Presented to

She Xtbran?

of tbe

of Toronto

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GREAT PLAYS

BY

L. A. SHERMAN

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA

Ifcfo If 0rfe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1902

All rightt rttervtd

COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

J. 8. Cuihmg fc Co. - Berwick ft Smith Norwood Han. U.S.A.

GEORGE EDWIN MACLEAN

CONTENTS

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

A Shakespeare paradox . . i

Shakespeare's public . . 2

Shakespeare as a novelist . . 3

Difficulties of reading this author 4 Proper materials for literary

treatment 5

What all men seek . . 6

What it is to be educated . . 7 What Shakespeare can supply to

men 7

This author cannot be imparted

by abstractions ... 7

Plan of the work .... 8

II

CYMBELINE

Use of the two Gentlemen . . 9 Imogen released from prison . 10 Imogen's repose and fortitude . u Her keepsake gift . .12

Her matter-of-fact quality of

mind 13

Why the first scene laid in a gar- den 14

Cymbeline's fatuous rage . . 15 Imogen's tastes . . . .16 Cioten's assault upon Posthumus 17 Cloten's imbecility . . .18 Imogen's devotion . . .19 Posthumus as Philario's guest . 22 lachimo's craft . . . .23 His motive ... . 24

Posthumus overmatched . . 26 The Queen's request for poisons 29 Pisanio provided with the drugs 30

lachimo's first impressions of Imogen

Her influence upon his language

His innuendos

Imogen not jealous .

lachimo's humiliation

He unsays his slander

His strategy of the trunk

Imogen's power .

Cloten belated in dissipation

Imogen a reader

Her lack of curiosity .

lachimo's fear

Cloten's serenade

He calls Imogen sister

Cloten's grievance

Posthumus unadvised of I mo gen's troubles by her

lachimo infuriates Posthumus

32 34 35 37 39 40

41 42

43 43 44 46

47 49

52

54

55

Vlll

CONTENTS

Posthumus's resolve to punish

Imogen 57

The Queen's policy in Roman

matters 58

The need, for plot purposes, of

a war 60

Posthumus's demands upon Pi-

sanio 60

Imogen's response to her hus- band's summons . . .61 Posthumus's letter to Imogen . 62 Belarius and the Princes . . 64 Cymbeline's Latin tastes . . 65 Posthumus's second letter to

Pisanio 66

Effect of her husband's order

upon Imogen .... 67 Imogen willing to go to Italy . 68 Cloien inveigled to Milford . 70 Cloten made to wear Posthu- mus's garments . . .71 Imogen bewildered and ex- hausted 72

Imogen found in the cave of

the mountaineers . . .74 Imogen fascinates her brothers . 75 lachimo drawn into the British

war 77

Imogen left in the cave by the

hunters 78

Cloten arrived in Wales . . 80 Cloten's death .... So Imogen brought out as dead by

Arviragus . . . .82 Arviragus and Guiderius in con- trast 83

Belarius kept from the burial situation 84

PACE

The burial song recited by the

brothers 85

Cloten's body laid by Imogen . 86 Imogen recovered from the

effects of the drug . . .86 Imogen swoons on Cloten's

body 87

Imogen found by Lucius . 87 Imogen made willing by the supposed mutilation of her husbaml's body to leave Britain 89 The use of her insult to Cloten . 90 Cymbeline's lethargy lifted . 90 The forces of Cymbeline in

Wales 92

Posthumus keeps the bloody

handkerchief .... 92 lachimo's conscience aroused . 93 Cymbeline rescued by Posthu- mus's aid 94

Posthumus seeks death . . 95 Cornelius and court ladies in

Wales 96

Lucius bespeaks his life from

Imogen 98

Imogen recognises her mother's

ring 98

lachimo's confession . . .99 The agony of Posthumus . . 100 Imogen's sorrow for the Queen's

death 102

Guiderius proved Imogen's

brother 102

lachimo pardoned by Posthu- mus 103

The character of Imogen . . 105 Shakespeare a revealer and in- terpreter of life . . . 109

III

THE WINTER'S TALE

The Winter's TaU opened like

Cymbeline . . . .in Leontes and Polyxenes at odds . 112 Hermione humours her husband 113 Mamillius used against his

mother 115

Camillo forced into a plot against Polyxenes . . . .117

Polyxenes apprised of the plot .118 Mamillius used in his mother's

behalf 118

Hermione requests from her son

a story 119

Leontes and his lords enter the

Queen's apartments . . 120 Hermione's repose . . . 122

CONTENTS

IX

Hermione ordered to prison . 122 The appeal to the oracle at

Delphi 123

Greene's novel of Dorastus and

Fawnia 124

Paulina as Hermione's foil . 124 Paulina brings the babe to the

King ..... 126 Paulina defies the guard . . 127 The need of an Antigonus . 128 Cleomenes and Dion hastening

for the Queen's sake . . 129 Hermione brought to the sessions 129 Her absolute, unshrinking faith 130 The King put to confusion . 131 The response of the oracle . 132 Leontes impugns the decision . 132 Report of Mamillius's death . 132

PAGE

Hermione's swoon . . . 133 Paulina's invective against the

King 133

Hermione and Imogen con- trasted 135

The Globe and Blackfriars as

centres of influence . . 136 The limitations of the plot in The

Winter's Tale .... 139 The Winter's Tale a comedy . 141 Perdita shown in false positions 142 Florizel characterised . . 143 Polyxenes and Camillo try Per- dita 144

Perdita's welcome to her friends 145 The use of Polyxenes's anger . 146 Perdita's self-possession . . 147 Perdita in Paulina's chapel . 148

IV

ROMEO AND JULIET

The plot borrowed from Brooke 149 Purpose of the street fray . . 150 Romeo in love with his ideals . 151 Juliet's mother .... 152 The art of portraying character 153 Juliet's nurse .... 153 Paris recommended to Juliet . 155 Mercutio a nearer friend to

Romeo than Benvolio . . 156 The meeting of Romeo and Ju- liet

Tybalt's interference .

Juliet of Gothic temperament

Use of the chorus

Rosaline a symbol of his ideal to

Romeo

The change in Romeo after the

sight of Juliet .... 162 Mercutio not lofty minded . 164

Juliet gives up her hate of the

Montagues .... 165 Romeo's mind and Juliet's in

contrast 167

Juliet plans for both . . . 168 Shakespeare's alleviation of the

haste 170

The climax of the balcony scene 173 The intuition of Shakespeare's

women 174

The Romeo and Juliet only

another Cymbeline . . . 175 The basis of this play . . . 176 Mercutio's gifts made over to

Romeo 177

The deeper meaning of the play 178 The art of the play not inferior to

the art of Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale . . 181

THE DRAMATIC ART OF MACBETH

The "maximum consummation" I The first condition of tragedy . 184 in Shakespeare's dramas . 184 | Duncan an unkingly figure . 185

CONTENTS

PAGE

Use of the battle in Lochaber . 186 The Witches' Masters . . 187 TJie opening scene . . . 187 The Witches differentiated . 188 Use of the Sergeant . . . 189 Malcolm, like the King, unmar-

tial 190

The composite battle . . . 191 Macdonwald bewitched . . 191 Sweno also handicapped by the

demons 193

Macbeth as the saviour of Scot- land 193

The new mischief of the Witches 195 Macbeth's satisfaction over the

battle 196

The prophecy touching his future 197 The Minor Obstacle . . . 197 The Major Obstacle . . . 198 Resolution of the Minor . . 199 Lady Macbeth as the new factor

in the plan .... aoo Her worship of her husband . 202 Banquo as Duncan's chamber- lain . . ' . . . . 203 The first crisis of the play . . 204 The close of the First Act in

Shakespeare .... 205 Banquo's defection from the

King 206

The effect of his resolve upon

Macbeth 206

The Major Obstacle removed . 208 Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's

first blunders .... 209

Macbeth's fatal error . . . 210

Lady Macbeth's swoon . .211

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

appear crowned but once . an

PAGE

Macbeth's hate of Banquo . . 213 The Third Murderer . . . 214 Banquo's ghost an apparition

raised by the Witches . . 215 The climax of the banquet scene 216 The subjective climax of the play 217 Macbeth degraded by applying

to the Witches . . . 218 The pretended ghost of Banquo

again shown .... 219 The butchery of Lady Macduff

and her children . . . 219 Malcolm subordinates Macduff. 221 Duncan of the Edward Con- fessor type of king . . . 222 Malcolm amended martially . 222 The Fourth Act in Shakespeare

a preparing time . . . 223 The climax in the sleep-walking

scene 224

Macbeth and Cymbeline com- pared 225

Cymbeline, a tragedy . . . 227 The obstacles in Romeo and

Juliet 229

The subjective climax in these

plays 230

Novels constructed on Shake- speare's plan .... 230 Richard Carvel .... 231 Quentin Durward . . .231 Evan Harrington . . . 232 Ultimate meaning of the novels . 233 Tennyson's The Princess . . 234 The Short Story , . . .235

Quo Vadis 235

Cyrano de Bergerac . . . 235

VI

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN

The birth of Shakespeare . . 236 First mention of the poet in

formal Latin .... 236 Shakespeare's mother . . 237 Thomas Cromwell's injunction

to the clergy .... 237

Shakespeare's father . The poet's birthplace . Shakespeare's country The Free Grammar School o

Stratford . Shakespeare's teachers

238

239 240

242 243

CONTENTS

xi

Shakespeare's diction . . . 243 John Shakespeare's waning for- tunes 244

Shakespeare's marriage . . 245 A possible precontract of mar- riage 247

The deer-stealing episode . . 249 Shakespeare in London . . 250 The attack of Greene . . .251 Chettle's apology . . . 253 Shakespeare as an actor . . 255 Venus and Adonis . . . 257

Lucrece 258

Titus Andronicus . . . 259 The Comedy of Errors . . 260 Romeo and Juliet . . . 260 Grant of coat armour . . 261 Purchase of New Place . . 261 Shakespeare's income . . 263 Friendship of the poet with Ben

Jonson 263

The Palladis Tamia . . .265 The Globe Theatre . . .267 The Merry Wives . . . 268 Twelfth Night . . . .268 The Returnefrom Pernassus . 269

Hamlet 269

The period of Shakespeare's

maturity 269

The Stratford tithes . . . 270 Marriage of Susanna Shake- speare 270

The Sonnets .... 270 The dark lady .... 272 Shakespeare's optimism . . 273 The Blackfriars Theatre . . 274

Cymbeline 274

The Winter's Tale . . .274 Shakespeare's London house . 274 The Globe Theatre burned . 275 Shakespeare's will . . . 275 Death of the poet . . .275 Inscription on his tomb . . 277 The Stratford bust . . .277 The Droeshout portrait . . 279 The saneness of Shakespeare's

mind 280

The Bacon question . . . 282 Shakespeare's learning . . 283 The burden of proof in the Shakespeare-Bacon contro- versy 284

VII

THE GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS

Strictures of Ben Jonson . . 285 Shakespeare and the classicists . 286 Shakespeare's borrowed plots • 286	Othello .... Antony and Cleopatra . .	313 3iS 318
Divisions of the plays . . 287 Two principal periods of pro- duction 288 The pessimistic plays . . . 289	Much Ado .... Midsummer Night's Dream Taming of the Shrew . Twelfth Night . As You Like It .	320 321 322 323 32S
King Lear 303 Julius Ccesar .... 312	The Merchant of Venice	^ 326

VIII

PERSONAL STUDY OF THE PLAYS

Knowing one play is knowing

Shakespeare .... 329 Use of the outlines . . . 330

The end of Shakespeare study The literature of Shakespeare

33°

xii CONTENTS

APPENDIX

OUTLINE QUESTIONS

I

PACK

The Winter's Talt • , . . . .335

II Romeo and Juliet ...» 360

III Twelfth Night 388

INDEX 4°9

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? I

WHAT is Shakespeare ? Why does the world account him great, and put him so generally at the head of all literary masters ? Most people, at least such as have to do with books, at some time or other ask themselves these questions, and often fail of per- sonal, satisfying conclusions. Men and A Shakespeare women of liberal education for the most Paradox- part understand Shakespeare's secret, having divined it in consequence of many years of training. Some common folk become his confident disciples without such aid. But the great majority of readers seem not to know what Shakespeare is like, or how a maker of plays should be held superior to authors who produce literature in a more popular and availa- ble form.

It has been noted that men will singly and sev- erally doubt upon occasion what they collectively allow. The supporters of a party some Thepublic times vote for candidates that they do not notedu- individually approve. That people should shake-° believe in Shakespeare who are without speare's

level

knowledge of his quality is only in seeming paradoxical, and is a thing incident to growing cul- ture. We of the English-speaking populations, who

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ?

claim Shakespeare ours, Lhave become the largest of literary publics. We are reading in the main good books, but have not yet come into companionship with the best. While we are trying to live up to our truest intellectual light, we are partly conscious standards toward which we are but slowly rising. Hence is it that our personal appreciation of Shake- speare falls much below our prescriptive judgments concerning his place and worth. His works stand conspicuously on our library shelves, yet of all books are approached perhaps least often. He is praised loudly by many of us who have never studied so much as a single play, or reached in any manner the least experience of his inspiration. We are sure that Shakespeare is wonderful, yet we would rather per- haps avoid than suffer an actual acquaintance with the proofs. This does not mean that we are really disingenuous, or dissemblers, but that we have come to take Shakespeare for granted, like many other things, on the testimony of those whose knowledge is expert' What we may call Shakespeare's public is not Reading made UP of those who read him discern- Shake- mgly, and prize him, and such others as do

nSidfoerS not read' vet Praise; there are other groups new pro- and sections of not less interest and worth gift!" C to culture- Many people are vaguely con- scious of great truths in Shakespeare, and e almost in sight of what they mean ; they feel the influence of a great presence that they cannot find. Then there is a large and constantly increasing class f readers who have right notions touching fellow-

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? 3

ship with Shakespeare, and are abundantly fitted to compass it, yet believe that they could never, even with persistent effort, rise to his thought. They assume, of course mistakenly, that they would need to learn new processes, or be mentally reenforced in some mysterious way, to understand him. On the other hand, there are not a few instructed people, some of them professors even in our colleges, who affirm that there are no marvels in Shakespeare save what his admirers read into him, and that his literary art is but a myth. What is worse, many of those who have been schooled concerning Shakespeare's quality declare that they have received no insight, and do not believe what they have been taught. That the last-named group should be largely re- cruited year by year from the graduates of our col- leges and schools is not reassuring, and must be due to faults of pedagogy. There is not the slightest question that Shakespeare's following increases year by year; the phenomenal sale of his editions, and particularly of some recent ones, proves that. There is small doubt that all intelligent and educated readers will one day know what Shakespeare is, and appre- ciate him fully. But we have clearly reached a stage where the growth of literary taste and wisdom might well advance with considerably accelerated speed.

Undoubtedly Shakespeare would have much greater currency to-day, had his works been novels ; and this author, were he living now, would pretty surely write stories instead of plays. But we should not expect Shakespeare to produce fiction of mere incident or

4 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

adventure. He would certainly make novels more Shake- nearly like The Mill on the Floss, or Evan speare Harrington, or The Cossacks, or Fathers and

would to- _, ., , ,

day write Children, than any others that we have ; novels. onjy they would be more profound and pow- erful. It would not be possible to appreciate such books as he would write without some seriousness of purpose and considerable power of literary apprecia- tion. There would thus remain the same difficulty that we meet to-day in trying to read Shakespeare as he is. Those who have the power of literary appreciation, which is an accomplishment that can be imparted as well as learned, should be able to read plays and poetry and fiction with equal facility and success. Many readers who have this power with novels find themselves reading Shakespeare merely for the story. They do not know how to approach a play, and are hindered from the vital meanings by the form. In order to aid those who would be glad to read Shake- speare and like authors more confidently and com- pletely, the publishers have asked me to make this little book. I have assumed the task reluctantly, partly because the attempt is no easy one, and in part from fear lest the whole be held a cheapening of Shakespeare's work. Of course the great things of literature cannot be popularised. They must be spiritually discerned, and if not in virtual complete- ness, then not at all. The plan here is to reduce the difficulties, through making practicable units of approach, yet leave the study to be achieved wholly by the reader. No one wishing to find Shakespeare,

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? 5

and willing with some patience to make the search, should fail of his quest.

The processes of literary interpretation, as has been implied, are not different in kind from such as are used by the commonest people every day. The inter_ To interpret a novel is to find the characters, pretation of the motives, the human nature in it, just as apay- we discover these same things by interpreting the faces and speech and actions of the men and women that we meet in outside life. It is harder to inter- pret the marks of character and passion in a novel than in real life, for they are fewer, and far less intense and striking. In the text of a play there are fewer signs of character and feeling than in a novel. To interpret a play we must expand the situations and dialogue into such phases and denominations of life as the novel uses. There is nothing in the drama, or the novel, or other forms of literature, that is not or may not be met with in the real experiences of living. The helps provided in this volume require the student to synthesise the whole, of which the given drama furnishes but a part.

Not all experiences of life are available for litera- ture, however veritable and approved. Things that happen to everybody are not inspiring, and are not generally used in making plays and novels. Once when the struggle for life against outside foes was fierce, adventures and escapes were of greatest inter- est. Now that danger and hardship have been essen- tially eliminated, so that even the unfit survive, the general energy is no longer absorbed in a struggle for

6 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

mere existence. What mankind is now in search of is new and larger living, a greater quantum and a What ail higher quality of existence. The multiplied men seek, services of society bring larger comforts, and these insure, or should insure, for those who render as well as those who enjoy them, an ampler domestic and personal living. Moreover, by a marvellous system of cooperation, we are putting each other in possession of the best that there is in ourselves and in humanity at large. In material society there is a strict law of meum et tuum. In the sphere of the spiritual there are very different postulates and prin- ciples. Under civil order, whatever belongings I have cannot become another's unless I resign them, or unless they are niched from me. But in the spirit- ual commonwealth there are no statutes of exclusion ; we may covet what gifts and accomplishments we will. The worth that is in my neighbour's character may become mine, if I hunger and thirst for it, and it will remain no less his for enabling the like in me. An act of heroism that I would emulate becomes potentially my own ; I rise by it to the level of the superior mind that conceived and compassed it. I care little for mediocre acts and thoughts of people, but the select sayings and inspiration, the unique goodness and worth of the world, I would have con- tinually before me. The treasured form of such ideas and sentiments and achievements we call Litera- ture. It perpetuates the best that men have found in the truest and noblest experiences of living. To .be prepared to live, one must have been provided with

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? /

the best and truest living attained or attainable hith- erto. Literature is an institutional device Tobeed- by which society administers to itself its ucatedis

• i • j- • c c. <-• ,. to know the

gams and discoveries of finest sentiment iifeofthe and sublimest thinking. To be educated is Past- to be provided for living by acquaintance with the best life of the past ; and this is available nowhere but in the thoughts and experiences that great men have bequeathed to us. It is the right, and should be the privilege, of those who come after to be equipped with the sum of what life has meant to the best who have lived before.

Shakespeare is useful to the world, and has come to be prized by wise men of all lands, because he was possessed of a profounder and completer knowledge of life than any author of books besides, what He can thus supply to us experiences that Shake-

. . T T • speare can

we should never otherwise attain. He is supply to capable of inspiring and enlightening us men- more abundantly than his rivals are, for the reason that he seems to have been acquainted with nobleness and worth in degree and variety beyond what other minds have known. It will not be easy to find Shake- speare except by discovering these qualities in his work. It will be of small profit to affirm that Shakespeare is this or this, that his moral attitude must have been such and such, if Shakespeare be not himself revealed and discerned, beyond his authorship, much as if he were living among us to-day. We have perhaps heard famous lecturers discourse patiently and eloquently to the effect that

8 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Shakespeare is the greatest genius in all letters, that he has more imagination, that he employs more art, that he achieves more coatrol over human sympathies Shake- than any other sage or poet. But all this speare, not has not brought us one whit nearer acquaint-

imparted . »

byabstrac- ance with the man, or with his mind and power. We cannot be won to the apprecia- tion or discipleship of Shakespeare by abstractions. We have not so learned our mothers, or the men and women whose lives have made us what we are.

It is therefore the purpose here to take some play or plays, such as our mentors must have had in mind, when they tried to administer Shakespeare to us, and test their spirit and purport just as if they had been written in the shape of novels, and by some modern master. We should choose creations that he put his heart into, and produced at times when he had least reason to exploit his gifts. What he makes the bur- den unequivocally of these plays, or any number of Plays that them, will presumably be something that he shake- cares much for, or feels convinced of deeply,

speare put . f J

his heart and will perhaps stand as an expression of into. what he would have life be or mean. Among

such plays would, of course, be Cymbeline, and this it is proposed, first of all, to examine with some care. Incidentally, as we follow the chief meanings, we shall do well to watch for modes and devices by which these are severally administered, — that is, for Shake- speare's art, if there is any. In general, it will be requisite that we read each scene, in advance of treat- ment, and keep the open text at hand.

II

CYMBELINE ACT I

SCENE I

IT will be well to have in mind at the beginning that Cymbeline is a British play, laid in pre-Christian times, and that the piece was not composed for the sake of King Cymbeline, the title character, but of his daughter Imogen. The opening lines are devoted to explaining who Imogen is, and making us acquainted with the circumstances under which she is to appear. In a drama everything that we need to know must be communicated to us incidentally, through the talk of certain characters, since the author cannot, Useofthe as in most other kinds of literature, tell us two Gentie- anything directly. The device here is to bring forward a ' Second Gentleman,' newly arrived at the palace, and have him apprised in our hearing, by the ' First Gentleman,' as to what is going on at court. The First Gentleman is ostensibly attached to the King's household, but really has been created, along with his companion, on purpose to give us this information. Neither of them is needed afterward or appears again.

The first sixty-nine lines thus serve as a sort of in- troduction to the play. Throughout the dialogue of the two Gentlemen the author is evidently at pains to

9

10 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

justify Imogen, by praises of Posthumus and of his family, for taking a husband so far beneath her rank. He now brings in his heroine. Her secret marriage with Posthumus has just been confessed to, and great is the commotion that it arouses. All the courtiers look displeased, while they inwardly rejoice that Imogen has rescued herself, for the time being, from the Queen's scheming. The King has wrathfully ban- ished the husband, and ordered the bride to prison. The Queen ostensibly interposes in her stepdaughter's behalf, gives her the freedom of the palace, and pro- poses even to allow the lovers a leave-taking. But her falseness is wholly transparent — almost, indeed, ironical, as (11. 70-79) her first words show : —

No, be assur'd you shall not find me, daughter, After the slander of most stepmothers, Evil-ey'd unto you ; you're my prisoner, but Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys That lock up your restraint. — For you, Posthumus, So soon as I can win the offended King, I will be known your advocate. Marry, yet The fire of rage is in him, and 'twere good You lean'd unto his sentence with what patience Your wisdom may inform you.

The reason of the Queen's suggestion to Posthumus, that he lean unto his sentence, is perhaps some fear lest he linger about the capitol disguised, and con- tinue his witchcraft over her prisoner. Posthumus somewhat nervously, as if he had no rights or wish but the Queen's will, and without waiting for the least sign or word from Imogen, as to when or how

CYMBELINE I. i II

she may best bear the shock of parting, declares that he will hence to-day. Have we assumed that she is un- nerved, prostrated, crushed ? Let us hear (11. 84-88) her speak.

Dissembling courtesy ! How fine this tyrant

Can tickle where she wounds ! My dearest husband,

I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing —

Always reserv'd my holy duty — what

His rage can do on me. You must be gone.

The divinest thing in the world is the repose, the spiritual sufficiency which can forestall all the effect of wickedness and weakness. Lofty indeed The repose and strong must be the mind of a princess of Im°gen- whom, at such a moment, the pretended, exasperating considerateness of the Queen cannot disturb. She is able even to remark the effrontery of her inexorable tormentor who, ' so soon as she can win the offended King, will begin to plead for the return of the exile. '• Most Imogens would have been upset to the point of prostration over that. We note, too, the dignity with which this bride of a week administers her affliction to herself by sending her husband away thus for his sake, his safety, 'not comforted to live save that there is left somewhere in the world the jewel that she perhaps may one day see again.' Not very ample consolation surely. But Imogen is content with what would break the hearts of most of her sex. There is no outcry, no swooning ; there is but the putting of arms about her husband's neck, and the coming, now, of quiet tears. She would not else be woman.

12 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Posthumus does not shine in comparison, though he is weak but relatively. He seems not to under- Posthu- stand what moment has come to him, or how

"uTreis? firm and sure ne snould now be to her who tiveiy. needs him and for the instant leans upon him. He should stand like a rock beneath her. He should contribute to her feminine sufficiency all his manly strength. He should be ready to stay by her, should she so will, forever. But he is ill at ease, and talks quite otherwise than in a sustaining way, while Imo- gen in silence hangs about him.

The Queen now enters, on purpose probably to interrupt the lovers, and prevent any plans they may be making for fidelity from becoming too complete. The sight of Posthumus half trying to get free from Imogen, who does not stir at the intrusion, seemingly resolves her to bring the King in to see the spectacle. Posthumus is disquieted more than ever, and attempts to release himself with a commonplace adieu. Imo- gen, beautifully detaining him, misses nothing from his fervour, and appears not to notice his unrest. This Imogen parting is of infinite concern to her, and she uncon- has prepared for it. She takes from her

scious ... , , i

of her bosom a resplendent ring, one of the royal rank. jewels, worn at some time by her mother, though never, we may be sure, by her. It will make Posthumus conspicuous to wear it. It may endanger his safety, in exile, to be the owner of it ; for, as a rule, only princes, in guarded palaces, display such treasures. But Imogen does not consider the ring too precious for a parting gift, or think it incongruous

CYMBELINE I. i 13

that Posthumus should possess it. She does not re- member that her mother was a queen, or that Posthu- mus has not yet been made a lord, or indeed a knight. Posthumus knows his bride's mind too well to ven- ture any protest. Now comes his turn. He has but an uncostly bracelet, which he knows Imogen so little as fairly to be ashamed of leaving with her as a keep- sake. But he does recognise (11. 118-123) his false position in being the lover of the royal heir.

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.

There is a very palpable difference between the tone of his utterances and of hers, and a difference surely not to his advantage. But we can understand how she has come to see in him her hero. Imogen imogen realises that the moment of parting has been not of a reached. Most feminine minds would now be imagina^ quickened to some degree of prophetic pene- tion- tration ; but she has neither golden hopes of reunion nor forebodings of long or final separation. Her mind is not vividly or diviningly imaginative, but must work in a matter-of-fact way from absolute materials or conditions given. She will not be good at guessing riddles. The future is to her not dark, but merely hidden.

The scene is laid, according to the heading in our texts, in the garden of the King's palace, though the

14 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

first printed copies do not say so. The First Folio no- why the where sets the scenes. But there is no ques- sceneiaid tion that the amendment is correct. The Queen, for instance, tells us (11. 103, 104) l that she will move the King ' to walk this way,' which was evidently not along the corridors, or through rooms, inside. It thus appears that the Queen has arranged for the lovers a meeting-place commanded by the pal- ace windows, so as to deny them privacy ; or, rather, that Shakespeare, back of the Queen, ordains the situation in order that the King and his lords may have an opportunity to surprise the pair. This now they do, apparently, by coming up with stealthy steps. Posthumus leaps aside, though Imogen is un- moved ; while the King rages, and with threatening gestures pursues Posthumus.

Posthumus has certainly no ill-will toward any- body ; he blesses the ' good remainders ' of the Imogen's court- He has small reason ; for he must absolute know that the Queen will attempt even yet ro* to bring about the marriage of Imogen with Cloten, and that the King will never countenance him, under present domestic conditions, as a son-in-law. He hastens away, perhaps for the King's comfort, perhaps also for his own, and forgets the word of farewell to Imogen that he had hoped to say again. Imogen makes no outcry, feels no approach of swoon- ing, and is not tempted to indulge herself in any mar- tyrdom. In absolute self-control she bears her pain,

1 Line references here, and throughout, are to the numberings of the Globe Shakespeare text.

CYMBELINE I. i 1$

and still has strength to recognise that the sternest experiences of life are now upon her. Does the King hear her words ? It seems not so. Imogen has no wish to enhance his passion, or betray how deeply his punishment afflicts her. Cymbeline, shaking with wrath, taunts her for disloyalty to his wishes. Imo- gen's perfect self-command is again exhibited. Over love matters it is not difficult for daughters to bandy words with irate sires. Imogen has no insolent or saucy phrases ; and with a royal dignity that her father lacks begs him to shun the risk of mortal injury that excitement, at his years, may bring Even in his dotard devotion to the adventuress, who has alienated all the love he once bore to his daughter, she would guard him tenderly.

Cymbeline now betrays the degree (1. 138) to which his designing helpmeet has assumed control over his mind.

That mightst have had the sole son of my Queen !

The implication that, were there other sons, any one of them would have been an enviable match for her, is exasperating enough. But Imogen will not lose her temper. Posthumus's blood of course is as good as the Queen's son's. Cymbeline accuses her of in- tending to make Posthumus his successor : —

Thou took'st a beggar, wouldst have made my throne A seat for baseness.

Imogen does not deny that she is willing to see that outcome : ' No ; I rather added a lustre to it.' When Cymbeline retorts that she is 'vile,' or 'of

16 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

low tastes,' Imogen has yet the grace (11. 143-147) to answer quietly, and according to the verities, —

Sir,

It is your fault that I have loved Posthumus ; You bred him as my playfellow, and he is A man worth any woman, overbuys me Almost the sum he pays.

To affirm that Posthumus has thrown away on her, the heir of all Britain, almost the whole of the pur- chase price, himself, who holds not so much as a foot of fief, is democratic and revolutionary enough to give the King a palsy. But he seems to be even Imogen's Parting with his violence under the influ- ciearsee- ence of Imogen's firm looks and will. The absurd doctrine of the present court, that rank makes worth, and that Cloten may claim fitness for kingship on no sounder pretensions, forces her (11. 148-150) to a protest, which, nevertheless, she makes meekly personal, and not critical or denuncia- tory : —

Would I were

A neat-herd's daughter, and my Leonatus

Our neighbour shepherd's son !

There is hope surely for the race when women, born in kings' houses, and bred to luxury, see with such clearness, and stand for truth like that.

Pisanio, servant of Posthumus hitherto, now enters. His face shows concern, and the Queen seems to presume that he has news of interest to herself. And she is not wrong. As Posthumus went out from the palace garden, the Queen's son, Cloten, must

CYMBELINE I. I 17

needs make an insolent, cowardly thrust upon him with his rapier, an instrument that Cloten

i 11 T-» i-i Cloten's

handles none too well. But he has assaulted assault a master of that weapon ; whereat Posthu- upon Pos'

thumus.

mus, good-naturedly, gives Cloten a few lively bouts for exercise. Gentlemen of the court, after a little enjoyment of the fun, with sober faces, have seen to it that Cloten receives no severe pun- ishment for his folly, and have stopped the scan- dal. Imogen's amused contempt at the affront is said aloud : ' If your son were not under the protec- tion of my father, he would not have escaped so comfortably. I wish that the two swordsmen were where they could not be parted, that I might hold them to an issue.' Imogen is not shocked at the idea of Cloten's getting the reward of his villany; she belongs to a duelling generation. But no woman has yet been born, having a husband of Posthumus's worth, but would be proud of his strong arm too. The Queen, until the outcome has been told, is evi- dently in a scare. Pisanio, now complimented in- sincerely by the Queen for past fidelity, is What the made to understand that he shall be con- Queen tinued in service to Imogen. The Queen purposes- proposes, by taking Imogen's part against the King, and by plying her with pretentious kindnesses, like this one, to persuade her to an annulment of her marriage ; and she sends Pisanio out that she even now may employ the time. Imogen, who has given audiences before, and knows how long the Queen's reasons will hold out, tells Pisanio, in the Queen's

1 8 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

hearing, when he shall return. Thus has the author indicated to us to what extent Imogen is to be so- licited, on this day of days, with her husband not yet gone, to wed his rival. With this, the scene in the palace garden, in which so much concerning the King's court, and of those who live there, has been revealed, is rounded to a close.

SCENE II

The author of course made Cloten assault Pos- thumus, in the first scene, in order to set our feelings against him in advance. Cloten is to suffer a hard fate, and we are not to care. The treatment before us will not call for much penetration, or reading between the lines. When we have learned the Eliza- bethan terms and turns completely, the purport of the whole will be potentially in reach. The dialogue is in prose, the subject not warranting the metric form. Cloten has just been rescued from the fenc- ing-bout, and is shown in a state of perspiration that little suits with a gentleman of his cloth. Posthumus has just disappeared from the scene; and the two Lords, who have posed in the affair as Cloten's seconds, are covering his disgrace with obsequious attentions.

Shakespeare's purpose in this situation is obviously to enact to us the degree of Cloten's imbecility. The The sense- ^e^ow probably suspects that all has not lessnessof gone exactly well with him, but the First Lord actually flatters him into thinking that he has covered himself with glory. The Second

CYMBELINE I. m ig

Lord deepens the effect, somewhat awkwardly, it must be owned, by his sarcastic asides, through which his surcharged soul has vent. Cloten's conceit of greatness, since his mother married with the King, excludes all peers, all potentates from rivalry with himself. The Second Lord, seemingly for pity, — or is it conscience ? — will contribute no word of praise or flattery to feed his pride. Only at the end does he venture speech, when Cloten insists that his friends shall not ' attend,' but walk abreast with him.

Evidently Shakespeare is not 'yet fully at work. Neither in this scene nor in the preceding does his hand suggest the cunning that it has known in most earlier plays. Particularly this plan of character contrasts, which presents first a scene of Imogen, and then of Cloten, and then of Imogen again, is unexampled in all his work elsewhere.

SCENE III

Pisanio has come back from the harbour, where he saw Posthumus embark, and sail out into the offing. Imogen has been listening spell-bound to his report. The peculiar objectiveness of her mind is evident in the conception of Pisanio as becoming a fixture by the shore, and interrogating every sail, whether it have tidings from the exiled one. Then the very words last spoken are asked for, and the last gesture. Thus does the imagi- nation of Imogen employ itself, gropingly and almost blindly, among details, having no wing for flight. The mention of the senseless linen that he

20 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

kissed, when her own lips might have contributed the responsiveness that it lacked, irks her with the thought of loss. Then sets in the conviction that there must have been something yet to do, which she had surely added, could she have been there in Pisanio's stead, — a sentiment beautiful, in this mo- ment of desolation, even to pathos. Here is a bride, surely not of sympathy or affection merely, but of deeds (11. 14-21): —

Imogen. Thou shouldst have made him

As little as a crow, or less, ere left To after-eye him.

Pisanio. Madam, so I did.

Imogen. I would have broke mine eye-strings, crack'd

them but

To look upon him, till the diminution Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle, — Nay, follow'd him till he melted from The smallness of a gnat to air, —

' and then, only, when there was nothing more of devo- tion to be rendered, I would have turned mine eye and wept ! ' Yet this devotion costs Imogen no regret or consciousness of sacrifice. Her joy is not in her- self, and she is unaware how centrifugal is her living. Posthumus cannot forget that he has wedded a princess, though he is not without knowledge of her Posthu- worth. There is somewhat of the romantic mantfe0" in nis temperament, while of that quality nature. Imogen conspicuously lacks. She is liter- ally to him his queen, and he seems (cf. 1. 5 above, and i. 92, 99) always to call her so. His brain is full of her social eminence, and of the glamour which, to

CYMBELINE I. in 21

him, surrounds her goings. But Imogen, on the con- trary, discerns all the hollowness of court magnifi- cence. Her thoughts are not of the crown, rightfully hers, but of her needle, and this we may be sure (cf. 1. 19, and i. 168) is at no time long absent from her hand.

Imogen has been well revealed before, in kind ; plainly this scene is to paint her to us in degree. Pisanio, conceived apparently, for better sus- imogen ai- tainment of the proprieties, as of at least ways wifely. twice her years, is one to whom she may talk about Posthumus ; and by way of him she is made to exhibit something of the purity and beauty of her spirit. While she cannot in visions follow her lover to Italy, she can appoint periods each day sacred to thoughts of him. So shall she yet have cares, with Posthumus absent, quite as were they not divided, and she had been his homekeeper. Noon, midnight, and the sixth hour of morn shall she be in heaven for him. Mani- festly there shall not be much time for empty living, nor indeed for sleep. Then, that we may hear more, she is made to tell Pisanio of her incomplete leave- taking, — how she had contrived two words which she was to have administered as a charm, with her kiss between; but (11. 35-37) then —

comes in my father

And, like the tyrannous breathing of the north, Shakes all our buds from growing.

Withal, the whole is told in no dialect of silliness, but in serious and lofty-minded diction.

22 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

The pretty story stops, for Imogen is sent for. Two interviews with the Queen in one day ; we know for what.

SCENE rv

The scene now shifts to Italy. Posthumus has been made to tell (cf. i. 97, 98) that his exile will be spent in Rome, at the house of his father's mustPpro- friend Philario. To provide him honourable vide for entertainment, Shakespeare but makes Phi- lario to have been under obligations (cf. i.

mus an

honourable 20-33) to Sicilius in certain Roman wars.

asylum. ,

The conversation among Philario s guests is of Posthumus, who has arrived but lately. It is known that he has married a king's daughter and been exiled for it; and these facts are regarded, not unnaturally, as discreditable to him as well as her. The Dutchman and the Spaniard are too slow of speech and mind to join in the dialogue, but we may safely account them not more charita- ble than the others. Philario feels it necessary to warn the company, as Posthumus comes in, against incivility to his friend. The Frenchman at once presents him eminence, both with eye and tongue, while lachimo lies in wait. After half a dozen para- graphs comes (1. 56) his opportunity : —

lachimo. Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference?

