse is needed: if Shakespeare had +married Anne Whately he might never have gone to London or written a +play. Shakespeare's hatred of his wife and his regret for having married +her were alike foolish. Our brains are seldom the wisest part of us. It +was well that he made love to Anne Hathaway; well, too, that he was +forced to marry her; well, finally, that he should desert her. I am +sorry he treated her badly and left her unsupplied with money; that was +needlessly cruel; but it is just the kindliest men who have these +extraordinary lapses; Shakespeare's loathing for his wife was +measureless, was a part of his own self-esteem, and his self-esteem was +founded on snobbish non-essentials for many years, if not, indeed, +throughout his life. + +There is a tradition preserved by Rowe that before going to London young +Shakespeare taught school in the country; it may be; but he did not +teach for long, we can be sure, and what he had to teach there were few +scholars in the English country then or now capable of learning. Another +tradition asserts that he obtained employment as a lawyer's clerk, +probably because of the frequent use of legal phrases in his plays. But +these apologists all forget that they are speaking of men like +themselves, and of times like ours. Politics is the main theme of talk +in our day; but in the time of Elizabeth it was rather dangerous to show +one's wisdom by criticizing the government: law was then the chief +staple of conversation: every educated man was therefore familiar with +law and its phraseology, as men are familiar in our day with the jargon +of politics. + +When did Shakespeare fly to London? Some say when he was twenty-one, as +soon as his wife presented him with twins, in 1585. Others say as soon +as Sir Thomas Lucy's persecution became intolerable. Both causes no +doubt worked together, and yet another cause, given in “The Two +Gentlemen of Verona,” was the real _causa causans_. Shakespeare was +naturally ambitious; eager to measure himself with the best and try his +powers. London was the arena where all great prizes were to be won: +Shakespeare strained towards the Court like a greyhound in leash. But +when did he go? Again in doubt I take the shepherd's words in “The +Winter's Tale” as a guide. Most men would have said from fourteen to +twenty was the dangerous age for a youth; but Shakespeare had perhaps a +personal reason for the peculiar “ten to twenty-three.” He was, no +doubt, astoundingly precocious, and probably even at ten he had learned +everything of value that the grammar school had to teach, and his +thoughts had begun to play truant. Twenty-three, too, is a significant +date in his life; in 1587, when he was twenty-three, two companies of +actors, under the nominal patronage of the Queen and Lord Leicester, +returned to London from a provincial tour, during which they visited +Stratford. In Lord Leicester's company were Burbage and Heminge, with +whom we know that Shakespeare was closely connected in later life. It +seems to me probable that he returned with this company to London, and +arrived in London, as he tells us in “The Comedy of Errors,” “stiff and +weary with long travel,” and at once went out to view the town and +“peruse the traders.” + +There is a tradition that when he came to London in 1587 he held horses +outside the doors of the theatre. This story was first put about by the +compiler of “The Lives of the Poets,” in 1753. According to the author +the story was related by D'Avenant to Betterton; but Rowe, to whom +Betterton must have told it, does not transmit it. Rowe was perhaps +right to forget it or leave it out; though the story is not in itself +incredible. Such work must have been infinitely distasteful to +Shakespeare, but necessity is a hard master, and Greene, who talks of +him later as “Shake-scene,” also speaks in the same connection of these +“grooms.” The curious amplified version of the story that Shakespeare +organized a service of boys to hold the horses is hardly to be believed. +The great Doctor was anything but a poet, or a good judge of the poetic +temperament. + +The Shakespeares of this world are not apt to take up menial employs, +and this one had already shown that he preferred idle musings and +parasitic dependence to uncongenial labour. Whoever reads the second +scene of the second act of “The Comedy of Errors,” will see that +Shakespeare, even at the beginning, had an uncommonly good opinion of +himself. He plays gentleman from the first, and despises trade; he snubs +his servant and will not brook familiarity from him. In “The Two +Gentlemen of Verona,” he tells us that he left the country and came to +London seeking “honour,” intending, no doubt, to make a name for himself +by his writings. He had probably “Venus and Adonis” in his pocket when +he first reached London. This would inspire a poet with the +self-confidence which a well-filled purse lends to an ordinary man. + +I am inclined to accept Rowe's statement that Shakespeare was received +into an actor-company at first in a very mean rank. The parish clerk of +Stratford at the end of the seventeenth century used to tell the +visitors that Shakespeare entered the playhouse as a servitor; but, +however he entered it, it is pretty certain he was not long in a +subordinate position. + +What manner of man was William Shakespeare when he first fronted life in +London somewhere about 1587? Aubrey tells us that he was “a handsome, +well-shap't man, very good company, and of a very readie and pleasant +smooth witt.” The bust of him in Stratford Church was coloured; it gave +him light hazel eyes, and auburn hair and beard. Rowe says of him that +“besides the advantages of his witt, he was in himself a good-natured +man, of too great sweetness in his manners, and a most agreeable +companion.” + +I picture him to myself very like Swinburne--of middle height or below +it, inclined to be stout; the face well-featured, with forehead domed to +reverence and quick, pointed chin; a face lighted with hazel-clear vivid +eyes and charming with sensuous-full mobile lips that curve easily to +kisses or gay ironic laughter; an exceedingly sensitive, eager speaking +face that mirrors every fleeting change of emotion.... + +I can see him talking, talking with extreme fluency in a high tenor +voice, the reddish hair flung back from the high forehead, the eyes now +dancing, now aflame, every feature quick with the “beating mind.” + +And such talk--the groundwork of it, so to speak, very +intimate-careless; but gemmed with thoughts, diamonded with wit, +rhythmic with feeling: don't we know how it ran--“A hundred and fifty +tattered prodigals.... No eye hath seen such scarecrows, ... discarded, +unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, +and ostlers trade-fallen: the cankers of a calm world and a long peace.” + And after the thought the humour again--“food for powder, food for +powder.” + +Now let us consider some of his other qualities. In 1592 he published +his “Venus and Adonis,” which he had no doubt written in 1587 or even +earlier, for he called it “the first heir of my invention” when he +dedicated it to Lord Southampton. This work is to me extremely +significant. It is all concerned with the wooing of young Adonis by +Venus, an older woman. Now, goddesses have no age, nor do women, as a +rule, woo in this sensual fashion. The peculiarities point to personal +experience. “I, too,” Shakespeare tells us practically, “was wooed by an +older woman against my will.” He seems to have wished the world to +accept this version of his untimely marriage. Young Shakespeare in +London was probably a little ashamed of being married to some one whom +he could hardly introduce or avow. The apologists who declare that he +made money very early in his career give us no explanation of the fact +that he never brought his wife or children to London. Wherever we touch +Shakespeare's intimate life, we find proof upon proof that he detested +his wife and was glad to live without her. + +Looked at in this light “Venus and Adonis” is not a very noble thing to +have written; but I am dealing with a young poet's nature, and the +majority of young poets would like to forget their Anne Hathaway if they +could; or, to excuse themselves, would put the blame of an ill-sorted +union upon the partner to it. + +There is a certain weakness, however, shown in the whole story of his +marriage; a weakness of character, as well as a weakness of +_morale_, which it is impossible to ignore; and there were other +weaknesses in Shakespeare, especially a weakness of body which must +necessarily have had its correlative delicacies of mind. + +I have pointed out in the first part of this book that sleeplessness was +a characteristic of Shakespeare, even in youth; he attributes it to +Henry IV. in old age, and to Henry V., a youth at the time, who probably +never knew what a sleepless night meant. Shakespeare's _alter ego_, +Valentine, in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” suffers from it, and so do +Macbeth and Hamlet, and a dozen others of his chief characters, in +particular his impersonations--all of which shows, I think, that from +the beginning the mind of Shakespeare was too strong for his body. As we +should say to-day, he was too emotional, and lived on his nerves. I +always think of him as a ship over-engined; when the driving-power is +working at full speed it shakes the ship to pieces. + +One other weakness is marked in him, and that is that he could not +drink, could not carry his liquor like a man--to use our accepted +phrase. Hamlet thought drinking a custom more honoured in the breach +than in the observance; Cassius, Shakespeare's incarnation in “Othello,” + confessed that he had “poor unhappy brains for drinking”: tradition +informs us that Shakespeare himself died of a “feavour” from +drinking--all of which confirms my opinion that Shakespeare was delicate +rather than robust. He was, also, extraordinarily fastidious: in drama +after drama he rails against the “greasy” caps and “stinking” breath of +the common people. This overstrained disgust suggests to me a certain +delicacy of constitution. + +But there is still another indication of bodily weakness which in itself +would be convincing to those accustomed to read closely; but which would +carry little or no weight to the careless. In sonnet 129 Shakespeare +tells us of lust and its effects, and the confession seems to me purely +personal. Here are four lines of it: + + “Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight; + Past reason hunted; and no sooner had, + Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait, + On purpose laid to make the taker mad.” + +Now, this is not the