Frenchman. * Safely, I think. It was a conten- tion in public, which will, without gainsaying, bear being reported. It was much like the dispute that was precipitated last night, when we fell to praising

CYMBELINE I. iv 23

the sweethearts of our respective countries; this gentleman at that time vouching, — and by an affir- mation he would stand to with his sword, his to be fairer, more virtuous, wiser, more chaste, better pro- vided with the quality of constancy, and less tempta- ble than any rarest of our ladies in France.'

This foolish praise was uttered, years before, in earliest foreign travel. The author thinks too much of his heroine to give her a husband who would say it now. But the occasion is sufficient for lachimo ; he thus administers the first stroke of his Machiavel- lian craft : —

That lady is not now living, or the gentleman's opinion by this worn out.

Posthumus, as we should judge to-day, was under no obligation so strong as to hold his peace, and keep his wife's honour from being bandied about in such a company. But Posthumus feels that he must vindi- cate the integrity of his lady at any cost to him or her. Such was the sentiment of the old chivalry, not yet dead in Shakespeare's times. He answers stiffly, —

She holds her virtue still, and I my mind.

Posthumus, from now on, is easy game. Some good angel should have warned him against conten- tion with one of lago's breed. He thinks he posthu- is dealing forbearingly with an honest man. mus no

. ° J match for

lachimo will need but to goad him gently, the wily to make him lose his head, and bring him Itahan- under full control; and this will his pursuer do, though we cannot yet see why. What Briton could have detected the strategy in this rejoinder ?

24 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

You must not so far prefer her fore ours of Italy.

Posthumus has not said anything about the young women of Italy, but of course cannot remember his words exactly. He is not combative, and tries to withdraw with a general remark, which, under right circumstances, would have left all well. But lachimo will not have it so. He has caught sight of

lachimo

will have the ring on Posthumus's finger, and prob- ably rec°Snises that this untitled and por- tionless bridegroom can have come by it only through his marriage with a king's daughter. lach- imo will have the Queen's jewel, and make a guy of Posthumus besides.

'As fair and as good — a kind of poised com- parison — had been something too fair and loo good for any lady in Britain. If she went before others I have seen, as that diamond of yours outlustres many I have beheld, I could not but believe she excelled many; but I have not seen the most precious dia- mond that is, nor you the lady.'

lachimo very deftly covers his interest in the ring, which he implies he has seen surpassed in brilliancy. He has not aroused Posthumus by the animus made so plain in his last utterance. He now (1. 94) tries sarcasm : —

Which the gods have given you ?

But even this taunt fails to exasperate the fiefless and homeless wanderer. lachimo follows with an insinu- ation : —

You may wear her in title yours, —

at which Posthumus very neatly turns his flank : —

CYMBELINE I. iv 25

' Your Italy contains no so accomplished a courtier to vanquish the honour of my mistress, if, in the hold- ing or loss of that, you term her frail. I do nothing doubt you have store of thieves; notwithstanding, I fear not for my ring.'

Philario attempts now to stop the dialogue. He understands of course what lachimo is about, and is bound to protect his guest. Posthumus ventures some pungent comments on lachimo's manners, which, were he not shameless, would silence him. But the fellow, lago-like, makes an advantage out of the rebuff : —

Posthumus. 'This worthy signior — I am much obliged to him — is not at all inclined to be formal with me : we have been familiar from the very first moment.'

lachimo. ' With five times so much conversation, I should get ground of your fair mistress, make her retreat, even to the surrender, had I admittance and opportunity as a help.'

Posthumus. No, no.

lachimo. I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my estate to your ring, which, in my opinion, o'er- values it something.

We see that the ring has considerably appreciated, since lachimo's first mention of it. He needs to flatter Posthumus now. On his outrageous preten- sions of being a lady-killer, Posthumus, in chivalrous and indignant defence of the sex he is slandering, reads him a pretty vigorous lesson : —

Posthumus. ' You are greatly deceived in allow- ing yourself to believe any such thing; and I don't doubt you are habitually sustaining what you de- serve by your attempts.'

26 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

la f hi m«. What's that?

Posthumus. 'A repulse; though your attempt, as you call it, deserves more, — a castigation, too.'

Philario at this point interferes ; for Posthumus is getting excited, and lachimo is mercilessly crowding him to his doom. The conversation has dwindled to this one topic, while Philario would have it general. But lachimo does not mind Philario, who has no present power of calling him to account.

lachimo. Would I had put my estate and my neighbour's on the approbation of what I have spoken.

Posthumus. What lady would you choose to assail?

lachimo. Yours, who in constancy you think stands so safe. I will lay you ten thousand ducats, to your ring, that, commend me to the court where your lady is ... I will bring from thence that honour of hers which you imagine so reserved.

Posthumus. I will wage against your gold, gold to it. My ring I hold dear as my finger ; 't is part of it.

Posthumus has no chance of getting together ten thousand ducats, but in his present condition of mind he thinks he has, and declares he will cover the bet. To part with his ring, merely while it shall lie in pledge, he cannot think of doing. lachimo has but to taunt him with being really unconfident of his wife, to bring him (11. 146-149) to the terms proposed : —

•You are afraid; I see that you have some appre- hensions about the hereafter in you, — that you are really afraid^

Posthumus cannot longer contain himself. Ring or no ring, he must beat the fellow, and punish him ; and

CYMBELINE I. iv 2/

of course he shall soon have his ring back from the stake-holder.

' Let there be covenants drawn between us. My mistress exceeds in worth even the mammoth propor- tions of your evil thinking. I dare you to this match. Here's my ring ! '

Philario calls out that he will not have the dispute end in a bet, but lachimo slaps his leg, and cries, much louder, By the gods, you re too late ; it is one.

' If I come off, and leave her such as you trust her, she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours: provided I have your endorsement for my more convenient admittance and reception.'

Very slyly has the author contrived to attach the last clause as a rider to the whole ; on it will depend the access of lachimo to the British court. Posthumus cannot realise what he is assenting to. Like a gambler, with the mad expectation of winning, he is carried away captive by the cool avarice of his adversary, who knows how the dice are loaded. That ring is too grand a thing for the hand of a friendless and witless upstart, like this stranger, to be wearing. Then there is be- sides, for lachimo, the excitement of an adventure to look forward to. Meanwhile poor Imogen, badgered, heartsore, and worn, bearing the chief burdens of this separation, in far-off Britain, little dreams that her husband has been forced, in sheer defence of her honour, to consent that an lachimo shall cross her path. Such is the evolution of lachimo's plot to see Imo- gen, and of Posthumus's willingness to stake her

28 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

ring. The scene has, perhaps, read in certain moods, seemed long, and perhaps indeed

The scene _ . . . ,

indispen- unnecessary. But it is vital to the play, and sable to the js really shorter than most other dramatists, accomplishing as much, could have devised. To be sure, it is not a pleasant story ; but Shakespeare has made it as free from offensiveness as he could. An lachimo of real life would have said much coarser things.

SCENE v

The Queen is now discovered to us with her court

ladies and chief physician : a rather unusual grouping,

since there is no one ill. The Queen has

Queen fur- been exhibited pretty effectually already, and

ther char- we wonder why we are to have her before

acterised. , . ,

us, as the chief figure, m another scene. There is to be a flower-gathering excursion, perhaps beyond the palace gardens, but not of the usual sort, not for the pleasure of it; and the Queen has pre- pared, to assist her purpose, a formal list. Did ever women, in reach of flowers with the dew on them, behave before like this ? Save the stepdame, we may safely assume that no one of the company would have done so here.

As soon as the court ladies are out of hearing, the Queen asks the physician concerning drugs, which he has been commissioned to procure. These he seems to give her. But it is at once made known to us that they are poisons, and of a kind that Shakespeare's gen- eration were more familiar with than we, such, namely,

CYMBELINE I. v 29

as produce death with certainty, but so remotely after administering as quite to prevent detection of the poi- soner, or the time and manner of his deed. We are inclined to be sceptical about such poisons itaiian now, but the audiences for whom this play poisons, was written most steadfastly believed in them. Ed- ward VI, it was held by many, had died by this means. The doctor is made, not very deftly, to disclose the character of these drugs, through asking the Queen why she has required them, since it is an inquiry made most naturally before complying.

The Queen by her response arouses our suspicion very strongly. She has been the doctor's pupil, and preeminently before her marriage, when she was acquiring certain accomplishments, one of Theoueen which seems to have recommended her to wooed for the King's imagination. Now, very lately, ^0°"" probably since Posthumus's going, she has conceived it well to amplify her judgment in other conclusions. She admits that she intends to use the drugs poisonously, but not on human creatures. Yet, as Pisanio enters, she declares that he shall be the subject of her first experiment. What she means to do eventually, with the crown in prospect, need not be more broadly hinted.

The careless construction of the play is evident in the asides. The author uses one of these to The care_ bring out from the doctor the explanation less con- that the drugs are not deadly after all. On accomplishing this, Shakespeare is through with him, and makes the Queen dismiss him, that

30 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

she may talk of Imogen to Pisanio. Her (1. 46)

first inquiry, —

Weeps she still, say'st thou ? —

eloquently betrays that she is becoming pretty effec- tually acquainted with her prisoner, and that she begins to despair of winning Imogen away from Posthumus to Cloten. She confidently affirms that Posthumus's plight is more hopeless than ever, and hints broadly that pressure is being brought to bear upon Philario, to make him withdraw his hospitality. This, however, we are forced to conclude, is merely falsehood. The Queen has no respect for the intelligence of such as she would make her dupes; and she plies Pisanio with the most outrageous patronising. To complete the flattery, she drops, as by accident, the box of drugs, and Pisanio, springing with courtly alacrity to restore it to her, is bidden keep it for his pains. With ready mendacity, she declares that she has saved the King's life five times already with that medicine. Pisanio is naturally disinclined to keep so precious a cordial, but the Queen entreats. Quite evidently this box of drugs will be heard of later in the plot.

The Queen now sends for the women, who reenter bearing large bundles of fresh blossoms. But the Queen does not feel prompted to smell or handle any, not even of the violets, which, alone, with the cowslips and primroses, she has carried to her laboratory. Will she distil court perfumes from them, — or is it all a blind ?

The purpose of the scene is thus the twofold one of introducing the ruse of the physician as a factor

CYMBELINE I. vi 31

in the plot, and of exhibiting the Queen's character in degree ; the latter having been already, in Scene i, presented to us in kind.

SCENE VI

Will the author force us to witness the infamous wooing of Imogen by lachimo ? He will not omit it; not because he will joy to write it, or

lachimo

because he does not care for our feelings, to be influ- or thinks we need to see his heroine tried. ^nced b?

Imogen.

He would save her this interview with lach- imo if by any means he might. But he wishes us to know what influence can be wrought upon lachimo by an Imogen. The scene opens with a mood of dejection and tears. The weeks of the Queen's very civil but persistent solicitation drag heavily. There is no golden promise in the sky to which she looks. But she will live true to herself, no matter if in a neatherd's cottage.

Blest be those,

How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills, Which seasons comfort.

She cries out in dismay; for there is a nobleman approaching whom she does not know. Her eyes are red, and she would see no stranger. But Pisanio, asking no leave, evidently because of some message or commission from Posthumus, brings the guest before her. At mention of her lord, the colour comes back to her pale cheek.

lachimo has long been practised in the effects of boldness. He should, as Posthumus's friend, show

32 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

himself most chivalrous and worshipful here; but Imogen, though a king's daughter, hears no false note (11. 11-13) m ^e first words: —

Change you, madam ? The worthy Leonatus is in safety, And greets your highness dearly.

lachimo evidently knows how to address a young

wife whose husband is in exile. He affects to be

acquainted with the contents of the letter

Imogen

at first that he presents, as if he were of Posthu- subordi- mus's counsel. So far, he has advantaged

nated.

himself by the interview ; he has impressed Imogen as of an obtrusive, compelling personality. In her weary and heart-sick frame of mind she no doubt dreads the presence of such a man, and in so far he has subordinated her. lachimo, for his part, has been sur- prised and dismayed at the repose and strength of her patrician bearing. Perhaps the dames of Italy have the habit of meeting his impudent, command- ing gaze with looks full of mischief and challenge ; his boastings to Posthumus cannot have meant much less. But here is a type of womanhood that does not know and cannot guess what such manners mean, lachimo begins to feel the stir of something like rev- erence within : —

All of her that is out of door, most rich !

If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare,

She is alone the Arabian bird, and I

Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend !

Arm me, audacity, from head to foot !

Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight ;

Rather, directly fly.

CYMBEL1NE I. VI 33

When was this man ever persuaded before of so much as the existence of the phenix of virtue ? It makes him obviously uncomfortable to anticipate the rdle that he must undertake. Imogen for the moment has been lost in her husband's letter. Posthumus has fulfilled his part of the diabolic compact. We wonder indeed how he could say, except in a quibble, that he is infinitely tied to lachimo's kindnesses. Imogen reads to her guest the last words of the letter, as a means of paying him the respect which her husband bespeaks, and partly because she would not be selfishly absorbed in her own joys. Her mood toward him is altered. Why, here is instead of a stranger a dear friend of her husband, one who has sweetened his homelessness and desolation with gracious offices. Being the matter-of-fact, domestic creature that we know, she has no doubt begun al- ready to cast about for means of entertaining him. But she remembers that she is in effect a prisoner. Has her husband hinted to his friend that her liberty in her father's house is scanted ? We catch clearly (11. 29-31) the note of perplexity : —

You are as welcome, worthy sir, as I Have words to bid you, and shall find it so In all that I can do.

But lachimo little dreams how the lady's mind is cumbered for him, at this rare moment, in iachimo noble hospitality ; he is too absorbed in his cannot

bring him-

pitiable attempt to fascinate her. He pro- seif to pre- ceeds, scrutinising her beauty of face and tendtoan

J amorous

figure, in a sexless, almost an inventorying mo0d.

34 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

mood, to make comments of surprise. He expects to be understood as implying that large distinc- tions of charm, palpable enough to him, are not discerned by another pair of eyes, of course Pos- thumus's. But in this, which would have made another sort of princess understand that she was de- spised and rejected, and in favour of a rival vastly her inferior, Imogen sees nothing, suspects nothing, and is objective enough even to ask what makes the wonder, lachimo essays to grow more pointed, and hints broadly that there are two between whom her hus- band chooses. Imogen's obtuseness grows, and lachimo, perhaps somewhat from the fear that he is being made game of in the presence of her servant, manages to invent a reason for sending that super- numerary out. But after Pisanio's exit, the same honest, earnest eyes rest upon lachimo, and while he waits perhaps to recover his inspiration, he hears (1. 56) an inquiry not anticipated in the letter : —

Continues well my lord ? His health, beseech you ?

lachimo has exhausted his boldness. Little indeed has come of it. Nothing is more remarkable than The lan- ^e severely proper language in which the guage en- presence of this woman has forced him to Imogen* clothe his effrontery. Has he ever main- from lach- tained such speech for so long before to man or woman ? Not a syllable of real coarse- ness has passed his lips. His next expedient, the attempt to arouse jealousy having failed, is to assure Imogen of Posthumus's levity. She has asked if her

CYMBELINE I. vi 35

husband keeps cheerful. That furnishes the cue; and (11. 59-61) the answer is, —

Exceeding pleasant ; none a stranger there So merry and so gamesome. He is call'd The Briton reveller.

How would it make most brides feel to be assured that their exiled husbands were mysteriously and boisterously gay ? It would be but in keeping that Posthumus should maintain a lenten soberness for Imogen's sake, while she is suffering for his sake, being deprived of her liberty even more than he has been deprived of his. But Imogen has no such envy as to require that her husband endure the same sorrow as herself. She believes what lachimo tells her, and does not understand it, yet finds it all right to her. She remembers, however, that it was once not so with him: —

When he was here

He did incline to sadness, and oft-times Not knowing why.

There is so much of Gothic repose, of Madonna- like high-mindedness and renunciation that it is strange lachimo can go on. There is sadness enough, we may be sure, in the eyes that are looking upon him now, trying to find the truth that this messenger is so unwilling to declare. The destroyer of her peace reports that her husband makes insinuations against her and all her sex, but the anxious, inquiring look seems not to change. lachimo affirms broadly, and no doubt with a knowing shrug that would compromise a saint, that some men are much to blame. But when

36 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Imogen asks, with dawning dismay, if he means her husband, he is forced (1. 78) to answer No : —

Not he ; but heaven's bounty towards him might

Be us'd more thankfully. In himself, 'tis much ;

In you [it], which I account his, [is] beyond all talents.

Whilst I am bound to wonder, I am bound

To pity too.

Imogen. What do you pity, sir ?

lachimo. Two creatures heartily.

But the innuendo does not take. Imogen is hopelessly obtuse. She cannot be roused, as the Italian donna would have been aroused insanely, long before, to a ' imo en's jea^°us rnood. Instead, remembering per- concemfor haps how these weeks since her husband's looks^ exile must have told upon her features, — for even an Imogen cares when her cheek is pale and wasted, — she anxiously inquires, —

Am / one, sir ?

You look on me. What wrack discern you in me Deserves your pity ?

lachimo answers darkly, that it is all as if he were to hide from the radiant sun, and get solace in a dungeon by the dying light of an unsnuffed candle. But not only does this inexplicable British woman fail to get the hint again ; she even turns on him with a Juno's dignity, and demands the reason for his presump- tion : —

I pray you, sir,

Deliver with more openness your answers To my demands. Why do you pity me ?

None but one of the breed of lago, who dared to sport with the enraged Othello, would have risked

CYMBELINE I. vi 37

further impertinence with this princess. lachimo thinks that one dark saying more will complete the mischief. He utters but certain significant words of this, affecting to halt aghast at the enormity of what is left unsaid. Imogen does not grow incensed, feel- ing it now wrong to fall out with the bearer of her news. She begs him to tell plainly what he has come to report to her.

lachimo is Italian in nothing so much perhaps as ingenuity. It is no hardship for him to suffer a check like this ; else were he dismayed and iachimo resourceless now. He ventures some hint ventures of compliment to this lady's cheek and hand tant com- and eye, but he is very worshipful and dis- Pllments- tant in it all. Imogen is not one whose beauty it will do to praise openly : that lachimo has read aright. Otherwise he would have made sonnets to her eyebrow from the first. His attempt to declare plainly, as Imogen has asked, how she is wronged, is deftly sub- ordinated to his chivalrous admiration. Nothing so well measures the power of her presence, of her pure and anxious countenance, as the lofty indirectness with which lachimo addresses her at this moment. The gist at last is clear : Posthumus has fallen below himself, — if this friend says true ; and Imogen can- not think that he is uttering falsehood. She is too unselfish, too noble to feel the wrong done to herself. There is no trace of jealousy, no wish to extort pain for pain. But lachimo assumes that, since she is woman, such must be her feelings, and he prepares to use them to his profit. Italian great dames feel

38 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

such passions, and ply dagger and poison on no better evidence.

lachimo, blinded by his mistake and his success, pushes on. He risks another compliment. ' Not I, inclined to this tale-bearing, pronounce the beggary of his change, but '\\syour graces that charm this story out.' That, in Imogen's eyes, amounts to flattery, and seems (1. 117) to flash on her the falseness of his mind : — ,

Let me hear no more !

But lachimo grows frantic in his anxiousness for this wronged lady. Were Imogen at all aware of the dramatic craftiness of his race, his zeal would have wrought no pause to her indignation. But the fervour and the poignant concern on lachimo's face deceive her for a moment yet.

O dearest soul ! Your cause doth strike my heart "With pity, that doth make me sick. A lady So fair, and fasten'd to an empery [that] Would make the great'st king double.

This could not but make an impression upon a Brit- ish gentlewoman's credulity, though it would scarcely have deceived an Italian lass of ten. The sugges- tion besides of Posthumus's ingratitude, that he is lavishing his princess-wife's treasures upon dissolute companions, will carry, as lachimo believes, a madden- ing sting. There is need now, he thinks, but to hint of reprisals. But, marvel of marvels, this woman has (11. 128-132) no most distant suspicion of what he means : —

CYMBELINE I. vi 39

Revengd!

How should I be reveng'd? ^"this be true, — As I have such a heart that both mine ears Must not in haste abuse, — if it be true, How should I be reveng'd?

lachimo's humiliation is not complete. He must explain again, deliver with more openness what he would have her know. It were enough surely that he had said

Should he make me, —

but lachimo goes on, rounding out a paragraph that Imogen lets him finish, to be sure that her ears do not mistake. Then, immediately, she calls her serv- ing-man. lachimo, believing, or affecting to believe this but a last feint of dissent, advances to attempt a kiss. Then (1. 141) he learns what the situation is.

Away ! I do condemn my ears that have

So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable,

Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not

For such an end [as] thou seek'st, — as base as strange.

Thou wrong'st a gentleman who is as far

From thy report as thou from honour, and

Solicit'st here a lady that disdains

Thee and the devil alike. What, ho, Pisanio !

Imogen feels no sensitiveness or indignation that such a thing has happened to her, never thinks what the world would say if it only knew, and im0gen probably administers this divine rebuke notcha- without a blush. The sublime repose of her la

nature is even yet unshaken. She has not insolence- believed the slander against her husband, she has ex- posed the foolish villany of this sorry fellow, and put

40 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

him to a lifelong shame. Were she as once wholly in her father's favour, her triumph would be complete. She will not feign the royal vindication, she merely presumes it ; but lachimo finds in it undoubtedly none the less a menace. It is all in all an incident that Imogen will forget quickly, or will remember, because inexplicable, without trepidation or regret.

How an Italian, even of this lago stamp, could muster courage to unsay his sayings, surpasses Anglo- Saxon knowledge. But even this (11. 162-165) ls within the r61e of an lachimo.

Give me your pardon ! I have spoke this to know if your affiance Were deeply rooted, and shall make your lord, That which he is, new o'er.

Imogen is not surprised to hear her husband praised ; her repose is undisturbed even by this contradiction. lachimo, getting in acknowledgment but the words ' You make amends,' goes on with unction to extort from the princess at least more than that. He adds more praises, and with Italian grace and deference asks pardon. But while he is exploiting himself in this half-frantic effort, which wins from her (1. 179) only the laconic and almost ironic answer, —

All's well, sir. Take my power i' the court for yours, —

he is evidently divining a new matter. ' If the crea- ture is as devoted to her husband as this comes to, why, just through that devotion

feated can sne \yQ tricked into compromising con-

through her ,

devotion, ditions that will save me yet the wager.

CYMBELINE I. vi 41

She is infatuated enough to lavish fondness upon any- thing that her husband cares for, and will be blind to every strategy that purports to honour him.' lachimo's fetch is on the instant ready : —

lachimo. My humble thanks. I had almost forgot To entreat your grace but in a small request, And yet of moment too, for it concerns Your lord.

Imogen. Pray, what is it ?

lachimo. Some dozen Romans of us, and your lord, —

Now all is different. The young princess-bride shows animation; her wonderful statuesque repose is well- nigh lifted. Here is something to do, a chance for love and devotion to express themselves as other than mere sentiments : —

Willingly,

And pawn mine honour for their safety. Since My lord hath interest in them, I will keep them In my bedchamber.

Of course. lachimo has divined rightly that Imogen cannot do less than keep guard over the treasure that she believes is in part her husband's. He Imogen shall need but to hint at the trouble it will an*>ous to

i keep the

cause her, — 'only for this night,' — to make trunk her beg for a longer service. It is the only longer- happiness that has come to her since Posthumus went away. She even prays lachimo not to go to-morrow ! lachimo explains that he has been carried out of his way by his promise to see her, and Imogen, though reminded thus of how it has been kept, has so far forgotten as to hint again that she would have him stay. lachimo is in no danger of flattering himself

42 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

that it is his presence which she finds acceptable ; that he knows too well is the occasion, not the cause. So, by way of lachimo's Machiavellian wit and of Imogen's objective affection, the author has gained approach to the palace and to Imogen's apartments, for the trunk, as demanded by the plot.

Clearly, outside of its plot significance, this is an important part of the play. We have seen this Brit- lachimo *s^ princess, unintendingly, without effort, forced to and, indeed, unconsciously, compel a man Imogen w^° nas no resPect f°r woman, and who has and her affected even to believe himself a universal fascinator, conceive a very deep respect for her, and for her sex through her. She knows no sur- prises ; she is so at one in her integrity with the eternal right that she thinks no evil and feels no need to vindi- cate herself against it. She has filled Posthumus with a sense of her truth and strength. It grows clearer how he could consent that this lachimo should cross her path ; he knew that what we have seen happen is what would happen. It is not much marvel, then, that he has called this wife of his, being unable to separate her rank and birth from her personality, persistingly a queen.

ACT II

SCENE I

There are unpleasant residues of Cloten's char- acter to be shown; and it is the author's cioten be- pleasure, while we wait the outcome of

latedindis- , . . ,

sipation. lachimo s effort with the trunk, to open some

CYMBELINE II. n 43

of them to us. Cloten is a man past thirty, and has apparently been so belated in his wild-oats sowing as to covet every opportunity of dissipation. He lays hundred-pound bets upon his bowling, swears roundly when he loses, and knocks down with his bowl the man who rebukes him for his oaths. The rank that his mother's marriage has brought him, entitles him to commit offences upon his inferiors, and insures him immunity for any species of behaviour. The First Lord, we notice, has tired, seemingly, since his former appearance with Cloten, of his flattery ; and the Second Lord speaks aloud this time in an occasional phrase of irony. The scene is closed with a soliloquy, in which the author makes sure that the slowest of his audience understands everything, ex- cept the lachimo episode, that has been essayed thus far.

SCENE II

lachimo ended his interview with Imogen, appar- ently, when it was yet daylight. Imogen finished the letters for her husband something before Imogen nine o'clock, which was the time of her re- like Lady tiring. She has been reading in bed, as an^Eiiza^' seems her habit, during the three hours beth, a since. This is clearly meant to establish her to us as of an intellectual and literary cast of mind. Of course, most ladies of rank are of this sort to-day. But in Shakespeare's times there were few reading women. Only Lady Jane Grey and Elizabeth, and some rare spirits besides, had, to Shakespeare's knowledge, bothered themselves much with books.

44 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

There was, moreover, not much to read. People who nowadays can sit down to a fresh book or magazine every evening, little realise the dearth of edifying literature, then, at least for lady readers. We note here also, that, while Imogen has waiting women to execute her least behest, she is yet as wifely as if she were her own housekeeper. She wishes to be waked at dawn, after four hours' sleep, that she may resume her cares. She is (11. 8-10), withal, devout, —

To your protection I commend me, gods I From fairies, and the tempters of the night, Guard me, beseech ye !

But her prayers are vain. Already in the trunk,

which is doubtless placed where she can see it most

conveniently, lies in wait a relentless enemy.

nonfurious Had she been curious, had she demanded to

to see the see the gift of plate that her husband con- gift of plate. ., . r ,

tnbuted some of her money to procure, per- haps lachimo's stratagem would have failed. But she has surely not asked to see it, being content to keep it and guard it, and feel it near. Had she been less matter-of-fact and practical, she might have di- vined by the modes of telepathy, or in some other way, that her doom was here. But she is alone with her integrity and sweet devotion. She sleeps.

It is past, much past two o'clock. The trunk-lid rises softly. lachimo is no chicken-hearted dabbler in criminality, but he feels instantly, as he lifts his head and emerges into the perfumed and silent cham- ber, the influences of the place. Tarquin, he at once

CYMBELINE II. n 45

fancies, must have moved thus gently, and felt him- self just such a monster. He has come to note down in detail the furnishings and belongings of the room ; but the intensity of his impressions makes that un- necessary. The taper that the waiting woman left lighted discovers to us the arms of the sleeper lying bare upon the counterpane, and the bracelet of Pos- thumus. But how chances she to be wearing this bracelet even when sleeping ? Her lover did not ask her to keep it always upon her arm. But he prom- ised that her ring should not part from his finger ; so she, without promising or even telling, wears thus his bracelet. lachimo at once sees the importance of such a token and unclasps it. Were Imogen less profoundly locked in slumber, she would probably have felt the movement or the loss. But her habit of denying herself what she thinks unnecessary sleep, prevents her waking.

The Elizabethans wore no night clothing after retiring. Hence it chances here, the coverlet being drawn a little by the sleeper's arm, that the crimson mark over the left breast is disclosed. The know- ledge of this, lachimo feels, is the lady's doom : she will be proved unfaithful, and her husband will be lost to her. The work of the visit has been accomplished. The ring shall be his own.

lachimo

But the sureness of victory brings a changed sees feeling toward his victim : it comes over him Im°gen as

we see her.

what a woman this is. With his Italian penetration he sees her as we see her, knows her as we know her. He cares nothing for what shall

46 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

ensue to her, but he would be removed from her, from the sight of her at once, as far as possible. There is no need of hurrying, there is every reason why he should not withdraw to his cramping and suffocating covert for a long time yet. But, as in a panic, he retreats precipitately to enter the trunk again, and even (1. 47) lock the lid down upon himself : —

Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning May bare the raven's eye ! / lodge in fear ; Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.

He knows that he runs no least risk of detection, or punishment, yet he trembles with a vague, inexplica- ble dread. He is sensible of only this, that, while here is an angel who should inaugurate the presence of heaven, he finds hell instead. It is the hell, could he but know, that a woman's, such a woman's great- ness of soul, can establish within a man, when he has put himself at variance with it. The quick, almost spiteful strokes of the clock, one, two, three, furnish a powerfully dramatic close.

Of course in a play everything of moment must be enacted ; that is, must be brought to pass visually to the audience. We need to know here just how lachimo got the evidence he wanted. In addition, the author wishes to show us more completely what influences a pure, grand woman can exert, by mere presence, because of instinctive reverence in his sex for these qualities, upon a strong man who is allied with evil. In this spiritual subordination of wrong to truth, he leaves the pair.

CYMBELINE II. m 47

But the play, as we have undoubtedly been aware, moves slowly. We have taken two pages to explain one. Yet this, in the case of genuine literature, is always necessary ; for the much is presented poten- tially in little. A work of literary genius is always thus potential, and must be spiritually discerned. The expansion of what is spiritually discerned into concrete details is what is called Interpretation. In an artist's work there are hints or proofs of generic qualities, which the discerning mind realises and enlarges. There may be time later to discuss with some definiteness how this is done.

SCENE III

Cloten was of course unsuccessful in his attempt to find lachimo last night to gamble with ; that dis- tinguished guest having managed to offer an excuse for disappearing. But Cloten did systemat- not lose the evening, nevertheless ; the brace of companions with whom we have seen him hitherto have stayed by him, and relieved him of his allowance from the King's treasury. The time is daybreak — the spring season with which the play opened having now advanced almost to June — and Imogen's waiting-woman has just aroused her mis- tress.

When not in the depths of dissipation, Cloten is pressing his suit to Posthumus's wife, though he wooes, it would seem, mainly by proxy. He has arranged for a serenade to Imogen, his mother hav- ing apparently advised that he try music o' mornings.

48 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

— " they say it will penetrate. " But he has hit upon the most unpropitious day in all the calendar; for Imogen is in deep vexation at the loss of her bracelet, at once missed on waking. It is a vexation not to be much allayed, we may be sure, by the attentions or presence of Cloten at this untimely hour.

The musicians sing an exquisite song, one stanza

of it, and go away with an unprincely fee. Perhaps

if they had been called back, and paid more

Shnkf*-

spearedoes fittingly, they would have rendered the two not indulge songs, in full, as they were bid. But, obvi-

in episodes. . ,

ously, the single verse is better. Shake- speare does not treat his audience to episodes, or this singing might otherwise have become one. In lieu of response from Imogen's apartments, Cymbeline and the Queen appear, we wonder why. The hour is absurdly early for such as sleep in king's houses to be stirring, and especially for a sovereign of Cym- beline's years. We shall probably remember that the author has been introducing Imogen and Cloten just after each other, and has brought about relations between them not well adapted to a scene in common. But they are now to have their first interview in our sight. To mitigate the antagonism, as well as to give Cloten in a measure the royal warrant, the King has been somewhat unnaturally worked into the scene. The whole is dignified and strengthened by the report, introduced by a messenger, that Roman ambassadors are awaiting audience.

Cloten lingers about the doors of Imogen, deter- mined to secure some recognition of his serenade,

CYMBELINE II. in 49

and of course soliloquises ; an actor cannot wait speechless upon the stage. His talk consists mainly of obvious propositions ; here he advises with him- self concerning the power of gold. One of Imogen's women appears. How Cloten is regarded by court serving-folk is hinted clearly enough by the way she fools with him. Imogen has apparently heard the knocking, and guessed the visitor. The mistress of this part of the palace seems not unwilling to respond in person this morning to the challenge.

Cloten may now recommend himself in person. What resources will he show ? How manfully and gracefully will he woo ? Here we find un-

if i . i 11 , Cloten pre-

equivocally his measure; or, shall we not sumesbut say, it is the measure of the influence to call her Imogen's presence and face exerts upon him ? He salutes her as his sister ! He has the right to kiss her hand without the asking ; he calls her fairest ; but to put himself hopelessly out of the r61e of wooer by assuming to approach but as a brother shows how he weakens. But brother or wooer is, in her present mood, all the same to Imogen. Were she inclined to mischief, she would have taken him at his word, and insisted upon his confining himself to brotherly behaviour ever after. She is both too literal and too angry (11. 92-95) to think of irony : —

Good morrow, sir. You lay out too much pains For purchasing but trouble. The thanks I give Is telling you that I am poor of thanks, And scarce can spare them.

Cloten should have caught the pitch of feeling in

E

50 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

this deliverance. But he must needs make a decla- ration, "Still I swear I love you." Imogen listens soberly, almost stoically, and deprecates with con- siderate sincerity, though vainly : —

If you but said so, 'twere as deep with me; If you swear still, your recompense is still That I regard 'it not.

Cloten. This is no answer.

Imogen. But that you shall not say I yield,

being silent,

I would not speak. I pray you, spare me. 'Faith, I shall unfold equal discourtesy To your best kindness. One of your great knowing Should learn, being taught, forbearance.

Imogen is approaching the limit of her patience. She pleads to be let alone ; she indulges in a hint of irony. But Cloten has no suspicion of jeopardy, and goes on : —

To leave you in your madness, 'twere my sin : I will not.

Immediately his punishment comes. ' How can you know anything about madness ? Fools are not mad folks.'

The author (1. 58) has shown Cloten sensitive over certain words, as ' senseless,' when applied to himself. Cloten was once a boy, and had probably compan- ions ; and such companions sometimes use exceeding plainness of speech toward one another. At any rate Cloten is scandalised over the possible pertinence of Imogen's remark : —

Do you call me fool?

Imogen is not dismayed at the insult she is conceived

CYMBELINE II. m 5 1

to have uttered against the heir apparent to her throne. She will not budge an inch : —

As / am mad, I do.

If you'll be patient, I'll no more be mad;

That cures us both.

Then comes a beautiful reaction. Having discharged herself of the long-sustained burden, and made her meaning respecting this wife-wooer plain to Cloten, Imogen experiences a most lively concern at having been forced to speak her mind. ' I am much sorry, sir, you put me to forget the manners of a lady by meddling with words that cause unpleasant feel- ings ; ' —

and learn now, for all,

That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce, By the very truth of it, / care not for you, And am so near the lack of charity — To accuse myself — I hate you; which I had rather You felt than make 't my boast.

Did ever a badgered and pestered and persecuted woman show such consideration before to a Cloten boor? She wants everything understood, and is anxious even to make her tormentor know that, were her antipathy less acute, she would tell him so.

This is an important point in the play. Cloten is the heavy villain of the piece, and for dramatic and other reasons is to be cut off by a violent ,

* Cloten, the

death. That this may by tolerated by the heavy vii- audience, and without protest, he must have laif • !?,be

cut off by a

in some way forfeited its patience and violent charity in an extreme degree. This he is to death' do because of the beastly revenge that he shall plot

52 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

against Imogen. That he may determine upon a revenge of this sort, he must have a grievance. That grievance will be furnished now. Imogen's unspar- ing literalness and ' verbalness ' of speech has exas- perated Cloten. He feels himself virtually the ruler of the kingdom, and his conceit, as we have seen, is boundless. He must needs now, in retort, attack Posthumus. He even ventures to insinuate to Imogen that the marriage which she pretends to with her hus- band is no more binding than the union of serfs, — a knot that ties itself, without priestly warrant or bless- ing. The answer he gets is scathing and heroine pitiless. The author has not made his hero- piannedfor me to have been importuned for weeks and

this trial.

weeks by a despicable stepmother, and to be harassed here, with nerves weakened by loss of sleep, and especially by present vexation over her missing bracelet, for nothing. Yet, to speak more justly, he has made such an Imogen from the start as could not be forced, except under the most irritating conditions, to utter anything capable of embittering a Cloten. When we have added that Shakespeare has also created Cloten such as he is on purpose to evoke the answer (11. 129-141) he now gets, the whole is said : —

Profane fellow !

Wert thou the son of Jupiter and no more But what thou art besides, thou wert too base To be his groom. Thou wert dignified enough, Even to the point of envy, if *t were made Comparative for your virtues, to be styl'd The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated For being preferred so well.

CYMBELINE II. in 53

Cloten > The south-fog rot him !

Imogen. He never can meet with more mischance than come To be but nam'd of thee. His meanest garment That ever hath but clipped his body, is dearer In my respect than all the hairs above thee, Were they all made such men.