ordinary man's experience of passion and its +effects. “Past reason hunted,” such an one might say, but he would +certainly not go on “No sooner had, Past reason hated.” He is not moved +to hate by enjoyment, but to tenderness; it is your weakling who is +physically exhausted by enjoyment who is moved to hatred. This sonnet +was written by Shakespeare in the prime of manhood at thirty-four or +thirty-five at latest. + +Shakespeare was probably healthy as a young man, but intensely sensitive +and highly strung; too finely constituted ever to have been strong. One +notices that he takes no pleasure in fighting; his heroes are, of +course, all “valiant,” but he shows no loving interest in the game of +fighting as a game. In fact, we have already seen that he found no +wonderful phrase for any of the manly virtues; he was a neuropath and a +lover, and not a fighter, even in youth, or Fulk Sandells might have +rued his interference. + +The dominating facts to be kept ever in mind about Shakespeare are that +he was delicate in body, and over-excitable; yielding and irresolute in +character; with too great sweetness of manners and inordinately given to +the pleasures of love. + +How would such a man fare in the world of London in 1587? It was a wild +and wilful age; eager English spirits were beginning to take a part in +the opening up of the new world; the old, limiting horizons were gone; +men dared to think for themselves and act boldly; ten years before Drake +had sailed round the world--the adventurer was the characteristic +product of the time. In ordinary company a word led to a blow, and the +fight was often brought to a fatal conclusion with dagger or sword or +both. In those rough days actors were almost outlaws; Ben Jonson is +known to have killed two or three men; Marlowe died in a tavern brawl. +Courage has always been highly esteemed in England, like gentility and a +university training. Shakespeare possessed none of these passports to +public favour. He could not shoulder his way through the throng. The +wild adventurous life of the time was not to his liking, even in early +manhood; from the beginning he preferred “the life removed” and his +books; all given over to the “bettering of his mind” he could only have +been appreciated at any time by the finer spirits. + +Entering the theatre as a servitor he no doubt made such acquaintances +as offered themselves, and spent a good deal of his leisure perforce +with second-rate actors and writers in common taverns and studied his +Bardolph and Pistol, and especially his Falstaff at first hand. Perhaps +Marlowe was one of his _ciceroni_ in rough company. Shakespeare had +almost certainly met Marlowe very early in his career, for he worked +with him in the “Third Part of Henry VI.,” and his “Richard III.” is a +conscious imitation of Marlowe, and Marlowe was dissipated enough and +wild enough to have shown him the wildest side of life in London in the +'80's. It was the very best thing that could have happened to delicate +Shakespeare, to come poor and unknown to London, and be soused in common +rowdy life like this against his will by sheer necessity; for if left to +his own devices he would probably have grown up a bookish poet--a second +Coleridge. Fate takes care of her favourites. + +It was all in his favour that he should have been forced at first to win +his spurs as an actor. He must have been too intelligent, one would +think, ever to have brought it far as a mummer; he looked upon the +half-art of acting with disdain and disgust, as he tells us in the +sonnets, and if in Hamlet he condescends to give advice to actors, it is +to admonish them not to outrage the decencies of nature by tearing a +passion to tatters. He had at hand a surer ladder to fame than the +mummer's art. As soon as he felt his feet in London he set to work +adapting plays, and writing plays, while reading his own poetry to all +and sundry who would listen, and I have no doubt that patrons of the +stage, who were also men of rank, were willing to listen to Shakespeare +from the beginning. He was of those who require no introductions. + +In 1592, four or five years after his arrival in London, he had already +come to the front as a dramatist, or at least as an adapter of plays, +for Robert Greene, a scholar and playwright, attacked him in his +“Groatsworth of Wit” in this fashion: + + “There is an upstart Crow, beautified in our feathers + that, with his tiger's heart wrapt in a player's hide, supposes + he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as + the best of you, and, being an absolute Johannes fac + totum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shakescene in a + country. Oh, that I might intreat your rare wits to be + employed in more profitable courses, and let these apes + imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint + them with your admired inventions.” + +It is plain from this weird appeal that Shakespeare had already made his +mark. + +There are further proofs of his rapid success. One of Chettle's +references to Shakespeare (I take Chettle to be the original of +Falstaff) throws light upon the poet's position in London in these early +days. Shortly after Greene had insulted Shakespeare as “Shake-scene” + Chettle apologized for the insult in these terms: + + “I am as sorry,” Chettle wrote, “as if the original + fault had beene my fault, because myselfe have seen his + (_i.e._, Shakespeare's) demeanour no less civill than he (is) + exelent in the qualitie he professes. Besides, divers of + worship have reported his uprightnes of dealing, which + argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing that + aprooves his art.” + +In 1592, then, Shakespeare was most “civill in demeanour,” and had won +golden opinions from people of importance. + +Actors and poets of that time could not help knowing a good many of the +young nobles who came to the theatre and sat round the stage listening +to the performances. And Shakespeare, with his aristocratic sympathies +and charming sweetness of nature, must have made friends with the +greatest ease. Chettle's apology proves that early in his career he had +the art or luck to win distinguished patrons who spoke well of him. +While still new to town he came to know Lord Southampton, to whom he +dedicated “Venus and Adonis”; the fulsome dedication of “Lucrece” to the +same nobleman two years later shows that deference had rapidly ripened +into affectionate devotion; no wonder Rowe noticed the “too great +sweetness in his manners.” Thinking of his intimacy with Southampton on +the one hand and Bardolph on the other, one is constrained to say of +Shakespeare what Apemantus says of Timon: + + “The middle of humanity thou never knewest, + But the extremity of both ends.” + +In the extremes characters show themselves more clearly than they do in +the middle classes; at both ends of society speech and deed are +unrestrained. Falstaff and Bardolph and the rest were free of convention +by being below it, just as Bassanio and Mercutio were free because they +were above it, and made the rules. The young lord did what he pleased, +and spoke his mind as plainly as the footpad. Life at both ends was the +very school for quick, sympathetic Shakespeare. But even in early +manhood, as soon as he came to himself and found his work, one other +quality is as plain in Shakespeare as even his humour--high impartial +intellect with sincere ethical judgement. He judges even Falstaff +severely, to the point of harshness, indeed; as he judged himself later +in Enobarbus. This high critical faculty pervades all his work. But it +must not be thought that his conduct was as scrupulous as his +principles, or his will as sovereign as his intelligence. That he was a +loose-liver while in London is well attested. Contemporary anecdotes +generally hit off a man's peculiarities, and the only anecdote of +Shakespeare that is known to have been told about him in his lifetime +illustrates this master trait of his character. Burbage, we are told, +when playing Richard III., arranged with a lady in the audience to visit +her after the performance. Shakespeare overheard the rendezvous, +anticipated his fellow's visit, and met Burbage on his arrival with the +jibe that “William the Conqueror came before Richard III.” The lightness +is no doubt as characteristic of Shakespeare as the impudent humour. + +There is another fact in Shakespeare's life which throws almost as much +light on his character as his marriage. He seems to have come to riches +very early and very easily. As we have seen, he was never able to paint +a miser, which confirms Jonson's testimony that he was “of an open and +free nature.” In 1597 he went down to Stratford and bought New Place, +then in ruinous condition, but the chief house in the town, for £60; he +spent at least as much more between 1597 and 1599 in rebuilding the +house and stocking the barns with grain. In 1602 we find that he +purchased from William and John Combe, of Stratford, a hundred and seven +acres of arable land near the town, for which he paid £320; in 1605, +too, he bought for £440 a moiety of the tithes of Stratford for an +unexpired term of thirty-one years, which investment seems to have +brought him in little except a wearisome lawsuit. + +Now, how did the poet obtain this thousand pounds or so? English +apologists naturally assume that he was a “good business man”; with +delicious unconscious irony they one and all picture the man who hated +tradesmen as himself a sort of thrifty tradesman-soul--a master of +practical life who looked after the pennies from the beginning. These +commentators all treat Shakespeare as the Hebrews treated God; they make +him in their own likeness. In Shakespeare's case this practice leads to +absurdity. Let us take the strongest advocate of the accepted view. +Dryasdust is at pains to prove that Shakespeare's emoluments, even as an +actor in the '90's, were not likely to have fallen below a hundred a +year; but even Dryasdust admits that his large earnings came after 1599, +from his shares in the Globe Theatre, and is inclined “to accept the +tradition that Shakespeare received from the Earl of Southampton a large +gift of money.” As Southampton came of age in 1595, he may well out of +his riches have helped the man who had dedicated his poems to him with +servile adulation. Moreover, the statement is put forward by Rowe, who +is certainly more trustworthy than the general run of gossip-mongers, +and his account of the matter proves that he did not accept the story +with eager credulity, but as one compelled by authority. Here is what he +says: + +“There is one story so singular in magnificence of this patron of +Shakspeare that if I