Here Imogen, aroused as we shall never see her aroused again in the play, considers the interview with her wooer ended. Pisanio enters, and is ad- dressed, wholly as if Cloten were not present, with reference (11. 144-153) to being 'sprited by a fool/ and to the bracelet : —

it was thy master's ; 'shrew me If I would lose it for a revenue Of any king's in Europe. I do think I saw 't this morning ; confident I am Last night 't was on my arm : I kiss'd it. I hope it be not gone to tell my lord That I kiss aught but he.

Cloten hangs about, not realising yet how deeply the shafts have pierced : —

You have abus'd me. His meanest garment !

Imogen. Ay, I said so, sir.

If you will make 't an action, call witness to 't.

Cloten's imbecile and spoiled-boy whine is unmistak- able, ' I will inform your father.' Imogen is so consummately illumined concerning his unmanliness, and so immeasurably disgusted touching everything of him and his, that she cannot but retort, — Your mother, too.

Of course the situation has dramatic potency in the circumstances that Cloten will not go, but forces Imo-

54 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

gen to leave him yet standing where he has received his hurt.

But Imogen ! Where was woman more sorely tried, and when more grand in dignity and strength ? Her blood is wholly under mastery, her ladylike repose has been scarcely ruffled. And she will apparently not be conscious, when all is over, of having suffered any strain.

SCENE rv

Of course lachimo is speeding back, as fast as sails can carry him, to Italy and Posthumus; and thither with painful forebodings we follow him. The scene opens again at Philario's house, where we find the host expressing to Posthumus somewhat of his con- cern lest lachimo win the wager. Posthumus asserts again, in his unsophisticated innocence of Italian treachery, his confidence in Imogen's womanly and wifely integrity : —

Fear it not, sir, I would I were so sure To win the King as I am bold her honour Will remain hers.

' By the way,' ventures Philario, ' what measures are you taking to conciliate the King ? ' Posthumus ad- mits that he is merely waiting. Does he has°toid not know what the Queen is doing ? Can- Posthu- not he divine what Imogen is enduring for

mus noth- . . . _, . , , ,

ing. his sake ? No, certainly ; and Imogen has

not told him. No whit will she embitter his

exile with her new troubles. She is living loyally a

grand, true life, and she does not grudge the sorrow

CYMBELINE II. rv 55

it has enforced. She would not live less large and true at whatever cost of pain.

lachimo appears. The presence of this man, fresh from the divine Imogen, makes the young husband's heart dance with pride. We easily pardon Posthumus (11. 30, 31) his note of challenge: —

I hope the briefness of your answer made The speediness of your return.

lachimo gives Posthumus the letters written by Imo- gen that night the trunk was by her side. Breaking the seals, Posthumus runs through them provisionally. There is the reference to lachimo's visit ; there are the usual pages of affection and devotion. Posthumus puts the missives aside for more intimate perusal.

All is well yet. —

Sparkless this stone as it was wont ? Or is 't not Too dull for ycur good wearing?

Posthumus has a right, an infinite, blessed right to say this, as we know ; and his fate will be none the worse for the gird at what he feels sure is lachimo's his adversary's defeat. lachimo has too strategy- stern business in hand to care for Posthumus's enthu- siasm. He must administer his evidence in such a way as to keep Posthumus from divining its falseness. He will give it at first grudgingly, as if he were violat- ing confidence. After he has made his victim believe there is nothing really to tell, he will overwhelm him with the bracelet and the secret mark, and make him lose his head. All the while he will insolently, as his

56 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

bride's charmer and repudiator, patronise the hus- band. All this, which would perhaps have failed with an Italian lover, easily fools Posthumus. lach- imo awkwardly (11. 100-104) overreaches himself, yet his victim does not see : —

Sir — I thank her — that. She stripp'd it from her arm. I see her yet : Her pretty action did outsell her gift, And yet enrich'd it too. She gave it me, and said She prized 'it once.

To one who has discerned the lowest significance of Imogen's nature, this is most preposterous. The Imogen story proves too much, infinitely too much.

^shecT But poor Posthumus» already stung through always the and through by the Nessus poison, has no bracelet. gjj from common sense. He admits to in- tellectual belief that his Imogen has, from infatuation, given away his bracelet to a stranger. Were she to have fallen to the lowest levels of her sex, she would have clung at least to that. Besides, she could never have been hypnotised into saying or implying that she had prized it once, — as if she found herself in wonderment that she could have ever in the least cared for such a man as Posthumus.

SCENE v

Is not the preceding scene enough ? Why should there be another ?

Let us not be scandalised at the indelicacy of what is here set down. Shakespeare was at such pains to say his meanings in a refined and knightly way that

CYMBELINE II. v 57

he could never have dreamed of seeming offensive to anybody. The bishops and indeed great The ladies of his day did not express them- change in

, i.-i . j j taste since

selves upon like matters in more guarded shake. language. The plot requires that Posthu- speare's mus proceed against the life of Imogen ; and that he may proceed we must know the motives, and the secret thoughts and knowledge that make up the motives, of his resolution. In the last scene he is shown as despising, repudiating, loathing his bride. Maddened by the insolent gibes of lachimo, and from personal humiliation, he is prompted for the moment to some sort of vengeance for the injury to his affec- tions, But Posthumus is not, as the world goes, or went, in those days, selfish ; otherwise he would have basely and brutally executed his first impulse (iv. 147- 149) for revenge. He feels now but the need of pun- ishment for her. He has read her letters, The mjs_ full of her affection, and of prayers for his chief of the safe return; he remembers her beautiful face, with its expression of serene and patient fidelity, and he is horrified by it all. If she had not written ! If she had been content not to assume such delicacy and modesty and devotion, he would not have cared so much. But one so exquisitely false, who can counter- feit goodness so consummately, is surely unfit to live. To punish her because she has wronged society, be- cause she is its one chief outlaw, because she may wreck other lives — this, if he could have analysed his feelings, would have been the motive of the course proposed. Othello, a much greater sufferer because

$8 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

a stronger mind, in a like moment had said (V. ii. 6) of Desdemona, —

Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.

ACT III SCENE I

The clock of the plot moves backward; we are again at the day of the serenade. The Queen, Cloten, The King's anc^ Cymbeline have prepared for audience, policy and, with the court, are entered in state to Rome? receive Lucius and his train. The King is shaped by suffered by his wife and her son, who control

the Queen. , . , . . , . , ,

his policy, to say the opening words ; but even these, in their curtness and in their lack of greeting and formality, seem filled with the animus of petticoat rule: —

Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us ?

The answer of Lucius is stately and Romanesque. As a succinct statement of the reasons of his being where he is, and of the illogical predicament in which Britain finds itself, it is a model. It would seem that even the Queen and Cloten could have scarcely failed to catch the lofty tone of this utterance, and would have left the task of making a rejoinder to wiser minds. But the Queen cannot suppress (11. IO, n) her vixenish temper even in moments of state : —

And, to kill the marvel, Shall be so ever.

The imperial ambassador is bound of course to ignore such an utterance as this, and is not again

CYMBELINE III. I 59

heard from for fifty lines. Cloten breaks the silence, and speaks the best paragraph that we have yet had from him in the play. There is silence again ; and the Queen begins perhaps to realise the situation. In a changed spirit she essays argument, though she does not think well to address much of it to the ambassador. Cloten follows with a characteristic deliverance, in bald prose, which calls forth a sort of domestic protest from the King. To this, however, Cloten pays not the slightest attention. After he has said his utmost say, and published, by dialect and manner, his intellectual vulgarity, Cymbeline ventures (11. 47-54) a milder explanation of the present policy : —

You must know,

Till the injurious Romans did extort This tribute from us, we were free. Caesar's ambition, Which swell'd so much that it did almost stretch The sides o' the world, against all colour here Did put the yoke upon 's; which to shake off Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon Ourselves to be.

This reminds us of the Queen's talk, and Cloten assents to it as if it were a deliverance of his dam. Cymbeline next, after apparently a little „

J . The dia-

waitmg, formulates his reply. It is kingly iogue and noble, though scarcely strong. Now srows that the real sovereign of Britain has spoken, while parvenu voices are effectually stilled, Rome voices her dread decree. So the scene is lifted to the true plane of princely intercourse. There is but one further jarring note, while Cloten, with the

6O WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

informality of a hostler of the King's stables, attempts to enlarge the hospitality of the court.

This scene introduces new action. Italy and Britain are to be drawn together in a war ; and this will in some way bring home Posthumus. It is a mad step, which Shakespeare, in fixing the character of the King's household, was obliged to prepare for early. Neither the Queen nor Cloten has the slightest conception of the power that they are defying.

SCENE II

The feelings of horror, and indignation, and wounded affection, which we saw at riot in poor Posthumus, as the last act closed, have expressed themselves in action. Letters have come from Italy to Pisanio. The one from his master to himself, this servant has stopped, in his eagerness, to break seal and read before delivering its companion missive to his mis- tress. The scene opens with Pisanio's consequent ejaculations of amazement. The notion of Imogen, who undergoes daily torture for constancy, unfaith- ful ; the thought of the chivalrous gentleman whom all the court have loved to call Leonatus, the lion- natured, pretending to have evidence against his bride ; the command to put Imogen, a princess, to death, without public understanding, really by mur- der,— these things upset Pisanio's staid and well- ordered disposition. He is angry (11. 15-17) that his master assumes him capable of such a commis- sion : —

CYMBELINE III. n 6 1

How look I,

That I should seem to lack humanity So much as this fact comes to ?

Posthumus is no paragon of manliness ; of that we have had evidence before. We are not surprised that he proposes to pursue his revenge by indirections : —

Do 't : the letter

That I have sent her, by her own command Shall give thee opportunity.

We are glad not to hear the further contents of this letter. The one to Imogen, which lies beside it, all- loving no doubt, is then couched in terms that will mislead her, and put her in his servant's power. No wonder he is tempted to withhold, perhaps indeed destroy, the 'fedary for this act that looks so inno- cent without.'

Imogen is not long in coming to the summons ; and, shame of shames, she is in high spirits this morn- ing. When Pisanio demurely hands over to her the letter, she archly takes him to task for claiming Pos- thumus to himself : —

Who ? Thy lord ? That is my lord, Leonatus !

Glancing at the superscription, to make sure, before she opens, that it is her husband's hand, she delays that she may exhaust the joys of anticipation. This is the red-letter day of many weeks of watching. She stops even to voice to the gods her wish as to the message. Then, as she breaks the seals, her aroused mind comments realisingly upon the wax, how otherwise it could be used ; for always must she

62 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

pursue a text like this to its remainders. Then she runs quick through the contents to see that all is well. Assured that there is no ill news, she reads it (11. 40-49) aloud to Pisanio in detail : —

Justice, and your father's wrath, should he take me in his dominion, could not be so cruel to me, as you, O the dearest of creatures, would even renew me with your eyes. Take notice that I am in Cam- briat at Milford Haven, What your own love will out of this advise you, follow.

So Posthumus assumes his wife's affection for himself, just as of old, in this plan to destroy

Posthumus ' J .r *

assumes her life. He has taken pains to be enig- affection! mati°» apparently for conscience' sake, yet he affirms his love. Of course there can be but one effect of such a letter : —

O, for a horse with wings \

Pisanio shows no enthusiasm at the news, and is undoubtedly much dismayed lest he betray the real state of his feelings about the letter. Imogen thinks him merely slow : —

ffear'st thou, Pisanio? He is at Milford Haven !

Her excitement is naive and beautiful, yet not one jot beyond control. She would fain pet her serving- man, that he may speak his counsels thickly, and thus estop, for her, the sense of lapsing time. How far it is to Milford, and how Wales ever became so happy as to inherit the haven where her husband has landed, and how they may steal away, how

CYMBELINE III. n 63

explain their return and absence, — all these items press upon her mind. She knows how fast men ordinarily ride, but it seems to her that there should be means of covering even several scores of miles 'twixt hour and hour.

Pisanio, under other circumstances, would aid her ; he cannot assist the horrible delusion. So, after the few minutes of ebullition, she discards in advance all his advice, with (11. 75-79) her, mind made up : —

But this is foolery.

Go bid my woman feign a sickness, say She'll home to her father; and provide me presently A riding suit, no costlier than would fit A franklin's housewife.

Pisanio is not much inclined to stir, and even hints that he is not at all of her mind. Then he gets his orders : —

Away, I prithee. Do as / bid thee. There is no more to say.

So this domestic noblewoman, who would not have thought of running away when the play opens, is unconsciously ready for such a step. Now that Posthumus, after these months of absence, has come to see her, and calls for her, she will go to him. Thus, too, has the author invented means, and skil- fully enough, of bringing Imogen away from her father's court.

64 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

SCENE III

The scene shifts to Wales, whither the author makes us precede Imogen and Pisanio. It is an un- broken wilderness, and the trees on the rocky slopes shine in the morning dew. From the mouth of a cave over against us three figures, new to the play, emerge. They are evidently mountaineers, though

The court tnev ^° not wear mean clothing. The first ier moun- to appear is *a man past middle life, with taineers. jQng wnjt;e beard. The two young men who, stooping under the low entrance, follow him are twenty years old and upwards. We note at once the singular refinement and strength in the speech of these cave-dwellers. They should be men of action, but they seem scholars, philosophers. The fatherly figure, Belarius, is unwilling surely to let slip an opportunity of drawing moral lessons : —

Consider,

When you above perceive me like a crow, That it is place which lessens and sets off.

Belarius has evidently seen the world, while his two wards have not. This soon comes out unequivo- cally in the dialogue. Belarius has lived somewhere at court, undoubtedly then at Cymbeline's ; the lads have never winged from view of their cavern nest. Guiderius repines at the inaction of the life they lead, but implies that there is something that keeps them from attempting the larger walks without. Arvira- gus too speaks as if he and his companion expected to grow old like their keeper in this cave.

CYMBELINE III. iv 65

It becomes evident that the author is making these characters talk thus for our benefit. It is scarcely probable that Belarius would tell his wards his story on this particular morning of all the year. shake- But Shakespeare is not taking pains in this sPeare

. .... takes pains

play except when he is dealing with its hero- Oniy with ine. He makes Belarius tell us enough of his heroine- his past to establish connection with the preceding part of the drama, and then sends the boys away that he may impart needful information c mbe_ concerning them. They prove to be the line's Latin sons of Cymbeline, Guiderius being elder t; and heir to the crown. This revelation was prepared for in the opening dialogue (I. i. 5/-6i) of the play. Even the name of the nurse, Euriphile, who stole the princes, is worked in. It seems that Cymbeline, who had lived at Rome, and whom Augustus admitted to knighthood, affected southern tastes, and gave his sons Latin names. Belarius, intolerant of such de- generacy, has exchanged these, as also his own name, for supposed Celtic ones. Shakespeare apparently was not aware that ' Polydore ' was derived from Greek. He certainly knew some Latin, yet not enough to remember that the name of his hero must be accented on the first and not the second syllable.

SCENE rv

Imogen and Pisanio have ridden across Britain, two hundred miles more or less, and they are now almost in sight of Milford harbour. We know from Imogen's first words that Pisanio has revealed nothing. We

66 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

can guess that she has been so overjoyed at the pros- pect of seeing her husband, and so delectably impe- rious in hurrying her companion forward, that he has not had the heart to tell her that it is all a hoax. So far Posthumus's plot has succeeded well, at least for the play ; Imogen has been drawn away from the court by her husband's lure. There are reasons, we may suspect, why the author needs to have Imogen out of the capital, and perhaps in the wilderness, at this time.

Pisanio, when Imogen turns toward him, shows deep trouble on his face. At once she infers that harm has come to Posthumus, that he is not here : —

Pisanio! man! Where is Posthumus ?

Pisanio does not expect such summary calling to ac- count. He is speechless, and looks fixedly before him. Imogen's anxiety increases ; she asks him why he stares. He is accustomed to obedience, but he cannot bring himself to answer anything. He sighs, Imogen's and Imogen begs him to put himself into a dismay. haviour of less fear, or she shall lose her mind. There is silence yet, and she importunes him once more to declare what makes his agitation. He can do nothing but give her the letter, the second of the two (III. ii. 17-19) letters, — if there were two, in which his master has ordained the killing.

Imogen, seeing the address in her husband's hand, and feeling herself unequal to sustaining the calamity that she is sure has befallen him, if she reads of it

CYMBELINE III. iv 67

herself, prays Pisanio to break it to her gently. Pi- sanio implies that it is not she but himself whom the letter concerns mainly, and at this she reads it aloud. Thus the author, who wishes us to hear it in detail, saves Pisanio from making known the indictment, which it contains, to his mistress's ears.

Well, what has happened ? There is no swoon or out- cry ; there is but silence, and the pathetic collapse of an endeavour to respond to her husband's call. There is but little, even, of indignation. Instead of Posthu- mus dead, or in extremity, from the King's officers, in Wales, it is herself who is wounded, pursued, for- lorn. In perfect self-possession she realises Imogen to herself the contradiction of her constancy, cannot and this casting-off . She can reach no least ^£e * suspicion of the reasons ; she remembers lachimo, but her woman's intuition finds in him no clew.

She theorises, of course, but wildly, — as if Pos- thumus, fallen from his integrity, should wish to destroy her for being true. And just as he, believ- ing her false, has repudiated all her sex, so she, for the moment, persuades herself that all good-seeming in men is counterfeit, put on to inveigle ladies.

But Imogen, for all her scorn, does not rail against Posthumus for his low birth ; she does not remember it indeed against him. Her devotion, even Jmo en at this moment, is sublime. Just as Desde- does not mona accepted death from her husband's ^"^ hands, without calling for rescue, so she mus'siow here, drawing Pisanio's sword, pleads for the blrth> stroke. There is nothing to live for now. Pisanio

68 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

flings his rapier deep into the forest, to show her how he regards her husband's order. But she assumes still that it will be obeyed, and prepares her bosom for Pisanio's dagger. She finds something, for- gotten for the moment, before her heart, — the letter of Posthumus which has allured her away from all protection to this doom. She throws away this letter, which later Pisanio takes up. She is calm now: —

And thou, Posthumus, them that didst set up My disobedience 'gainst the King my father, And make me put into contempt the suits Of princely fellows, shall hereafter find It is no act of common passage, but A strain of rareness.

She feels no jealousy, but grieves to think how Pos- thumus will one day regret and suffer.

But this scene is not a study of Imogen ; all that has thus far happened is of course. The author's Imogen purpose is mainly to advance the plot. In willing to a few minutes of further dialogue, Imogen ay' bethinks herself that there can be no return, now, to the court. Pisanio is made, moreover, to have divined that his mistress could be induced after the revelation just made to go in disguise to Italy and find out the truth. The rest of the scene is devoted to the evolution of this turn. First, Pi- sanio proposes to report her as murdered to her hus- band. He then brings her to the thought of exile, and after 'of treading a course pretty and full of view ' : —

CYMBELINE III. v 69

yea, haply, near

The residence of Posthumus, — so nigh at least That though his actions were not visible, yet Report should render him hourly to your ear As truly as he moves.

Perhaps Pisanio was really acute enough to govern Imogen's motives thus ; but we suspect Shakespeare is hastening to his conclusion, and, by poetic liberty, enlarging Pisanio to fit the Speare need. With the new-aroused desire in his crowds the mistress to see Posthumus, he will overweigh her scruples against the page's clothes. These — sword, doublet, hat, hose, all that answer to them — he has in fulness of faith provided and brought into the wilderness with him. He needs beyond but to steady the plan with the suggestion of service in Lucius's train, and to commit to his mistress's hands the panacea that he had some months back from the Queen. He will not wait to escort his charge all the way to Milford town ; he will but show her a view of it from the nearest hill. Time urges ; and he would but run the risk of identification, by the King's offi- cers, should he venture nearer.

SCENE v

The ambassador Lucius has been pleasantly entertained, and delays departure. Pisanio has returned, and finds him not yet set out.

J Lucius will

This will bring disappointment, and, we fear, not reach hardship, to the princess who has been left in Wales. At last Lucius is ready, and

70 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

takes leave of Cymbeline. The Queen shrewishly twits the King of slowness, —

'tis not sleepy business, —

but he responds with an answer of high-bred mild- ness. Then the father recalls that Imogen 'has not appeared before the Roman, nor tendered a daugh- ter's duty.' He will have her called sternly to account. But the Queen interposes, —

Beseech your majesty, Forbear sharp speeches to her.

The Queen knows that the King really loves Imo- gen, and that harshness, such as proposed, may end in a reconciliation. The report now comes that the princess's doors are locked, and that she has not been seen of late. The King hurries out to find his daughter; and the Queen, to be sure of what shall happen between them, sends Cloten after. She is convinced that Imogen is either dead of ' despair ' or fled. She does not, we notice, think evil of her prisoner for running away, or rail at her for being a hypocrite or violating the implied parole.

The author begins next the important business of getting Cloten to follow Imogen to Milford Haven. Cloten is made to mention the revenge again must follow to us, lest we forget, for the moment, about Imogen. ^ grievance_ Pisanio, just at this juncture, happens in. Cloten considers him (cf. 1. 54 above) an old man, and presumably out of practice with the rapier, so pursues him threateningly with his own weapon drawn. The result is that Pisanio finds no

CYMBELINE III. v /I

better expedient than to give over the letter of Pos- thumus, which has called Imogen away, and which, spurned by her, he has just brought back from the wilderness. This pleases Cloten, and makes him think that Pisanio is ready, at last, to change mas- ters. Rather strangely, Pisanio consents to enter Cloten's service. He probably understands that, with Imogen gone from court, and reunited to her husband, it will be well to have a patron, and one belonging to the King's party. The real necessity, however, for this transfer of allegiance, as we soon see, lies in the plot. For some reason, later to be

known, the piece requires that Cloten should

why Pisa- come into possession of certain garments be- nj0 made

longing to Posthumus. To secure these for to chanse

_. ... masters.

Cloten, according to the verities of the case,

the author must use Pisanio's aid. And, after all,

Pisano's spirit is not much different from what might

be expected in one accustomed to service in kings'

houses.

Cloten, as we have divined, is to be sacrificed ; so the author beats about for means that will enforce our consent to that part of his purpose.

The use of

He is not very considerate certainly of this the assault character : he might have made it less re- in the first

scene.

volting. We now see why Cloten was made to draw upon Posthumus in the first scene. It makes Cloten's present presumption, that he can easily disarm and kill Posthumus at Milford Haven, where he ex- pects to force him to a new encounter, credible. Pi- sanio now enters, with the clothing of his late master,

72 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

which the author evidently intends to have us see, with reference probably to some later identification. Pisanio shows, by his deft evasion, —

She can scarce be there yet, —

how well he has learned, in his long years of service, to prevaricate squarely, yet avoid to conscience all the effect of lying. The scene ends with a word from Pisanio, to save us worry about our heroine's safety, and to show that he is still at heart all loyal to her and her husband.

SCENE VI

Imogen has found herself unable to reach the arm of the sea that Pisanio pointed out to her from the hill. She has wandered around and around, over her own tracks, thoroughly bewildered. She was worn out with court vexations and ennui before starting on the hurried jaunt that brought her here. The anguish since undergone, the hardship of two nights spent without protection in the wilderness, what with hunger and despair, have well-nigh exhausted her Imogen strength and courage. She yet rallies, and confides tramps onward, when Posthumus comes to Posthu- her mind. He has had such an influence mus- upon her life that she believes instinctively

in him still. Her reason has been persuaded against him ; her heart yet finds him true.

So she stumbles upon the path leading to the cave that, a few hours back, we saw Belarius and her brothers leave. It seems clearly enough the hold

CYMBELINE III. vi 73

of savage folk. But she must have help, soon, even from savage folk, if she is to live. We know her business-like, matter-of-fact way of dealing with an emergency, —

I were best not call; I dare not call;

yet she sends her piping, treble voice, as stalwartly as she can, in challenge to the cave-keepers. For she is now, we must remember, clad in doublet and hose, the page ostensibly of some nobleman. So she calls as to mine host before an hostelry : —

Ho! who's here?

Then lowering her tones, she adds to herself : —

If anything that's civil, speak; if savage, Take or lend.

After challenging again, without response, she pre- pares at once to enter. There is plenty of flutter in the pulses, but that does not hinder. Remembering that she wears a sword, and that a man would draw it resolutely at such a moment, she pulls it falteringly, and with a smile at the absurdity of proposing to run down the occupants, out of the scabbard. Then she disappears within the cave.

The author means to make clear to us that Guide- rius is the more active and martial of the brothers : —

You, Polydore, have prov'd best woodman, and

Are master of the feast. Cadwal and I

Will play the cook and servant; 'tis our match.

The talk of the hunters, as they approach the cave with their game, startles the quiet of the place ; but their guest within seems not to hear. Belarius, pre-

74 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

paring to enter, a little afterward, sees the little fairy-like page, clad in court garments, and eating some portion as in famishment from the feast of yesterday. Belarius has seen no such grace and ele- gance for a score of years. Such beauty of face he has never seen at all, for no daughter had yet been born to Cymbeline when he fled into the wilderness with these boys. Imogen, hearing the voices, comes out from the cave. She has never in her life been a trespasser, or done a wrong to anybody ; and beauti- ful is her dismay when she finds, instead of savages, great-browed and noble-featured folk to reckon with. Forgetting her boldness and her sword, she throws Imogen, herself upon the mercy of these men with a tried, to simplicity and delicacy never bred in her by

bring out __. , _, . , ,, r . .

her fine the King s tutors. She is wholly fascinating nature. to ^Q boys, and to ourselves. It is at once evident that Shakespeare has brought her away from the court to her brothers, that she may exhibit a more fundamental and complete queenliness than she could have achieved at home. What could be more ethe- realised, angelic, than this plea ?

Good masters, harm me not ! Before I entered here, I caWd, and thought To have begg'd or bought what I have took. Good troth, I have stolen nought, nor would not, though I had found Cold strew'd i' the floor. Here's money for my meat. I would have left it on the board so soon As I had made my meal, and parted With prayers for the provider.

The contempt of these royal lads for the gold that Imogen has taken from her purse, she mistakes for

CYMBEUNE III. vi 75

anger. But there is no selfish insistence or self- assertion against it. Meaner minds sometimes affirm that the world owes them a living. This woman, who has forgotten that she is heir to the whole of Britain, would have starved rather than touch the food of these men, knowing that they would withhold con- sent. Here, Shakespeare would have us recognise, is a kingly scene, though not enacted within arras- covered walls.

The boys are quite too absolute for this emergency ; it is Belarius who turns the subject. There is nothing suspicious in her answer that she is bound for Milford Haven. Noblemen and noblemen's servants were passing to and from this seaport town continually. Then it is brought out that Imogen believes that, by her two days' delay, she has lost her chance of going to her husband. The ' kinsman ' of course is Lucius, whom for discretion she feels it best not to name: —

I have a kinsman who

Is bound for Italy. He embark'd at Milford; To whom being going, almost spent with hunger, I am fall'n in this offence.

The open hint of hunger, which she has not made clear before, awakes Belarius to a better show of hospitality. The boys, who have for some ,

, ., , . Arviragus

time been silent, break out into protestations has imagi- of enthusiasm. Guiderius is like his sister, "at!°n; .but

Guiderms

and would do offices for the beautiful guest, is like his — would woo hard but to be a groom. slster- Arviragus, on the contrary, has imagination, such as Imogen is unprovided with : —

76 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

I'll make 't my comfort He is a man. I'll love him as my brother ; And such a welcome as I' Id give to him, After long absence, such is yours. Most welcome I Be sprightly, for you fall 'mongst friends.

What a surprising change to the perplexed prin- cess! These men are more refined and chivalrous than courtiers. Has Imogen ever seen such genuine- ness and simplicity before? At any rate, it is all utterly fascinating to her. She wrings her hands, as she realises how easily Posthumus might have been hers, if her rank had but been the same as theirs. That we may know more fully her indifference to privilege, and her power of appreciating worth in whatever humble guises, the author makes Bela- rius whisper to the boys, and thus enable Imogen to talk in an aside. She avers that the greatest men she has ever known, if reduced to courts no bigger than the cave, and forced to furnish service to them- selves, could not outpeer these twain.

Pardon me, gods !

I'd change my sex to be companion to them, Since Leonatus 's false.

She cannot but recur, at times, to Posthumus's revolt ; but she does not remember her resolve to hold all Shake- men false henceforth. And she would spearere- gladly live in companionship with men so

fuses sight fc J _

of the cav- true. But the scene, which the author has em home. no^ hurried, is now wound up. Belarius begs that his page-guest come within. Imogen, who must always begin where she has left off, hesitates,

CYMBELINE IV. I 77

thinking of her trespass. But Guiderius pleads, and Arviragus supports him in an Apollo strain, —

The night to the owl and morn to the lark less welcome.

Imogen yields presently, and, ushered by the younger brother, enters. But Shakespeare keeps the interior of the cavern from our view.

SCENE VII

The object of this scene is mainly to show how lachimo will be brought into the British wars. Posthumus possibly may be drawn along, al-

i T 1 1 . ' •, lachimo to

though he has little interest now in the fate be brought of Cymbeline. To save the time of the play, by the war

, , . to Britain.

the author makes Augustus issue to Lucius his commission, and ordain the reinforcements from Italy, before Cymbeline's answer arrives from Britain. This is of course a license, but scarcely mars, when noted, the effect of the play. We should of course bear in mind that Shakespeare does not do such things in Lear or Othello, or like plays written with superior care.

ACT IV

SCENE I

Cloten is shown here to have reached Wales, and to be in search of Imogen and Posthumus. We need this evidence before seeing him in a succeeding situation. He is made to give evidence of the old brutishness, and the old conceit, with the added presumption of immunity, through his mother, for his crimes.

78 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

SCENE H

It is again early morning. Belarius and his wards must go out, as is their habit, to the chase. Imogen, now that relief and reaction have succeeded to the excitement of the last days, and to the strain of the weeks and months preceding, finds herself scarcely able to rise with the others. She shows her exhaus- tion in every feature. Belarius seems quickest to read this open secret; Arviragus is most ready and complete in sympathy.

Brother, stay here. Are we not brothers ?

Imogen, reminded in some way of court exclusive- ness, is inclined to be ironical ' So man should be ; but we must remember that some human clay is of inferior dignity, though its dust is as select as any.' Then she admits that she is very sick. That starts Guiderius up : —

Go you to hunting. I'll abide with him.

Guiderius is accustomed, evidently, to have his way. Neither Belarius nor Arviragus gainsays. The idea of ado, because of her admission that she is not well, makes Imogen qualify. To her orderly mind, Guide- rius remaining at home will spoil for him, and perhaps the others, the whole day. 'The breach of custom is breach of all.' Besides, she considers herself prac- tically not so very sick after all, since she ' can talk about it.' She has not been spoiled, certainly, by petting. She begs to be left alone : —

CYMBELINE IV. n 79

Pray you, trust me here. I'll rob none but myself; and let me die, Stealing so poorly.

This is pure feminineness, though Imogen does not dream how ill she conceals her sex. Guiderius has never felt such charms before, and does not know how he is wrought upon, believing as he does that Imogen is a man.

I love thee. I have spoke it; How much the quantity, the weight as much, As I do love my father.

Belarius affects to be signally surprised, or shocked, but is really proud that the lad responds to noble in- fluences so nobly. Arviragus, with equal frankness, confesses to even deeper feeling. As he withdraws, bidding his new ' brother ' farewell, the sick Imogen does not fail to wish him sport, though he has forgot to wish her health. Belarius and Guiderius have set out for the hills already, though they walk but slowly and look back. The petite, trim figure is seen to totter slowly toward the cave, then disappear within. In the talk of the boys which follows we are made to know more definitely how their

TTT- i A • Arviragus

sister has enchanted them. With Arviragus has come it is, naturally, her singing ; with Guiderius, nearer to

•" his sister.

her accomplishments and resources as a cook. But it is Arviragus who has approached closer to her confidence and sympathy. To him alone she (11. 41, 42 above) has hinted she might tell something of her story. It is he who has divined the riddle of her face, its sorrow which she harbours but with protest,

80 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

for she will not mope with friends, and the smile of kindliness by which she almost conquers it. Arvira- gus is also no mean interpreter of what he sees : —

Nobly he yokes

A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh Was that it was, for not being such a smile.

But Guiderius, in his matter-of-fact way, sees and says it very differently : —

I do note

That grief and patience, rooted in him both, Mingle their spurs together.

Cloten probably travelled all last night, to be surer of his prey. Breakfastless and weary, he has scur- ried about since dawn, and begins to realise that he has been duped. He stumbles upon the hunters, who are lingering yet over their talk. Belarius sounds the note of alarm, recognising Cloten, through twenty years, as son of the Queen. Guiderius, the youth of deeds, will not retreat, but sends his Apollo brother and their guardian away. To evolve the quarrel that shall rid Imogen of her persecutor, occupies the author but a few lines. He calls our atten- tion again, through Cloten, to Posthumus's clothing,

Guiderius *n w^^ch tne hero was first shown to US.

has no Cloten is half minded to be proud of being attired so well ; for his rival's taste, we may be sure, is the best at court. Guiderius has no proper weapon to meet his adversary with, but drives him forth to bay fearlessly just the same. In a few moments he is returned, bearing the head of Cloten by its hair. This is much, of course, to force upon

CYMBELINE IV. n 8 1

our sight ; but the author has need that it all be vis- ual. He has made a Cloten on purpose to endure decapitation, for reasons soon to appear. Of course the punishment is extreme, but the author has pre- pared for it doubly. We could scarcely have endured the plot, unless some one expiated the general guilt. There must be hurt to answer hurt. So, outside of his own villany and its issue, Cloten is made the scapegoat of the play.

Belarius has hoped for some turn of fortune by which one of the boys should get the throne. The present business threatens to spoil all that. Arvira- gus (11. 156-159) chafes that he has been denied his share in the feat : —

Polydore,

I love thee brotherly, but envy much Thou has robb'd me of this deed.

While Belarius waits for Guiderius's return, he sends Arviragus in advance to Fidele. This separa- tion is clearly for a purpose. As the others after some minutes follow, they hear the rude harp that Belarius once devised, left long since untouched, sounding. The chords are mournful. Belarius is scandalised : —

My ingenious instrument !

Hark, Polydore, it sounds ! But what occasion Hath Cadwell now to give it motion ?

Splendidly dramatic is the effect of this slow, mourn- ful music from within the cave, while neither

The dra-

the means nor the occasion of the sounds is made effect seen. Guiderius cannot of course explain, °.f the ™u:

' sic sounded

though he tries his wits sorely upon the in advance.

G

82 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? '

case. Then comes something to view, which the old eyes of Belarius catch more quickly than Guide- rius's younger sight. It is Arviragus bending low to pass the cavern entrance, and stooping withal in tenderness over the body of his sister, carried in his arms. He brings her out before Belarius and his brother.

The bird is dead

That we have made so much on. I had rather Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty, To have turn'd my leaping-time into a crutch, Than have seen this.

The form of his sister lies close about Arviragus, her head against his shoulder. The sight starts the imagination of Guiderius, which never speaks but by the card : —

O sweetest, fairest lily !

My brother wean thee not the one half so well As when thou grew'st thyself.

Belarius, with an old man's slowness, has been pon- dering since yesterday the meaning of this visit, and has divined substantially (11. 206-208) of the truth.

Thou blessed thing!

Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I, Thou diedst, a most rare boy of melancholy.

Arviragus, in a very exalted state of fancy, tells how the body lay, 'smiling as some fly had tickled the sleeper, his right cheek reposing on a cushion/ —

o' the floor,

His arms thus leagu'd. I thought he slept, and put My clouted brogues from ofi my feet, whose rudeness Answer'd my steps too loud.

CYMBELINE IV. n 83

The author has caused Imogen to fall asleep with her arms 'leagued' or folded, across her bosom, to conceal her sex from the one who should lift her up. Arviragus is made to have put off his shoes to mark to us the degree of his fine thoughtfulness, not bred, but instinctive in his kingly blood.

As their sorrow deepens, each of the brothers gives expression to what he has discerned in the beautiful youth now lying dead. Guiderius is wholly objective, as heretofore. He can best declare the beauty he has seen as something too spiritual to know corruption. Fairies will flock perforce about his burying-place, which will be a bed and not a grave. Arviragus, on the contrary, is subjective and etherealised wholly in his vision : —

With fairest flowers

Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele, I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor The azur'd harebell, like thy veins, no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Outsweeten'd not thy breath. The ruddock would, With charitable bill, — O bill, sore-shaming Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie Without a monument, — bring thee all this, Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none, To winter-ground thy corse.

The proof of imaginative delicacy is seen through- out, but best perhaps in the personification whom. It is the interpretation of a virile mind, though a woman's tenderness could not have made it sweeter. Guiderius cries out in protest, for there seem words

84 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

and tears too many. Such a tribute is to him empty and unserious, in the face of the deeds, the offices that they delay : —

Let us bury him,

And not protract with admiration what Is now debt due.

Arviragus accedes ; but he finds himself immediately at a loss, as a child might, where the body should be

Shake- Guiderius is immediate with his answer.

speare's Arviragus, for his part, feels equal certitude tes' concerning the obsequies : they must sing him to his resting-place, just as once Euriphile, their mother. But Guiderius cannot sing, he is sure, for tears ; and they agree not to attempt more than to say the words together. Thus the author rises tow- ard his climax, as always, by the simplest means: two youths, prevented from singing their funereal hymn, lest grief shall make them dumb, do not think to forego the tribute, but they will brokenly speak the lines.