had not been assured that the story was handed down +by Sir Wm. D'Avenant, who was probably very well acquainted with his +affairs, I should not have ventured to insert that my lord Southampton, +at one time, gave him a thousand pounds to enable him to go through with +a purchase to which he heard he had a mind. A bounty very great, and +very rare at any time, almost equal to that profuse generosity the +present age has shown to French dancers and Italian Eunuchs.” + +It seems to me a great deal more likely that this munificent gift of +Southampton was the source of Shakespeare's wealth than that he added +coin to coin in saving, careful fashion. It may be said at once that all +the evidence we have is in favour of Shakespeare's extravagance, and +against his thrift. As we have seen, when studying “The Merchant of +Venice,” the presumption is that he looked upon saving with contempt, and +was himself freehanded to a fault. The Rev. John Ward, who was Vicar +of Stratford from 1648 to 1679, tells us “that he spent at the rate of a +thousand a year, as I have heard.” + +It is impossible to deny that Shakespeare got rid of a great deal of +money even after his retirement to Stratford; and men accustomed to save +are not likely to become prodigal in old age. + +On the 10th March, 1613, Shakespeare bought a house in Blackfriars for +£140; the next day he executed another deed, now in the British Museum, +which stipulated that £60 of the purchase-money was to remain on +mortgage until the following Michaelmas; the money was unpaid at +Shakespeare's death, which seems to me to argue a certain carelessness, +to say the least of it. + +Dryasdust makes out that Shakespeare, in the years from 1600 to 1612, +was earning about six hundred a year in the money of the period, or +nearly five thousand a year of our money, and yet he was unable or +unwilling to pay off a paltry £60. + +After passing the last five years of his life in village Stratford, +where he could not possibly have found many opportunities of +extravagance, he was only able to leave a little more than one year's +income. He willed New Place to his elder daughter, Susanna Hall, +together with the land, barns, and gardens at and near Stratford (except +the tenement in Chapel Lane), and the house in Blackfriars, London, all +together equal, at the most, to five or six hundred pounds; and to his +younger daughter, Judith, he bequeathed the tenement in Chapel Lane, +£150 in money, and another £150 to be paid if she was alive three years +after the date of the will. Nine hundred pounds, or so, of the money of +the period, would cover all he possessed at death. When we consider +these things, it becomes plain, I think, that Shakespeare was +extravagant to lavishness even in cautious age. While in London he no +doubt earned and was given large sums of money; but he was free-handed +and careless, and died far poorer than one would have expected from an +ordinarily thrifty man. The loose-liver is usually a spendthrift. + +There are worse faults to be laid to his account than lechery and +extravagance. Every one who has read his works with any care must admit +that Shakespeare was a snob of the purest English water. Aristocratic +tastes were natural to him; inherent, indeed, in the delicate +sensitiveness of his beauty-loving temperament; but he desired the +outward and visible signs of gentility as much as any podgy millionaire +of our time, and stooped as low to get them as man could stoop. In 1596, +his young son, Hamnet, died at Stratford, and was buried on 11th August +in the parish church. This event called Shakespeare back to his village, +and while he was there he most probably paid his father's debts, and +certainly tried to acquire for himself and his successors the position +of gentlefolk. He induced his father to make application to the College +of Heralds for a coat of arms, on the ground not only that his father +was a man of substance, but that he had also married into a “worshipful” + family. The draft grant of arms was not executed at the time. It may +have been that the father's pecuniary position became known to the +College, or perhaps the profession of the son created difficulties; +but in any case nothing was done for some time. In 1597, however, the +Earl of Essex became Earl Marshal and Chief of the Heralds' College, and +the scholar and antiquary, William Camden, joined the College as +Clarenceux King of Arms. Shakespeare must have been known to the Earl of +Essex, who was an intimate friend of the Earl of Southampton; he was +indeed almost certainly a friend and admirer of Essex. The Shakespeares' +second application to be admitted to the status of gentlefolk took a new +form. They asserted roundly that the coat as set out in the draft of +1596 had been assigned to John Shakespeare while he was bailiff, and the +heralds were asked to give him a “recognition” of it. At the same time +John Shakespeare asked for permission to quarter on his “ancient coat of +arms” that of the Ardens of Wilmscote, his wife's family. But this was +going too far, even for a friend of Essex. To grant such a request might +have got the College into trouble with the influential Warwickshire +family of Arden, and so it was refused; but the grant was “recognized,” + and Shakespeare's peculiar ambition was satisfied. + +Every single incident in his life bears out what we have learned from +his works. In all his writings he praises lords and gentlemen, and runs +down the citizens and common people, and in his life he spent some +years, a good deal of trouble, and many impudent lies in getting for his +father a grant of arms and recognition as a gentleman--a very pitiful +ambition, but peculiarly English. Shakespeare, one fancies, was a +gentleman by nature, and a good deal more. + +But his snobbishness had other worse results. Partly because of it he +never got to know the middle classes in England. True, even in his time +they were excessively Puritanical, which quality hedged them off, so to +speak, from the playwright-poet. With his usual gentleness or timidity, +Shakespeare never tells us directly what he thought of the Puritans, but +his half-averted, contemptuous glance at them in passing, is very +significant. Angelo, the would-be Puritan ruler, was a “false seemer,” + Malvolio was a “chough.” The peculiar virtues of the English middle +class, its courage and sheepishness; its good conduct and respect for +duties; its religious sense and cocksure narrow-mindedness, held no +attraction for Shakespeare, and, armoured in snobbishness, he utterly +missed what a knowledge of the middle classes might have given him. + +Let us take one instance of his loss. Though he lived in an age of +fanaticism, he never drew a fanatic or reformer, never conceived a man +as swimming against the stream of his time. He had but a vague +conception of the few spirits in each age who lead humanity to new and +higher ideals; he could not understand a Christ or a Mahomet, and it +seems as if he took but small interest in Jeanne d'Arc, the noblest +being that came within the ken of his art. For even if we admit that he +did not write the first part of “Henry VI.,” it is certain that it +passed through his hands, and that in his youth, at any rate, he saw +nothing to correct in that vile and stupid libel on the greatest of +women. Even the English fanatic escaped his intelligence; his Jack Cade, +as I have already noticed, is a wretched caricature; no Cade moves his +fellows save by appealing to the best in them, to their sense of +justice, or what they take for justice. The Cade who will wheedle men +for his own gross ambitions may make a few dupes, but not thousands of +devoted followers. These elementary truths Shakespeare never understood. +Yet how much greater he would have been had he understood them; had he +studied even one Puritan lovingly and depicted him sympathetically. For +the fanatic is one of the hinges which swing the door of the modern +world. Shakespeare's “universal sympathy”--to quote Coleridge--did not +include the plainly-clad tub-thumper who dared to accuse him to his face +of serving the Babylonish Whore. Shakespeare sneered at the Puritan +instead of studying him; with the result that he belongs rather to the +Renaissance than to the modern world, in spite even of his Hamlet. The +best of a Wordsworth or a Turgenief is outside him; he would never have +understood a Marianna or a Bazarof, and the noble faith of the sonnet to +“Toussaint l'Ouverture” was quite beyond him. He could never have +written: + + “Thou hast left behind + Powers that will work for thee, air, earth and skies; + There's not a breathing of the common wind + That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; + Thy friends are exultations, agonies, + And love, and man's unconquerable mind.” + +It is time to speak of him frankly; he was gentle, and witty; gay, and +sweet-mannered, very studious, too, and fair of mind; but at the same +time he was weak in body and irresolute, hasty and wordy, and took +habitually the easiest way out of difficulties; he was ill-endowed in +the virile virtues and virile vices. When he showed arrogance it was +always of intellect and not of character; he was a parasite by nature. +But none of these faults would have brought him to ruin; he was snared +again in full manhood by his master-quality, his overpowering +sensuality, and thrown in the mire. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE--continued + + +Shakespeare's life seems to fall sharply into two halves. Till he met +Mistress Fitton, about 1597, he must have been happy and well content, I +think, in spite of his deep underlying melancholy. According to my +reckoning he had been in London about ten years, and no man has ever +done so much in the time and been so successful even as the world counts +success. He had not only written the early poems and the early plays, +but in the last three or four years half-a-dozen masterpieces: “A +Midsummer's Night's Dream,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Richard II.,” “King +John,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “The Two Parts of Henry IV.” At +thirty-three he was already the greatest poet and dramatist of whom Time +holds any record. + +Southampton's bounty had given him ease, and allowed him to discharge +his father's debts, and place his dearly loved mother in a position of +comfort in the best house in Stratford. + +He had troops of friends, we may be sure, for there was no gentler, +gayer, kindlier creature in all London, and he set store by friendship. +Ten years before he had neither money, place, nor position; now he had +all these, and was known even at Court. The Queen had been kind to him. +He ended the epilogue to the “Second Part of Henry IV.,” which he had +just finished, by kneeling “to pray for the Queen.” Essex or Southampton +had no doubt brought his work to Elizabeth's notice: she had approved +his “Falstaff” and encouraged him to continue. Of all his successes, +this royal recognition was surely the one which pleased him most. He was +at the topmost height of happy hours when he met the woman who was to +change the world for him. + +In the lives of great men the typical tragedies are likely to repeat +themselves. Socrates was condemned to drain many a poisoned cup before +he was given the bowl of hemlock: Shakespeare had come to grief with +many women before he fell with Mary Fitton. It was his ungovernable +sensuality which drove him in youth to his untimely and unhappy +marriage; it was his ungovernable sensuality, too, which in his maturity +led him to worship Mary Fitton, and threw him into those twelve years of +bondage to earthy, coarse service which he regretted so bitterly when +the passion-fever had burned itself out. + +One can easily guess how he came to know the self-willed and wild-living +maid-of-honour. Like many of the courtiers, Mistress Fitton affected the +society of the players. Kemp, the clown of his company, knew her, and +dedicated a book to her rather familiarly. I have always thought that +Shakespeare resented Kemp's intimacy with Mistress Fitton, for when +Hamlet advises the players to prevent the clown from gagging, he adds, +with a snarl of personal spite: + + “a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.” + +Mary Fitton's position, her proud, dark beauty, her daring of speech and +deed took Shakespeare by storm. She was his complement in every failing; +her strength matched his weakness; her resolution his hesitation, her +boldness his timidity; besides, she was of rank and place, and out of +pure snobbery he felt himself her inferior. He forgot that humble +worship was not the way to win a high-spirited girl. He loved her so +abjectly that he lost her; and it was undoubtedly his overpowering +sensuality and snobbishness which brought him to his knees, and his love +to ruin. He could not even keep her after winning her; desire blinded +him. He would not see that Mary Fitton was not a wanton through mere +lust. As soon as her fancy was touched she gave herself; but she was +true to the new lover for the time. We know that she bore a son to +Pembroke and two illegitimate daughters to Sir Richard Leveson. Her +slips with these men wounded Shakespeare's vanity, and he persisted in +underrating her. Let us probe to the root of the secret sore. Here is a +page of “Troilus and Cressida,” a page from that terrible fourth scene +of the fourth act, when Troilus, having to part from Cressida, warns her +against the Greeks and their proficience in the arts of love: + + “_Troilus_. I cannot sing + Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk, + Nor play at subtle games; fair virtues all, + To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant: + But I can tell thee in each grace of these + There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil + That tempts most cunningly: but be not tempted. + + _Cressida._ Do you think I will? + + _Troilus. No: but something may be done that we will not._” + +The first lines show that poor Shakespeare often felt out of it at +Court. The suggestion, I have put in italics, is unspeakable. +Shakespeare made use of every sensual bait in hope of winning his love, +liming himself and not the woman. His vanity was so inordinate that +instead of saying to himself, “it's natural that a high-born girl of +nineteen should prefer a great lord of her own age to a poor poet of +thirty-four”: he strives to persuade himself and us that Mary Fitton was +won away from him by “subtle games,” and in his rage of wounded vanity +he wrote that tremendous libel on her, which he put in the mouth of +Ulysses: + + “Fie, fie upon her! + There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, + Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out + At every joint and motive of her body. + O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, + That give accosting welcome ere it comes, + And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts + To every ticklish reader! set them down + For sluttish spoils of opportunity + And daughters of the game.” + +His tortured sensuality caricatures her: that “ticklish reader” reveals +him. Mary Fitton was finer than his portraits; we want her soul, and do +not get it even in Cleopatra. It was the consciousness of his own age +and physical inferiority that drove him to jealous denigration of his +mistress. + +Mary Fitton did not beguile Shakespeare to “the very heart of loss,” as +he cried; but to the innermost shrine of the temple of Fame. It was his +absolute abandonment to passion which made Shakespeare the supreme poet. +If it had not been for his excessive sensuality, and his mad passion for +his “gipsy,” we should never have had from him “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” + “Othello,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” or “Lear.” He would still have been a +poet and a dramatic writer of the first rank; but he would not have +stood alone above all others: he would not have been Shakespeare. + +His passion for Mary Fitton lasted some twelve years. Again and again he +lived golden hours with her like those Cleopatra boasted of and +regretted. Life is wasted quickly in such orgasms of passion; lust +whipped to madness by jealousy. Mary Fitton was the only woman +Shakespeare ever loved, or at least, the only woman he loved with such +intensity as to influence his art. She was Rosaline, Cressid, Cleopatra, +and the “dark lady” of the sonnets. All his other women are parts of her +or reflections of her, as all his heroes are sides of Hamlet, or +reflections of him. Portia is the first full-length sketch of Mary +Fitton, taken at a distance: Beatrice and Rosalind are mere reflections +of her high spirits, her aristocratic pride and charm: her strength and +resolution are incarnate in Lady Macbeth. Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia, +are but abstract longings for purity and constancy called into life by +his mistress's faithlessness and passion. + +Shakespeare admired Mary Fitton as intensely as he desired her, yet he +could not be faithful to her for the dozen years his passion lasted. +Love and her soft hours drew him irresistibly again and again: he was +the ready spoil of opportunity. Here is one instance: it was his custom, +Aubrey tells us, to visit Stratford every year, probably every summer: +on his way he was accustomed to put up at an inn in Oxford, kept by John +D'Avenant. Mrs. D'Avenant, we are told, was “a very beautiful woman, and +of a very good witt and of conversation extremely agreeable.” No doubt +Shakespeare made up to her from the first. Her second son, William, who +afterwards became the celebrated playwright, was born in March, 1605, +and according to a tradition long current in Oxford, Shakespeare was his +father. In later life Sir William D'Avenant himself was “contented +enough to be thought his (Shakespeare's) son.” There is every reason to +accept the story as it has been handed down. Shakespeare, as Troilus, +brags of his constancy; talks of himself as “plain and true”; but it was +all boasting: from eighteen to forty-five he was as inconstant as the +wind, and gave himself to all the “subtle games” of love with absolute +abandonment, till his health broke under the strain. + +In several of the Sonnets, notably in 36 and 37, Shakespeare tells us +that he was “poor and despised ... made lame by fortune's dearest +spite.” He will not even have his friend's name coupled with his for +fear lest his “bewailed guilt” should do him shame: + + “Let me confess that we two must be twain, + Although our undivided loves are one: + So shall those blots that do with me remain + Without thy help, by me be borne alone....” + +Spalding and other critics believe that this “guilt” of Shakespeare +refers to his profession as an actor, but that stain should not have +prevented Lord Herbert from honouring him with “public kindness.” It is +clear, I think, from the words themselves, that the guilt refers to the +fact that both Herbert and he were in love with the same woman. Jonson, +as we have seen, had poked fun at their connection, and this is how +Shakespeare tries to take the sting out of the sneer. + +Shakespeare had many of the weaknesses of the neurotic and artistic +temperament, but he had assuredly the noblest virtues of it: he was true +to his friends, and more than generous to their merits. + +If his ethical conscience was faulty, his aesthetical conscience was of +the very highest. Whenever we find him in close relations with his +contemporaries we are struck with his kindness and high impartial +intelligence. Were they his rivals, he found the perfect word for their +merits and shortcomings. How can one better praise Chapman than by +talking of + + “The proud full sail of his great verse”? + +How can one touch his defect more lightly than by hinting that his +learning needed feathers to lift it from the ground? And if Shakespeare +was fair even to his rivals, his friends could always reckon on his +goodwill and his unwearied service. All his fine qualities came out when +as an elder he met churlish Ben Jonson. Jonson did not influence him as +much as Marlowe had influenced him; but these were the two greatest of +living men with whom he was brought into close contact, and his +relations with Jonson show him as in a glass. Rowe has a characteristic +story which must not be forgotten: + + “His acquaintance with Ben Jonson began with a remarkable + piece of humanity and good-nature; Mr. Jonson, + who was at that time altogether unknown, had offered + one of his playes to the Players, in order to have it + acted; but the persons into whose hands it was put, after + having turned it carelessly and superciliously over, were + just upon returning it to him, with an ill-natured answer, + that it would be of no service to their company, when + Shakespeare luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something + so well in it as to encourage him to read through + and afterwards to recommend Ben Jonson and his writings + to the publick. After this they were professed + friends; though I don't know whether the other ever + made him an equal return of gentleness and sincerity. + Ben was naturally proud and indolent, and in the days + of his reputation did so far take upon him the premier + in witt that he could not but look with an evil eye upon + anyone that seemed to stand in competition with him. + And if at times he has affected to commend him, it has + always been with some reserve, insinuating his incorrectness, + a careless manner of writing and a want of judgment; + the praise of seldom altering or blotting out what + he writt which was given him by the players over the first + publish of his works after his death was what Jonson + could not bear....” + +The story reads exactly like the story of Goethe and Schiller. It was +Schiller who held aloof and was full of fault-finding criticism: it was +Goethe who made all the advances and did all the kindnesses. It was +Goethe who obtained for Schiller that place as professor of history at +Jena which gave Schiller the leisure needed for his dramatic work. It is +always the greater who gives and forgives. + +I believe, of course, too, in the traditional account of the +unforgettable evenings at the Mermaid. “Many were the wit-combats,” + wrote Fuller of Shakespeare in his “Worthies” (1662), “betwixt him and +Ben Jonson, which too I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an +English man of war. Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher +in learning, solid but slow in his performances. Shakespeare, with the +English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn +with all sides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the +quickness of his wit and invention.” + +It was natural for the onlooker to compare Ben Jonson and his +“mountainous belly” to some Spanish galleon, and Shakespeare, with his +quicker wit, to the more active English ship. It was Jonson's great +size--a quality which has always been too highly esteemed in +England--his domineering temper and desperate personal courage that +induced the gossip to even him with Shakespeare. + +Beaumont described these meetings, too, in his poetical letter to his +friend Jonson: + + “What things have we seen + Done at the Mermaid? Heard words that have been + So nimble and so full of subtle flame, + As if that every one from whence they came + Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, + And had resolved to live a fool the rest + Of his dull life.” + +In one respect at least the two men were antitheses. Jonson was +exceedingly combative and quarrelsome, and seems to have taken a chief +part in all the bitter disputes of his time between actors and men of +letters. He killed one actor in a duel and attacked Marston and Dekker +in “The Poetaster”; they replied to him in the “Satiromastix.” More than +once he criticized Shakespeare's writings; more than once jibed at +Shakespeare, unfairly trying to wound him; but Shakespeare would not +retort. It is to Jonson's credit that though he found fault with +Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar” and “Pericles,” he yet wrote of him in the +“Poetaster” as a peacemaker, and, under the name of Virgil, honoured him +as the greatest master of poetry. + +Tradition gives us one witty story about the relations between the pair +which seems to me extraordinarily characteristic. Shakespeare was +godfather to one of Ben's children, and after the christening, being in +a deep study, Jonson came to cheer him up, and asked him why he was so +melancholy. “No, faith, Ben,” says he; “not I, but I have been +considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to +bestow upon my godchild and I have resolved at last.” “I pr'ythee, +what?” sayes he. “I'faith, Ben, I'll e'en give him a dozen good Lattin +spoons, and thou shalt translate them.” Lattin, as everybody knows, was +a mixed metal resembling brass: the play upon words and sly fun poked at +Jonson's scholarship are in Shakespeare's best manner. The story must be +regarded as Shakespeare's answer to Jonson's sneer that he had “little +Latine and lesse Greeke.” + +Through the mist of tradition and more or less uncertain references in +his poetry, one sees that he had come, probably through Southampton, to +admire Essex, and the fall and execution of Essex had an immense effect +upon him. It is certain, I think, that the noble speech on mercy put +into Portia's mouth in “The Merchant of Venice,” was primarily an appeal +to Elizabeth for Essex or for Southampton. It is plainly addressed to +the Queen, and not to a Jew pariah: + + “... It becomes + The throned monarch better than his crown; + His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, + The attribute to awe and majesty, + Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; + But mercy is above this scepter'd sway, + It is enthroned in the heart of kings. + It is an attribute of God Himself, + And earthly power doth then show likest God's, + When Mercy seasons Justice.” + +All this must have seemed the veriest irony when addressed to an outcast +Jew. It was clearly intended as an appeal to Elizabeth, and shows how +far gentle Shakespeare would venture in defence of a friend. Like a +woman, he gained a certain courage through his affections. + +I feel convinced that he resented the condemnation of Essex and the +imprisonment of Southampton very bitterly, for though he had praised +Elizabeth in his salad days again and again, talked about her in “A +Midsummer Night's Dream” as a “fair vestal throned by the west”; walking +in “maiden meditation, fancy-free”; yet, when she died, he could not be +induced to write one word about her. His silence was noticed, and +Chettle challenged him to write in praise of the dead sovereign, because +she had been kind to him; but he would not: he had come to realise the +harsh nature of Elizabeth, and he detested her ruthless cruelties. Like +a woman, he found it difficult to forgive one who had injured those he +loved. Now that I have discussed at some length Shakespeare's character, +its powers and its weaknesses, let us for a moment consider his +intellect. All sorts and conditions of men talk of it in superlatives; +but that does not help us much. It is as easy to sit in Shakespeare's +brain and think from there, as it is from Balzac's. If we have read +Shakespeare rightly, his intelligence was peculiarly self-centred; he +was wise mainly through self-knowledge, and not, as is commonly +supposed, through knowledge of others and observation; he was assuredly +anything but worldly-wise. Take one little point. In nearly every play +he discovers an intense love of music and of flowers; but he never tells +you anything about the music he loves, and he only mentions a dozen +flowers in all his works. True, he finds exquisite phrases for his +favourites; but he only seems to have noticed or known the commonest. +His knowledge of birds and beasts is similarly limited. But when Bacon +praises flowers he shows at once the naturalist's gift of observation; +he mentions hundreds of different kinds, enumerating them month by +month; in April alone he names as many as Shakespeare has mentioned in +all his writings. He used his eyes to study things outside himself, and +memory to recall them; but Shakespeare's eyes were turned inward; he +knew little of the world outside himself. + +Shakespeare's knowledge of men and women has been overrated. With all +his sensuality he only knew one woman, Mary Fitton, though he knew her +in every mood, and only one man, himself, profoundly apprehended in +every accident and moment of growth. + +He could not construct plays or invent stories, though he selected good +ones with considerable certainty. He often enriched the characters, +seldom or never the incidents; even the characters he creates are +usually sides of himself, or humorous masks without a soul. He must have +heard of the statesman Burleigh often enough; but nowhere does he +portray him; no hint in his works of Drake, or Raleigh, or Elizabeth, or +Sidney. He has no care either for novelties; he never mentions forks or +even tobacco or potatoes. A student by nature if ever there was one, all +intent, as he tells us, on bettering his mind, he passes through Oxford +a hundred times and never even mentions the schools: Oxford men had +disgusted him with their _alma mater_. + +The utmost reach of this self-student is extraordinary; the main puzzle +of life is hidden from us as from him; but his word on it is deeper than +any of ours, though we have had three centuries in which to climb above +him. + + “Men must abide + Their going hence even as their coming hither. + Ripeness is all.” + +And if it be said that the men of the Renaissance occupied themselves +more with such questions than we do, and therefore show better in +relation to them, let us take another phrase which has always seemed to +me of extraordinary insight. Antony has beaten Caesar, and returns to +Cleopatra, who greets him with the astounding words: + + “Lord of lords, + O, infinite virtue, com'st thou smiling from + The world's great snare uncaught?” + +This is all more or less appropriate in the mouth of Cleopatra; but it +is to me Shakespeare's own comment on life; he is conscious of his +failure; he has said to himself: “if I, Shakespeare, have failed, it is +because every one fails; life's handicap searches out every weakness; to +go through life as a conqueror would require 'infinite virtue.'” This is +perhaps the furthest throw of Shakespeare's thought. + +But his worldly wisdom is to seek. After he had been betrayed by Lord +Herbert he raves of man's ingratitude, in play after play. Of course men +are ungrateful; it is only the rarest and noblest natures who can feel +thankful for help without any injury to vanity. The majority of men love +their inferiors, those whom they help; to give flatters self-esteem; but +they hate their superiors, and lend to the word “patron” an intolerable +smirk of condescension. Shakespeare should have understood that at +thirty. + +When his vanity was injured, his blindness was almost inconceivable. He +should have seen Mary Fitton as she was and given us a deathless-true +portrait of her; but the noble side of her, the soul-side a lover should +have cherished, is not even suggested. He deserved to lose her, seeking +only the common, careless of the “silent, silver lights” she could have +shown him. He was just as blind with his wife; she had been unwillingly +the ladder to his advancement; he should have forgiven her on that +ground, if not on a higher. + +He was inordinately vain and self-centred. He talked incontinently, as +he himself assures us, and as Ben Jonson complains. He was exceedingly +quick and witty and impatient. His language shows his speed of thought; +again and again the images tumble over each other, and the mere music of +his verse is breathlessly rapid, just as the movement of Tennyson's +verse is extremely slow. + +More than once in his works I have shown how, at the crisis of fate, he +jumps to conclusions like a