It would seem incongruous, perhaps, for Belarius

to be present at the obsequies proposed, having no

part; and it would not probably be pleas-

Belarius -J

absent ing to us were he to assist. So Shakespeare from the contrives to have him gone. Of course this

obsequies,

touching funeral might have been delayed until his return with Cloten's body ; but that would have spoiled the whole. Arviragus is the master of singing, as Guiderius is of the hunt ; yet he will have Guiderius begin. Thus the lads, taking up the body of Imogen, and advancing slowly to the measure of

CYMBELINE IV. n 85

the lines recited, carry it toward its resting-place. There is no mention any more of burying; that would have burdened us with infinite concern at this chief moment. The song has no mention of Fidele (cf. 1. 238 above) as we expect;1 hence we might suppose it not the one furnished originally by the author of the play. But it befits the rustic situation, and is wholly such as might have taken shape, in deep solitude, on the lips of boys philosophically inclined, as these are. The sentiments are all ge- neric, and by no means youthful.

The moment of climax should be now, as the weeping youths begin to bear along the body slowly, to the measure of their chant. But we know The CHmax that their sister is not dead; hence the real ofPat^os. consummation of interest is to be postponed. Yet the delay incident to rendering the song, four six- line stanzas, affords time for the fullest arousement of imagination. We discern Imogen at her highest of womanly nobleness and power. Guiderius, who is Mars enough to have slain her enemy without a sword, is all in sobs because of his few hours' know- ledge of her mind. Arviragus, the prince-genius, feels more than a brother's love toward her, called forth by her unpretending sweetness and ministry. She has been faithful unto death, though she is yet not to die. She has moved us, as her death could

1 The references, besides, are to ' lads and girls,' and ' lovers,' and not to any one of years. On the other hand, 'tyrant's stroke' and ' frown o' the great ' suit the notion of a former use over the dead body of Euriphile.

86 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

alone have moved us, by the beautiful singleness and completeness of her life. There have been no moods, no humours ; there has been no variableness or shadow of turning from an almost masculine jus- tice and integrity, yet in all womanliness and femi- nine devotion.

As the hymn ended, Belarius appears bearing Cloten's body. Here is something unlocked for: the headless corpse of Cloten and Imogen are laid side by side. Flowers are strewed on both ; the old

The climax man anc^ tne brothers retire softly, rever- of the ently, upon their knees. What is to be the issue? It is to be the instant of climax. The drug has done its work; Imogen rouses ex- citedly from her trance, all in struggle to reach Mil- ford Haven. Lying upon her face she is kept from seeing the body that rests beside. She sits erect, and tries to rise. But strength fails her ; her brain is yet too full of sleep. Before she again lies down she discerns the form that has been laid next hers. The flowers have hidden it hitherto, and she does not yet see that it is headless. This is a moment to have driven a mind less strong, insane. Slowly, but insistently, she works her way back to certitude.

I hope I dream,

For so I thought I was a cave-keeper, And cook to honest creatures. But 'tis not so.

Good faith

I tremble still with fear; but if there be Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it !

She plucks away the flowers. It is a headless man ;

CYMBELINE IV. n 8?

and the garments are her husband's ! The objective- ness of her fancy makes her sure that the shape also is his. And then, horrified

almost to speechlessness, she sees in her ness a£ain

. ,, . riii misleads.

mind s eye the conclusion of the whole mat- ter. Pisanio and Cloten have conspired to cut him off, and she has been lured here to find him dead. Her imagination that cannot mount, but creeps, makes all this real to her. The dreadful spectacle of the bloody neck, as she turns her eyes once more to sight it surely, makes her flesh creep and her senses reel. She swoons, half embracingly, half shunningly, across the body. Cloten's baseness is transfigured for the moment through this mistake.

The tramp of horses is plainly heard. This is not the British thoroughfare to Milford Haven, but a patch of glade apparently not far from it. The Roman lieutenant, only now landed from Gaul with Lucius's commission, find- ten- left

. near the

ing his superior officer not yet returned from highroad Cymbeline, seems to have set out, with this to Milford

•? Haven.

group of brother subalterns and the sooth- sayer, on the way to escort him in. The two parties have met but a little distance back, for the captain has not finished, to Lucius, his summary of the intel- ligence that waits him at the harbour. They are rid- ing just now in the glade, beside the beaten path, and happen thus upon Cloten's body. Imogen has come nearly to the end of her swoon ; and the cap- tain, who has dismounted to know whether the page be still alive, arouses her to her senses. She seem-

88 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

ingly does not recognise Lucius as the delayed em- bassador, whom she had hoped to accompany to Rome. Her self-possession comes back, and she works her plight into a consistent story, keeping back all reference to Cloten and Pisanio. In half a page of dialogue the imperial proconsul has offered service — Roman magnates were wont to set much store by beautiful boys — and she has not hesitated to accept.

So Imogen's flight from court was to end in this. She has been brought here that we may receive the utmost of her influence. There can be no doubt of that. But what is to become of her ? Her husband is in Italy, and she, as we have probably divined, is to be restored to him. She believes that she has, beside her, his dead body. How can she think of leaving Britain, with Posthumus dead there and buried in its soil? Here seems at first a paradox, a contradiction. There is still the same infinite devo- tion, the old unfathomable instinct of service : —

But first, an't please the gods, I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep As these poor pickaxes can dig; and when With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strew'd his grave, And on it said a century of prayers, Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh, And leaving so his service, follow you, So please you entertain me.

Yet it is indubitable that she is perfectly willing to go away.

The artistic problem here is profound and intricate, and seems to have engaged the author early after the

CYMBELINE IV. n 89

opening of the play. Imogen, to be sure, does not leave Britain, but Shakespeare makes her resolve and expect to do so. There are indeed strong rea- sons, perhaps recognised by herself, why she should wish to go. If Posthumus has been true, and Cloten have bribed Pisanio to kill him, her safety evidently lies elsewhere. To escape the

Queen and Cloten, she will accept the pro- Queen and

., ... , ' Cloten.

consul s offer. Yet we are sure, knowing her nature as we have learned it, that she would have refused to budge foot from Britain, but would have stayed to keep and guard her husband's grave. Very evidently Shakespeare thought so too. He has had much ado to bring about, artistically and truthfully, the outcome that the plot demands.

The effect upon affection of seeing the dead body of a beloved one crushed or disfigured has been often noticed. Even when there is vastly Theinflu- less mutilation than Imogen believes that enceofdis-

.,,,.,. — , , figurement

her husband in this case has suffered, the uponaffec- instinct of tender offices and devotion to the tion- memory of the deceased is well-nigh paralysed. Imo- gen, who never allowed Posthumus's bracelet to leave her arm, has no thought of strewing her husband's grave with flowers, save now at burial. She would have been aghast, undoubtedly, could her attention have been drawn specifically to this lack of feeling. Arviragus proposed, thinking his sister dead, to sweeten her sad grave so long as summers should succeed each other and find him living; and we know that he cannot outrival Imogen. So the de-

9O WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

vice of putting Posthumus's clothes on the victim, to compel Imogen's belief that her husband was dead, and the whole idea of her insult

cioten to Cloten touching his meanest garments,

planned to , , , ,

enable her and of the proposed revenge, were woven

free action jnto the p\o^ on\y to enable her free action now. The point illustrates well how con- scientiously a great artist works. An inferior author would have had her go away without a reason.

The scene has been a long one, and must not offer further action. We shall not care to see Cloten laid away by the Roman soldiers in Welsh soil, and Imo- gen in further grief. Lucius will himself take part in the burial. After, we shall expect him, with Imo- gen in his protection, to attempt a more active r61e.

SCENE III

Things have changed at the King's palace, whither the scene now shifts. Cymbeline is in some excite- ment, as the first line shows. His sending the attendant back with Again ! to the Queen's apart- ments, tells how incessantly and anxiously he has The Kin 's s011!^ ^or tidings. He is made to show us, lethargy in a parenthetical soliloquy, that his lethargy is effectually lifted, and that he realises his resourceless plight, with the Queen, and Cloten, and Imogen, — the great part of his comfort now, no longer by. Pisanio gives evidence again of his expertness at equivocation, but incurs the debit of at least one fib. The First Lord's bad memory assists ; but for the assurance that ' the day she was

CYMBELINE IV. iv 91

missing he was here/ it might have gone hard with the smooth serving-man. The time is, apparently, two or three days after the last scene, for report of the arriving of the legions from Gaul has just come in. The Roman forces under Lucius are evidently waiting to be strengthened by the contingent of Italian gentry (cf. 11. 341, 342, of the last scene) before beginning the campaign. The statement, in the First Lord's advices, that (11. 25, 26) lachimo's forces are already landed, seems premature.

In default of the usual counsellors, Cymbeline will probably restore the First Lord to his rightful post; and in that case the British army will not wait to be attacked. Pisanio closes the scene with some discussion of his troubles. He finds (11. 41, 42) that he has lost standing somewhat with himself : —

The heavens still must work. Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true.

We note, at the beginning of his soliloquy, an in- stance of the author's resort to dramatic illusion. Of course there has been no such interval, since Imogen left the court for Wales, as sionofiong Pisanio is made here to imply ; but that fact laPse of

.. . i-,. . time.

is not so easily realised. Shakespeare is

very deft and effectual in producing upon the audience

or reader the effect of a long lapse of time.

SCENE rv

On account of lachimo's delay, the forces of Cym- beline will meet the enemy in Wales. The country

92 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

about the cave is full of the comings and goings of British soldiery. Belarius and his wards must soon take sides, or be captured for

tion carries bandit mountaineers. The present scene

him away. ., , , » • i n

details the steps by which all three are brought to join the army of the King. Belarius has small help from patriotism, and at first proposes to move higher up the mountains, until the victory is known. There are signs that the battle is even now beginning. Arviragus declares, in spite of his guar- dian's wishes, that he will share in the fight. The reasons that he recounts inflame Guiderius. Then Belarius, proud of the spirit in the lads, and sure that the issue will be glorious, bids them lead out : —

The time seems long; their blood thinks scorn, Till it fly out and show them princes born.

ACT V SCENE I

In the camp of the Italian gentry, not far from where Cloten lies, is shown Posthumus, taking from his bosom the handkerchief, sent by Pisanio, and stained, as he believes, with the blood of Imogen. Even since that token came, he has suffered torments „ , of remorse. His belief in lachimo's evidence

Posthumus

not a man persists, yet he is not convinced. Deep of vision. down in his goul he feels that imogen is

true, or if not true, infinitely more worthy than him- self. He is not a man of vision, or, as we say, educated; he is not able to maintain his peace of

CYMBELINE V. n 93

mind in spite of an lachimo's assaults upon his faith. He blames Pisanio for consenting to be the instru- ment of his wickedness. This British ground in which, as he assumes Imogen is buried, seems sacred. He will fight against the invaders of it, and most adventurously.

So I'll die

For thee, O Imogen, even for whom my life Is every breath a death.

That he may change sides without the knowledge of either party, who would recognise him equally, he will disguise himself as a common soldier. He is made to invest himself, in our sight, with some British peasant's dress that he has picked up, that we may identify him hereafter. True to his char- acter, he thinks this no inconsiderable condescension.

To shame the guise o' the world, I will begin The fashion, less without and more within.

It will probably never be clear to Posthumus that this fashion was set before his time, and that even his wife exemplifies it better than he will ever under- stand. Posthumus is prevailingly an outside man, as we have seen, though he is not vain or proud.

SCENE II

lachimo seemed to us, when he was securing to himself Posthumus's ring, wholly without conscience. We see now that he has a conscience, and Iachimo-s that it has been active; and this return to active con- Britain increases its power upon him. As s the armies meet in their first skirmish, Posthumus

94 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

seeks out lachimo, and disarms him. He is thus seen to cherish no gross hatred of lachimo for being the occasion of his woes. lachimo, could he have known with whom he fought, would not have ex- pected to be spared.

The battle becomes general. That part of it which is enacted upon the stage shows the capture of King Cymbeline. From some spot of vantage this is seen by Belarius and the lads, who rush in and rally the disheartened Britons. Nothing comes of that until Posthumus, with the strength of the Leonati, joins them. Then Cymbeline is rescued and escorted away. So, somewhat crudely, it must be owned, Shake- speare has forced upon Posthumus a part that will redeem him with the King. In the general break-up we recognise the proconsul, urging Imogen to make good her escape from the place of fighting. It was not her lot to go away from Britain, and be saved new grief, for the war has come to her. Lucius has been tender of his page companion, as is clear.

SCENE in

Posthumus and his comrades have managed, after the rescue of Cymbeline and the general retreat of the invaders, to withdraw and mingle among the British soldiery unnoticed. The excitement of vic- tory is yet too strong to admit of search or inquiry as to their whereabouts. Posthumus has slipped from his nobleman's suit the coarse peasant's frock which enveloped and disguised him during the fight. He is presented to us in conversation with a British

CYMBELINE V. IV 95

lord, by way of whom he is made to explain the battle more in detail. The resources of „

The an-

Shakespeare's stage did not admit of enact- dent forti- ing more than the merest suggestion of the ficatlons- rally and the rout. It now comes out that Belarius and the youths had taken post by some old military works, formed, as it would seem, by trenching the ground and piling up walls of turf. Thus they find themselves in control of a sort of lane or pass, at the head of which four warriors might bar the passage of a considerable force. Posthumus makes no men- tion of himself as the fourth champion, and the British lord grows incredulous and apathetic. This puts Posthumus out of the best part of his patience. The dialogue ends abruptly, affording Posthumus the chance to tell us how he has sought death, vainly, but is determined not to survive the day. Two British officers appear, with soldiers, and Posthumus is seized and borne away, as we hear proposed, to Cymbeline.

SCENE rv

Posthumus is in the way of being speedily recon- ciled to the King. There remains to the play but his penance and his reconciliation with Imogen. With the penance Shakespeare at once proceeds. Posthumus accepts the prospect of execution, and falls asleep speaking to his dead Imogen.

After Posthumus's soliloquy, we come upon matter which is found in the Folio or earliest edition of the play, but can scarcely be considered Shakespeare's.

96 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

We pass to the point (1. 152) where Posthumus is waked by his keepers, as the earliest paragraph which seems to show Shakespeare's hand. By the dialogue here, which pretty fully incorporates the element of time, Posthumus is adjusted to what we Posthumus accept dramatically as his fate, and ex- piates his errors. Similarly as with Imogen, uai effect of when her brothers buried her, there is dymg. achieved all the spiritual effect of dying, while the death is spared. After this conversation with the Gaoler, a messenger brings orders to unfetter the prisoner, and bring him into the presence of the King. We know from this that the last situation of the play is about to be opened for us. Posthumus notes the dejected air of the Gaoler, and divines that he will not be executed after all. This he calls "good news " ; so we know that he is content to live.

SCENE v

It is well to study the stage directions at the open- ing of Shakespeare's scenes. They often tell us as much as the after lines. Here, next the

Shake- speare's person of the King, stand our old friends of

stage direc- tne cave outranking the lords and officers

tions.

of the realm. This means that at last the stayers of the flight are found, and have place by the King as the heroes of the hour.

Cornelius and certain court ladies now introduce themselves. It is a hard jaunt, across Britain to the camp of Cymbeline, for women of their sort. But the author needs them, or will soon need them, as sup-

CYMBELINE V. v 97

port to Imogen. Shakespeare is delicately consider- ate of the proprieties, and will not have why court his heroine presented to us here in the com- ladies pany of men alone. The subterfuge under the

which he brings the court dames hither, camP- women doubtless much older than Imogen, is to have them bear out the testimony of Cornelius. Cymbe- line affirms that he has never guessed or suspected the baseness of the Queen. There is surely little of the Arviragus penetration in him.

At this point Lucius and lachimo, and other chief Roman prisoners, are brought forward. Posthumus follows this guarded company; and after these, and him, at a significant interval, comes Imogen in her page disguises. She has not heard Cornelius tell of the Queen's death, and does not know how her father's heart is altered. Here she stands in, we may be sure, a beautiful new perturbation. Her cave friends and Pisanio are in honour next the King, while Cloten is nowhere in view. Posthumus, clothed in ' Italian weeds,' is not yet confidently recognised as her husband. All her beliefs and theories are in confusion.

The King immediately, without circumstance or formality — there is as little of the monarch in Cym- beline as of the princess in his daughter — addresses Lucius. There is a hint (1. 69) of sarcasm in his first words : —

Thou com'st not, Caius, now for tribute.

The kinsmen of the British slain have demanded

98 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

that the principal captives be butchered, and this the King thinks he shall allow. Lucius receives the word with apparent fortitude, but bespeaks (11. 85-88) that Imogen be spared : —

. . . never master bad A page so kind, so duteous, diligent, So tender over his occasions, true, So feat, so nurse-like.

Cymbeline looks into the face of Imogen, and thinks he has seen it before somewhere, yet does not recog- . . . nise his daughter. We note again that there

Arviraguss °

imagina- is no Arviragus penetration in this mind. !lon not But something of her influence comes upon from his him. He will spare her, and he will spare her master too. That he may not unsay his royal word too lightly, he offers her a boon and tries to make her choose that this shall be the saving of the proconsul's life. To his surprise, she thanks him, but makes no request. Lucius hints to her of his expectation.1 She answers him with the sternness of an executioner, that there is something T ... that will prevent, that even his life must

lachimo r

recognised shuffle for itself. The riddles are multiply- by Imogen. jng . £or nere -JS iachimo, once a messenger

of her husband, wearing her mother's ring. Cymbe- line, while she waits, pondering this thing that is bitter to her as death, plies her (11. no, 1 1 1) anew : —

1 Lucius is here somewhat belittled from the true type of a Roman commander, in order, apparently, to avoid a disadvantageous contrast with the other male characters of the play. He must not arouse our admiration and sympathy too strongly, lest we be brought into an- tagonism to the course that Imogen proposes.

CYMBELINE V. v 99

Know'st him thou look'st on ? Speak. Wilt have him live ? Is he thy kin, thy friend ?

But her course is already found and resolved on. lachimo shall declare of whom he obtained her ring ; and she will use the King's kindness to her as the means to extort that knowledge.

lachimo is not so much wanting in penetration as the lady who confronts him. As he begins his story, by summarily confessing that the ring was Posthu- mus's, and got by villany, her colour changes, much, doubtless as it did when (cf. I. vi. n) he gave her the letters, some months since, from her husband. He notes the changed expression, and, as it seems, recognises instantly who it is, and with whom he has to do. This near presence, so suddenly divined, of the woman for whom he has conceived the deepest rev- erence, unmans him, and he cries out to the King for patience. On recovering himself, he reverts The chief to his iniquitous treatment of Posthumus, i^chim^'s which has grown and grown in his con- career, sciousness until it has become the chief episode of his life. So he tells it in detail, until he has flashed out the truth that he got his evidence against Imo- gen by cunning, without her knowledge. Then stalks Posthumus forward in agony, calling for cord, knife, poison, and ingenious torturers, that he may be put at some exquisite expiation of the wickedness that he has committed : —

It is/

That all the abhorr'd things o' the earth amend By being worse than they. / am Posthumus,

100

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

That killed thy daughter ; — villain-like, I lie —

That caused a lesser villain than myself,

A sacrilegious thief, to do 't : the temple

Of virtue was she, — yea, and she [virtue] herself.

Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set

The dogs o' the street to bay me; every villain

Be call'd Posthumus Leonatus, and

Be villany less than 'twas ! O Imogen !

My queen ! My life ! My wife ! O Imogen !

Imogen ! Imogen !

Is it wonder, now, that Imogen comes forward toward this man, holding her arms out, and crying, —

Peace, my lord ! Hear, hear, —

The page as pre- tending to consider Posthu- mus act- ing.

and striving to save him the least instant's further pain ? But Posthumus does not know what the page-like figure is that appeals to him. He can think but of interruptions in the theatre, such, that is, as Elizabethan actors suffered and dreaded. He is in too great agony to endure impertinence or mockery even from a new favourite of the King, and he strikes the upstart meddler. She falls swooning to the ground.

Poor Imogen! This seems too much. Why should Shakespeare have ordained this cruel error? Shall we say that it is in keeping with Posthumus's understanding and appreciation of Imogen hitherto, that it is typical of what her lot must be if she is to leave her destiny in Posthumus's keeping ? It would be something too harsh to judge his weakness thus. Nor may we quite insist that this is a visual, dramatic allegory of their past wedded life. When he strikes

CYMBELINE V. v IOI

her, for her sake, we cannot but forgive him. And we recognise that the incident checks our rising The blow enthusiasm for Posthumus, and keeps the as keePine

. the hero in

hero, relatively to the heroine, in his proper SUbordi- place. When Imogen returns to conscious- natlon- ness, she forgets to disguise her voice, and her father hears once more the tones, ' the tune,' of Imogen.

Then follow explanations concerning the Queen's cordial, and the court-doctor's ruse. But while these smaller enigmas are being cleared, Imogen Imogen has gone to Posthumus, and put her arms ^iUorher about his neck. He seems to have retreated husband. a few steps, after he learns whom he has struck. He cannot presume to draw near her, and she will not wait. There is no reproach, and there is no for- giveness. All things are as if the cruel past had never been.

Why did you throw your wedded lady from you ? Think that you are upon a rock, and now Throw me again !

Imogen's metaphor is a strong one, and characteris- tic. Should we say that Posthumus's answering one is equal in confidence and power ?

Imogen begins where she has left off, presuming upon no changes. That the father needs to call for some recognition, at this point, from his daughter, is his fault, not hers. But now, kneeling all dutifully, she asks his blessing. Imogen, we may be sure, has never knelt before to her father, who, before the coming of the new Queen, was not in his home a king. There is a little interval of silence, with I mo-

102 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

gen waiting, and her father bending over, and she feels his tears upon her forehead. He is thinking of the strange sight, and of their alienation, and its inhuman cause. The old days, he would have her know, are over; the wicked Queen shall no longer divide their lives. Imogen, thinking his sorrow is for the Queen, essays comfort : —

I am sorry for '/, my lord.

Here is a triumph of pathos surely.

The scene and play wait but for their winding up. Pisanio explains of Cloten's departure from the court, and Guiderius of his death. Belarius discloses who the young deliverers are. Guiderius is proved Imo- gen's brother by the presence upon his neck of a sanguine star like hers. There are other not less Arviragus palpable marks, as we have seen, of myste- rious kinship : they have alike the objec- mother. tiveness and the simplicity of their father. Arviragus must derive his vision, and his exquisite love of the beautiful, from his mother. Cymbeline, since Imogen is his once more, has been giving her in thought the kingdom. Now, it shall be, not hers, but her elder brother's. This brings regret, for she is dearer than this son, whose worth is yet to learn. Will not she also suffer disappointment at such loss of power? Her answer (11. 373, 374) is the noblest utterance in the play : —

No, my lord, I have got two -worlds by it.

' Two worlds, — my father's home, and mine.' She

CYMBELINE V. v IO3

would not exchange these for the glamour of a court. And does she not mean also that each brother brings a new, an added existence for herself ?

Surely there was never woman more unselfish. Her life is too large, too full, to be absorbed but with her needs and joys. Posthumus is her Theun. affinity in this ; he does not regret the king- selfishness dom. His reconciliation with Cymbeline comes last of all, and Shakespeare slurs it over : —

7am, sir,

The soldier that did company these three In poor beseeming. 'Twas a fitment for The purpose I then follow'd.

Cymbeline is kept from pronouncing his acquiescence here by the plea of lachimo. His contrition is sin- cere, or he would have begged and connived Iachimo for his life betimes. He has been saved by alone has

. . , •. ...... . discerned

his comprehension and worship of Imogen s im0gen nobleness and worth ; he indeed alone has completely. discerned them fully. Posthumus makes his for- giveness of the man, who has sinned so grievously against his wife, merely incidental. Should he not have referred the case to her ? Shakespeare seems to hold not so. As Posthumus puts his bracelet again upon the arm of Imogen, and her ring again upon his hand, he speaks to the kneeling culprit in the divinest human charity, — once known and under- stood indeed as Christian : —

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.

IO4 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

And Imogen says no word of protest. Cymbeline, who has no truculence or vindictiveness in his nature, commends the clemency, and works in a laconic and dignified amnesty for Posthumus : —

Nobly doomed !

We'll learn our freeness of a son-in-law. Pardon 's the word to all.

We encounter again the absurd trumpery of the label, which we must consistently reject. If we drop out the Soothsayer's paragraph, and Cymbeline's re- sponse (11. 435-452), we shall save to the author something of his deserved and usual dignity in this closing situation. To insure an harmonious and graceful close, the diction takes on nobleness : —

The fingers of the powers above do tune The harmony of this peace.

. . . Laud we the gods;

And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils From our blest altars.

Seldom in Shakespeare have commonplace mean- ings been cast in more select and virile interpretative diction.

Many readers and critics have taken issue with the author over the forbearance of Posthumus. lachimo, they say, should have been made to suffer a condign penalty. But it does not appear that Punitive vs. Posthumus pardoned the guilt of lachimo,

or that he had the moral "ght or indeed the power to do this had he so willed.

lachimo's crime was against himself, as he now knows. The most advanced criminal theory of

CYMBELINE V. v 10$

these times would hold that man has small right to pursue the offences of his fellow except correctively. Imogen did not forgive Posthumus for his attempt against her life, for she refused to take cognizance of the wrong. Posthumus suffered more as the offender than she the victim, and she pitied him. It is to be sure a high plane of existence on which the author takes leave of his heroine and hero, but the play was constituted in part that this plane might be recognized. Such characters and such conduct are unusual, and as the world would judge, unpractical. But the Christ spirit was adjudged unusual and un- practical two thousand years ago. Yet that spirit, in kind, rules mankind to-day. The only question here is a question of degree.

Let us suppose that Imogen had not been large- minded and unpractical when she gave lachimo his hearing in the first act. Suppose she had been in- sufficient, in self-estimate, for her integrity, and had attempted vindication for the personal affront. Suppose that lachimo had not gone away from Britain with the revelation and awe of the The forces truth and nobleness that possessed his soul, ^gf0^ Suppose he had come to the battle, not lachimo. having these forces in him, as inspired by her, but with the same contempt for woman that he pro- fessed at first. Would he have opened his heart when Imogen asked him from whom he had obtained her ring ? If he had at that time told other than the truth, would Posthumus have known his mistake, and betrayed his grief? If Posthumus had not

106 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

known his mistake and betrayed his grief, what would have been her future or his own ? Or, let us suppose, after it is known that Guiderius is Cymbe- line's oldest child and heir to the throne, that Imo- gen or her husband attempt to contest the claim. That would have been practical and usual, yet much to be regretted. After all, deep down in our natures, we are conscious of an affinity to such living, and would fain enact it and see it actualised everywhere about us. We are much nearer this consummation than Shakespeare's generation was, when three hundred years ago he made this study of a noble The mean- womannood. There is no mystery about its ing of the triumph. He has formed Imogen's nature and career according to a principle clear to his mind, and formulated long before by another and greater master of human nature, — Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Nobody in the play save Imogen ' inherits ' anything. She does not get the kingdom, but possesses the hearts of those who rule. In her amplified and sufficient living those who are about her live and have their being also.

Thus it is clear how Shakespeare is a revealer and interpreter of life. We cannot say that his creation HOW exceeds nature. We are indeed sure that fh!areisan suc^ womanhood has existed and exists to- artist. day. In order that there might be such a daughter, it was necessary to have a king-father that the Queen could hoodwink, and to keep us from greatly caring. The whole court, its history, the

CYMBELINE V. v ID?

Queen, Cloten, and indeed Posthumus are but the means of bringing out Imogen's nature, and exist for that end alone. The man who has a great idea or thought, and can create or devise means by which he may communicate it to others and share his ex- periences of it with them, is what we call an Artist. Shakespeare is thus surely an artist of eminence. He is an artist also because he knows well how to inaugurate causes for the effects he wants, and because he controls our sympathies, making us love what he loves, hate what he hates.

But how did it chance that Shakespeare, who gave his life largely to studies of feminine character, put off the portrait just analysed till almost the end ? It is perhaps a common assumption that Shakespeare was not content with the womanly figures that he had painted hitherto, but wished to supplement them with another answering more nearly to his individual and perhaps domestic predilections. There are signs indeed, as we have noted, that Cymbeline was written to satisfy a personal rather than a dramatic ideal. Its author had entered the great world, and seen probably some of the most brilliant women of the times, at least in England. He had shake known Elizabeth, and perhaps admired her ; speare's but he painted no portrait, save one, that in r e s' the least resembled her. He made the study of a highly subjective and undisciplined feminine nature in Cleopatra, and one even of an inherently false personality in Cressida; but such types did not, except for the moment, engage his mind. It has

108 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

been inferred that he found his ideal by contraries, and in some measure by way of his conjugal experi- ences and history ; but of this there is not so much as a syllable of proof. It is just as likely that he made his Imogen on the model of Anne Hathaway or of his mother. We can at least be sure that Shake- speare wished, in this play, to portray a typical Anglo-Saxon lady, a woman not high-strung or brilliantly imaginative, because such a nature is subjective, liable to moods and ennui, and intolerant of burdens. So he has wrought a home-maker, a domestic paragon, yet, by virtue of her spiritual insight, and her beauty and worth of character, withal a queen. To forestall the paradox, lest we should not believe, he caused her to be born in a king's palace, and invested, in the idea and expecta- tion of the kingdom, with a queen's rights indeed.

Here are potent suggestions concerning Shake- speare, both as an artist and a man. What he must have been as a man, to have made such a study as this proves to be, cannot be doubtful. What he was as an artist is not so easy to comprehend ; but the construction of the play in hand has made some things clear. When a man has potential notions of such goodness and worth as Imogen's, which he has never seen, yet knows are veritable and existent in The artist different degrees and forms somewhere in must be the world, we say that he has vision, or is st a seer. a geer Many people have revelations of such high qualities and excellencies of character, but cannot communicate them. All great literature, and

CYMBELINE V. v 1 09

all eminence in the world of painting and sculpture and music, is made up of two things, " Seeing and Saying." The man who at once on seeing feels it in his fingers to paint, or carve, or write what has come into his mind, is essentially an artist. So no one can be an artist who does not preconceive some Imogen or like vision of the Beautiful or the True to paint or make a play about. Every man who does have such revelations, and can make everybody else, or many or most people, with a little aid or education, see what he sees and experience the inspiration that he has felt, is an artist, as has been said in part before, typically and truly.

It will be expedient to alter somewhat the manner of interpreting and appropriating Shakespeare in the remaining pages. We have been trying to make over the meanings of his poetry and speare's art into the literal terms of prose ; but this meanings

not trans- Can never be done effectually. A work of latabieinto

art is potential, and adapted to all time. prose> What in it is potential, and not literal, cannot be imparted by mind to mind, but must be personally discerned. To know a play of Shakespeare is like knowing a great picture. One must study it patiently in detail. It takes a month to study a great picture over. It takes more than a month to know a play of Shakespeare's ; and no one can make his know- ledge do duty for another's. The best that the man who has studied can do, as in the case of a picture, is to show his fellow how to see. No one mind, save the artist's, sees all. Accordingly, in the inspection

1 10 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

of the plays or parts of plays remaining to our pur- pose, we shall forestall as little as may be ultimate knowledge of the given piece, which it is the reader's right to achieve alone. It is as impertinent in litera- ture as in other fields of art to thrust upon the reader his author's meanings ; though the end here, it is be- lieved, has justified some deviation.

Ill

THE WINTER'S TALE

To acquaint us with antecedent circumstances, The Winter's Tale is opened with a dialogue between two court gentlemen, much like Cymbeline. They- Pu ose of explain the extraordinary attachment of King the opening Polyxenes for the King of Sicily, and meet s :ne' the improbability of the former's prolonged visit with Leontes, somewhat effectually, in advance. Both join in praises of the young prince Mamillius ; and this, since his mother may hardly be discussed here by the courtiers, prepares imagination for the intro- duction of the Sicilian Queen.

But when Leontes and his king friend come before us in Scene ii, we find that their feelings toward each other have undergone of late some change. Polyxe- nes, with much of rhetorical circumstance and ele- gance, implies to his comrade that he has stayed long enough, three-quarters of a year, and must be going. He would like to express adequately his thanks, but that would occupy as many months as his entertainment has already lasted. Leontes is bound to reply of course in kind, deprecating the acknowledgment, and urging a yet longer visit. Yet he does not refute the obligation, or make as if the absence of his friend would be displeasing, but on

in

112 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

the contrary implies that Polyxenes, for all his say- ing, does not mean to go. That makes Polyxenes forget his circumlocutions, and affirm curtly that he shall go to-morrow. But this summariness, in the face of previous dallies, needs explaining, which he attempts. He thinks apparently that he can force his royal host to civility by suggesting that he has stayed so long as to become a burden. Instead of the expected pretestings, Leontes implies that this is true, and grimly declares that he has indeterminate capacity to be bored. Polyxenes by this has got as far aside from court parlance as his friend, and farther even, for he despoils his sentence of its verb. Now, surely, these royal gentlemen understand each other. Leontes, not in irony, but for very shame, pro- poses that his friend remain another week. Polyxe- nes will not budge from his dignity or his word, and Leontes suggests that they split the difference and put the limit at three days and a half. At this, Polyxenes with some argument, and a little less pique perhaps, begins formal talk once more. No tongue in the world, he affirms, so soon could move him. But, as he is pleased to put it, his affairs do even drag him homeward.

All this while Hermione, the Queen, has been standing in state beside her husband, watching the issue of his attempt to qualify the insult to his guest. The last answer of Polyxenes was of course absurd enough. Leontes will neither contradict it, nor allow the scandal of an immediate departure. So he calls upon the Queen to save him from defeat. And the

THE WINTER'S TALE I. n 113

snappish manner as well as matter of his words to her show why she has not taken part in the dialogue, and why he has till now ignored her. Leontes is jealous, and is willing to be understood as believing that Polyxenes has made his nine-months stay for the sake of Hermione's society. Hermione has undoubt- edly had intimations before, in private, of Hermione her husband's feeling; for she takes great fo™us- pains to avoid asking Polyxenes to remain, band, while making it virtually impossible for him to stand by his words to her husband. She suggests a com- promise, the 'borrow of a week,' being careful to name the same time that Leontes has proposed. She rallies Polyxenes volubly and brilliantly, plying him with feigned and distant importunity, and keeps withal her husband from working in a further word : —

You'll jAy/"

No, madam. Nay, but you will f

I may not, verily. Verily!

You put me off with nimble oaths ; but /, Though you would seek to unsphere the stars with oaths, Should yet say ' Sir, no going.' ' Verily ' You shall not go. A lady's ' Verily ' is As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet, — Force me to keep you as a prisoner, Not like a guest ? So you shall pay your fees When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you? My prisoner, or my guest f By your dread ' Verily,' One of them you shall be.

Your guest, then, madam.

We cannot much doubt that Polyxenes, in spite of

i

114

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

the rough handling that he has received, is quite will- ing to remain. The attentions of Hermione have salved his pride. But he seems wholly invulnerable to the idea that trouble may come to her from seem- ing to have induced him to change his mind.

Of course there is Camillo, and there are attend- ants, present. If the kings are not brought together again, there will be talk. We may be sure that the court folk understand the King's feelings, if Polyxe- nes does not. Hermione, as we notice, changes the subject instantly, and by a turn that she thinks will please her husband ; but in her haste to reach a con- clusion she is scarcely edifying to his friend : —

Was not my lord The verier wag o' the two?

Or, is this perhaps to afford Leontes the chance of retreat from his insolence, by pretending it Hermi all a jest ? This is very likely the Queen's one's self- purpose ; but her husband fails to use the pos opportunity, remaining silent and apparently sullen as before. Polyxenes is willing to talk to the point proposed, but steers stupidly and squarely into an implication that the Queen follows up gayly to his discomfiture. Leontes, not liking the freedom or per- haps the topic of their conversation, looks up and asks significantly whether he is ' won ' yet. Hermi- one makes a gentle and considerate answer, at which Leontes petulantly (1. 87) betrays his jealous and nar- row spirit : —

At my request he would not I

THE WINTER'S TALE I. n 115

He adds ironically that she has never spoken to bet- ter purpose. This she receives archly and lovingly, making him think of the moment when she Hermi- confessed herself his. With beautiful chat- one>s tact- ter she charms from him some pleasant words, and then puts an end to the interview by drawing Polyxe- nes aside. She sees that there is nothing to be gained by leaving the kings longer together.

As Hermione is ushered aside, in Elizabethan court fashion by her guest, Leontes finds a new occasion to indulge his jealousy. Nothing is happening differ- ent or differently from what has happened any day these nine months past; but Leontes apparently is finding any attention or civility from Polyxenes to his wife of late unbearable. We recognise this hanging about of Polyxenes — his Queen (cf. 1. 34) is appar- ently not living — as preposterous ; and while we do not justify Leontes in his jealousy, we cannot blame him much for feeling disturbed. Mamillius, left for the moment by his mother, stands silently near, watch- ing with strange precocity the signs of trouble in his father's face. Though the lad is thoroughly acute and brilliant, he is not yet of years that enable a princely toilet; and his nose is at this moment in need of his mother's handkerchief. We have just been regretting the lengthening moments of her com- plaisance to Polyxenes, and now this seeming neglect has palpable influence with us to her disadvantage. The doubts of Leontes, voiced openly concerning the lad's paternity, have by no means an idealising effect upon her wifehood. The author is plainly preparing

u6

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

for another plot of marital misunderstanding, but less tenderly as touching his heroine than in the former play.

The element of time is requisite in establishing relations as significant as these. The author makes Hermione lead her guest back toward Leontes, who finishes his soliloquy and refuses to recognise their approach. Polyxenes addresses him, and without an answer. Hermione speaks to him with more serious- ness than hitherto, and Leontes replies civilly to her inquiry. Polyxenes comes in (11. 164, 165) for a little recognition when Leontes asks : —

Are you as fond of your young prince as we Do seem to be of ours?

Polyxenes declares that his son is all his exercise, his mirth, his matter, but apparently does not divine the reason why Leontes has thus drawn him out. He seems certainly very comfortable after almost a year's withdrawal from domestic joys. Leontes is more than ever aroused over this naive exhibition of in- consistency, and goes aside with Mamillius from the pair at once. Manifestly it would not do to leave Hermione and her husband's friend responsible for going apart from the scene, if Leontes is to stay. To clear the stage for the next turn of the plot, Leontes is made to send Mamillius off by himself to play.

It would have in some respects been better if Camillo had been left out of the scene. But the author wished him to be a witness to the yielding of

THE WINTER'S TALE I. n 1 1/

Polyxenes, and the jealous conduct of Leontes. Furthermore, to make a new scene begin here would exalt the subordinate matter and action following to an equality with what has just preceded. So the author has the King call Camillo to his presence. He alludes to Polyxenes's continued stay, and finds Camillo, — for a very different reason from The evoiu- what he suspects, ready to talk. Then camUto's begins the evolution of Camillo's consent to consent, serve as the King's tool. We see that Leontes is naturally a very jealous man, or he would not wish his life-long friend killed for mere suspicion. He is a Sicilian, and exhibits somewhat of the intense and summary hatred peculiar to his race. Camillo is honest as courtiers go, and makes sure, before he engages to poison Polyxenes, that the King will not proceed publicly or otherwise against Hermione. He also makes Leontes promise to treat his guest in a manner that will avert all possible suspicion.

At this point, were the subject-matter here what is usual in the first act of a play, another scene might be begun. But the author has peculiar mate- rial in hand, and is without need or wish to develop into dramatic fulness as elsewhere. He is really in haste, as seems, to have done with this part of the plot. Leontes is made to leave the stage, that we may hear, from Camillo in a soliloquy, that he does not blame the Queen, and that he has no least inten- tion of doing the King's will. Polyxenes is then brought in once more, receives scant courtesy at first from Camillo, and tells of a fresh snub from the

Il8 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

King. Thus the resolution for his flight is easily evolved. We are glad to hear his consternation (11. 417-424) at Leontes's charge, and to know, —

I saw his heart in 's face, —

that, in spite of his Bohemian heaviness and slow- ness, he has seen more than he has been willing to own or realise. And so the royal guest sneaks away, by the postern gates, from his friend's palace, never for a moment thinking of the effect his flight may have upon the destiny or welfare of the Queen.

Hermione is perhaps not greatly surprised at the outbreak of Leontes, and does not seem troubled at the treatment he has accorded his life-long friend. She is not sensitive over the matter, so far as it con- cerns herself, and will scarcely think of taking her husband to task for his unkingly escapade. The curtain rises next probably at some time in the fore- noon of the day following the last scene. Polyxenes and Camillo seem not to have taken ship till after daylight. The central, subordinating figure in the Mamii- group now shown is Mamillius, who prefers fdiow^This n*s m°ther to the sports and playthings of mother. the royal nursery, and has wearied her with his exactions. The smutched nose no longer wit- nesses imaginatively against her motherly offices and regard. That was but for the moment, while the author was making us look at Hermione, in some measure, from her husband's eyes.

It is a situation singularly in contrast with the scene preceding. The pervading strength of Her-

THE WINTER'S TALE II. I 119

mione's personality is discerned everywhere, and particularly in the domestic, substantial character of the women whom she has chosen as her court companions. Mamillius discourses against the First Lady, who has forced too many hard hugs and baby caresses upon him. He tries to tell why he likes the Second Lady better, — that something in her face, which he is sure is not in the forehead, but gets lost in attempting to trace because of his general lore in eyebrows. It is not so rare that a lad of five should see acutely ; but that he should say wisely, and gen- eralise ingeniously, surprises even the court women who have watched him since his birth. It is not surely from his father that he has inherited or ac- quired this wisdom.

It is thus not strange that Hermione's women talk to Mamillius as if he were much older than he is. The mother, rested now, asks for her son again. He comes back to her, not with a run, and a leap into her lap, but sedately, stopping some steps from her ; and he begs for nothing, not so much even as a story. It is she indeed who requests the story, and from him. We can hear his boyish tones, almost, as (11. 23, 25) he speaks of his repertoire, and asks his mother's will : —

Merry or sad shall 't be ? A sad tale 's best for winter. I have one Of sprites and goblins.

Most children can be scared pretty effectually, as listeners, by tales of ghosts. Here is one who frightens his mother by telling them ; and she

I2O WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

proudly confesses that he is powerful at it. He stands like an orator to begin ; but she makes him sit upon her knee. Though she has interrupted him, he completes his sentence without restarting, — a rhe- torical feat not usual to his years. Dr. Furness sug- gests that the 'crickets,' who are not to hear, are the court women, and thus solves an unusually hard puzzle of the text. We may understand that the First and Second Lady are withdrawn a little, that the boy and his mother may exchange confidences if they will.

It is a beautiful moment which we could have wished prolonged. But we are not permitted to hear more than the first softly uttered sentence, for without is heard the excited stride of intruding feet. Without request or permission Leontes and his lords push their way into the Queen's apartments. News from the harbour has just come to the King, and started him, half crazed, to find the Queen. The flight of Polyxenes has done the mischief, for this to Leon- tes in his present mood is tantamount to an admission of guilt. Leontes has undoubtedly heard the details of the flight, but to avoid telling Hermione anything directly he makes the First Lord repeat some items. He assumes, or affects to assume perhaps, that she knows already, yet will pretend ignorance or ask some question. We may be sure that she looks on him with calm, firm eyes, with no expectation of evil, Leontes and that he does not find it easy to meet addrSfthe her S*26' Since it is impossible to address Queen. her, he flatters himself to the First Lord

THE WINTER'S TALE II. i 121

over the soundness of his suspicions, and rehearses his wrongs, expecting perhaps to include at least some reference to the Queen's share in the conspir- acy against his life. Since Hermione, as he thinks, refuses to take his meaning, he snatches Mamillius from her. She asks him, wonderingly, if this is sport. It is time, evidently, to make her understand his feelings, but he cannot accuse her even yet directly. His evasion is to speak to the lords, bid them —

Look on her, mark her well. Be but about To say ' she is a goodly lady,' and The justice of your hearts will thereto add ' 'Tis pity she's not honest, honourable.'

It is a painful paragraph, though more painful to him who speaks than to those who hear. When Hermione has learned at last the ground of his trouble, she makes (11. 78-81) only this strong and kindly answer, —

Should a villain say so, The most replenished villain in the world, He were as much more villain. You, my lord, Do but mistake.

There is no rebuke, or anger, or personal feeling in this reply ; but there is lofty, disinterested sorrow for the man who has fallen beneath himself, and is pre- paring for humiliation. The conviction and certitude of these words anger Leontes worse than sarcasm or abuse, could she have used them, would have done. For the moment he dares address her directly, but he quickly goes back to his device of speaking to

122 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

her, over the lord's shoulders, in the third person. He charges her with being a traitor, and having made Camillo her accomplice, and being aware of the late escape. He probably knows better, but he is trying to scandalise her, and break in any way possible her exasperating repose. The result is worse failure than before. She betrays no sign of surprise or pain. She is still but sorry for his mis- takes, his suffering.

No, by my life,

Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you, When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that You thus have publish'd me ! Gentle my lord, You scarce can right me throughly then to say You did mistake.

She is helpless, but will not acknowledge it. Since she will pretend that she cares nothing for her hus- band's abuse and insults, he will make her feel his power. He orders her forth to prison, and condemns beforehand all who would plead in her behalf. Her- mione is not dismayed or even worried at the prospect.

There's some ill planet reigns. I must be patient till the heavens look With an aspect more favourable.

Evil cannot always or long prevail. She is willing to wait until it shall give way. She excuses to the lords her lack of tears, and declares her submission Hermi- to the King's will. It is a moment of sub- one's faith. ijme triumph. Strange strength is abroad, surrounding her and upholding her, making her more than human to those who see her and hear

THE WINTER'S TALE II. I 123

her speak. It seems to Leontes that he has been silenced, that her words drown out his royal order. Nobody, indeed, remembers it or is conscious of its authority, and Leontes actually cries out, as in help- lessness, that he may have back his rights. After a little silence, while the whole company stands awe- bound yet, Hermione is heard requesting of the King that her women may be with her in the prison. Le- ontes seems not to hear, for there is no consenting or other sound at all, save the weeping of the women. Then Hermione, after some words (11. 118-124) of comfort to the attendants and of farewell to her hus- band, —

Do not weep, good fools;

There is no cause. . . . This action I now go on Is for my better grace. — Adieu, my Lord : I never wished to see you sorry; now, I trust, I shall, —

withdraws herself from her home and son. When, of her own motion, followed by her women, she has gone some steps on the way toward prison, Leontes repeats his order to the halberd men. They do not arrest her, but follow her, escort her, along the path that she is choosing.

After she is gone, and the soldiers who attend her are out of sight, the First Lord breaks the silence, begging Leontes to call the Queen again. He does not speak. The First Lord and Antigonus plead. It all comes to nothing, except to prepare for the knowledge that Leontes has applied already to Apollo's oracle for enlightenment, which circum-

124 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

stance makes it seem that he had not at first intended Shake- to Put Hermione in prison. Of course the spearedoes appeal to the oracle at Delphi is absurd, as

not change . .... ._. . .

Greene's the play is not laid m pre-Christian times, errors. gut Shakespeare is in substance drama- tising Greene's novel of Dorastus and Fawnia, first printed in 1588, and very popular; and Greene, who knew better, makes use of this anachronism in that work.

The character of Hermione, as now left with us, calls for some melioration and relief. She is not in the least unwomanly, but her self-sufficiency and strength seem beyond the measure of her sex. Be- sides, it may be that we have retained from the second The uses scene of Act I, where she was presented in of Paulina. such a wav as to account in part for her husband's jealousy, some impressions of indelicacy and boldness. That he may remove all hint of man- nishness, Shakespeare introduces Paulina, a character not found in Greene, in the next scene. As soon as we have sighted her, and discerned her type, we for- get even the most distant suggestion of such qualities in the Queen. Like things are done in the modula- tion of warm effects in painting, and in the toilettes of women. Too insistent depths of hue, too great heaviness or indeed brilliancy of colouring, are allevi- ated by some touch of new pigment, by a sash or rib- bon in the complemental shade. The first need here is to humanise and soften Hermione's repose of will.

There is another purpose, as we at once discern,

THE WINTER'S TALE II. in 125

why a Paulina must be forthcoming to the plot. Hermione, since immurement in the prison, has given birth to a daughter ; and it is necessary that this daughter be exposed on the coasts of Bohemia ; for Greene makes that country to have been mari- time. The motive for the casting out of the child has been preparing ever since the length of Polyxe- nes' stay at the court of Sicily was shaped. Leon- tes will deny the paternity of the child, — so much is clear ; and the plot will make him attempt to destroy its life. But how is the child to be brought into Leontes's power? He must not take it from Her- mione by force ; we should revolt at that. A Paulina is needed who, with all-compelling yet mistaken rea- sons, shall require it from its mother, and commend it to its father. The second scene makes us ac- quainted with the character of Paulina, and outlines the plan by which she is to do her work.

It is, however, no small task that the author has proposed. We shall not easily consent to the cast- ing out of Hermione's babe, though only in ThecastinK a play. There must be new and more com- out of the plete compulsion ; there must be all the cir- ° cumstance and inevitableness of real life. We may be sure that Shakespeare divines this better than we can, and that he will make his causes yield none but just conclusions. At the opening of scene iii, we find that he has been at work, in thought, to meet the exigencies of the case. He has arrayed new forces on the side opposite to the Queen, and in the person of her husband. . The spirit with which she has

126 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

borne her wrongs would have conquered him, were he not too proud to yield. Her silence is an indict- ment of his good sense. Her quiet waiting for the vindication of her integrity maddens him. No such moment must be allowed to come. He will destroy her, and rid himself of fears lest she be innocent. She has pained him enough, in any case, to merit death. By thus showing Leontes determined to burn Hermione at the stake, unless her innocence be proved, the author makes us subordinate the fate of the child to hers for the time being; and we shall not know what becomes of her for two scenes yet. So we are prepared, by the new truculence of Leon- tes, to make unexpected concessions to the plot.

The King is, besides, in a state of unwonted irrita- bility from lack of sleep. He has taken upon him- self to instruct his son in his mother's shames ; and these, he believes, have induced the sickness of which he tells. But we know that it is his pursuit of the boy's mother that has wrought the mischief. We see now why the author has given Mamillius an understanding so far beyond his years. He is wanted as a factor in the coming tragedy.

Of all moments in the play, it is now that Paulina chooses to appear, bringing the Queen's babe before the King. Such women have no idea of times or seasons. They are as nettles to weak nerves. Leontes stands in awe of Hermione's womanly strength ; and any suggestion of her nature in an aggressive or shrewish form will be especially exas- perating to him now. He appears to have charged

THE WINTER'S TALE II. in I2/

Antigonus to keep his wife away; and the answer (11. 44, 45) of that henpecked nobleman, —

I told her so, my lord, . On your displeasure's peril, and on mine, —

seems, for the moment, as amusing to the half-insane Leontes as to us. The situation at any rate is not acute until Paulina announces that she has come from his good Queen. She bandies words with him, till he orders his guards to force her from the room. She threatens to scratch out the eyes of any one who shall lay hand on her, holding the babe in her arms the while.

It is evidently the author's purpose to produce a situation intense enough to cover the transfer and removal of the child. It is interesting to watch the steps by which he advances to the solution of his problem. He first makes Paulina, who cannot imag- ine that any harm will befall the child, lay it down, as from the Queen, at the King's feet Leontes com- mands Antigonus to take it up, but that nobleman does not obey. Then follows a heated parley. The King charges Paulina with having lately beaten her husband. Neither Antigonus nor his wife denies this, or seems to think it of any moment. Paulina is tactless enough to attempt the identification, to the lords, of the King's features in the face of the child. Leontes is less violent over this than could have been expected, having reached, for that matter, something like a climax of passion before the opening of the scene. He declares that he will have her burnt, but

128 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

she defies him all the same. He then bids the guards, on their allegiance, to hale her forth. They approach, and we expect a scene. Thus is our atten- tion drawn away from the child, as a centre of inter- est, to Paulina, who does not after all resist but goes docilely away.

The protector of the child is now removed; so much of the task is done. Leontes now turns to The need Antigonus, and bids him carry the babe of an An- away, and see it immediately committed to the flames ; this, in punishment for obedi- ence to his wife instead of to himself. Shake- speare gives us a good scare here, making us believe that he intends that fate. But he means merely to frighten us, dramatically, with this prospect of death, that we may consent to the lesser evil. He has but to make the lords beseech for the child's life, to win the King's consent that it shall not die, but be ex- posed instead. As the tool for this dastardly deed he has prepared Antigonus. Except that this man had been henpecked so thoroughly, he would have withheld consent.

Even with all these forces arrayed against Her- mione's child, we should scarcely have consented to the plot, save for the sudden news that the messengers from Delphi are returned. We believe that in this lies hope for both.

The third act, as will be noted, opens usually in

Shakespeare with new elements and new

the'vlsif acti°n- The first scene here is meant in part

to Delphi, to show us in advance that the visit to Delphi

THE WINTER'S TALE III. n I2Q

has been really made; for it will be in due time alleged that the oracle is ungenuine. Properly, save for the deviation and delay, the temple at Delphi should be shown ; we should have had some direct experience of the magnificence of the place and the stateliness of the ceremony, and seen Cleomenes and Dion receive the sealed-up responses from the priest. But what we have is an effectual substitute. We see the messengers hastening for Hermione's sake, and we hear them tell of what they have seen and how they have been impressed; and we are as a matter of course persuaded, though unconsciously, that they have been at Delphi, and that they believe they are rendering the Queen true service.

The second scene opens with a court assembly. Leontes has probably found out that there is a strong sentiment in the kingdom against the im- The trial of prisonment of his Queen, in her condition, the Queen. on mere suspicion. ' Let us be cleared,' he says, 'of being tyrannous; since we so openly proceed in justice.' Then he bids the officers produce the prisoner ; and, after a little interval, while we have time to be impressed with the augustness and formal- ities of the tribunal, Hermione is ushered in. Though unaware, perhaps, of our feelings toward her, we have surely been waiting for this moment. Her- mione has lost nothing in our sight since she so grandly went forth to prison. Paulina is her closest attendant and will be soon in requisition, we may assume, in the same manner as before.

It is no English court of justice. In Greene's

130 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

novel there is mention of a jury; but Shakespeare will invite no feelings of reverence for this trial. The King is both prosecutor and judge. Hermione appears without advocate or counsel. But she feels no need of either. When the indictment is read she rises and (11. 23-29) begins to address the court: —

Since what I am to say must be but that

Which contradicts my accusation, and

The testimony on my part no other

But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me

To say ' not guilty.' Mine integrity

Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,

Be so received.

She feels no personal indignation or concern. She does not hope that she will be cleared ; but she is sublimely persuaded that right is more potent than injustice, and that her endurance of wrong will in the end defeat the malice of her persecutors.

But thus: if powers divine Behold our human actions, — as they do, I doubt not then but innocence shall make False accusation blush and tyranny Tremble at patience.

Her absolute, unshrinking faith in moral order has allied the powers of the universe in her defence, and made the august tribunal seem but a cheap and sorry Hermi- spectacle. Leontes had very likely per- pne's faith suaded himself that by the pomp and cere- powerof mony of his conclave of judges and lords truth. an(j doctors learned in the law he could awe her and break her will. He finds this array of author- ity very inadequate to the humiliation and silencing

THE WINTER'S TALE III. II 131

of such a prisoner. She is greater in her integrity than all the judicature of the realm. He essays to beat down her dignity by domestic retorts. With almost divine consideration, ignoring his carping, spiteful humour, she speaks to the petty questions that he raises, arguing with sublime fervour. It is withal a woman's pleading through and through.

More than mistress of

What comes to me in name of fault, I must not At all acknowledge.

When the King attempted first to accuse Her- mione, before her women and Mamillius, in the first scene of the last act, he was put to summary and stern confusion. That was but a personal attack. The attempt here has been to impugn her publicly, as Queen of Sicily, and to exploit the Leontes national machinery of justice against her. k°ngSlyls The failure has been even more abject and dignity, pitiable. ' Nature stretcheth out her arms,' says Emerson, ' to man, only let his thoughts be of equal greatness.' The majesty of Hermione's mind has subordinated the pride and power of Sicily. Leontes has no resource but to make new and absurd allega- tions, and affirm that her fate is sealed already. This stirs no rebellious feeling, for very different sentiments (11. 92-97) possess her wholly : —

Sir, spare your threats. The bug you would fright me with I seek. To me life can be no commodity. The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, I do give lost, for I do feel it gone, But know not how it went.

132 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

That her husband has not forfeited her affection, in spite of all that he has done to extinguish it, that she misses it and desires it even in these moments of abuse, touches the extreme of pathos, and gives us the measure of her character and devotion.

The climax of the scene is quickly reached. Her- mione appeals from the King to the lords, and the court at large, and asks for the decision of the oracle. No one has the right of speech in sessions save with the King's permission; but the First Lord declares fearlessly that the appeal is just, and demands, in Apollo's name, that the messengers be sent for. There is a spell upon the company, and the officers feel the summons of a higher law than the King's will. They bring in Cleomenes and Dion quickly. The oath is administered, the seals are broken, and the head officer reads the findings of Apollo's court : —

Hermione is chaste ; Polyxenes blameless ; Camilla a true subject ; Leontes a jealous tyrant ; his inno- cent babe truly begotten ; and the king shall live with- out an heir, if that which is lost be not found.

We may be sure that hearts beat hard throughout the audience, as the officer reads these ringing sen- tences. When he has finished, the lords break out into exclamations of gratitude to Apollo. Hermione shows no such excitement, being heard to utter but the one word, Praised ! Leontes impugns the oracle, and proposes to push the sessions forward even to the sentencing of the Queen. But a servant runs in distractedly, and interposes a message from the palace. Mamillius, with merely imagining what has happened

THE WINTER'S TALE III. n 133

or will happen to his mother, on this day of her trial, what with his sickness and anxiety hitherto,

•* Hermione

has passed away. Hermione listens with firm overcome nerves. Then she hears Leontes say that onlyby.the

* confession

he has not been sincere in his jealousy, that of her he has pursued her and distressed her with husband- injustice. That is too much, and she falls in a dead swoon.

Then all is changed in this august judgment hall. There is no confusion, no babbling of tongues, for every eye is fixed upon the King. Never Leontes since he took the crown has he been such crucifies his an object of interest as now. He is implor- pnde- ing Apollo to be forgiven for his profaneness against the oracle. In the face of all the jurisconsults and lords and doctors he is heard confessing his plot against Polyxenes, and detailing how he threatened and bribed Camillo to become his tool. He was too proud before to bow to the moral superiority of his Queen. Now the gods have humbled him in the sight of all the kingdom. And he is withal wholly contrite and content.

The court scene has done its work. But the author is evidently unwilling to close it here, and leave with us certain drastic impressions that it has made. He will subordinate it and merge it in a situation Furtheruse that shall make amends to its intended vie- of Paulina, tim. Paulina turns the undismissed sessions into an arraignment of the plaintiff King, and reads against him a feminine indictment that stirs our pity. The bitterness of this invective is then utilised as the occa-

134 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

sion of making Pauline relent, and beg, with tears, forgiveness from the King. Thus, with vehement speed, is the wicked and cruel past, so necessary to the plot, lifted from our consciousness, and a brighter future prepared for. There is but the exposing of the child to be enacted, and this is quickly added in another scene. The author keeps us

Our con- - , , , .

sent to the f rom revolt by new and stronger indignation exposure of against Antigonus. This is achieved by

the child. & . ° *

making him dream of Hermione weeping, as in punishment, and imploring him to carry her child to Bohemia. When he salves his conscience for doing the King's villany by insisting against his better light that the child will be laid upon the earth of its right father, we are done with him. The poetic justice of his being torn in pieces by the bear, a turn analogous to the taking off of Cloten in the former play, draws away our thought from the babe, which is at no moment out of protection or our sight. At the beginning of the shepherd's talk, on his discovery of the child, the play passes over from tragedy to comedy.

There are marked differences here from the con- ception and treatment of the main figure in Cymbeline. imo en's ^n ^at drama Imogen conquers, without unepic intending resistance, in a domestic, wifely

way, by influences of meekness and good- ness that go out from her being. Hermione is stronger in presence and personality, and prevails in a truly heroic mood. Imogen was accused by her husband in absence, with only a trusty servant to

THE WINTER'S TALE III. n 135

share the secret of her disgrace. Hermione is ma- ligned by her husband personally and in presence, in the hearing or knowledge of all the kingdom. Imo- gen's beautiful patience is thoroughly ruffled, for the moment, by the perfidious and unmanly conduct of Posthumus. Hermione does not resist the evil pur- poses of her husband by so much as a frown. He does not find it possible to goad her into Hermione recalcitrant feeling against him. He loses resists not in consequence the support and sympathy evi ' of his lords, and his own self-respect. He is discom- fited, disarmed, humiliated. We cannot very confi- dently explain the secret of Hermione's triumph, or declare the philosophy of such a rout. Examples of the like have been too few for study. We remem- ber that a great master of human wisdom once pre- scribed such a course as Hermione has pursued, and by it indeed rose to the chief place in human history. It seems clear that from evil when as here unresisted, not for the glorification of the saint, but from pity of the sinner, indeterminate power for good may spring. It is thus evident that we have in Hermione a study of character in important respects supplemental to Imogen ; and there are reasons for supposing it a later creation. It is not at all likely that Shakespeare intended to dramatise an important doctrine from the Sermon on the Mount. He is not attempting to com- pose a religious play. He may indeed have been all unaware that the principle on which he built Hermi- one's greatness was other than a fundamental law of human nature. He was just finishing his career as a

136 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

dramatic artist, and could have scarcely been con- Th . cerned, more than in Cytnbeline, about the fluenceof popularity of the piece. In no dramas oifshakeT beside has he allowed such incongruities speare's and absurdities of plot as in these two. Did ces' the coarse watermen and street loafers under- stand what was put before them in the impersona- tions of Hermione and Perdita and Imogen ? We may reasonably doubt whether the acting showed these women as fully as we have had them revealed to us. But the Globe and the Blackfriars could not surely have been ill places to go to, if there and there alone in England and all Christendom were the influ- ences that we have been experiencing, from these characters, supplied in a literary way. No such womanhood as Hermione's or Imogen's had been por- trayed before, nor has seemingly the counterpart of either been conceived or painted since. Imogen's childlike, spontaneous feminine nature, which she does not repress, is supremely beautiful. But Her- mione's character, in its saintly faith and Christly self-repression, touches the heights of the sublime.

In Shakespeare's dramas there is always a subjec- tive climax at the middle of the third act; such The out- events are placed or shaped there as enable come pre- us to divine the outcome of the play. We

figured at ... . . . ,•>.

the middle are sure, for instance, here that the Queen

of a play. wjn ]iv(>t that the child will be brought back, and that Hermione will be reconciled to her husband. But we must not rate this prefigurement of the plot issue as of large importance. The play that we have

THE WINTER'S TALE 137

in hand is not a play of incident. It makes little difference, as such, whether Hermione sustains the revelation of her husband's baseness, or succumbs to it. The lesson of her constancy and largeness of soul proceeds with us in either outcome equally. She is endowed and prepared to achieve a singularly beautiful and complete existence. Shakespeare rec- ognised that only such are fittest to survive, and has made her live ; though the heroine of Greene's novel has no such fortune. By the offices of Paulina, the Queen, who does not wish to see her husband, is kept apart from the palace. By dint of certain jug- gling, for which she is not responsible, and which we need not be curious about, she is reported dead, and ostensibly carried to her grave in public funeral ; and Leontes is allowed, for years following, to show his grief daily at her monument.

This part of the plot is surely far from pleasing ; and were it not for the importance of the personality that it is used to reveal, would have proved wholly unacceptable. To some expounders and critics, who have apparently not discovered what the play was written for, it has seemed absurd. Shakespeare could undoubtedly have devised a better scheme. Yet, when we have come to know his conception of He*rmione, we -are not so sure that he TheSub. would have exchanged it, under any circum- lime not stances, for one that we should call a better, ^u've **" There is no chain of causation here of the with the kind that was found in Cymbeline. Hermi- one has no such influence on those surrounding her as

138 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Imogen exerts, because no one with power to aid her has understood her. The lords have divined some- thing of her nature, so have her women, but both are powerless to change her fate. Mamillius has discerned her best, in his degree, but that under- standing has cost him his life. The husband is wholly incapable of recognising the differences be- tween her and any other woman, with equal beauty, of half her worth. She has not indeed discovered or understood herself ; such natures never do. The most saintly and complete in character and living Hermione are least aware of the truth and nobleness soHtaeryand and charity that make them different from figure. their fellows. Hermione is pathetically lone and solitary in her greatness, and this it is that has well-nigh wrought her martyrdom. But she does not know the source of her misfortunes. Only the author, and the reader whom he lends eyes to see, understand her secret.

The great-souled live mainly, perforce, apart, in the solitudes of their own being. Imogen spent most of the hours of her work and waiting, in the play called Cymbeline, with no one to share or en- hance her inmost living. Even Posthumus, restored, will approach but distantly to her true self, and will fall far short of completing her existence, though she will never know. An Emerson is at best but a good listener ; he cannot be social in his seership. So a deeply spiritual nature, except it give itself to public utterance or ministerings, as Hermione can- not, will fail of appreciation and may be grossly

THE WINTER'S TALE 139

misapprehended. Hermione has grown up from girl to woman in a fascinating, but strange Hermi- reserve. Her quantum of personality has ^firf8" attracted to her a wooer; she has been reserve, wedded, and made a queen. But there is nothing in this which has merged her real existence, or mate- rially enlarged it. It is the curse of such natures, men as well as women, that they overestimate the spiritual wealth of other people, and seldom wed where they shall grow. Hermione has become a mother, and yet her best of living has been apart from her children. She is not unmotherly, but the motherhood in her is not paramount, and does not subordinate or absorb her life. Leontes, expecting perhaps a partner that should be centred in himself, has missed the wifehood and motherhood that can- not be. He finds in Hermione a sufficiency and dignity that seem to leave him, her lord and husband, supernumerary, and this furnishes him with a griev- ance. When he has observed that this very superior wife of his has become an object of interest to his friend, he is betrayed into seizing it as an occasion to subordinate her, and humiliate her, and usurp her eminence, though he knows there has been no guilt. A queen of an intellectual and spiritual stature no greater than his own would have furnished no occa- sion for misunderstandings.

The limitations of the plot, as the necessity of a Perdita born after the opening of the play, and be- trothed long before its close, are the most serious that Shakespeare anywhere grapples with, and with an

140 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

inferior heroine would have spoiled the play. There are sixteen years of waiting to which the reader must be conciliated, and for which some sort of artistic justification must be devised. To have Hermione stay away from her husband, for this period, in anger or from mere spite, would of course spoil all. Her- Hermione mione nas no vindictive feeling, no least not unwiii- desire to exact suffering from him in propor- tufn'to^her ti°n to tne suffering he has brought on her. husband. She does not propose to forgive and forget, for the matter lies not in her choice. "The King shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found." The meaning of the gods to her is plain : she must not return to her husband until her daughter is brought back to her. She who resists not evil by so much as a word, a look, can await with the same infinite patience the higher will. The sublime truth in her character shines out again (V. iii., 123-128) in her words, after the deliverance, to Per- dita : -

Tell me, mine own,

Where hast thou been preserv'd, where liv'd, how found Thy father's court ? For thou shall hear that I, Knowing by Paulina that the oracle Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserv'd Myself to see the issue.

And sixteen years to such a woman, as grand and unwavering as Athene herself, are as a little space, as a watch in the night. So the absurdities of a plot may become its power.

Cymbeline appears in the Folio of 1623 in the list of tragedies, while The Winter's Tale is entered as a

\

THE WINTER'S TALE 141

comedy. Neither of these plays appears to have been printed earlier. It is probable that this distinc- tion, which it has been the fashion to retain, was ordained by Shakespeare on the production of the plays. There seems at first small reason to account The Winters Tale as more comedial, except The Win_ for the part of Autolycus, and of the satyr ter's Tale dancers at the sheep-shearing festival. Some s discussion of other differences will be attempted later. We might imagine that Imogen was born of nearer sympathies than the rival heroine, except for the sur- passingly tender close of The Winter's Tale. We find manifested here the same gentleness and char- ity, as in Cymbeline, toward the men of the play, who, not excepting Florizel, are again a sorry lot. The presence of the second Hermione, in the person of her grown-up daughter, in the fourth act, adds an idyllic charm. We could have wished the treat- ment of Perdita reserved for another play. She is perforce subordinated to her mother, and is with- drawn from our sight at the close with many unde- veloped residues of strength and goodness.

We seem admitted to something like a vision of Shakespeare's mysterious and evasive personality when he begins to paint a Perdita or Miranda. There is a beautiful optimism in his spirit A vision of and in his working which makes everything Shake-

speare's

abroad seem sweetened and transfigured. person- We feel that he has secrets of life which alit?- we might win from him, and with them make this old world young. Yet we are persuaded that the

142 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

world is a good place to live in as it is. We believe more in ourselves, finding that we are not so cheap and paltry and insignificant as we have thought. Yet Shakespeare's great women do not strive or cry or agonise after unattained or unattainable ideals. They do not preach or patronise, being just as inno- cent of their high estate and how they came by it as we of ours. They are suns severally of their social systems, and the men revolve about them as satel- lites. They are manifestations, in Shakespeare's view, of the divine, by which God administers him- self to the world and uplifts man and society at large to nobler living. And the divine, Shakespeare seems to say, never coerces or repels, but charms, allures, by its sovereignty of nature.

We are interested, of course, in comparing the grown-up daughter, for whom the plot has been delayed, with Hermione her mother. We discern in Perditabe- Perdita little of her father's quality. She rrioneand" lac^s somewhat of her mother's strength; Imogen. there is less of the sublime and more of beauty in her nature. We may say that she stands midway between Hermione and Imogen. The author makes us know her by photographing her in a series of situations, all false ones, and as taxing and unfair as the r61e accepted by her mother when she was set the task of detaining Polyxenes by her husband. Perdita has grown up in the home of the shepherd, without suspicion of her rank, and has found her life large enough and promising enough, in spite of its distance from the great world. Florizel, son of King

THE WINTER'S TALE IV. iv 143

Polyxenes, chancing to follow his falcon across the shepherd's pastures, which have been increased by the use of the foundling's treasure to almost fabulous holdings,, has seen her and been drawn to woo her by her strange dignity and grace. He has repre- sented himself, under the name of Doricles, as the owner of a great sheep-farm like her father's. He is shown to us, at the opening of scene iv, in a shep- herd's frock, put on over his court doublet, while he has persuaded Perdita to appear in costly robes and finery brought from the palace. She has deferred to her lover's wishes, but finds no pleasure in ele- gance that belies her station and forces her to out- shine the shepherd girls and swains, whom she is waiting to receive as guests at the sheep-shearing festival.

Thus is the son of Polyxenes characterised to us at the outset by his willingness to exploit his inamo- rata before her friends. For his part, he affects a costume much more foreign to his character than hers to her. Florizel is a thoroughly pastoral person- age, as his name betokens, but of the sort begotten by poetry and not by sheepf olds. He is a very proper young man, free wholly from vices incident to courts, but a little flighty and pedantic in some conceptions of common things. ' You are,' he affirms to Perdita, —

no shepherdess, but Flora

Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing Is as a meeting of the petty gods, And you the queen on't.

But more exactly, Florizel is used, as all the men in

144 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

both plays have been used, to speed the treatment of the heroine in hand.

So the author, wishing first to try Perdita, before us, as mistress of the feast, makes her foster-mother to have died since last year's festival. He wishes us to see what resources, what self-assertion, his Queen's daughter can summon for the part that she is called to play. There is a bashful company of country folk to welcome and manage, and she has Perdita no boldness beyond the least of her com- ownsocua panions to stand her in stead. There are forms. no conventionalities behind which she may mask herself ; she must make her own social forms and phrases. The presence of Florizel, as her lover, without the disposition to aid her with her guests, but with all confidence that she will entertain them "sprightly," does not lessen her embarrassment. Before she has conceived her r61e, her father, him- self not well knowing what should be done, covers his insufficiency by scolding her for her silence and delay. To add to the burdens of the moment, two strangers, evidently of no mean station, are brought to her notice as demanding hospitable attention. She addresses herself at once to these, and, in default of better compliment, gives them flowers that suit well with their apparent years. The strangers, who are Polyxenes and Camillo, disguised as old men, affect to be displeased with the "flowers of winter" that she has given them. Perdita very prettily attempts to mend her blunder, and the King leads her into argument, that he may sound her wit. She admits

THE WINTER'S TALE IV. iv 145

his logic, but refuses the personal conclusion. He has touched her convictions, and put her in posses- sion of her strength. From this moment the Her- mione nature in her rules the company. Camillo ventures a court compliment, which he perhaps assumes will upset her and make her silly, but she meets him with a subordinating answer. Turning from the great gentlemen, whom she has welcomed, according to her own interpretation of first principles, in a wholly original and queenly way, she greets (11. 112-129) her girl friends from the neighbouring farmhouses, half lost in the exercise of her rare in- sight into the world of beauty : —

Now, my fair'st friend,

I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might Become your time of day ; and yours ; and yours. O Proserpina, For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall From Dis's wagon ! 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. Bold oxlips, and The crown imperial. Lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one. O, these I lack, To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, To strew him o'er and o'er.

With such refinement of spirit, such vision, Per- dita cannot but win Camillo to her side. Polyxenes will not, of course, admit the evidence of her worth, finding her mistress of but a herdsman's home. To him a princess can be no princess except as con-

146 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

stituted by pedigree and environment. But Shake- shake- speare's lesson of rank is plain, and is made spearenot still piajner iater on by satire. Neither

of ansto- '

cratic sym- Leontes nor Polyxenes can by any possibil- pathies. jtv be royal. There are no kingly folk save such as have kingly minds, and live princely lives. Shakespeare is inferred to have been of aristocratic sympathies. The talk of the shepherd and the clown, in the second scene of the Fifth Act, over their elevation to the Sicilian peerage, should have answered the question for all time.

The author now draws away the young people of the company, to close the situation, that he may exhibit the grace of Perdita, dancing with the court- trained Florizel, in contrast with the rustic move- ments of the rest. Autolycus comes in singing, and exposing the flashy contents of his pack, and the farm girls are all agog over his gewgaws. Perdita keeps aloof, not because she is wearing more sub- stantial finery, but for the reason that the amenities and satisfactions of her living belong to a different plane. She has been brought up with gross- mouthed kitchen wenches, yet the pedler is fore- warned to sing no scurrilous ballads in her hearing. Then comes the moment when the plot must turn, Perdita not and bear Perdita away from the sphere intimidated where s^e ^as shown her strength so well. King. In Polyxenes the author has the forces ready. The King has been made weak enough to lose his temper over the proposed precontract, and fling out, leaving nothing but commands between the

THE WINTER'S TALE IV. IV 147

lovers and their will. Perdita is also to be tried by his threats to efface her beauty and put her to death by torture. She realises the position, in relation to the kingdom and the succession, into which she has been unwittingly drawn. But she will not be intimi- dated by a king who will so abuse his power. The charge that she has bewitched the prince, knowing fully who he was, she (11. 451-456) ignores com- pletely.