woman. He seems often to have realized the +faults of his own haste. His Othello says: + + “How poor are they that have not patience.” + +With this speed of thought and wealth of language and of wit, he +naturally loved to show off in conversation; but as he wished to get on +and make a figure in the world, he should have talked less and +encouraged his patrons to show off. Poor heedless, witty, charming +Shakespeare! One threat which he used again and again, discovers all his +world-blindness to me. Gravely, in sonnet 140, he warns Mary Fitton that +she had better not provoke him or he will write the truth about +her--just as if the maid of honour who could bear bastard after bastard, +while living at court, cared one straw what poor Shakespeare might say +or write or sing of her. And Hamlet runs to the same weapon: he praises +the players to Polonius as + + “Brief chronicles of the time; after your death you + were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while + you live.” + +It is all untrue; actors were then, as now, only mummers without +judgement. Shakespeare was thinking of himself, the dramatist-poet, who +was indeed a chronicle of the time; but the courtier Lord Polonius would +not care a dam for a rhymester's praise or blame. Posthumus, too, will +write against the wantons he dislikes. Shakespeare's weapon of offence +was his pen; but though he threatened, he seldom used it maliciously; he +was indeed a “harmless opposite,” too full of the milk of human kindness +to do injury to any man. But these instances of misapprehension in the +simple things of life, show us that gentle Shakespeare is no trustworthy +guide through this rough all-hating world. The time has now come for me +to consider how Shakespeare was treated by the men of his own time, and +how this treatment affected his character. The commentators, of course, +all present him as walking through life as a sort of uncrowned king, +fêted and reverenced on all sides during his residence in London, and in +the fullness of years and honours retiring to Stratford to live out the +remainder of his days in the bosom of his family as “a prosperous +country gentleman,” to use Dowden's unhappy phrase. As I have already +shown, his works give the lie to this flattering fiction, which in all +parts is of course absolutely incredible. It is your Tennyson, who is of +his time and in perfect sympathy with it; Tennyson, with his May Queens, +prig heroes and syrupy creed, who passes through life as a conqueror, +and after death is borne in state to rest in the great Abbey. + +The Shakespeares, not being of an age, but for all time, have another +guess sort of reception. From the moment young Will came to London, he +was treated as an upstart, without gentle birth or college training: to +Greene he was “Maister of Artes in Neither University.” He won through, +and did his work; but he never could take root in life; his children +perished out of the land. He was in high company on sufferance. On the +stage he met the highest, Essex, Pembroke, Southampton, on terms of +equality; but at court he stood among the menials and was despitefully +treated. Let no one misunderstand me: I should delight in painting the +other picture if there were any truth in it: I should have joyed in +showing how the English aristocracy for this once threw off their +senseless pride and hailed the greatest of men at least as an equal. +Frederic the Great would have done this, for he put Voltaire at his own +table, and told his astonished chamberlains that “privileged spirits +rank with sovereigns.” Such wisdom was altogether above the English +aristocracy of that or any time. Yet they might have risen above the +common in this one instance. For Shakespeare had not only supreme genius +to commend him, but all the graces of manner, all the sweetness of +disposition, all the exquisite courtesies of speech that go to ensure +social success. His imperial intelligence, however, was too heavy a +handicap. Men resent superiority at all times, and there is nothing your +aristocrat so much dislikes as intellectual superiority, and especially +intellect that is not hall-marked and accredited: the Southamptons and +the Pembrokes must have found Shakespeare's insight and impartiality +intolerable. It was Ben Jonson whom Pembroke made Poet Laureate; it was +Chapman the learned, and not Shakespeare, who was regarded with +reverence. How could these gentlemen appreciate Shakespeare when it was +his “Venus and Adonis” and his “Lucrece” that they chiefly admired. +“Venus and Adonis” went through seven editions in Shakespeare's +lifetime, while “Othello” was not thought worthy of type till the author +had been dead six years. + +But badly as the aristocrats treated Shakespeare they yet treated him +better than any other class. The shopkeepers in England are infinitely +further removed from art or poetry than the nobles; now as in the time +of Elizabeth they care infinitely more for beef and beer and broadcloth +than for any spiritual enjoyment; while the masses of the people prefer +a dog-fight to any masterpiece in art or letters. + +Some will say that Shakespeare was perhaps condemned for dissolute +living, and did not come to honour because of his shortcomings in +character. Such a judgement misapprehends life altogether. Had +Shakespeare's character been as high as his intellect he would not have +been left contemptuously on one side; he would have been hated and +persecuted, pilloried or thrown into prison as Bunyan was. It was his +dissolute life that commended him to the liking of the loose-living +Pembroke and Essex. Pembroke, we know from Clarendon, was “immoderately +given to women.” Four maids of honour, we learn, were _enceintes_ +to Essex at the same time. Shakespeare was hardly as dissolute as his +noble patrons. The truth was they could not understand his genius; they +had no measure wherewith to measure it, for no one can see above his own +head; and so they treated him with much the same condescending +familiarity that nobles nowadays show to a tenor or a ballet dancer. In +March, 1604, after he had written “Hamlet” and “Macbeth,” Shakespeare +and some other actors walked from the Tower of London to Westminster in +the procession which accompanied King James on his formal entry into +London. Each of the actors received four and a half yards of scarlet +cloth to wear as a cloak on the occasion. The scarlet cloak to +Shakespeare must have been a sort of Nessus' shirt, or crown of +thorns--the livery of derision. + +Shakespeare, who measured both enemies and friends fairly, measured +himself fairly, too. He usually praises his impersonations: Hamlet is “a +noble heart,” Brutus “the noblest Roman of them all”; and speaking +directly he said of himself in a sonnet: + + “I am that I am, and they that level + At my abuses reckon up their own; + I may be straight though they themselves be bevel.” + +He knew his own greatness, none better, and as soon as he reached middle +age and began to take stock of himself, he must have felt bitterly that +he, the best mind in the world, had not brought it far in the ordinary +estimation of men. No wonder he showed passionate sympathy with all +those who had failed in life; he could identify himself with Brutus and +Antony, and not with the Caesars. + +Shakespeare's view of England and of Englishmen was naturally affected +by their treatment of him. He is continually spoken of as patriotic, and +it is true that he started in youth with an almost lyrical love of +country. His words in “Richard II.” are often quoted; but they were +written before he had any experience or knowledge of men. + + “_Gaunt_. This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + This happy breed of men, this little world; + This precious stone set in the silver sea, + Which serves it in the office of a wall, + Or as a moat, defensive to a house, + Against the envy of less happier lands; + This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.” + +The apologists who rejoice in his patriotism never realize that +Shakespeare did not hold the same opinions throughout his life; as he +grew and developed, his opinions developed with him. In “The Merchant of +Venice” we find that he has already come to saner vision; when Portia +and Nerissa talk of the English suitor, Portia says: + + “You know I say nothing to him; for he understands + not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor + Italian; and you will come into the court and swear that + I have a poor pennyworth in the Englishman. He is a + proper man's picture; but, alas, who can converse with a + dumb show? How oddly he is suited! I think he bought + his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet + in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.” + +What super-excellent criticism it all is; true, now as then, “a proper +man's picture but ... a dumb show.” It proves conclusively that +Shakespeare was able to see around and over the young English noble of +his day. From this time on I find no praise of England or of Englishmen +in any of his works, except “Henry V.,” which was manifestly written to +catch applause on account of its jingoism. In his maturity Shakespeare +saw his countrymen as they were, and mentioned them chiefly to blame +their love of drinking. Imogen says: + + “Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night, + Are they not but in Britain?..........................prithee, think + There's livers out of Britain.” + +Whoever reads “Coriolanus” carefully will see how Shakespeare loathed +the common Englishman; there can be no doubt at all that he incorporated +his dislike of him once for all in Caliban. The qualities he lends +Caliban are all characteristic. Whoever will give him drink is to +Caliban a god. The brutish creature would violate and degrade art +without a scruple, and the soul of him is given in the phrase that if he +got the chance he would people the world with Calibans. Sometimes one +thinks that if Shakespeare were living to-day he would be inclined to +say that his prediction had come true. + +One could have guessed without proof that in the course of his life +Shakespeare, like Goethe, would rise above that parochial vanity which +is so much belauded as patriotism. He was in love with the ideal and +would not confine it to any country. + +There is little to tell of his life after he met Mary Fitton, or rather +the history of his life afterwards is the history of his passion and +jealousy and madness as he himself has told it in the great tragedies. +He appears to have grown fat and scant of breath when he was about +thirty-six or seven. In 1608 his mother died, and “Coriolanus” was +written as a sort of monument to the