Even here undone.

I was not much afeared. For once or twice I was about to speak and tell him plainly The selfsame sun that shines upon his court Hides not his visage from our cottage, but Looks on all alike.

She looks timidly at Florizel, who seemingly in hesi- tation for the moment makes no effort to reassure her, and begs him to be gone. There are no words of reproach for the disappointment he has caused ; he must take care of his prospects at any cost to her. Her shepherd father denounces her, echoing the King's charges, as the author of the doom he must quickly meet. But she shows no indignation or im- patience, or indeed sorrow; for she seems to have faith, like her mother's, that injustice cannot prevail. When no course is open but flight with her lover, which Camillo's disloyalty to his friend makes prac- ticable, she does not hesitate from fear of Florizel's future or her own. She seems governed, for her part, by some indeterminate consciousness of her right to be a queen. And her lover's caprice of having her decked out in the robes of a court lady prepares

148 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

her for fitting entry to her father's presence and admiration.

The part of Perdita as a second heroine is finished here. When Hermione is given back to us, there Perdita's must be no rivalry, not even the most dis- kneeiing to tant, for our attention. We could have ier' guessed, however, that Shakespeare would not fail to bring the mother and her long-lost daugh- ter together, before us, in some artistic situation that would be exalting to them both. It is an entrancing moment when this country-bred maiden, who has never seen art collections before, or shared the company of great lords and ladies, kneels before Hermione in Paulina's resplendent chapel. What influences draw her to this homage the author does not reveal. But he has made us sure that she could not have ren- dered such tribute to a painted statue, and that she could not have withheld it in the real presence of the Queen who had borne the burdens of calumny, imprisonment, and seclusion so grandly for her sake.

But we cannot pretend to canvass the essential meanings of The Winter's Tale. We have gone far enough to descry its art, and to identify of what sort were the forces in the mind that wrought it. A proper realisation of its art expedients and elements and its deeper lessons must be left to the aspiring reader to accomplish for himself. As has been ob- served, it is peculiarly his right, in the search for such knowledge and mastery, to be left alone. The Outlines in the Appendix seem all that may be offered, without impertinence, for his aid.

IV

ROMEO AND JULIET

IT has long been recognised that a man's spiritual stature is registered in his fellowship with the True,

and in his reverence for the noblest examples what

of his mother's sex. We have seen what Shake-

. speare was

Shakespeare was in these respects when he in younger

had reached the age of forty-five years and upwards. We are anxious to know of what sort he was when he began his literary and dramatic career, and how far he was then capable of controlling his reader's sympathies by literary art. We unfortu- nately lack evidence of the kind required touching an age so early. The first play that may be profitably examined is the Romeo and Juliet, which is believed to have been completed considerably before his thirtieth year.

Shakespeare borrowed the characters and outline of this tragedy, as is well known, from Brooke's Romeus and Juliet ; but his indebtedness to Shake- this and its originals is much less than is debuo5 usually supposed. Brooke's narrative, read Brooke. in the light of Shakespeare's product, is raw and colourless, with little characterisation, and almost no genuine interpretation of life. It is one thing to take an incident from bare annals, and expand it, in

149

150 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

flowing Alexandrines, into literary language. It is a very different thing to supply omitted elements, distribute and differentiate the characters, and inau- gurate the whole as an integral exhibit of pulsing, energised humanity. The man who supplies the life could probably have devised the incidents, the plot, had he so willed ; for the greater in these matters certainly includes the less. Moreover, Brooke seems to have had small acquaintance with the people among whom his tale is laid ; he is blunderingly innocent of the customs, folk-characteristics, the exquisite susceptibilities, the enthusiasms, and the dreamy fervour which are of the essence of the history he has to tell. Shakespeare lavishes strange lore of this sort, we know not whence, on all his Italian plays, conspicuously Othello and The Merchant of Venice, besides the present one, and everywhere exalts the idealism and refinement of that race, with its arts and accomplishments of social culture, as the noblest and fullest yet attained. It was materials and elements of this kind, which, added to Brooke, have made the Romeo and Juliet possible.

Our purpose will not permit us to follow the play further than the portraiture of Juliet, as reached at The artistic the plighting of her troth to Romeo. The

t^estTee^ Piece °Pens with a brutal sword fight be- fray. tween the bravi, or hired ruffians, of the

rival houses of Capulet and Montague. Shake- speare's audiences were without knowledge of the truculence and persistency of old-time Italian feuds, or of the social and municipal conditions that made

ROMEO AND JULIET I. I 151

them possible. So he details the steps by which one of the inevitable combats is evolved. The street is roused, citizens turn out at a moment's warning, with clubs, to despatch the fighters, and the Prince, per- haps not unexpectant of such trouble, is quickly upon the scene. All this is illuminating as to the state of affairs in Verona, and in special as to the rankling and truceless enmity that divides the households of the title characters, and their respective social f ollowings. Benvolio, Romeo's friend, is on hand to help part the'swordsmen. Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, is of no such temper, and improves the opportunity to have at one of the opposing faction. Romeo might have been in the fray, had he been given to knight-errantry of Tybalt's sort. But he has no wish to fight for fight- ing's sake, being of gentler instincts and perhaps finer breeding. For the Montagues seem such men- tal stuff as a Renaissance is made of, while the stock of the Capulets is of a somewhat harsher fibre. At any rate, Romeo is of the choicest blood of Italy, and gives his days and nights to tastes and associates that even Capulet gossip cannot condemn. But he has of late shunned his friends, penned himself up from daylight, and justified the suspicion that he may be ailing in his wits. His malady is, however, nothing but what is incident to spirits as rare as his, and shows itself at worst but in vigils and Romeo in sonnet-making; for in his brain Italian long- ^deaisof ings have begun to stir. A beautiful virgin love, spirit, worshipful of womanhood, he has loitered along the paths of fancy, in love with the possibili-

I $2 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

ties of love rather than with any concrete and true evincement of its power. He has seen Rosaline, and read his ideals into her face and mind. But they are not there, or he would pursue her, and woo her, and essay to melt her indifference after a more typic Italian fashion.

A victim of ennui, unconsciously waiting for the fulfilment of conditions under which his passion shall blaze out, Romeo happens upon his opportunity. Capulet, a hale and fascinating gentleman, whose rich ancestors have made life for him an unbroken leisure, sends out a servant with invitations. He has neglected to select one who can read the names ; and Romeo chances to be the first pedestrian of that probable ac- complishment that is encountered upon the way. Had Romeo not been considerate and kindly, the true gen- tleman that we know, the events of the play might have been much hindered ; he would have answered the fellow with Tybalt snappishness, and sent him farther. Romeo treats him civilly, reads his list for him, and gains knowledge of the gathering at Capu- let's house, where, if he is minded to use the liberty of a mask, he may look once more on Rosaline.

The next scene paints for us the first picture of Juliet. Her mother is a woman of half her husband's Lady Cap- years, shallow, conventional, spiritually un- uiet in developed. She does not seem to know very of her well this daughter whom she has let the daughter. nurse bring up in her household, and mani- festly stands somewhat in awe of her sober, demure, and steadfast disposition. Paris has proposed himself

ROMEO AND JULIET I. ill 153

as a suitor. Juliet must be told ; and the mother approaches the task of conferring with her fourteen- year old daughter upon the topic of the affections with something like embarrassment. Brooke makes Juliet's age to have been sixteen ; Paynter's version of the same story, which Shakespeare must have seen, presents her as two years older. Shakespeare cor- rects both the one and the other English, or Northern, numeral, according to physiological verities, by sub- stituting the proper Italian one. The heroine at least shall be fancy free, and unwakened yet to the signifi- cance of love.

The art of portraying character consists mainly in making the given subject do or say such things as are potential and illuminating concerning the Theart of complete and habitual personality. Thus, character Tybalt's thrust at Benvolio, in the first scene, drawine- makes us understand that ruffian thoroughly for the residue of the play. It is possible to select vitally symptomatic things, which shall put the reader into potential acquaintanceship with the past and the fu- ture of the character considered. Lady Capulet is not made here to seek her daughter out, to talk love-mat- ters, in the confidences of a mother's closet ; though an Hermione would have communed with a Perdita in that way. This woman sends the nurse to call her daughter to her.

The nurse, again, is characterised to us vividly by the words which make up the first line she utters. It besides reveals to us in a flash that she is an Italian, and not an English serving-woman. Called into the

154 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

home as nurse for the nonce of this Juliet, she has stayed on, filling the mother's place, and administer- ing moral nurture. Shakespeare needs to make us know, at the outset, among what influences and sur- roundings this flower of purity has grown.

Juliet, in turn, is made to answer what shall be imaginatively suggestive of her nature: 'Madam, I Juliet's am nere- What is your will ? ' No great strength of f ondness or sympathy exists between mother ten and daughter, and it is not the daughter's fault. There is quantitatively more character al- ready, in the daughter, more seriousness and strength, than in the make-up of the mother. Lady Capulet sends the nurse away, but, quickly realising that the conversation will be strained, calls her back to help fill up the silences. The nurse, for her part, discloses immediately, by her appropriation of the conversa- tion, and spinning out unimportant details, in Dame Quickly fashion, how she has magnified her offices and enlarged her sphere. Some characterisation of Juliet is accomplished also through the nurse's talk. By the accident of her reference to Juliet's maturity, Lady Capulet finds her clue. ' Tell me, daughter Juliet, how stands your disposition to be married ? ' Juliet's reply, as we might have guessed, indicates a mind not yet confident or conscious of charms, not like Romeo's in love with love, withal self-poised, replete with the seriousnesses of living that come, all the world over, to demure maiden minds. There is, besides, we may suspect, something of the reticence or indeed unfrankness that, in matters of the affections,

ROMEO AND JULIET I. m 155

seems to thrive equally under Southern as under North- ern suns.

Naturally enough, the nurse, with her doubtful domestic history, applauds Juliet's notion of the 1 honour ' of being married. The attempt of the mother to recommend to her daughter the idea, on general grounds, of having a husband, is pitiable. It is certain that Juliet has given her thus far no anxiety about lovers. And then her absurd praise of Paris, —

Verona's summer hath not such a flower, —

is of a kind that neither Paris nor any sort of virile wooer would have held it flattery to hear, and is scarcely matronly or motherly. Juliet remains silent while her mother and the nurse try to coax her into some degree of recognition of Paris' s eligibility. Her impressions of Paris are no doubt definite enough, and it is perhaps not easy to say, as she does say in effect, that she will give him the best chance she can. Of one thing she- is sure, — she will in nowise allow her- self to be attracted further, after the manner of incon- siderate and undutiful daughters, than her mother vouchsafes consent. Juliet thinks this altogether a safe promise, supposing Paris alone in question. But she will break it beautifully all the same, and with about as much regret and recklessness as if to elude a mother's vigilance were her chief employment. There is no truer maid in Italy, though she is not an Imogen. And yet, after Cymbeline yielded to the new Queen's will, did not Imogen deceive ?

156 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Romeo and Benvolio, this time with several of their friends, flanked by torch-bearers and pages, appear The need agaul m ^e following or f ourth scene. We ofaMer- wonder at the length of the dialogue, which seems at first but to delay the action. We then note that in the stage direction, Enter Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio, there is a nearer friend at Romeo's side. The point of it all, or at least the main one, is the brilliant and voluble conversation of Mer- cutio. Our hero has seemed unresponsive, heavy, untypical. Mercutio makes good what we miss in him, and fascinates us by his imagination.

The little group of young Italian gentlemen sets out, to the strokes of the drum, for the palace of Juliet's father. No such bright and fashionable com- pany, we may be sure, is abroad to-night on Verona streets. We are taken in advance of their arrival, by the opening of scene v, to the house of the Capulets. The servants hurry about, and the musicians are in waiting, in the great hall. This introduction to the home, while the host delays, will enable us to give our attention wholly to the guests, when they shall appear. Capulet soon brusquely enters, with Juliet as acting hostess, and puts the company at once in perfect humour. His Italian volubility, and gestures, and repetitions, —

'Tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone, —

individualise him vividly.

Romeo has seen Juliet, and her staid brow and sub- dued enjoyment of the scene are fascinating to his

ROMEO AND JULIET I. v 157

melancholic mood. She is beautiful, and she is grave ; the high seriousness and imaginative refinement of her nature are rarely blended. Here is his affinity, his ideal ; his affection changes from an inner vision to a concrete, evinced reality. In the flickering, incon- stant light of the torches he traces out each feature, and finds the divine idea of beauty on which she is planned complete. She is dancing with some swain, — not Paris, who is not mentioned, and seems to have kept bashfully aloof, and Romeo waits till the measure shall be finished. He has sought no part- ner, and, being a torch-holder, is in proximity to no one who might tell him who she is. The serving- man, of whom he makes inquiry, naturally does not know of whose family she is ; and Romeo gives way to his interpretative and realising thoughts : —

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright ! Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear ; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear ! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand, And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight ! For I ne'er saw beauty till this night.

His domino conceals his face ; but his voice, which is deep and musical, and his figure, mark him to Tybalt as of the Montagues. The old hate blazes out. Tybalt would have set upon him, and despatched him then and there, defenceless and unsuspecting, but for the veto of his uncle. Thus the motive for

158 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Tybalt's later challenge to Romeo, and for the insult that Mercutio will decline to tolerate, is introduced.

While Capulet quiets Tybalt, with difficulty keep- ing his own rage from blazing out in the face of his guests, the music has stopped, and Romeo, giving up his torch, bends his steps through the press to Juliet's side. He is of fine presence and stature, gracefully proportioned, and the deep seriousness of his brow tells of high thoughts and infinite devo- tion. Juliet reads him instantly, and gains the vision of his ideals and worth. Here is the knight who, to her, is tender and strong, and pure and true. It makes little difference what such souls who have seen each other say. Words are hieroglyphics that the vulgar, who overhear, cannot divine. Romeo takes her by the hand. All his dreaminess, and far- off, impracticable worship are gone from his mind. He is at his best of cleverness and grace: —

If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this : My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this ; For saints have hands that pilgrim's hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do : They pray. Grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

ROMEO AND JULIET I. v 159

This is not very skilful, this hint that she shall make no stir, whatever happens. But Juliet is young, and innocent of all less open wiles that expert and practised charmers know. Grant White believes that Juliet here has been contriving to be drawn into a corner, that there may be no escape from Romeo's conclusion. This heavy-handed comment seems of value, but only in support of the contrary idea. White has in mind Juliets of another sort, and there are such, who would proceed, after the fashion that he affirms, in the case of any Romeo, and forget him in half an hour. It is one thing to be in love with a whole sex, but quite another to be in love with a single example of it ; and Juliet is the last woman in the world to think, mischievously,- of trying to make a conquest. Lady Capulet at this point calls Juliet away, and Romeo, who has not yet removed his mask, is not recognised by her. Juliet, who has not fully seen his face, has heard his voice, and will know her lover by that, though she were separated from him for half a lifetime.

Of course much in this meeting of the lovers is left to the acting. If the stage Romeo and Juliet feel and look the characters that they represent, there is not much difficulty in playing the respective parts. No exterior grace or archness will make up for the profound psychology on which Shakespeare founds both title characters. Theirs is no common physical attraction, each to other. When Juliet is released from the social task imposed by her mother, the young men have taken leave of their host and are

160 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

departing. Aided by something of the reserve appar- ent in the interview with her mother and the nurse, she now inquires out who is the guest that charms her. She has faith in her vision of his sincerity, and feels in her heart that he is not married. But she is of Gothic temperament, and must look on the dark side first. If it prove that he is not for her, if he have a wife already, then will love be shut out for- ever from her life, and life itself will not be long. Romeo and his companions have probably, on with- drawing, raised their masks, and the identity of each is known. So the nurse brings knowledge that he is not married, but that he is a Montague. The result is but a change in Juliet's seriousness.

My only love sprung from my only hate ! Too early seen unknown, and known too late ! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That I must love a loathed enemy.

Juliet has never loved before; her life, like a George Eliot's, or Maggie Tulliver's, has been too sombre and severe. That we can understand. But why has she hated? That is the Italian something that we cannot well understand. . Every Capulet hates all the Montagues, with perfect Southron hatred, and each child, from inherited enmity and from nurture, hates with the full hatred of its father. To administer the element of time, most important here, Shakespeare has the Chorus of the Earlier Drama come out and occupy the stage. The author must bring the lovers to their understanding within

ROMEO AND JULIET l6l

the compass of a hundred and sixty lines, a feat scarcely achieved elsewhere, and must make to him- self friends of all the accessories and expedients of stage tradition. To have late events rehearsed, and new ones interpreted beforehand, by a stage personi- fication, interposes a signal experience between our first seeing the lovers and their next appearance, and psychologically retards the resumption of the plot. Shakespeare uses a similar expedient, to the same effect, when he makes Old Father Time come in, with scythe and hourglass, at the opening of Act IV in The Winter s Tale, and explain the omission of sixteen years. The effect is also, of course, in some measure to assist credulity.

Anglo-Saxon prejudices are apt to be stirred at the notion of love at first sight. It seems based on noth- ing but the most superficial attractions, and The itai- holds in itself the promise of little but disil- ians not a

i i -HIT • • fickle, in-

lusion and repentance. Moreover, it is a constant common assumption that the Italian nature race- is fickle and shallow, and that the loves of a Juliet and Romeo, if uninterrupted, could have proved but fleeting, and owe their intensity to nothing but the suddenness of passion. There is probably no remedy for such ignorance and race conceit but travel and sojourn among the misjudged people. It does not help much to affirm abstractly that the Italian is at his best not an inconstant creature, falling in love, — as we are reminded Romeo did, — with every pretty face, but quite the contrary. Love is founded upon imaginative recognition and conception of high quali-

1 62 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

ties of worth and nobleness. It is not essential that a Romeo's eye dwell upon the signs of such noble- ness and worth continuously, for weeks and months, before discerning what they stand for, and respond- ing to their challenge. Such might be the course of love, were the signs doubtful, or the beauty and worth that they stand for partial, alloyed with baser elements. But to Romeo the soul of Juliet lies open at first view. Her clear seeing of spiritual verities, and consequent earnestness and frank sincerity, her wifely solicitudes and sweet devotion, her purity and self-subordination, are open secrets, and would have been as patent, and perhaps as potent, had they been looked on by Anglo-Saxon eyes. Typically the Italian Romeo is more acute and intense of vision than his Northern brother; and there are in his Juliet's eyes messages more soulful and transparent than can be read by the light of colder suns. While human nature is human nature everywhere in kind, there are beautiful and wonderful differences of de- gree. On the basis of these the author has con- structed the present play.

Till the sight of Juliet, Romeo spent his days in sighing, and his nights in feverish and empty vigil. Rosaline was a symbol of his ideal toward which he was drawn to no personal approach. From Juliet he finds it impossible to go away. His group of mask- ers has reduced itself, before reaching the lane or alley beside the great Capulet enclosure, to Mercutio and Benvolio; and from these advancing with the torch-bearers, whom he has now sent forward, he

ROMEO AND JULIET II. I 163

slips aside into the alley. Before his friends have fairly missed him from sight, he has climbed the wall and leaped within. In the first situation, our hero was subordinated to Benvolio, who discoursed with concern of his late behaviour. On the advent of Mercutio, Romeo seemed infelicitous and heavy in comparison. But now, as the one and the other call after Romeo vainly in the dark, we find our interest and sympathies transferred. Benvolio is staunch, well-meaning, clean of lips and life, altogether such a companion as a Romeo would attract and attach in friendship to himself. Mercutio is livelier, but less substantial, and perhaps of less prestige socially, and seems rather to have selected himself than to have been selected, in Romeo's following. When he hits off Romeo's boyish devotion to Rosaline so cleverly, we of course applaud : —

Romeo ! humours ! madman ! passion ! lover ! Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh ! Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied. Cry but ' Ay me ! ' Pronounce but ' love ' and ' dove '; Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word, One nickname for her purblind son and heir, Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim, When King Cophetua lov'd the beggar maid. — He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not. The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.

Yet the deliverance reacts in Romeo's favour. Mer- cutio, we admit, is clever ; but he is not lofty-minded. He has seen the world, and affects to despise such an attachment as Romeo, he believes, is forming. We

164 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

prefer Romeo's virile innocence to all Mercutio's wayward wisdom. The young man who will speak of his friend's inamorata lightly, with insult to her womanhood, has lost the token of true manliness.1 We shall find the equilibrium between him and Romeo still more completely shifted, and of purpose, as the play proceeds.

As his friends withdraw, Romeo looks at the win- dows along the side of the palace, hoping to divine what ones are Juliet's. At the instant she has en- tered her chamber, and is lighting the tapers, which reveal her outline, and shining out to him draw his steps toward her. Immediately his romantic imagi- nation is kindled to its best strength of interpretative vision. What he utters is hardly in the dialect of an English lover, but may be taken as indicative of the Italian energy and activity of his mind. Juliet has just come from the dismissing of the guests below, with the identity of Romeo still in her mind. Ad- vancing from the yet uncooled air of the chamber to the open window, she gives way to the sigh, till now suppressed, ' that her only love should have sprung from her only hate.' But the tones of Romeo's voice yet ring in her mind, and have made her suspect it possible to hate unjustly. Romeo of course cannot guess what is in her thoughts, but his fancy gets new quickening, as is seen in the images that now shape themselves to his lips : —

1 In studies of Shakespeare's art, only complete and unexpurgated texts should be used. Points like the present one will otherwise be missed.

.ROMEO AND JULIET II. n 165

O speak again, bright angel ! For thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head, As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him, When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air.

There is a little silence, and then is heard, as said musingly, and in confidence to herself : —

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo ? Deny thy father, and refuse thy name; Or, if thou -wilt not, be but sworn my love, And /'// no longer be a Capulet.

Juliet is dropping the plummet deep down in her soul, and is finding strange soundings there. She feels that she can give up her dear home, with all its elegance and happy memories, she can go away from her father and her friends, and even renounce the proud name of Capulet, all because of an uncontrol- lable passion to yield and merge herself in sacrifice and devotion to this prince, this deity who has so suddenly revealed himself to her. The Juliet of a higher latitude makes these discoveries more slowly, and feels it well to enter into contention, get comfort from the losing battle against their power. Juliet discerns the will of nature, and allies herself with it sweetly. But Romeo, — what can Romeo know of the forces that have wrought the change ? Will he believe indeed that there has been a change ? Will he think her shallow, conceive her capable of throw- ing herself into the arms of any other man who might address her amorously ? He has read her

1 66 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

eyes, the deep meanings of her mind, too well for that. He would have wooed her timorously and long ; but now what shall he do ? Juliet's self-prob- ing and philosophising save him a decision : —

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague ? It is nor hand nor foot Nor arm nor face nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name ! What's in a name f That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. — Romeo, doffihy name, And for that name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself.

Juliet, let us remember, is not pondering why she should wish to give up her maiden freedom, and belong to another more than to herself, but how it should be possible for her to resign herself to one of the hated house of Montague. Romeo is long past any trouble of that kind, for he is a man, and can but vaguely guess, in this moment of intoxica- tion, how tenaciously Juliet's feminine conversatism holds her to the past. But he will indeed deny his father, and refuse his name.

I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I'll be new baptiz'd. Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

. . . By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am. My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, Because it is an enemy to thee. Had I it written, I would tear the word.

ROMEO AND JULIET II. n 167

The victory was really won before Romeo spoke. Juliet is too practical to think of Romeo's involving himself in any trouble with his family on her account. She wishes to make all the renunciation, and is be- ginning to find it a joy to speak the once hated names : —

Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague ?

Romeo is filled with romantic ideals, and is gov- erned by them. Juliet has seen this, and loves him for it. Juliet's fancies do not fly so high, as she is of a matter-of-fact temper and constitution; and Romeo loves her because her nature is complemental to his own. The real and the ideal are seen strangely in dialogue, as the twain now talk. Juliet asks in fond and wondering anxiousness, but Romeo answers valiantly, in the language of the clouds. All her utterances are wholly feminine in emphasis and dic- tion, while his are as truly masculine. She inquires first how he came, and will he tell really why f

How cam'st thou thither, tell me ? and -wherefore ? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, And the place death, considering who thou art, If any of my kinsmeny?;&/thee here.

With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do that dares love attempt. Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.

If they do see thee, they will murther thee.

Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye

Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet,

And I am proof against their enmity.

1 68 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

I would not for the world they saw thee here.

I have night's cloak to hide me from their eyes. And but thou love me, let them find me here. My life were better ended by their hate, Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

Attention has many times been called to the puns and other marks of immaturity in this play. But there are no puns or rhymings here. Was ever English used to more telling purpose?

By whose direction found'st thou out this place ?

By love, that first did prompt me to inquire. He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes. I am no pilot. Yet wert thou as far As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise.

While they have been talking in these strange interchanges of realism and romance, Juliet's intui- tions have been active with the practical aspects of the case. Romeo would have kept voicing his airy nothings till daylight, with never a thought of the Juliet plans loss of time. If they are to belong to each for both, other, there must be a plan. As Romeo seems in supreme content with things as they are, she must act for both. Since she has indicated objections to his family, while he has waived all unpleasant recollections of hers, it behooves her to show her generosity without delay. Then, too, she must excuse what Romeo has overheard, whether she make it worse or better. He will understand her like a god, and it will be sweet to confess herself to one who is so loftily in love.

ROMEO AND JULIET II. n 169

Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny . What I have spoke ; but farewell compliment ! Dost thou love me ? I know thou wilt say ay, — And I will take thy -word. Yet, if thou swear }st, Thou mayst prove false. At lovers' perjuries, They say, Jove laughs. 0 gentle Romeo, ^"thou dost love, pronounce \\. faithfully ; Or, if thou thinKst I am too quickly won, I'll frown, and be perverse, and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the -world.

Her dismay and pleading, when she realises again how much of her maidenly secret she has betrayed, are Imogen-like and rarely beautiful : —

In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, And therefore thou mayst think my haviour light. But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange.

Romeo, by instinct, applies to her an equally formal designation, answering to her " gentleman," —

Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear.

He would assure her of the utter fascination of her frankness, and of the eternal fidelity of his soul to a faith so childlike and complete. But she The power stops the words that she would joy much to of Juliet's hear, because they are gratuitous and spring from too much concern. She would have Romeo as reposeful as herself : —

O swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

I/O WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

What shall I swear by?

Do not swear at all;

Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, And I'll believe thee.

Such trust would lay hold on all that is sacred in manhood, and make an unworthy Romeo true. It is not a wilful, reckless venture, but her tribute to the nobleness of his mind.

To Anglo-Saxon prudence the scene has seemed precipitate. Shakespeare must conciliate his reader How and remedy somewhat the haste. His best

Shake- device will be to produce some impression iTvlates^he again of prolonged time, as by multiplying haste. the reader's experiences between what may be called stages in the relations of the lovers. Juliet's sense of the suddenness of their attachment is first used. She thinks to withdraw, though no line of action that shall bring them again together seems yet developed before her mind.

Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night. It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden, Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say it lightens. Sweet, good night ! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night ! As sweet repose and rest Come to thy heart as that within my breast !

I suspect our sympathies are with Romeo, who feels the incompleteness of the interview that he has so little helped to shape. He would like assurance

ROMEO AND JULIET II. n I /I

that a formal betrothment has been made before he goes away. In Juliet's feeling that has been done already. It is such a little thing, she must have him know, compared with the fathomless bounty that she would have all his.

O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

What satisfaction canst thou have to-night ?

The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.

I gave thee mine before thou didst request it, And yet I would it were to give again.

Wouldst thou withdraw it ? For what purpose, love ?

But to be frank, and give it thee again.

And yet I wish but for the thing I have.

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep : the more I give to thee

The more / have, for both are infinite.

I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu ! —

Anon, good nurse ! — Sweet Montague, be true.

Stay but a little, I will come again.

To her the name of Montague, as she turns from him, is no longer ' fair', as it had grown to be a few lines back; it is even 'sweet.' The effect of the re- peated good-nights and adieus is beginning to seem like the registry of a much longer wooing. The call of the nurse is but another expedient to give perspec- tive to their acquaintanceship. When Juliet Juliet's returns, her mind is cleared, the vision of Plan- their future has been made out. They must not risk another interview ; the least suspicion of their rela- tions would imprison them from each other's sight

1/2 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

forever. They will wed secretly, and leave Verona, Romeo shall say whither : —

Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.

If that thy bent of love be honourable,

Thy purpose marriage, send me word to-morrow,

By one that I'll procure to come to thee,

Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite ;

And all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay,

And follow thee my lord throughout the world.

All the anxiety that should have been her mother's comes to her. If the price is too great, if Romeo will not make the sacrifice, let him advise her speed- ily. The nurse is made to call again, and urgently, and Romeo withdraws. Juliet has left nothing for him to do but make up his mind. Like Imogen's insistency with Pisanio, after Posthumus's letter call- ing her to Milford Haven, her woman's resolution carries all before it.

But Imogen left out nothing from her plans ; the author makes Juliet forget to arrange with Romeo the hour. This is added to give them, in seeming, another interview. And of course, in the dramatic action, and the fresh glimpse of Juliet's mind, there is great gain besides to the scene. The philosophy of her thought, —

Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud ; Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies, And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine, With repetition of my Romeo's name, —

is un-Anglican, yet wholly such as Desdemona and many another of Shakespeare's Italian women might

ROMEO AND JULIET II. n 173

compass by the way. It is well to be reminded of the strength and momentum of her intelligence. She sends her voice out hissingly after Romeo, who has fortunately retired but slowly. He presents himself beneath her, and she speaks down to him in a fresh, new, soulful salutation, ' Romeo,' that he cannot com- prehend as we do. That is now the name of names that she would not have him refuse. The scene apparently finds here its climax. She does not ask him if he has bethought himself ; the old faith has really never wavered.

At what o'clock to-morrow Shall I send to thee ?

The question asked, and answered, Juliet lingers, finding no reason why ; the moment has come when the woman in her ordains that she withdraw : —

'Tis almost morning. I would have thee gone, And yet no farther than a wanton's bird, Who lets it hop a little from her hand, Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves, And with a silk thread plucks it back again, So loving-jealous of his liberty.

I would I -were thy bird.

Sweet, so would 7.

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing. Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

The same objectiveness is delectably present again, in the mode and substance of these rare lines. It seems clear what kind of imagination Shakespeare postulates for his best womanhood. He would have

1/4 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

feminine vision, or intuition, that gift by which woman is chiefly separate from man, natively em- The intui- ployed in processes that make for his exal- tionof tation and advance, and not in unapplied,

Shake- speare's untethered exercise. Shakespeare knows

women. tne otner type of female imagination, of which he has made stern studies in Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra. The George Sands and George Eliots have not greatly advanced the race, and, as personal fac- tors and figures, stand apart from their sex at large. Woman is to Shakespeare's thought the interpreter of the gods in things touching the Good and the True and their increase upon the earth. Why are purity and worth the basis of man's love for woman? Because coming generations are to be born thus by consecutive, progressive selection of the Beautiful and the True, which are but manifestations and modes of God. So the race evolves toward these excellencies, and is compassing them as rapidly at this moment, in degree, as ever in its history. The Kingdom of God comes not except by influence. Rightness and Beauty cannot strive or cry; they must be sought and chosen for their own sake. The man who discerns, and sells all that he has that he may buy, achieves them within his own existence. By the economy of the spiritual universe, each grandly noble and righteous deed goes to the credit side of every indorsing and coveting soul's account. Shakespeare has made in Romeo simply a man who discerns completely, — as Posthumus did not, and buys the pearl of price with all his treasure. Juliet

ROMEO AND JULIET 175

is but an Imogen nature more richly glorious and alert with Beauty.

The Romeo and Juliet is then but another Cymbe- line. Without Juliet it could not have been con- ceived; and the Juliet in it is not the Juliet of Brooke or of Bandello. Shakespeare is the same man, in respect of spiritual ideals and aims, at twenty-eight as at forty-six, except that he is more insistent and intense. Why should he have at- tempted such a portraiture as this Juliet, when his fame and success were yet a-making? Expanding and realizing Brooke's poem did not require it. Granting that Shakespeare discerned the character, just as we have found it developed to us, how shall we explain his venturing with it before the coarse audiences of The Theatre or The Curtain ? We know what the behaviour of salacious and brutal men is in playhouses even yet, over tender situa- tions, when they are in force and dare to groan or jeer. Plays were not seldom interrupted in Shake- speare's day, even by high-bred patrons, and the im- personators mocked and badgered. How then could Shakespeare have risked, before a sixteenth- The century rabble of horse-boys and watermen of Juliet and their sort, with a sprinkling of gallants ghake- and masked women, to present Juliet in the speare's orchard scene of the Third Act, waiting for audiences- her Romeo ? Yet we have no reason to suspect that the part was ever greeted with so much as a whisper of ribaldry, though the Juliet who paced the orchard walks and said the lines, was not a woman, but a boy.

176 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

There is nothing more inspired in Shakespeare or the world's literature, and nothing more delicate in its sympathy with woman, — save perhaps, in some por- tions, the treatment of Viola in Twelfth Night, — than the first paragraph of the scene in question. Shake- speare's patrons would have at that time liked from him such plays as Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ford, and Massinger later wrote, but no such works did they get. Shakespeare alone of all the craft grew rich. He could not have known beforehand the result of refusing to cater to the public taste. There is no reasonable conclusion, save that he pleased first and chiefly of all himself, and wrote, even when bid- den by Elizabeth, by truth.

As was said earlier, the basis of the play is certain exotic and southern excellencies of character, ex- hibited and evaluated in degree. Our manner of analysis has had reference mainly to distinctions of kind. To have considered it with full reference to its distinctions of degree would have involved more technical and abstruse inquiries. The outline anal- yses, in the Appendix to this volume, should clear up matters left doubtful here, and enable an approximate comprehension of the whole play. In art, or expedi- ents for the control of the reader's consents and sym- pathies, the piece is masterly. Prominent among new phases, achieved after the scene where we parted with the lovers, are the full womanising of Juliet, the evolv- ing of her feigned consent to marry Paris, the drink- ing of the potion, the awakening of Romeo, and the compelling, resistless management of the conclusion.

ROMEO AND JULIET 177

Perhaps no single procedure is more palpable, or striking, than the appropriation and merging of Mercutio, after his work is done, into the personality of the hero that he has been formed to serve. The subordination of Mercutio commences, as

. Mercutio s

has been noted, at the opening of the gifts and ac- Second Act Shakespeare completes it by comPlish-

r r J ments

causing him to suspect Romeo of having be- made over gun an amour or intrigue, and by making toRomeo- him offer a scurrilous insult to Juliet's messenger, in the fourth scene following. Romeo has become at this interview, in consequence of his relation with Juliet, wholly sane and normalised, and proves himself no less than a match, in wit-passages, for his late overshadowing friend. This finishes the second stage of change. Then, after Mercutio's quarrel and fight with Tybalt, which Romeo quells, all his assets of gifts and brilliancy seem assumed and absorbed by the hero. Benvolio drops out of sight and is for- gotten. Romeo is now the man of the play. He kills Tybalt, whose chief accomplishment is swords- manship, almost at the first pass. He is grand and perfect in his daring, and strength, and resolution. He is aroused, though he is not yet awake. Of course the author's device is simple; it is Romeo's sacrifice to avenge his friend that exalts him, and makes him that friend's spiritual heir. But the skill of this turn, which is not in Brooke, is worthy of all praise.

The deeper meanings of the play can be but touched on here. The conditions under which they are de-

N

178 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

veloped are idealized somewhat in the young man's The deeper wav> Shakespeare knew no science, as we meaning of have come to know it in these days, but ie play' seems to have divined pretty clearly many of its conclusions. The groundwork of society, as he sees it, is wholly in accord with principles of sociology and biology recognised to-day. In this drama, as just said, he postulates the complete conditions that nature would have always precedent to her work. In Posthu- mus there is too little discernment and appreciation of Imogen's worth to inspire him to his full share in the work of the world. Romeo is a man who can read a perfect woman, and place himself in complete subservience to her leading and inspiration. Nature guards woman with all her resources, and places her chief in the social economy ; man is but secondary. Nature puts within her instincts that shape her course ; man's is shaped by hers. Upon fundamental thinking of this kind Shakespeare works out the play. Juliet is shown at first as merely a girl-woman, hid in the life of the home, having no secrets from her mother and her nurse, and wholly free from the in- terference of sex-forces. Under our eye, she is brought into acquaintance with the divinely appointed complement of her life. The first demand is that she break with the traditions of her past. This demand she meets. The woman-instincts in her at once assert themselves. She, and not her lover, plans their union and their future. Cut off by fate from present flight with Romeo, she is confronted with the marriage to Paris, for some time in prospect, but

ROMEO AND JULIET 179

precipitated now to temper the grief caused by her cousin's death. She tries to confess to her father, but his Italian violence makes that impossible. To prevent with us the notion of retreat the author has taken care to make her by Romeo's visit irrevocably a wife. The nurse that Shakespeare has provided in part to keep her counsel, and help hide from her par- ents that she already has a husband, unblushingly advises that she wed Paris and end her troubles. Astounded at the immorality of the guide whose steps she has followed hitherto, Juliet takes upon herself all her burdens, and sets forth to walk alone. By the defection of the nurse, whom he has provided to this end, Shakespeare consummates the woman- ising of his heroine. No course is left but one of indirections commended and urged by her confessor. She is to feign consent to the marriage, and juiiet,inef- by a sleeping potion remove herself from her fect.accepts father's power, and prepare for the belated Romeo's flight with Romeo, who till then shall know honour- nothing of her trials. The strength of the ancient Capulets comes to her. She goes to death, or indeed experiences dreaded worse than death, to save Romeo his rights in her.

Such beautiful devotion should have been re- warded; it is tragedy unspeakable that all this endeavour should come to nought. There is no de- fault on Juliet's side. As she awakes, and finds the terrors of the place forestalled by Friar Laurence's torch, the heaven of the future seems to open. The two lives, completed so sublimely each by each,

180 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

should have grown to be the envy of the gods, and left their spiritual increase to the generations. But all this was not to be, for in her bosom Romeo lies dead. There is no swoon, no outcry, no asking for the reasons. The Anglo-Saxon woman would have left it all with God. Juliet has done that long since, and dies rather than patch a life that has lost its goal and warrant of devotion. Romeo, who has spoiled all, knows nothing of true service, and has lived but for himself. It is not his fault, for it is his nature, and it is thus far according to the nature of his sex. He has looked for nothing but happiness, which seems his right. Denied it, he is done with the world, and recognises no debt to it or to mankind. When his dream is broken by the report of Juliet's death, asking no questions as to the manner of her dying, pausing not to learn from Friar Laurence her last words to him, he hurries with Southern passion to claim his place in Capulet's monument, and for no good except his own. His faith, like Posthumus's, has failed. He should have guessed that Juliet would not terminate her life without some word or token or remembrance for himself, and that whatever she has done, she has done it for his sake.

and wo- it is right that man should be selfish, and it

man'ssacri- . , . . 1111 i •

fice, com- was appointed that he should be such, just piementai as ft was appointed that woman should be

modes.

self-immolating. His selfishness makes him strong, and his strength is to be in the fulness of time for her and for the race. That fulness of time for this twain is come and past. But Romeo has for-

ROMEO AND JULIET l8l

gotten to be patient and act for both. Juliet has never, from the moment of loving Romeo, acted for herself, and dies deliberately, in the repose and certi- tude of a fulfilled career. Romeo dies in the white intensity of a passion inconceivable and incompre- hensible to Northern minds. Were his mistake, like Posthumus's, not mortal, Juliet would have schooled him, as Posthumus was schooled. So must it ever be, the perfect woman subduing her lord to patience, and taming his selfishness unto the bearing of bur- dens, not his, not hers indeed, but God's, to the end of the discipline and perfecting of them both. Romeo and Juliet were ill-starred lovers because their trial came before her work in him was yet begun.

In point of art, it does not appear that we have in the Shakespeare of 1592 a less ingenious or less con- fident master than in the Shakespeare of The art of 1610. As regards insight and knowledge he Shake-

i • M- speare in

is full-grown, as touching ability to sway 1592 and our sympathies and abate our prejudices he l6lo> shows no sign of empiric or apprentice powers. In- deed, in conception, and proportion, and movement, Romeo and Juliet is superior to the plays assigned to the later year. In Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale there are limitations and defects of plot that Shakespeare handicaps himself with nowhere else. Nothing, apparently, but availability to a vital pur- pose, as was earlier suggested, could have prompted him to attempt the handling of such refractory and inartistic material. In the Romeo and Juliet we have

1 82 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

a good example of the kind of matter that Shake- speare habitually selects. There is nowhere a better plot or more typic tragedy. In some points of execu- tion it falls much short of what may be found in plays composed but a few years later. There are Italianisms and puns, there is stilted declamation, there are passages cast throughout in rhyme. But these, except the first, essentially disappear after the first three scenes, and are even here, as in the para- graphs of the Prince, of Romeo, and of his father, manifestly employed in part with a characterising purpose.

In the plays thus far attempted, we have noted the author's art only incidentally, and with reference to minor expedients and aspects. In the space that remains for this part of our task, it will be necessary to consider Shakespeare as an artist more specifically in the larger problems involved in the making of a great play. Perhaps his technical mastery is in Coriolanus most complete in kind. His achieve- ments in Antony and Cleopatra are surely the most considerable in degree. Othello is to be mentioned as probably the most perfect of the tragedies, and King Lear as the most powerful. Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice belong high in the list, because of excellencies more exquisite and gentle, yet no less unrivalled. All these are well adapted for our purpose, save for extent, and for the chance that they might need to be expounded throughout before they could be made to serve. Macbeth is a shorter play, and condensed in action, the story and

ROMEO AND JULIET 183

ground-work are adequate, and familiar perhaps to the majority of readers. We shall then try to look at the material of this play as Shakespeare saw it, and watch the treatment by which it was made to assume its present form.

V

THE DRAMATIC ART OF MACBETH

IN every drama Shakespeare quickly brings before our minds a " maximum consummation," greatly to be A"maxi- desired, and makes us conceive and covet it

mum con- .

summa- as the outcome of the whole. This consum- ti0h ed d mati°n *s generally presented as early as the coveted at second situation, often in the second scene. nin^f11 ^n Cywbetine our desire to see Imogen re- everypiay. stored to her husband and to her rights in the royal household, which is the dramatic consumma- tion for that play, is shaped after the introductory dia- logue in the first scene.1 In The Winters Tale our conception and desire of the conclusion come in the second scene. In Romeo and Juliet it is delayed until Scene iii., or if the affinity between the lovers is not divined so early, in Scene v. The arousement of interest, and of the wish for a specific outcome, is the first step in Shakespeare's dramatic, or, indeed, we should say literary, treatment of every theme.

It does not always happen that we realise our con- ceived and coveted conclusion when the play ends ; and in that case we call the whole a Tragedy. In

1 It falls in the second scene, however, in the earliest or Folio division of the play, the first scene ending at 1. 69. Romeo and Juliet is not separated into acts or scenes in the Folio edition.

184

DRAMATIC ART 185

the present instance Shakespeare will have to con- struct a drama of this kind, if he follows ~u fi .

The first

history, and Macbeth will be the hero. But condition Macbeth is neither great, nor good, nor, in- ofTrasedy- deed, much more, in point of prowess and strength, than an average swordsman. How can promise be developed in such a man, how shall we be allured into wishing to see him king of Scotland by usurpation, or coveting for him a brilliant and undisturbed career? Clearly enough, no maximum consummation of less potency will carry the piece through. But how shall the author overcome our indifference to such a hero ? It would be a pretty hard problem, if the task could be made our own, for the most of us. Our schools of literature could scarcely help. The solution of the difficulty is not to be found in rhetoric or criti- cism, — else Shakespeare would not have reached it, — but in psychology. Such control over the imagi- nation of the reader must be sought for as will make him disregard Macbeth's limitations as well as Dun- can's piety. Duncan, we shall probably remember, was historically a weak personage, wholly unfit, in an age of violence, for kingship. Holinshed Duncan speaks of him as "soft and gentle of nature," unkmgiy and "negligent in the punishment of of- figure> fenders." According to the same authority, the rebel Macdonwald called him " a faint-hearted milksop, more meet to govern a sort of monks in some cloister than to have the rule of such valiant and hardy men as the Scots were." The removal of such a figure can be managed, and much more easily than the installation

1 86 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

of his successor. Since Shakespeare cannot present Macbeth as one whom we shall wish to see prosper in his own worth, interest must be supplied in some way from without. The prophecy of the Weird Sisters, as told in the chronicle, suggests a plan. Properly these Sisters are not at all vulgar witches, and there is no hint in Holinshed to warrant their presence in such a r61e. Shakespeare gives them Thc shapes and features not much better, but

witches' makes them specific servants of certain great demons, or " principalities," of the air. Witches have the power to bind demoniac agencies to their call. These Sisters are bound to the wills severally of their masters, who, according to notions not wholly exploded in Elizabethan times, have power in shaping the destinies of nations and of men. Shake- speare has but to make these masters interested in Macbeth's future, and allied in the effort to control it, and the thing is done.

To begin the play, it will be necessary to advise the audience or reader concerning the weak character of Duncan's kingship, and to arouse interest, if that is possible, in Macbeth as the hero. To do this with the usual dramatic condensation, it will be necessary to select some point in Macdonwald's campaign against Duncan for the moment of opening. Natu- rally Shakespeare chooses the battle in Lochaber, in which Macbeth put down that rebel. But Macbeth, played, according to Holinshed, no very significant part in the fighting of the day ; he did not kill Mac- donwald, but merely found him dead in a castle

DRAMATIC ART l8/

some distance from the field. Evidently Shakespeare will have to enhance Macbeth's importance

i it- .11 Macdon-

m some way, and make him essentially the waid not chief figure. Holinshed says nothing about killed by

, ,TT. , ., , Macbeth.

the Witches until after the victory; but it may be assumed that they were interfering with the natural course of things considerably before that. Shakespeare needs to have their main work, or their masters', done before the battle is concluded.

A little scene of eleven lines furnishes a sufficient introduction. If the piece is to run under diabolic control, the supernatural element must be Why the prominent and compelling from the first, witches are

TTT r i i shown in

We are not of course to see the demons ; the first but their representatives, the Witch-sisters, scene- must be shown to us in the first scene. Since witches shun the haunts of men, the scene will be laid in a " desert place," or upon a moor. It will not do to have clear weather. The Witches, or their masters rather, have power over the elements. So there is a sullen, depressing rain, with lightning and thunder. To mark the presence of diabolism, which never lacks the serpent's trail, this thunder-storm is accompanied with a thick, offensive fog.

The time is perhaps two o'clock, and the battle has raged since morning. The Witches, or at least two of them, have been abroad repeatedly on diabolic errands, over seas and continents perhaps, at the order of the demons. But they are so agog over the business which their masters have in hand, and which they are in part executing or to execute, that

1 88 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

they cannot help coming together, like children tru- anting, to discuss the mischief. They have already, we may suppose, met more than once since raising at daybreak the storm. They have now been to- gether long enough to exchange reports and give some vent to their enthusiasm ; they are just ready to arrange for the next rendezvous, as the lifting of the curtain discovers them to us. They agree to stay away from each other till the battle is over, and their work with Macbeth begins. They have evi- dently been commissioned to accost him, and speak the prophecy that shall fix his fate.

All that we need to know, besides what we see, is indicated potentially in the talk of the three Sisters. We get the suggestion, to be confirmed (cf. IV. i. 76) The later, of a difference in the power or knowl-

witches ledge of their masters. The First Witch differen- cannot ten the time or place. The Third

tiated in

power and Witch alone seems to know the future ; she knowledge. deciares tnat tne conflict wm be over, and

that they shall have met for their work " ere the set of sun." They are all manifestly aware that Mac- beth is to be victorious. Who Macbeth is, to those unacquainted with Scottish history, will be made known in the next scene. That these Witches are for the moment off duty, perhaps without warrant, and are needed for industrious work in the interim, The inces- is now made apparent. The master of the

d£i onhe First Witch calls his servitor away- That demons. immediate service is expected seems indubi- table from the answer, " I come, Graymalkin," which

DRAMATIC ART 189

is of the sort given to a summons when known to be an urgent one. The second demon master also de- mands the presence of his minister, as we understand from the words, " Paddock calls," of the Second Witch, who alone apparently hears the voice. They do not seem to wait for further summons, but rising and circling in the air together, they cry " Anon " to their masters,1 and chant, presumably to them, a dia- bolic confession of faith, and a prayer, as they pass from the scene. The Third Witch seems „, „, .

The Third

not summoned away, like the others, to dis- witch not tant service, and it may be has been detailed summoned- to remain near the place of fighting, and assist the issue. She alone of the Witch Sisters makes no report, on their next coming together, of aerial voy- aging and of wicked havoc wrought in other lands.

We need now to see how the demon agencies, through the Third Witch, or perhaps without her, are giving aid to Macbeth in the field. Were it dra- matically wise or safe, the author would enact the struggle, and let us see the help administered, from the Witches' masters, with our own eyes. But a battle is a difficult affair to show upon the The battle stage ; and there would be risk here lest the ^gd^not spectacular effect of such a thing hinder in shown, some measure our interest in the hero that is to be. It will be better to leave the magnitude and details of the conflict to imagination. In that case there must be some one to tell the story; and it will not

1 The Folio text does not give " Anon," as found generally in mod- ern readings, to the Third Witch.

190 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

do to wait for it until all is over. Some eyewitness must come in from the scene and report while the fight is on. Naturally this person, who is to with- draw before the battle is finished, will have been wounded ; otherwise his testimony will not affect us very strongly. If he is wounded, and severely, his bloody plight may be used, as visual evidence and earnest, to bring the awfulness of the battle home to us more effectually. Finally, this bleeding messen- ger should be something more than a common soldier, lest we conceive his testimony incompetent, and lest it be lamely rendered.

To whom shall the messenger report how the fight is going ? Presumably not to the King, who should be at the head of his soldiers in the field. In fact, according to Holinshed, Duncan is at this moment leading the third division of the Scottish army. Yet, to institute a sufficient contrast between Macbeth and Duncan, the author may be forced to present the King as unmartial enough to shirk the fighting, and indeed to post himself at some distance from it, not Malcolm, in a place of observation, but of safety. Ex-

Duncan* act^v ^s we ^nc* Shakespeare has done. unmartiaL To show besides that Duncan's pusillani- mousness is not merely personal, but characterises the reigning family as a whole, it will be necessary but to present Malcolm, the King's grown-up son, as having tried to fight, and as having been saved from capture by the sergeant who is later to come away- wounded and tell the story. Shakespeare begins the scene by this generic characterisation of father and son.

DRAMATIC ART 1 91

We know from Holinshed that Macbeth was obliged to defeat the Danes, as well as the forces of Macdonwald, before he could reestablish the power of Duncan. It will not do much harm to condense these campaigns, or rather the two great battles in which they respectively culminated, into one. It is this composite battle that Shakespeare will The describe to us in the second scene. The composite fight with Macdonwald will of course come battle* first. If the witch-masters in this, as Holinshed tells of it, helped Macbeth's side, they must have assisted the army and not the chieftain. Macdonwald, as we have seen, was not killed by Macbeth, and did not meet his fate till after the battle. Shakespeare must make the work of the demons more unequivocal. Macdonwald is a ruffianly warrior, apparently Mac- beth's superior in strength and size. In a sword duel between these two, it should naturally go hard with Macbeth. Now the work of witchcraft becomes apparent. Macdonwald finds that he cannot com- mand his accustomed adroitness and en- ,, ,

Macdon-

ergy. Macbeth easily fends his thrusts, and waid's loss assails him tellingly with counter-strokes. c Of course Macbeth does not know that his foe is handicapped, by the agency of the Third Witch, or by some other means, to his own infinite advantage. He cannot but suppose that his success is due to some newly awakened strength and dexterity of his own. In an access of contempt for such a blundering an- tagonist, he lets go a thrust that the merest tyro should have warded off, and "unseams" Macdon-

1 92 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

wald, armour as well as body, from the cuirass to the helmet. The combat and its issue are witnessed apparently by both armies, and Macdonwald's sol- diers precipitously flee. Immediately after begins, between Macbeth's forces and the Danes, the second battle. By the same supernatural leading, Macbeth and the Berserk commander, Sweno, seem The place to have been brought together. Macbeth

sergeant's now ^as a^most ^is match. It is a good story. place, while the combat hangs in the bal- ance, to withdraw the man who is to tell Duncan and ourselves of Macbeth's astonishing bravery and strength. So the author brings off the sergeant — wounded apparently in the first engagement and weak now with his hurts — from the field at this point in search of doctors, and uses his coming as the occasion to start the scene.

King Duncan shows a pedantic interest in learning " of the revolt the newest state," and Malcolm almost Further as affectedly bids the sergeant ' say to the character!- King the knowledge of the broil as he did

sation of , . , _ _ , . ...

theDuncan leave it. Duncan, Polonius-hke, lets the family. man bleed himself faint, while he tells the wonderful story of Macbeth's slaughtering the rebel chief. He begins to explain how the single combat between Sweno and Macbeth stood, as he left it, doubtful

As two spent swimmers that do cling together And choke their art, —

but his strength fails him. As he reels from loss of blood, and is helped away, another messenger some-

DRAMATIC ART 193

what excitedly approaches. This time it is Ross, one of the King's thanes, with an official report.

In the interval between the sergeant's withdrawal from the field and Ross's coming, the battle with the Norwegians has been finished. Sweno has been forced, in spite of his viking rage and strength, to yield to the onslaughts of Macbeth' s claymore, and sue for quarter. Shakespeare does not say specifi- cally that the combat has been mainly a single one, between these heads of the two armies ; but he cer- tainly, in the sergeant's language just quoted, implies as much, and Ross's words bear out the same pre- sumption. Ross is evidently no worshipper of his commanding general, as the sergeant is. He has seen nothing that he is willing to think remarkable ; he does not mention Macbeth's name. Remember- ing that Macbeth is Duncan's cousin, and by blood equally with him entitled to the throne, we can guess Ross's feeling. Duncan's rule is a failure ; the Scotch nobility despise him : Macbeth is a possible successor. But Ross, who is of rank not inferior to Macbeth, does not wish to come under the authority of one from among his peers.

But the thing that Ross does not crave is the very outcome that we desire. We wish to see Macbeth king in Duncan's place. This is the second The"maxi- scene of the First Act, and the " maximum mum con-

. . . summa-

consummation is coming into view. Mac- tion " now beth, through the power of the demons, has si&hted- saved Scotland, and will be hailed by the whole nation as its deliverer. We know how a people idolize the

194 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

hero of a telling victory. Of course we know that Macbeth could not, of himself, have won his double triumph, but that makes small difference with us. If he were really a brilliant and great man, if he had, like a Richard Coeur de Lion, put down Macdonwald and Sweno by dint of personal resources only, we should covet to see him king for his own sake. As it is, we perhaps crave mainly to witness what the witch- powers can do with him and through him for the good of Scotland. We have taken his successes as the earnest of coming prodigies of valour, and are in- fluenced, probably more than we are aware, by the hope of seeing some of his feats enacted openly in progress of the play.

The piece is certainly now well launched, and only seventy-nine lines have been used to impart all need- ful knowledge, and to engage our sympathies for the Readin hero. These first two scenes furnish a good between example of the potentialness that all great the lines. iiterature must embody. Very little of the meaning that has stirred us is told literally or directly. We have discerned it through and beyond the medium of the text; we have read it, as we say, between the lines. To do this is of course to inter- pret Shakespeare, and in some measure to discover the art by which he works. But the condensation and potentialness here are by no means typical of the play, or of literature at large. No other drama of Shakespeare's, perhaps nothing in modern authorship, is quite so hard to grasp in the opening situations. Elsewhere the Macbeth is simple, and worked out in

DRAMATIC ART 195

accordance with the plainest laws. Moreover, the scene just finished has involved an interruption of the plot, since it would have been more natural to present the return of the Witches, and their meeting with Macbeth, in the scene next following the one in which they are made to promise it so formally. This meet- ing is not to be longer delayed. The third scene opens with the Three Sisters in waiting across the path of the returning army, some minutes before the arrival of Macbeth. It will be well to revive our im- pressions of the Witches, and prepare imagination for their roles. So the author provides this interval that we may hear them rehearse the mischief that they have been doing. The Second Witch has been at work, perhaps not outside the boundaries of Scot- land, killing swine. The First Witch has certainly voyaged out as far as Hull, or London, or some other considerable seaport town, where sailors' wives may be seen sitting beside their cottage doors. She has been rebuffed by one of these women, and is prepar- ing for revenge. This ship-master's wife is a devout woman probably ; there is no effort or purpose to inflict bodily injury upon her. Her prayers seem to insure the protection also of her husband ; The ower the demons cannot touch his life or wreck of these his ship. But the First Witch is permitted Witches- to harass him by terrifying storms, and she vows to keep up this torture for nineteen months and over, almost two years. She has recouped herself pro- visionally, as it appears, with another victim. She has encountered somewhere in her wanderings, upon

196 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

the sea, a similar vessel, whose master seems not to have a praying wife. She has wrecked this ship, on the homeward voyage, and exhibits to her sisters, as a trophy, torn from his dead body, its pilot's thumb. This is surely evidence enough concerning the disposition of the Witches, and the power they wield. Our hero, unless he too has a guardian to shield him with her prayers, will be in no small jeopardy. Even at this moment the Sisters are wind- ing up a charm to his weal or ruin ; for the sound of a drum tells us that Macbeth's guard of honour is approaching.

It is well to know the state of Macbeth's feelings, whether he is elated over his exploits. If he were A hint of truly great, if he had won his victories him- Macbeth's self, he would have forgotten them. His

:hngs* first words show that they have not by any means passed from his mind. He realises that he will be looked upon as the greatest man in Scotland. Like Dewey after the battle of Manila, he will be everybody's hero, and the chief figure in the whole country. Banquo, who has done his best, and is free from vanity, can be used as Macbeth's foil. He is thinking simply of how far it is to Forres, and how soon the march to that town will be over. At this moment the presence of the Witches becomes visible. The Witch-Norn of the Past salutes Mac- beth as Thane of Glamis, a title that he has inherited lately, but not assumed as yet. The Witch-Norn of the Present hails him as Thane of Cawdor, an honour which has but a few minutes been his, and which

DRAMATIC ART 197

the King's messengers, Ross and Angus, are on their way now to make known. Of course the Witches cannot have come by the knowledge of Cawdor's sentence and Macbeth's advancement by any human means. It is a strongly dramatic mo- ment, and carries our interest to the highest point yet reached. Then comes that for which everything thus far has furnished only preparation. The Third Witch, speaking slowly and weightily and ominously, as the Norn of the Future, declares her prophecy : —

All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter !

We cannot but believe, and much as Macbeth him- self believes, in the kingship the Weird Sister prom- ises. Shakespeare has appealed to our imaginations, by this stroke, ingeniously and well. He has made us conceive the maximum consummation again, and more intensely. This repetition and intensification are common in Shakespeare's plays, and for that matter also in novels, which are typically but extended dramas, the chapter being scenes.

It is necessary that we should be committed to the fortunes of the hero much more completely. The author has done all that can be done by direct pro- cesses. His best recourse, after he has made us imagine and covet his maximum conclusion The Minor as strongly as the nature of the case allows, Obstacle- is to irk us with obstacles to the consummation of our wish. He presents the first of these as soon as the prophecy of the Third Witch is uttered. Mac- beth starts, and seems to be afraid of something that

198 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

the promised elevation will involve. We infer that he will do nothing himself to secure the crown, and will perhaps, if the army or the nobles revolt and declare for him, even resist their wish. He has seemingly felt the temptation to use the enthusiasm of his soldiers and the prestige of his double victory, as the warrant for dethroning Duncan. But his popularity is too dear to throw away, and he has apparently determined to remain wholly true and loyal to the King. But now the salutation of the Third Witch seems to stir him with concern lest he be forced to sacrifice his conscience and self-respect. His will is free; he has not been bewitched. But he is afraid lest he shall change his mind. Ross and Angus arrive, confirming the prophecy of the Second Witch, and removing all doubt from Mac- beth's mind. As his confidence in the Witches grows, his unwillingness to ally himself with his destiny increases. He debates the matter absorbingly, for- getting the presence of his friends. His future, we feel, lies largely in his own choice. The scene closes with his earlier resolution unaltered, or indeed confirmed, by this decision to remain neutral and await events.

Of the hindrances or obstacles to the consumma- tion of a plot, two must be exhibited as of greater The Major prominence than the others ; and one of Obstacle, these must last longer, and involve more effort to overcome. Macbeth's reluctance to act for himself, which has just been shown, is the Minor Obstacle. The Major Obstacle will be presented in

DRAMATIC ART 199

the next scene. This the author finds in the material, moulded almost to his hand. We have hoped, and Holinshed says that Macbeth also has hoped, that Duncan will abdicate in Macbeth's favour, or at least bequeath to him the succession. The throne is not as yet hereditary ; Duncan can reward the saviour of Scotland if he will. But he expects to rule by virtue of his helplessness ; he is too intrenched in his over- weening, grandfatherly superiority to think of paying the country's obligations, or his own, in anything but empty promises. At the earliest moment possible, even before the dead from his faithful battalions are buried, he proclaims Malcolm Prince of Cumberland, and heir to the crown. Nothing can bring Macbeth to kingship now but the most drastic measures. Shakespeare ends the scene by starting Duncan out upon a progress, apparently to attach his thanes to himself more closely, and prevent a new rebellion. He will naturally visit first his kinsman at Inverness. There will be no harm in our imagining ourselves, for the rest of the play, apprentices of Shakespeare, and permitted to work at his problems Removal with him. How shall we engage Macbeth Minor to insist a little upon his rights, and so lift Obstacle. the Minor Obstacle from the plot ? The witch-forces must not be used further, or we shall spoil the whole. Macbeth must be left a free moral agent at any cost. Holinshed reports that Macbeth's resolution fully gave way after Duncan fixed the succession upon Malcolm. It will not do to have our hero act like that. The forces that shall carry him into revolt

200 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

must come from beyond himself. The new factor that is needed can be supplied in the person of his wife.

The fifth scene need not be a long one. We must show that Macbeth, while in the field, keeps in com- munication with Lady Macbeth, and is inspired by her. So we can open by having Lady Macbeth read from a letter just received from her husband. By making this letter to have been written after the bat- tle, and his meeting with the Witches, but before his interview with the King at Forres, we can indicate how constantly Macbeth has despatched couriers to her.

Lady Macbeth must not be made such a woman as to be pleased merely, when the prophecy of the Witches is reached. Her interest must amount to an immediate and compelling resolution; or, as we find, —

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shall be What thou art promised!

Macbeth shall be king whether he wills or not. And she will know as well as the audience does how

Macbeth is hesitating. He is too scrupu- Macbeth lous. He would not play false, yet is not impatient unwilling, if he may win, to win unrightly. husband's It will not do to make her resolve thus for advance- her own sake: It must be for her husband,

because she loves him, is proud of him, and believes him deprived scandalously of his deserts. She must not seem conscienceless or evil, but so intense of temperament and imagination as to real-

DRAMATIC ART 2OI

ise to the uttermost the protnise and the opportunity that are theirs.

Knowledge that the King is coming will naturally arouse Lady Macbeth's energies to the highest pitch. Duncan is an unsuspicious, inoffensive man ; she feels that almost anything can happen, if he is once shut up within her castle. It will not do to show her coarse or cruel ; we should fail of everybody's sympa- thy for her and for her husband. We must make her betray to us, by a fresh soliloquy, what a supreme and awful thing, to her own soul, she is conceiving. We must make her tremble at the thought of violence and blood. We must make her cry out to the unseen powers, evil ones, to the witch-masters, if need be, for help against the weakness of her nature. Shake- speare does just these things, and grandly : —

Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts ; unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty !

Her conscience, she knows, will torture her. She must pray to be fortified against that : —

Stop up th' access and passage to remorse, That no compunctious visitings of nature Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between The effect and it.

Then her womanly instincts and promptings, the desire to mother helplessness and infirmity, like Dun- can's, must be given up, however precious, for her husband's sake. Never was there prayer more

2O2 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

pathetic and self-immolating than this cry for help against her maternal nature : —

Come to my woman's breasts

And take my milk for gall, you murth'ring ministers, Wherever in your sightless substances You wait on nature's mischief!

Finally, there is the dread of seeing the victim and his ghastly wound, to be reckoned with; the fear, too, of the searching eye of God, who it may be will thunder out in protest against the killing of so true a saint : —

Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry, "Hold, hold!"

Lady Macbeth must worship her husband in no ordinary measure; such devotion and sacrifice were Lady Mac- else incredible. It will be well to bring this •Uporher outl Now, as Macbeth's hurried step is husband, heard outside, comes the opportunity. We shall have her greet her husband in the fullest pride and admiration of the feats which he has told her of, and which she thinks all his : —

Great Glamis ! Worthy Cawdor ! Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter !

Macbeth, in spite of Duncan's ingratitude and snubs, is not disloyal. He is not ready to will harm Macbeth's to the King, whom he has always stood by first fear, valorously. His conscience is clear thus far. He has known no fears until now, when he

DRAMATIC ART 2O3

reads the determination in Lady Macbeth's face, and hears her say that Duncan shall never go out from their castle. He has been made such a man from the beginning as would blanch at a turn like this. The risk and rashness of such a course are patent to any masculine imagination. Only her feminine intensity keeps Lady Macbeth from seeing the ruin that it will bring upon her husband and herself. Of all possible plots, that of killing Duncan in their own home is probably the most foolish. But this is not what we want our audience to see or feel at present. We wish merely to get its more complete sympathy, through the dismay that Lady Macbeth's resolve arouses in him, for Macbeth ; and that has now been done.

Will it not be well to bring Duncan once more to view, as he comes into the power of Lady Macbeth, before his doom ? He must have a cham- Banquo to berlain, who shall be responsible for his !fveas

r Duncans

safety. It will save the introduction of a chamber- new character to put Banquo at that service. lam> It will be well also, if we think our audience can bear it, to exhibit Duncan's refined, poetic nature more completely. There must be a new scene, of course ; and Shakespeare will need but two paragraphs to show him as a man born out of his proper age into a century of intrigue and violence. We shall not let Macbeth come out to welcome his kinsman ; he is still too agitated. Lady Macbeth will assume all smiles and graciousness, yet will scarcely escape the tempta- tion to allude, in deepest irony, to

204 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

those honours deep and broad wherewith Your majesty loads our house.

Duncan will be flattered most comfortably, and feel that he has done exceedingly well by his deliverer.

The first crisis of the play is reached. Macbeth 's aversion must now give way, or be established in the plot. It is possible to have the Minor Obstacle, in plays and novels, eventuate according to the wishes of the reader, or against them. In The Winter s Tale and Cymbeline, as we shall presently see in detail, the Minor Obstacle remains unabated, and brings its worst of consequences in each case upon the after- play. In the seventh scene, which must now begin, we shall resist the temptation to enact the banquet to Duncan's honour. We can have music playing, and the noise of plate and glasses, in the great feasting hall, with waiters and butlers passing and repassing thither and from it. The audience will on these hints adequately picture the scene within, — the King in comfort, Lady Macbeth plying her guest with demon- strative attentions, and her husband sitting in laboured and unassisting submission. Then, if we have any- thing like the tact of Shakespeare, we shall in due time bring away Macbeth, overcome by the influences of Duncan's natve and trustful presence, to advise with himself effectually. We shall make him develop his scruples and hesitation into definite reasons, five of them, why he shall remain neutral and loyal. As soon as he has declared himself, the work of Lady Macbeth must begin. She will have divined the cause of his leaving his guest, and will go out to re-

DRAMATIC ART 2O$

assume control, and prevent revolt. She will natu- rally first try sarcasm. He knows that he is her ideal of daring and heroism. If she is made to insinuate that his courage is not equal to his ambition, he will be stirred. What she, who is no conqueror of Sweno or Macdonwald, could do with her own babe, — or thinks she could, — were his problems hers, will put him to very shame. Then the suggestion of a plan, which in the exigency will seem not only practicable but brilliant, and the thing is done : —

I am settled, and bend up Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.

The Minor Obstacle has been lifted, and the First Act precipitately ends. The close of the First Act is always shaped and determined thus in The ]ace Shakespeare, on the proper resolution of for closing the earlier or Minor Obstacle. A corre- aFlrstAct- spending break, generally after about one-fifth of the whole number of pages, will be found typical in the structure of the novel.

The resolution of the Major Obstacle comes close after the resolution of the Minor, with but a scene between. The Major Obstacle is always removed or established in the second scene of the Second Act. Sometimes, as in Cymbeline, the intervening scene is but a makeshift one. There is plenty of substance out of which to make a first scene here. It is neces- sary to show Banquo's defection from loyalty. He has read out of Macbeth's face, during the banquet, and out of Lady Macbeth's suppressed excitement,

2O6 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

what they are intending. He has ushered Duncan Banquo's to his apartments, and seen his master in bed

tomtit for the nisht» yet with no least word of

King. warning. He should have placed a guard over his charge. Instead, he lets the King go to his doom. Yet, to show that he is not actively disloyal, it may be well to have Macbeth approach him with overtures for a transferred allegiance. Shakespeare does this with inimitable succinctness and strength : —

Macbeth. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis, It shall make honour for you.

Banquo, So I lose none

In seeking to augment it, but still keep My bosom franchis'd and my allegiance clear, I shall be counsell'd.

It is Macbeth's first defeat. He will never speak to Banquo about "cleaving to his consent," again.

Will Macbeth be equal to the execution of his resolve? Since taking that resolution, he is a The new changed man. He is not bewitched, per- nessof ^ haps, but the evil powers have possessed his Macbeth, soul. The demon influences are by, and can easily furnish means of exhibiting to us how their victim feels. They shall display to him, and us, a phantom dagger, and make it move before him toward Duncan's chamber. Macbeth will not start, or shudder, or feel horror at the thought of following. On the contrary, he finds himself prompted to clutch it. Drops of blood come out upon the blade and handle. It is an uncanny, diabolic spectacle; but Macbeth senses nothing abnormal or hostile to his

DRAMATIC ART 2O?

moral nature. Out from the stillness of the night rise suggestions and visions, not of innocence, but of the blackest and most revolting crimes.

The interest from Lady Macbeth's devotion may be culminated now. When she first dismayed her husband, on his return from the fighting, by her de- cision, she resolved that she would make him king in his own despite, and without his help. The worri- ment that her purpose has since caused him stirs her soul with a new enthusiasm. He has consented to do the deed, and she is to signal to him, by striking upon the bell, when all things are ready. Her love is ample ; the intensity of her vision has endowed her with an amazing power of will. Why Lady not have her actually, when she goes to *0

Duncan's chamber, attempt the deed ? She killing. must not achieve it ; that would make her out a mon- ster. It will stir pity to have her try. She craves the daring and firmness of a man. Why not have her borrow strength, as she has heard that men some- times, in such moments, do ? So she shall drink wine, in the hope even yet to surprise her husband. How she longs to tell him that he need not go, after all, to Duncan's chamber, that he shall be king, as he has always wished, without effort of his own. The spectacle of a woman laying up for herself anguish and perdition of soul, to save her husband from the consciousness of crime, is telling, and cannot be spared from the play. So we should show Lady Macbeth, with cheeks flushed by drink, after the in- effectual attempt, at the opening of the second scene.

2O8 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

With Macbeth's dagger strokes, the Major Obsta- cle disappears. Malcolm no longer stands between Macbeth and the throne. Duncan is dead,

The Major

Obstacle and no mortal eye has seen the murderer ed' at his work. How shall the King's escort of thanes learn of the deed ? Shall the castle awake in quiet, and come upon the horrible secret without warning ? The tragic tension is too great for such delay. There is a better way to have Scotland know. The King's party is large, and some have been forced to lodge outside the castle. Certain of these may be made to come and arouse their people who are within. To keep the stage occupied, they must present them- selves before Lady Macbeth and her husband leave

The knock- *** ^v ma^n& Duncan to have proposed ing upon to set out early, we may have them knock vig- the gate. orousiy on the castle gate, to wake the por- ter, before daylight. This will furnish the climax of the scene, — Macbeth half-crazed and trembling, shut up in the castle with his crime, and the world knock- ing and waiting to come in from without.

To bring in the world without too great precipi- tancy, the knocking must be repeated ; the porter must not too soon answer to the call. That the delay may be reasonable, we need only to bring out that the servants have caroused, on the King's largess, till the second cock. To give some back- ground of diabolism, we can ordain that there has been a storm, which was spoken of as gathering, after midnight, in the first scene of this act.

Of course Lady Macbeth and her husband have

DRAMATIC ART 2OQ

yet their chief ordeal to undergo ; they must meet the searching eyes of the King's thanes, and behave as if wholly surprised, and scandalised, and horrified at the murder. Of course they cannot possibly escape suspicion ; on the very face of things the guilt is theirs. No motive could be conceived for such action, on the part of anybody else, in the whole kingdom. Neither Macbeth nor his wife is in any sort of neurotic preparation for the coming strain. It would not be possible to have them meet it well, even if we wished. Our purpose, if we are artistic, must be to be true. If we are true, we must let causes work out their full conclusion. Macbeth will be lamest here in matters touching the King's person, and the death chamber, which he cannot bear to approach. He will make his first Macbeth's mistake when he leads Macduff to the door, and Lady by not proposing to go within, or at least to first knock. Macduff, who is the strong man blunders. of the play, will remember this omission later, and have his opinion about what it means. Lady Mac- beth, on hearing the castle bell, will come out too quickly, and so betray that she has been waiting for a cue. She is ideal in her acting, when she demands what is going on, to require such summons ; but she errs sadly enough in subordinating her horror at the King's murder to the circumstance of its

. , , „,, . . f .. Banquo

occurring in her house. The ringing of the not awak-

bell is an excellent expedient for bringing in the other characters immediately, and hurrying the scene forward. It serves especially to

2IO

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

show that Banquo was not awaked by the noise, but was ready to start from his more distant apart- ment when the signal came. Malcolm and Donal- bain, on the other hand, have been certainly aroused from sleep, since from chambers next Duncan's, which are nearest, they come in last of all. Other guests, of course, besides those named in the stage directions, together with the various servants of the castle, have responded to the summons.

So far matters have not gone wholly ill ; no disas- trous blunders have been committed. But the hard- est trials are yet to come. To discuss and sift the evidence concerning the author of the crime, to give testimony as household-heads touching the supposed safety of their guest, will be taxing in the extreme to both the culprits. But we must not, with details, prolong the scene. It can be ended dramatically by a pair of incidents, epitomising respectively the resources as well as weaknesses of each character. Macbeth may be made to have killed the grooms, from fear of their denials, when he entered with Lennox the King's chamber. His confession of this will bring upon him Macduff's excited and cruel question, —

Wherefore did you so?