memory of “the noblest mother in +the world.” His intimacy with Mary Fitton lasted, I feel sure, up to his +breakdown in 1608 or thereabouts, and was probably the chief cause of +his infirmity and untimely death. + +It only remains for me now to say a word or two about the end of his +life. Rowe says that “the latter part of his life was spent as all men +of good sense will that theirs may be, in ease, retirement, and the +conversation of his friends. He had the good fortune to gather an estate +equal to his occasion, and, in that, to his wish, and is said to have +spent some years before his death at his native Stratford.” Rowe, too, +tells us that it is a story “well remembered in that country, that he +had a particular intimacy with Mr. Combe, an old gentleman noted +thereabouts for his wealth and usury; it happened that in a pleasant +conversation amongst their common friends Mr. Combe told Shakespeare, in +a laughing manner, that he fancied he intended to write his epitaph, if +he happened to outlive him; and since he did not know what might be said +of him when he was dead, he desired it might be done immediately; upon +which Shakespeare gave him these four verses: + + “Ten in the Hundred lies here ingrav'd + 'Tis a Hundred to Ten his soul is not sav'd: + If any Man ask, 'Who lies in this tomb,' + Oh! ho! quoth the Devil, 'tis my John-a-Combe.” + +But the sharpness of the Satyr is said to have stung the man so severely +that he never forgave him.” + +I have given all this because I want the reader to have the sources +before him, and because the contempt of tradesman-gain and usury, even +at the very end, is so characteristic. + +It appears, too, from the Stratford records, and is therefore certain, +that as early as the year 1614 a preacher was entertained at New +Place--“Item, one quart of sack, and one quart of claret wine, given to +a preacher at the New Place, twenty pence.” The Reverend John Ward, who +was vicar of Stratford, in a manuscript memorandum book written in the +year 1664, asserts that “Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben Johnson had a +merie meeting, and itt seems drank too hard, for Shakespeare died of a +feavour there contracted.” + +Shakespeare, as we have seen from “The Tempest,” retired to +Stratford--“where every third thought shall be my grave”--in broken +health and in a mood of despairing penitence. I do not suppose the mood +lasted long; but the ill-health and persistent weakness explain to me as +nothing else could his retirement to Stratford. It is incredible to me +that Shakespeare should leave London at forty-seven or forty-eight years +of age, in good health, and retire to Stratford to live as a “prosperous +country gentleman”! What had Stratford to offer Shakespeare--village +Stratford with a midden in the chief street and the charms of the +village usurer's companionship tempered by the ministrations of a +wandering tub-thumper? + +There is abundant evidence, even in “The Winter's Tale” and “Cymbeline,” + to prove that the storm which wrecked Shakespeare's life had not blown +itself out even when these last works were written in 1611-12; the +jealousy of Leontes is as wild and sensual as the jealousy of Othello; +the attitude of Posthumus towards women as bitter as anything to be +found in “Troilus and Cressida”: + + “Could I find out + The woman's part in me! For there's no motion + That tends to vice in man but I affirm + It is the woman's part: be it lying, note it, + The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers; + Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers; + Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain, + Nice longing, slanders, mutability, + All faults that may be named, nay, that hell knows, + Why, hers, in part or all, but rather all; + For even to vice + They are not constant, but are changing still + One vice, but of a minute old, for one + Not half so old as that.” + +The truth is, that the passions of lust and jealousy and rage had at +length worn out Shakespeare's strength, and after trying in vain to win +to serenity in “The Tempest,” he crept home to Stratford to die. + +In his native air, I imagine, his health gradually improved; but he was +never strong enough to venture back to residence in London. He probably +returned once or twice for a short visit, and during his absence his +pious daughter, Mrs. Hall, entertained the wandering preacher in New +Place. + +As Shakespeare grew stronger he no doubt talked with Combe, the usurer, +for want of any one better. + +It is probable, too, that on one of his visits to London he took up +Fletcher's “Henry VIII.” and wrote in some scenes for him and touched up +others, or Fletcher may have visited him in Stratford and there have +begged his help. + +His youngest daughter, Judith, was married early in 1616; it seems +probable to me that this was the occasion of the visit of Jonson and +Drayton to Stratford. No doubt Shakespeare was delighted to meet them, +talked as few men ever talked before or since, and probably drank too +much with those “poor unhappy brains for drinking” which his Cassius +deplored. Thus fanned, the weak flame of his life wasted quickly and +guttered out. It is all comprehensible enough, and more than likely, +that the greatest man in the world, after the boredom of solitary years +spent in Stratford, died through a merry meeting with his friends; in +his joy and excitement he drank a glass or so of wine, which brought on +a fever. It is all true, true to character, and pitiful beyond words. + +Shakespeare to me is the perfect type of the artist, and the artist is +gradually coming to his proper place in the world's esteem. In the +introduction to one of his “Lives,” Plutarch apologizes for writing +about a painter, a mere artist, instead of about some statesman or +general, who would be a worthy object of ambition for a well-born youth. +But since Plutarch's time our view of the relative merits of men has +changed and developed: to-day we put the artist higher even than the +saint. Indeed, it seems to us that the hero or statesman, or saint, only +ranks in proportion to the artist-faculty he may possess. The winning of +a battle is not enough to engage all our admiration; it must be won by +an artist. In every department of life this faculty is beginning to be +appreciated as the finest possession of humanity, and Shakespeare was an +almost perfect example of the self-conscious artist. + +People talk as if his masterpieces were produced at haphazard or by +unconscious fruition; but masterpieces are not brought forth in this +happy-go-lucky fashion. They are of the sort that only come to +flower with perfect tendance. Even if we did not know that Shakespeare +corrected his finest verses again and again with critical care, we +should have to assume it. But we know that he spared no pains to better +his finer inspirations, and he has told us in a sonnet how anxiously he +thought about his art and the art of his rivals: + + “Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope + With what I most enjoy contented least.” + +He has all the qualities and all the shortcomings of the reflective, +humane, sensuous artist temperament, intensified by the fact that he had +not had the advantage of a middle-class training. + +In a dozen ways our Puritan discipline and the rubs and buffets one gets +in this work-a-day world where money is more highly esteemed than birth +or sainthood or genius, have brought us beyond Shakespeare in knowledge +of men and things. The courage of the Puritan, his self-denial and +self-control, have taught us invaluable lessons; Puritanism tempered +character as steel is tempered with fire and ice, and the necessity of +getting one's bread not as a parasite, but as a fighter, has had just as +important results on character. Shakespeare is no longer an ideal to us; +no single man can now fill our mental horizon; we can see around and +above the greatest of the past: the overman of to-day is only on the +next round of the ladder, and our children will smile at the fatuity of +his conceit. + +But if we can no longer worship Shakespeare, it is impossible not to +honour him, impossible not to love him. All men--Spenser as well as +Jonson--found him gentle and witty, gay and generous. He was always +willing to touch up this man's play or write in an act for that one. He +never said a bitter or cruel word about any man. Compare him with Dante +or even with Goethe, and you shall find him vastly superior to either of +them in loving kindness. He was more contemptuously treated in life than +even Dante, and yet he never fell away to bitterness as Dante did: he +complained, it is true; but he never allowed his fairness to be warped; +he was of the noblest intellectual temper. + +It is impossible not to honour him, for the truth is he had more virtue +in him than any other son of man. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” + He produced more masterpieces than any other writer, and the finest +sayings in the world's literature are his. Think of it: Goethe was +perfectly equipped; he had a magnificent mind and body and temperament: +he was born in the better middle classes; he was well off; splendidly +handsome; thoroughly educated; his genius was recognized on all hands +when he was in his teens; and it was developed by travel and princely +patronage. Yet what did Goethe do in proof of his advantages? “Faust” is +the only play he ever wrote that can rank at all with a dozen of +Shakespeare's. Poor Shakespeare brought it further in the sixteenth +century than even Goethe at full strain could bring it in the +nineteenth. I find Shakespeare of surpassing virtue. Cervantes ranks +with the greatest because he created Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; but +Hamlet and Falstaff are more significant figures, and take Hamlet and +Falstaff away from Shakespeare's achievement, and more is left than any +other poet ever produced. + +Harvest after harvest Shakespeare brought forth of astounding quality. +Yet he was never strong, and he died at fifty-two, and the last six +years of his life were wasted with weakness and ill-health. No braver +spirit has ever lived. After “Hamlet” and “Antony and Cleopatra” and +“Lear” and “Timon” he broke down: yet as soon as he struggled back to +sanity, he came to the collar again and dug “The Winter's Tale” out of +himself, and “Cymbeline,” and seeing they were not his best, took +breath, and brought forth “The Tempest”--another masterpiece, +though written with a heart of lead and with the death-sweat dank on his +forehead. Think of it; the noblest autumn fruit ever produced; all +kindly-sweet and warm, bathed so to speak in love's golden sunshine; his +last word to men: + + “The rarer action is + In virtue than in vengeance....” + +And then the master of many styles, including the simple, wins to a +childlike simplicity, and touches the source of tears: + + “We are such stuff as dreams are made of, + And our little life is rounded with a sleep.” + +True, Shakespeare was not the kind of man Englishmen are accustomed to +admire. By a curious irony of fate Jesus was sent to the Jews, the most +unworldly soul to the most material of peoples, and Shakespeare to +Englishmen, the most gentle sensuous charmer to a masculine, rude race. +It may be well for us to learn what infinite virtue lay in that frail, +sensual singer. + +This dumb struggling world, all in travail between Thought and Being, +longs above everything to realize itself and become articulate, and +never has it found such width of understanding, such melody of speech, +as in this Shakespeare. “I have often said, and will often repeat,” + writes Goethe, “that the final cause and consummation of all natural and +human activity is dramatic poetry.” Englishmen do not appear yet to +understand what arrogance and what profound wisdom there is in this +saying; but in a dull, half-conscious way they are beginning dimly to +realize that the biggest thing they have done in the world yet is to +produce Shakespeare. When I think of his paltry education, his limiting +circumstances, the scanty appreciation of his contemporaries, his +indifferent health, and recall his stupendous achievement, I am fain to +apply to him, as most appropriate, the words he gave to his _alter +ego_, Antony, Antony who, like himself, was world-worn and +passion-weary: + + “A rarer spirit never + Did steer humanity; but you, gods, will give us + Some faults to make us men.” + + +THE END. + + + + +INDEX. + + Abbess + Academe + Achilles + Actium + Adam + Adonis + Adriana + Aegeon + Aeneas + Agamemnon + Agincourt + Agrippa + Ajax + Albany, The Duke of (in “Lear”) + Aleppo + Alexander + Angelo + Anne, Lady + Antigone + Antipholus + Antonio + Antonio (Duke in the “Tempest”), + Antony, Marc + “Antony and Cleopatra” + Apelles + Apemantus + “Arabian Nights' Entertainment” + Archbishop of Canterbury + Arden, Mary + Arden, the family of + Argus + Ariel + Armado + Arnold, Matthew + Arthur, Prince + Arviragus + Asbies + “As You Like It” + Aubrey + Aufidius + Aumerle + Austin, Alfred + Autolycus + + “Babes in a Wood” + Bacon + Bagot + Balzac + Bankside + Banquo + Bardolph + Barnardine + Bartholomew Fair + Bassanio + Bastard (the) + Bazarof + Beatrice + Beaumont + Beckett, Ernest, dedication. + Belarius + Belch, Sir Toby + Bellario + Benedick + Benvolio + Berowne + Bertillon + Betterton + Bevis, Geo. + Bianca + Birnam Wood + Biron + Bishop of Worcester + Blackfriars + Blount, Sir Walter + Boaden + Bolingbroke + Borachio + Bottom + Bourbon + Boyet + Brabant + Brabantio + Brandes + Bright + Browning + Brutus + Bullen, Anne + Bunyan + Burbage + Bushey + Byron + + Cade + Caesar + Caliban + Camden, William + Campaspe + Capulet + Carlyle, Thomas + Cassio + Cassius + Cecil, Sir Robert + Cervantes + Cesario + Chamberlain, the Lord + Chapel Lane + Chapman + Charlecot + Charmian + Chesterfield + Chettle + Chief Justice + Chus + Cinna + Cinthio + Clarenceux (King of Arms) + Clarendon + Claudio + Claudius, King of Denmark + Cleopatra + Clifford + Cloten + “Colbourn's Magazine” + Coleridge + College of Heralds + Combe, John + “Comedy of Errors” + Comic Muse + Condell “Confessio Amantis” + Constance + Cordelia + “Coriolanus” + Cressida + Crichton, Admiral + Cromwell + Cupid + “Cymbeline” + + Damon + Dante + Dark Lady (of the Sonnets) + Dauphin + D'Avenant, John + D'Avenant, Mrs. + D'Avenant, Sir William + Dekker + Desdemona + Diana and Dian + Dido + Diomedes + Dogberry + Don John + Don Pedro + Don Quixote + Douglas + Dowden, Prof. + Drake + Drayton + Dryasdust + Duke (the Exiled in “As You Like It”) + Duke of York + Duke of Milan (“Two Gentlemen of Verona”) + Duke of Venice (“The Merchant of Venice”) + Duke of Venice (“Othello “) + Dumas + Duncan, King + + Eachin + Eastcheap, tavern + Ecclesiastes + Edgar + Egypt, Queen of + Egypt, + Elizabeth, Queen + Ely, Bishop of + Elysium + Emilia + Emerson + “Encyclopedia Britannica” + England + Enobarbus + Ephesus + Erebus + Eros + Escalus + Esmond + Essex, Earl of + Evans, Hugh + “Every Man in his Humour” + + Fair Maid of Perth, the + Falstaff + “Famous Victories of Henry V., The” + Fauconbridge, Philip + Faust + Ferdinand + First Gentleman + First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and + Lancaster + Fitton, Mistress Mary + Flavius + Fleance + Fleet prison + Fletcher (the poet) + Ford, Mrs. + Forman's Diary + Fortinbras + France + Frederick the Great + Fuller + Furnival, Mr. + + Gadshill + Gauls + Gaunt, John of + Germany + Gertrude (Queen: “Hamlet”) + Gill, Sir David + Gladstone + Glendower + Globe Theatre + Gloster + Glostershire + Gloucester + Goethe + Gollancz, Israel + Gonzalo + “Gorgias” + Goneril (“Lear”) + Gower + Gratiano + Greece + Green (“Richard II”) + Greene, Robert (the playwright) + Greenhill Street + “Groatsworth of Wit, The” + Guildenstern + + Hal, Prince + Hall, Susann + Hallam + Halliwell-Phillipps + Hamlet + Hamnet + Harfleur + Haroun-al-Raschid + Harrison, Rev. W. A. + Hathaway, Anne + Hathaway + Richard + Hazlitt + Hector + Heine + Helen + Hellicon + Henley Street + Heminge + Henry IV., King + ----First Part + ----Second Part + Henry V., King + Henry VI., King + ----First Part + ----Second Part + ----Third Part + Henry VIII. + Henry, Prince + Herbert, Lord William + Hermione + Hero + “Hero and Leander” + Holland, John + Holofernes + Homer + Horace + Hotspur, Harry + Hubert + Humphrey, Duke of Gloster + Hyperion + + Iachimo + Iago + Imogen + Iras + Ironsides + Irving, Sir Henry + Isabella + Isis + Ismene + Italy + + Jack + Jack-a-Lent + Jacob + James + Jaques + Jeanne d'Arc + Jena + Jessica + Jesus + Jews + John (Prince: “Henry IV.”) + John, King + Johnson, Dr. + Jonson, Ben + Joubert + Jove + Judas + Judith + Julia + Juliet + Julius Caesar + Juno + + Kate + Katherine + Keats + Kemp + Kent + King + King's Council + King of Naples + King of Navarre (Ferdinand) + King James + “Knight's Conjuring, A” + + Laban + Laertes + Lamb + Langland, William + Launce + Lear + Leatherhead + Lee, Sidney + Leicester, Lord + Leontes + Lessing + Leveson, Sir Richard + Lieutenant of the Tower + “Lives” (Plutarch) + “Lives of the Poets, The” + Lodge + Lodovico + London + Longaville + Lope de Vega + Lord Governor of England + Lord of Comedy + Lord of Humour + Lorenzo + “Love's Labour's Lost” + Lucetta + Luciana + Lucifer + Lucio + Lucius (“Julius Caesar”) + Lucrece + Lucy, Sir Thomas + Luther + Lyly + + Macbeth + Macbeth, Lady + Macduff + Malcolm + Malvolio + Mamillius + Marcus, Brutus + Marcus (“Titus Andronicus”) + Mardian (“Antony and Cleopatra”) + Margaret + Maria + Mariana + Marie + Marina + Marlowe + Mars, + Marston + Master of the Revels + Masque + May Queen + “Measure for Measure” + “Merchant of Venice” + Mercury + Mercutio, + Meredith, George + Meres + “Merry Wives of Windsor, The” + “Midsummer Night's Dream” + Milan + Milton + Miranda + Moliere + Montaigne + Mortimer + Motley + “Much Ado” + Naples + Neptune + Nerissa + Nessus + Nestor + New Place + Northumberland + Nurse + + Oberon + Octavia + Olivia + Ophelia + Orlando + Orsino, Duke (in “Twelfth Night”) + Othello + Otterbourne + Old Lady (“Henry VIII.”) + Oxford + + Padua + Page, Mrs. + Palace + Pandarus + Paris + Parolles + Paul + Pedro (Prince: “Much Ado”), + Pembroke, + Percy, Lady, + Perdita, + Pericles, + Phidias, + Philario, + Philippan, + Philippi, + Phoebus, + Pinero, + Pisanio, + Pistol, + Pity(?), + Plantaginet, + Plato, + Plutarch, + Poet Laureate, + Poins, + Polixenes, + Polonius, + Pompey, + Portia, + Posthumus, + Princess of France (in “Love's Labour's Lost”), + Proculeius, + Prospero, Duke, + Proteus, + Pythias, + + Queen Margaret + Queen to King Richard II., + Quickly, Dame, + + Raleigh, + Regan, + Rembrandt, + Renascence, + Renaissance, + Rialto, + Richard Coeur de Lion, + Richard II., King, + Richard III., + Richardson, John, + Roman, + Rome, + Romeo, + “Romeo and Juliet,” + Rosaline, + Rosalind, + Rosalynde, + Rosencrantz, + Rubicon, + Rowe, + + Salarino, + Salique, + Salisbury, + Salvini, + Sandells, Fulk, + Sappho, + Satan, + Satiromastix, + Sancho Panza, + “Saturday Review, The,” + Saturn, + Schiller, + Scoop, + Scott, Walter, + Second Gentleman, + Seleucus, + Senate, + “Sententiae Pueriles,” + Sidney, + Severn, + Shallow, Justice + Shottery + Shylock + Silvia + Slender, Master + Snitterfield + Solinus (Duke in “Comedy of Errors”) + Sophocles + Southampton, Earl of + Socrates Spalding + Spencer, Herbert + Spenser + Star Chamber + Stephanio + Stratford + Stratford Parish Church + Suffolk + Susanna + Swinburne + Sycorax + Syracuse + Sonnets: [Footnote 1] + [36 and 37] + [140] + [40] + [127] + [104] + [142] + [18] + [19] + [20] + [22] + [23] + [33] + [144] + [133] + [41] + [105] + [136] + [122] + [78] + [86] + [131] + [135] + [88] + [129] + [37] + Shakespeare + + [Footnote 1: Sonnets in brackets are mentioned especially on the pages + marked + opposite.] + + Shakespeare, John + Shake-scene + + Talbot + “Taming of the Shrew” + Tamora + Tearsheet, Doll + “Tempest, The” + Temple Gardens + Temple Grafton + Tennyson + Thackeray + Thames + Thane of Cawdor + Thersites + Thurio + Thyreus + Timbuctoo + Timon + Titania + Titian + Titus + “Titus Andronicus” + Tolstoi + Tourgenief + Toussaint l'Ouverture + Tower of London + Tree, Beerbohm + Trial Table of the order of Shakespeare's Plays + Trinculo + Triton + Troilus + Trojans + “Troilus and Cressida” + “Troublesome Raigne of King John, The” + Troy + “True Tragedie of Richard, The” + Tubal + “Twelfth Night” + “Two Gentlemen of Verona, The” + “Two Noble Kinsmen, The” + Tyler, Mr. + + Ulysses + + Valentine + Valiant-for-Truth + “Venus and Adonis” + Vernon + Veronese + Vienna + Villon + Vincentio, Duke + Viola + Virgil + “Vision of Piers Plowman” + Venice + Venus + Voltaire + + Ward, Rev. John + Warwickshire + Watts-Dunton, Theodore + Westminster + Westmoreland + Whately, Anne + Whittington, Thomas + William the Conqueror + Wilmcote + Wilmscote + “Winter's Tale” + “Wit's Commonwealth” + Wittenberg + Worcester + Wordsworth + “Worthies,” (Fuller's) + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Shakespeare, by Frank Harris + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN SHAKESPEARE *** + +***** This file should be named 9079-0.txt or 9079-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/0/7/9079/ + +Produced by Jon Ingram, Juliet Sutherland and Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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