There will be no standing before that. Any attempt to answer will be sheer ruin. The reader must at ,, . , . once divine how Macduff will be disposed

Macbeth s

fatal toward the kingship that is coming. Mac-

blunder. keth's idiotic explanation will make the thanes look significantly at each other. Lady Macbeth

DRAMATIC ART 211

will have doubtless planned, at some moving point or other in these proceedings, to feign a swoon. It will arrest the contempt somewhat, and help her husband, to do it now, — or is she genuinely aghast and prostrated at what she has seen in the Lad thanes' faces ? To show how the lords Macbeth

regard her, and how far Macbeth is from assuming that the swoon is real, we can or Mac- make these chivalrous lords, as well as her beth' husband, refrain from lending assistance as she falls. The climax may be strengthened by having Macduff and Banquo, whose conviction is strongest, bid the attendants, somewhat demonstratively and patronisingly, " Look to the lady."

When the two obstacles are on the reader's mind, he loses sight of the maximum consummation. After they are resolved, it looms again to view. The audience will now expect and demand the fulfil- ment of the promise with which the play began. It will not be best to permit the sight, at present, of Macbeth crowned. A fourth scene can adjust the murder to the perspective of the times, and make known that the sovereignty will fall certainly upon Macbeth.

The new action with which the Third Act always begins, is invariably of moment, and shapes Macbeth the course of the plot. It will be wise as and Lady well as fitting, now, whatever may be the Macbeth

* appear

outcome of the new rule, to show Mac- crowned beth as King, and Lady Macbeth as Queen. but once' If their usurpation is not to be successful, it will

212 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

be best to keep their crowns from sight for the remainder of the play. The plot, as found in Hol- inshed, requires that Banquo be cut off from all pos- sible interference with Macbeth's success. We can engage the sympathies of the audience for Macbeth, as against his enemy and rival, by making Banquo ready to conspire against the sovereignty just set up. His late disloyalty toward Duncan will have pre- pared for this. The audience expects Macbeth to enter, at once, upon a brilliant and strong career. It will wish that he assert himself, in this case, with severity and speed. If we show Banquo secretive, evasive, with reference to his plans and movements, on Macbeth's inquiring, it will be tantamount to proof that he is dangerous. This will insure Macbeth war- rant to proceed against him by whatever means.

We were not much interested in Macbeth, at the beginning, on his own account. The interference of the Witches aroused us. On learning something of Macbeth's self-respect and dread of evil-doing, we found our interest in him very much enhanced. Lady Macbeth's sublime devotion and self-sacrifice have won our sympathy, at least dramatically, for her and for her cause. Such a woman and such a husband should survive ; so grandly endowed with spiritual possibili- ties, they should come to their best of usefulness and strength. This is the maximum consummation that we always crave for characters discerned as capable of living the largest and highest quantum of existence. But Macbeth and Lady Macbeth will not survive, since they have sought the largest living on impossi-

DRAMATIC ART 213

ble conditions ; and the end is tragedy. But the trag- edy does not consist in the mere fact of death or suffering ; it is because of the promise and Wh the possibilities that come thus to naught. Macbeth It consists in death or suffering wholly at lstra&edy- variance with the proper spiritual desert of the victim. The author has expected from the first to disappoint us ; the nature of the theme materials compels it.

To develop the tragedy of Macbeth within the limits of a play, requires swift changes. The mur- der of Banquo may be used to precipitate the issue. Nothing resulted from the death of Banquo, accord- ing to Holinshed, as affecting the comfort and firm- ness of Macbeth's mind. We can cause him to behave in such a way as to furnish evidence of his guilt with Duncan ; we can show him half crazed with remorse and fear. When the people of Scotland know that it has a self-condemned ruler, it will cast him off. But how shall Macbeth be made to betray to them his secret ? He has been made from the beginning a man much under the control of the finer sentiments. Con- science, then, will be the means. Moreover, the Witches have put Banquo, as to ultimate rule in Scotland, far above himself. Macbeth hates ,, , .,,

Macbeth s

the man who renders the death of Duncan hate of of no effect, with perfect hatred. If he Banquo> could get at his rival, he would strike him fiendishly. He must be made to reach this enemy, by some means, with his own arm.

Macbeth knows what it is to take the burdens of murder upon his soul. He will naturally strive, in

214 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

this case, to put the responsibility upon others. If Banquo has retainers who believe that they have been wronged by their chief, he will send for them. When he has persuaded two men of this sort to undertake the deed, ostensibly for their own revenge, he will not leave them to execute it without surveillance. The Third But what surveillance can there be except Murderer, his own ? He will put on disguises, and join the assassins as a Third Murderer. He will have spies follow Banquo, to find where he goes, whom he meets ; and one of these spies will indicate, perhaps by beacon signal, the approximate arrival of their victim, upon return.

Thus Macbeth will be enabled to approach the object of his hate, and make the despatchment sure. •Twenty ^e w^ naturally strike his victim, wherever mortal he may reach him, many times. So there murthers: will be unsignt]v mutilation. Macbeth will

not dare betray his identity to the other murderers, although Fleance should be at once pursued, but will return now with them to the palace. They will not, of course, find Macbeth, ' to report how much is done.' Then the Third Murderer will order the pursuit of Fleance, and the burial of Banquo's body. Free now from the First and the Second Murderer, Macbeth will lay aside his disguises, mingle with his guests, and wait with them ostensibly for Banquo's coming, but really for reports from the pursuit of Fleance. Ban- quo was killed just at dark, at seven o'clock (cf. III. i. 42) or after. Three hours later they will give Ban- quo up, and his cover will be removed from the table.

DRAMATIC ART 21$

How far the audience is to hold Macbeth bewitched, need not be settled here. It must premise merely that the Witches lie in wait for his soul. We Why Ban- need not force the reader to settle whether feUt°rbaned or not they lured him to his attack on Ban- with gore, quo's life. Let them take advantage merely of the opportunity that they now have to precipitate Mac- beth to his ruin. The twenty gashes inflicted in frenzy upon Banquo's head will have turbaned his hair unspeakably with gore. The Witches will raise an apparition, with this head, boltered with blood and (cf. III. iv. 79) brains perhaps, as a main feature of fright, and make Macbeth identify the ghastly specta- cle as his work. The thought that this mutilation exists only in the apparition, and not on Banquo, is estopped by the testimony of the murderer (III. iv. 27) who buried him.1

Turning to the text of the play, we see how deeply and subtly the author has planned for this vital mo- ment. He has made Macbeth as timorous ,

After com-

and sensitive, almost, as a woman, in order promising that a bloody spectre of his own butchery ^acbeth- .

* * the appan-

may be to the uttermost appalling. He has tion with- presented Macbeth as sleepless and half drawn- crazed, since the preceding murder. He has put Macbeth's hand into Banquo's killing, to insure the mutilation. He has shaped the waiting so that Ban- quo's place may not remain unfilled. Then, as Mac-

1 That the audience may not doubt the diabolic origin of the ghost, Shakespeare will exhibit it again, and as unequivocally the product of witchcraft, in (11. 123, 124) the first scene of the next act. Cf. p. 219.

2l6 "WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

beth in his sottish and dazed security ventures to propose the health of the guest whom he has helped to kill, he has the witch-raised apparition sit in Mac- beth's place, — the sole one left unoccupied. The rest follows without manipulation. Macbeth will identify his bloody work, and blench at the ghost's significant recognition. Unmanned at what seems to him the real presence of Banquo here, he will make compromising allusions, supposing that all see as he sees : — •

Prithee, see there ! Behold ! Look ! Lo ! How say you ? Why, what care I ? If thou canst nod, speak too. If charnel-houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments Shall be the maws of kites.

The lords have probably not begun to suspect that Macbeth has meddled with Banquo's life. They will The climax naturally suppose that the spectre which of the Macbeth sees is Duncan's. As soon as Mac- beth sufficiently betrays himself, the Witches will withdraw the apparition. To confirm the suspi- cions of the lords, who will spread the story of Mac- beth's terrors broadcast, the Witches will show Banquo's ghost again, not nodding and shaking its gory locks, but glaring and petrifyingly terrible. Macbeth will quail this time more than ever. The first time, he forgets the horror as soon as the appari- tion is out of sight. The Witches see to it that there is no forgetting now. Macbeth can be made to ex- press surprise that his guests are not stirred by the sights that have made him tremble. The lords, will-

DRAMATIC ART 21?

ing to entrap him, will ask, What sights ? Macbeth will have so far forgotten, for agony, that he has a secret, that he will be about to declare, as the merest matter of course, what he has seen. Lady Macbeth, realising the jeopardy, will drive away the guests, and stop the word, ' Duncan,' that she thinks he is ready to pronounce. To make this moment practicable, Lady Macbeth should not know surely that Banquo is despatched, or suspect that it is the vision of a later victim that unnerves her husband. Shakespeare has made Macbeth, in Scene ii preceding, keep from her definite knowledge of his purpose.

At the middle of the Third Act, Shakespeare de- velops the subjective climax of a play. The real climax comes near the end. At the first climax The the author makes us prefigure the outcome cHmax'crf of the whole. Our imaginations possess thepiay. themselves of the issue, and our sympathies are much aroused over the fate that we foresee. When the ghost appears the second time, and we have heard Macbeth betray himself, we feel pretty confidently advised how the piece will close. The subjective climax not only comes at the middle of a play, but coincides as here with the climax of the scene.

After the lords have gone home and begun to talk, public sentiment will turn violently against Macbeth. A scene, here the sixth of the act, must be given to show the change. The First and Third Acts are gen- erally connected closely with the ones following. Act I is separated from Act II by only a few hours. Act IV begins the day after the banquet. The

2l8 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

even-numbered acts, on the other hand, are followed ordinarily by longer intervals. Act III begins some days after the close of Act II. Act V waits for the news (cf. p. 223) from England.

The decline of Macbeth from his favour and success must be accelerated. Within two acts the end must Macbeth De reached. The visit to the Witches, which degraded Macbeth proposes at the end of the banquet

by applying , - . .

to the scene, can be made of signal consequences witches. to the hero. The Sisters have seemed pow- erful before ; they can be shown repulsive now. At the first meeting, they sought Macbeth; now Mac- beth seeks them. To save time, there may be a filthy cauldron and revolting incantations. All the influence of these things will be charged to Macbeth's account. Were it not necessary to advance quickly, less drastic means might be chosen. The scenes in that case would be more numerous and prolonged.

Macbeth has undergone terrible experiences result- ing from the two murders. He will not wish to mul- tiply his woes. The Witches are his guardian genii ; he will naturally turn to them, and they will deceive him, and allure him yet more irrevocably to his fall. We have seen examples of their power in the air- drawn dagger, and the ghost of Banquo, but apart from their visible agency and presence. They may well be made to furnish some spectacular proof of the forces that they can command. There can be an in- genious and telling exhibition of the diabolic masters, whom they serve, and whom the audience would like to see in material shape. The prophecy of the Third

DRAMATIC ART 2IQ

Witch to Banquo, — believed by Shakespeare's public to have been fulfilled, may be dramatically realised by a stage device. Moreover, those who have failed to trace the thread of diabolism to which the pretended apparition of Banquo is attached, will be set right by seeing it again (cf. p. 215) and as the indubitable product of the Witches' power. The first figure in the show of eight kings will be like the spirit of Banquo, as it looked at the great feast ; but The pre- the figure that is to represent Banquo in his g^^f turn shall be no less than the blood-boltered Banquo. presence by which Macbeth has been lately crazed, not this time shaking its head and leering, but smiling in a not unforgiving mood.

Another step in another scene will enact, from Holinshed, the butchery of Lady Macduff and her children. It is needed to reduce still lower Another the reader's enthusiasm for his hero. The scene

11 i • r i • i T • 11 needed to

problem here is of the simplest. It is well degrade in a scene so far on as this one to avoid Macbeth. bringing in new characters alone. So we may have Ross, as a relative of Lady Macduff, and commissioned by her husband to tell of his flight to England, con- nect the new action with the play. One of the chil- dren, the most precocious, will be shown with the mother, and the sympathies of the audience must be strongly engaged for both. It will be enough if we show the character of the mother, through her pain at what she thinks is Macduff' s neglect, and exhibit the penetration of her boy against her attempts to mystify him about his father. The lad may be ideal-

220 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

ised, at the end, when the murderers come, by being made to attempt the r61e of protector to his mother. It will be practicable to have the murderers appear in hairy disguises, such as would make most boys, of this one's years, run to their mother's skirts

The *

mother, the f or ref uge. This boy looks steadily into the idealised ^ace °^ ^ shag-haired villain, and receives through the the stroke of his dagger without crying, and proposes even to stay by the murderer and detain him, that his mother may escape. The reader will be forced thus to recognise how stalwart must be the father of such a lad, and what have been the strength and daring of the Macduff family in genera- tions preceding. The effect of the scene will cer- tainly go far toward effacing the qualities that have seemed hitherto admirable in Macbeth.

The limitations of the theme and of the plot be- come onerous now. The Duncan type of king, which we esteemed so lightly and wished wiped out of the play, must be made acceptable ; for the crown shall go to Malcolm after all. Macbeth has lost much favour ; but we are by no means willing to contemplate a second Duncan, or anything like a second Duncan, as his successor. There is evidently much to be done be- fore the audience can bear the hint of such an outcome.

We can do nothing here without our master. Prob- ably there is no man living who could execute this Malcolm task in the space of two hundred and forty nateTMac- unes- He opens scene iii, in which the duff. work must be done, just after Macduff has

told Malcolm of Scotland's plight. Macduff has

DRAMATIC ART 221

taken for granted that any rightful heir to the throne, on listening to such a tale, would see his duty and accept it. Perhaps we, knowing Malcolm as we do, have not taken for granted any such thing. He must be shown at first such as we expect. More than this, he professes to be in fear lest Macduff have come in treachery, as Macbeth's tool, ' to offer up a poor weak innocent lamb, to appease an angry god.' Even Macduff's impetuous enthusiasm gives way at this, —

I have lost my hopes. Bleed, bleed, poor country !

The only process by which a character like Malcolm's may be restored is a negative one. We must discover to our reader certain qualities that he has supposed wanting, and lead him, through changing his mind about these, to change it concerning the whole man. Malcolm is made to subordinate Macduff by getting him to believe certain libels that he affirms upon him- self. He manages this so sturdily as to arouse some- thing like detestation in Macduff : —

Fit to govern 1

No, not to live. O nation miserable, With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd, When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again, Since that the truest issue of thy throne By his own interdiction stands accurs'd, And does blaspheme his breed ? Thy royal father Was a most sainted king. The queen that bore thee Oftener upon her knees than on her feet Died every day she liv'd. Fare thee well ! These evils thou repeatest upon thyself Have banish'd me from Scotland.

222 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

To have managed the stalwart Macduff so easily and strongly, makes us see something in the man. The Duncan, of mnt of a monkish, saintly nature, now the Edward (}], IO8 JQQ) first put forward to palliate

Confessor ,

type of Duncans failure, helps not a little. This king. is a si<je Of Duncan's character that has thus

far received scant justice from the audience. The type of kingship that Edward the Confessor is suc- cessfully evincing, and the traditions of his reign, since the present scene is laid at his very court, may The chief be levied on. Shakespeare has a doctor doctor1 * come out from the presence of the king, episode. and give unhesitating though reluctant testi- mony — doctors are always sceptical about healers — that the King can cure. By making Malcolm take up the matter, and explain it fully, the author manages to invest him with something of the dignity and importance that belong to the two kings some- what in common. Edward the Confessor was not an efficient ruler ; but his goodness, or rather perhaps his piety, has considerably coloured the history of his reign. Malcolm comes away from contact with his prototype palpably stronger and more adequate for the future that is before him.

Malcolm, for the next thing, must be made more tolerable and sufficient as a martial figure. The Malcolm author must undo the impressions, of callow amended anc* ineffectual valour, that he gave us on martially, first presenting (I. ii. 3-5) the character. Macduff does not yet know what has happened to his family since his flight. Ross can be made of

DRAMATIC ART 22$

similar service to him as to his wife before her fate reached her, and will attract less attention, in a re- peated role, than a new messenger. He can be supposed to have been informed against, for going to Macduff's castle, and to be fleeing now to England from Macbeth's wrath. The heaviness of the blow prostrates Macduff, and Malcolm in rallying him gets himself into the royal superiority which we are not unwilling that he should assume. Here is a delicate moment. We are ready to change The audi- sides. Macduff's new, personal motive of ence s°es

IT- • r Over t0

vengeance, in addition to his former one Macduff's of patriotism, brings us over. The mention Slde- (11. 190-192) of old Siward, —

An older and a better soldier none That Christendom gives out, —

as fighting under Malcolm, already reenforced by Macduff's strength and zeal, makes us accept the stripling prince, without well knowing what we do, as the coming man of Scotland.

As was said earlier, between the even acts and the odd ones following, when the plot materials allow, are placed the longest intervals. The Fourth The Fourth Act is typically a preparing-time ; it has ^*^*~ shown us here the massing and marshalling time, of the forces that shall overthrow Macbeth. The Fifth Act need not wait until Malcolm and his Eng- lish troops arrive. At word that they are coming, we can make the Scottish nobles rise, and draw Mac- beth into the field against them. Then Lady Mac-

224 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

beth, foreseeing the retribution and the end, will begin to walk in her sleep. Macbeth, before he leaves her, will send his court physician to treat her malady. Through occasion of the doctor's presence, we may enable the audience to study her again, and know what sufferings she is undergoing. The scene, though great in possibilities, is not difficult to con- struct, and will be easily intelligible to the reader. The climax Of course Shakespeare's climax of 'the

SmeU °f bl°°d Still>' C°Uld neVCr haVC beCn

reached by another workman. How much it tells of an exquisite nature, born for the best and noblest living, and unequal utterly to the burdens of remorse ! Lady Macbeth believed that, might she but make her husband king, she could pay the price. But she has lost her soul, and her husband's love, and all her peace of mind ; and she has dreaded the vengeance of Scotland so poignantly as to have be- come virtually insane.

Macbeth, on hearing of the approach of the Eng- lish army, withdraws from the campaign against his revolted thanes to Dunsinane, where Lady Macbeth is staying, and intrenches himself. How the prophecy of the Witches' prophecy is fulfilled, how he goes out in frenzy and fights after all in the open field, it is not necessary to treat. The time for the consumma- tion is reached ; but the conclusion that the reader TheObsta- sighted and coveted, at the beginning, will consum-he be denied. Whether a play is tragedy or mation. comedy, does not depend solely upon the out- come, but is a resultant in which the Major and the

DRAMATIC ART 22$

Minor Obstacle are palpable factors. The two obsta- cles in the piece just analysed were each resolved in a manner that we approved, that is, comedially. In spite of all, the play has turned out a tragedy. Of course, the explanation lies in the fact that we were duped, through the author's acquaintance with the springs of feeling, into a dramatic demand for Macbeth's success that was really at variance with our principles. After the author had captured our sympathies, he let the inevitable consequences of his hero's action work themselves out. The end was not at all affected by our consenting to Macbeth's crimes. Some good people have held that Shakespeare shaped the piece as we find it because he was a wicked man, and wished evil, like what Macbeth attempted, every- where to prevail. We are pretty certain, for our part, that he did what he did because he had to make a play, probably on King James's requisition, out of the Macbeth materials. The play could not have been made if the reader was to be devoid of sympa- thy all the way through Macbeth's career.

It will be helpful, at this point, to compare the con- struction of the plays that have been examined with this one. In Cymbeline both the Major and the Compari- Minor Obstacle were encountered in scene iv ™hli\faC~ of the First Act. We should have thought, Cymbeline. perhaps, that the Queen's schemes are the chief obstruction that has prevented the course of true love from running smoothly. This, indeed, is true ; but since the Queen's opposition only ceases with her death, almost at the end, no use can be made of it in Q

226 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

the mechanics of the plot. The obstacles, techni- cally so called, must be presented and do their work before the close of the First Act.

As a matter of fact, Shakespeare does not arouse us over the Queen's ambition for her son in the same degree to which he stirs us by the obstacles in Mac- beth. We somehow find ourselves reposing in a sort of faith that the author will not suffer Imogen, so far as her father and Cloten are concerned, to come to harm. But when we are introduced to lachimo, in The Ma'or Scene iv, and learn his wish to possess the Obstacle in ring that Posthumus is wearing, the case is ino' different. Knowing his lago nature, we are in very lively concern lest he procure some means of compromising Imogen to her husband. The chance or probability of this misfortune is the Major Obstacle for the present play, and it proceeds from lachimo alone. As the scene evolves Posthumus's consent to commend lachimo to his wife, we become anxious lest Imogen unwittingly afford the villain some op- portunity to achieve evidence against her. This fresh The Minor concern» which grows acute on the arrival of Obstacle in lachimo, or at the beginning of his interview Imogen. ^^ jmogen> js the Minor Obstacle ; and it proceeds from Imogen's nature almost wholly. It is resolved, of course, when lachimo secures Imogen's consent to receive the trunk. We had hoped that lachimo would not succeed in gulling Imogen into any confidence in his words or wishes. But this obstacle is resolved tragically, and the First Act closes forthwith. The Major Obstacle is likewise re-

DRAMATIC ART 22/

solved tragically when we see lachimo possess him- self of the bracelet, in the second scene of the Second Act. The play, however, ends comedially in accord- ance with the worth of the heroine and the eternal fitness of things, yet seems not to have been regarded by the author as properly a comedy. It stands last, in the Folio of 1623, in the list of tragedies. Re- membering trje proofs, found lately in our cymbeiine study of Shakespeare's partiality for this a tragedy, heroine, we can scarcely wonder. Imogen is of no such heroism as befits her to endure the burdens of shame and sorrow that are laid upon her. The favour- able issue of the plot does not fully make amends. So the play may be called a tragedy.

In The Winter's Tale there is no technical question about the obstacles. The chief hinderance to the royal and domestic felicity of Hermione and her hus- band is unmistakably the husband's jealousy. We hope it will be lifted before alienation ensues, and before the matter has become a public scan- Obstacles dal. We encounter this obstacle, which is l?,?f? ,

winter s

the Major one, before Polyxenes's answer to Tau. Hermione is reached. After Polyxenes concludes to stay, in the face of troubles that he must know he is intensifying, we are exercised over the prospect of further mischief. In the week that must now be added to his nine months' visit, how shall he escape numberless occasions, like these we have just wit- nessed, of kindling the rage of Leontes ? Even his presence here, presumed to be due to Hermione's attractions, is dangerous to the welfare of the king-

228 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

dom. Thus Polyxenes, in his person, as well as in the things he may do unwittingly, furnishes the Minor Obstacle.

As has been earlier noted, there are properly two new situations, each amounting in importance almost to a scene, before the close of the First Act. The first of these begins at 1. 209, and is devoted to the evolution of Camillo's feigned consent to murder Polyxenes. At 1. 364 the second of these situations is set up : Polyxenes is made to enter and find out from Camillo the King's purpose. It is necessary that the Minor Obstacle should be resolved tragically. Hermione must be tried ; and to that end Leontes's jealousy must blaze forth. Polyxenes must furnish the occasion ; Hermione cannot. The least costly of all possible expedients will be to make Polyxenes run away, secretly, and as Leontes will think, guiltily, from the Sicilian court.

The King will at once of course accuse Hermione,

and the disgraceful news will be spread throughout

the kingdom. Then the Major Obstacle also will

have been tragically resolved. The place where it

is resolved is the second situation in the

Jne Win- ter's Tale a Second Act. The author does not exalt the

edy' attack of Leontes upon his wife into a spe- cific scene ; it is too dismal. But Hermione's pain and suffering are much less than her husband's. She is stronger than Imogen ; she is more heroic and less domestic. So Shakespeare seems to hold that the redemption of Leontes and the restoration of Perdita, at the end, overweigh the pain they cost, hence enters

DRAMATIC ART

the play as comedy. It stands last in the list of come- dies in the great Folio.

In Romeo and Juliet the maximum consummation rises in our imagination as soon as Juliet is shown. Here is the affinity of the hero ; we wish The Obsta- that Romeo find her, and recognise her rare, ^J" and strange worth, and win her to himself. But Juliet. there is the enmity between the houses — no insig- nificant Major Obstacle, certainly. Romeo is to see Juliet, through the opportunity of a mask, at her father's house. As the moment approaches, a new concern takes hold of us. Will not Romeo fail, from his abnormal and distant worship of Rosaline, to discern Juliet's nature ; and will not Juliet, fancy- free, miss the meaning of Romeo's eyes and voice ? This minor anxiety gives way when we hear Romeo say and Juliet say what feelings have been stirred in each. With these somewhat oracular avowals the Minor Obstacle is raised comedially, and the First Act ends.

We have realised already, in some measure, what the enmity of two great houses must have meant, in the fourteenth century, to the hopes of a Juliet and a Romeo. They may well pause and count the cost. The fiery Capulet will cast out his daughter, per- haps strike her dead, when he shall hear ; that Juliet knows right well. By making us understand, in the first scene of Act II, how indifferent Romeo is to the claims of the Montagues, the author centres the Major Obstacle in his heroine. The beautiful reso- lution of it that comes speedily from her, we know

230 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

something about already. But there can be no effect, from the lifting of these obstacles, in miti- gation of the conclusion, which is of the deepest tragedy.

The central climax in these plays is definitely con- ceived, and falls, as it should, near the middle of The each Third Act and of the piece. In Cym-

ciimaxfo* beline we recognise the influences of it where these plays. (III. iv. 143-156) Imogen accepts the plan of leaving Britain for Italy in disguise. In The Winter's Tale we find it (III. ii. 154-203) in the King's contri- tion and Paulina's over-rhetorical protestations that the Queen is dead. In Romeo and Juliet the central climax culminates in the fourth scene of the middle act.

There are other principles of dramatic construction that Shakespeare divined and served himself with in his maturest work ; but the scope of the present book will not include further inquiry of this kind. We are trying merely to get a provisional and convincing view of Shakespeare's importance as a literary fig- ure. We have space left but to show that his genius Novels was all-penetrating, and that his principles constructed were universal. It was said some pages

on Shake- . , , _

speare's back that the novel may be looked upon as plan. an extended drama, the chapters answering

to scenes. The plan by which English and Ameri- can writers of fiction hold the mirror up to nature in these days is the same essentially as we have just discovered in our consideration of Macbeth. Shake- speare was, perhaps, unaware of his processes and made for himself no rules, but his tact and penetra-

DRAMATIC ART 231

tion never failed to supply him with the vital points, even in the most refractory material. Almost at the beginning of his twenty years of playwright service, as early, at least, as the completion of the Romeo and Juliet, he had fixed the literary norm that the slowly evolving novel of the nineteenth century proves to have merely reproduced.

In the typical novel of the day we find the fit conclusion brought before the consciousness of the reader, to arouse his interest, relatively as early as in the plays just studied. In Richard Carvel this is done in the second chapter : we hope that nothing will come between Richard and his grandfather, that Richard may win Dorothy, and fall heir to Richard the Hall. Of the obstacles recognised, the Carve/. lesser one centres in Dorothy; she is wilful, and may not care for Richard. This obstacle is removed before the end of Chapter XI, which in dramatic form would close Act I. Chapter XI stops with page 1 1 5, a little past the first fifth of the whole novel. The Major Obstacle is plainly our fear of Grafton's envy, and it is comfortably resolved in Chapter XV. The middle climax falls in Chapter XXV, where Dolly comes to the prison. The whole seems to have been written in the development of a dramatic outline, such as Shakespeare would have conceived from the same material, and expanded into a play of thirty-five scenes or more.

In Scott's Quentin Dztrward, which is a good ex- ample of the earlier romantic novels, we conceive and covet the conclusion before finishing Chapter IV.

232 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

The first chapter of the volume, like Scott's first chapters generally, is a mere prologue of explanations, and should not be counted. Evidently the young woman of the turret chamber is of rank ; we wish the hero to speed with her, and to get into circumstances where he may conquer a place and name worthy of her and of himself. The first obstacle is Quentin's unwillingness to take service, which is his evident opportunity. This Minor is resolved at the end of Chapter VI, where the hero has his option of considering himself enrolled in Lesly's retinue, or of being hanged. Here the First Act of a dramatised Quentin Dunvard would end, some dozen pages short of the first fifth of the vol- ume proper. The Major Obstacle is our concern lest, in taking service about Plessis-les-Tours, he shall be shut away from the fair lady, with no chance of wooing her, or of recommending himself specifi- cally and personally to the King. The discovery, in Chapter VIII, that Mattre Pierre, who might keep Quentin from a free career, is no less than Louis himself, and means to keep the youth about his person in a post of trust, relieves the reader. Of course, to modern readers, the identity of Pierre ceases to be a secret several chapters earlier, but Scott did not apparently intend or expect his public to anticipate this turn. The subjective climax falls in Chapter XXI.

In Meredith's Evan Harrington, a novel of standard quality, published in 1861, we find the same points and proportions rather more accurately observed.

DRAMATIC ART 233

The consummation, sighted fully in Chapters II and IV, involves on Evan's part the saving of Evan Har- his father's honour, and the winning of Rose rinston- Jocelyn. The first of our misgivings or " obstacles " is the thought of Evan's refusing to shoulder the burden of his father's debts. This is removed at the close of Chapter IX, and at the end almost exactly of the first fifth of the work. The Major Obstacle is our concern lest Evan, by his resolve to manage his father's shop, be separated forever from the oppor- tunity of recommending himself to Rose. This is removed, by the machinations of the Countess, at the cricket game in Chapter XIII. The subjective climax comes at the middle of the volume, where Rose, frightened and humbled at Evan's hurt, is ready to brave all for his sake. Mr. Meredith seems aware of the dramatic nature of his plot, since at the opening of Chapter XXXVIII he announces that he has just completed the Fourth Act of his comedy, as indeed, according to Shakespeare's scheme, he has.

In these novels we have again illustrated that the ultimate purpose and meaning of a piece of literature, whether play or novel, are likely to be far Ultimate removed from the outward happenings or meaning of aspects of the plot. Richard Carvel is not merely a novel of adventure, but mainly exalts, in a somewhat epic way, the cavalier period in Maryland history. Qttentin Durward was not written to furnish a romance of Quentin and Lady Isabelle, but to make us acquainted with the character of Louis XI of France. The story of the course of their true loves

234 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

was told chiefly to float the details of the narrative. In Evan Harrington the real purpose is to deliver a blow at caste. Rose, lovely as she is, counts for much less than the hero does, being used as a means of measuring to us Evan's heroism, and manliness, and, as he considers it, his honour. That he may be true to his family and himself, he gives Rose up. It is a love-story, to be sure, but this kind of plot is chosen mainly to insure a proper personal interest in the hero in whom the principle is to be worked out.

Other forms of literature are builded upon the same fundamental plan as typical novels, and the plays Tenn son's °^ Shakespeare's school. The Princess of The Tennyson is constructed like Macbeth except

that there are seven parts or acts instead of five. The consummation is, of course, the union of Ida and the Prince. Two obstacles are used in work- ing out the plot, — the aversion of the Princess to men, which is the Major, and the escapade of the invasion and the disguises, which is the Minor. The Minor is resolved comedially ; Psyche detects the trick in time, and no harm comes from it to the Prince's cause. The First Act ends with Part II. The second scene of the Second Act centres in the invi- tation to go geologising, which resolves the Major Obstacle. The Princess is not indifferent to the Prince nor even to his ambassadresses ; else she would scarcely take her gold plate along, and her satin tent, to do honour to her freshman guests. The middle of the Third Act falls, of course, in Part IV, where the

DRAMATIC ART 235

Princess is rescued by the Prince. Part VII is Act V. Act IV comprises Parts V and VI.

The tendency in modern literary evolution is clearly toward condensation. The novel is merging into the short story; dramatic monologues do The Short the work of five-act plays. Even here the Stofy- groundwork of obstacles, or the involving of the plot, appears to be preserved. In novels as long as Quo Vadis there is the same proportioning, there are the same vital points. It would be interesting to make comparisons in plays and novels outside of English, if time could be spared. Ths famous Cyrano de Bergerac, except that the maximum consummation is not sighted till the end of the First Act, is con- structed upon Shakespeare's plan. There is as much reward in studying the construction of plays, in the light of common principles, as in discerning and real- ising their ultimate ideas. By searching out these things, the humblest reader may concern his mind with the deepest problems of art and message that authors devote their days and nights to solving.

VI

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN

WE have gained some impressions concerning Shakespeare as an artist and author, and shall prob- The birth a^v ^e interested in learning what may be of Shake- told about him biographically as a man. Unfortunately we are permitted to know far less of his personal than of his literary life. Not even the date of his birth has been preserved. In the records of Stratford parish it is shown that a baby boy was baptized William Shakespeare on the 26th of April, 1 564. From this it has been inferred that the birth date must have been the 23d or the 22d, but we cannot be sure. The register itself is but the copy of a perished original, and shows no entry earlier than 1558.

The first mention of the great poet is thus perpet- uated, not inappropriately, in formal Latin, — Guiel- mus filins Johannes Shakspere. The name of the mother, according to the custom of registers, does not appear. But it is altogether likely that, could the poet's life be told completely, the mother would figure not less prominently than the father. Great men not seldom derive their strength from the mother's side. It has been claimed that John Shakespeare's wife was of Celtic stock, and this would be agreeable and

236

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 237

illuminating to know, if it could be proved. A dis- trict of Warwickshire had for many generations belonged to a family of Ardens, with whom the attempt has been made to connect the poet's mother. Our first knowledge of Shakespeare's mother in her home is derived, like most of our information about the family, from documents and rec- shake. ords. Among the earliest entries in the speare's Stratford register we learn of the birth and r death of two baby daughters. Our first glimpse of the young mother is a glimpse of grief ; and this cir- cumstance of her losing her first children does not present her to our imagination as of large presence or conspicuous physical strength. Her other chil- dren, including the great William, with one exception, were not long-lived. The marriage of John Shake- speare and Mary Arden is not of record at Aston Cantlowe church, where it is supposed to have oc- curred, nor elsewhere so far as known. Thomas Cromwell's injunction to the clergy, in the reign of Henry VIII, to keep registers, seems not to have been heeded in Stratford or the parishes round about. Twenty years after, in 1558, on the accession of Elizabeth, the order was enforced with strictness. This was in season to admit the record of the little sisters and their famous brother, but not the marriage of their parents. It is, however, almost certain that this marriage took place in 1557. Robert Arden, the bride's father, died in December of 1556; and it would seem from the will, dated a few days earlier, that his favourite daughter Mary was not married,

238 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

or yet contracted, at that time. On the i$th of Sep- tember, 1558, according to the Stratford register, her first child, Joan Shakespeare, was baptized.

Perhaps Mary Arden would not have married so

speedily had her father's life been spared. Robert

Arden is believed to have been the landlord

Shake- speare's of John Shakespeare's father. When an

her' heiress weds a man of the tenant class, other things equal, it is not because he is slow-witted or unhandsome. There are good and sufficient rea- sons for believing that Shakespeare's father was a man of very different abilities and accomplishments from such as were usually exhibited in that part of the country by farmers' sons. Born probably in the little hamlet of Snitterfield, four miles northeast of Stratford, he seems to have left the home, rented from Robert Arden by Richard Shakespeare his father, for that borough about 1551. After a slight apprenticeship, served we know not how, he began the business of dealing in farm products, such as grain, malt, wool, hides, tallow, mutton, beef, and prospered equally with the other tradesmen of the town, many of them doubtless to the manner born. It would seem that he was even more successful than the most of them. We find him, within ten years of his coming to Stratford, elected to offices of responsi- bility, and in 1568, after seventeen years of citizen- ship, advanced to the position of High Bailiff, the last honour in the gift of the Stratford folk. He could read and write, and was somewhat expert in the management and auditing of accounts.

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 239

In 1556 John Shakespeare purchased a house and garden in Henley Street, presumably with reference to the marriage that took place, as we have Shake. seen, in the following year. In this house, speare's or it may be in the one adjoining it on the fc rthplace- west, William Shakespeare was born. There is no proof that Shakespeare's father acquired the lat- ter property until 1575 ; but it has been conjectured that he may have occupied it under lease, even after the purchase of the house next it on the east. At any rate, it is not the eastern house that is now shown as the birthplace of the poet. Here, in the one or the other home, it is likely, the parents watched their child during the awful summer of 1564. Not many weeks after its birth, the plague reached Stratford. ' In six months one sixth of their neighbours were buried. But although there was scarcely a house in which there was not one dead, there was a charm upon their threshold, and William Shakespeare lived.' The lone boy in the cradle, if he had one, was not long to live without a playmate. Turning again to the register of Stratford church, we find the christen- ing of a brother Gilbert in 1 566. There was another sister baptized in 1571, but she died before she was eight years old. Other children, who all grew to maturity, were Joan, christened in 1569, Richard, in 1574, and Edmund, in 1580.

Stratford was a good place for a man like Shake- speare to be born in. Perhaps no spot in latitudes as high could have offered so much for awakening the soul of a great poet. The choicest of rural scenery

240 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

was within sight or reach. There were no mountains, Shake- there was no prospect of the sea ; but there speare's was England's best of forest and stream and country. meadow. The land was dotted with little hamlets, connected with Stratford by lanes and by- ways and sometimes by well-travelled roads. No less than a dozen of these humble villages were set within five or six miles of Shakespeare's home. Something less than four miles east-of-north lay Snitterfield, where John Shakespeare seems to have lived as a youth and perhaps was born. Three miles north- west was Wilmcote, where Robert Arden lived, and where John Shakespeare probably won Mary Arden for his bride. Two miles farther, in the same direc- tion, on the Alne, was Aston Cantlowe, with its parish church, where Shakespeare's parents in all likelihood went to be wedded. Just out of Stratford, on the west, hardly a mile distant, was Shottery, believed to have been the home of the woman to whom Shake- speare became a husband.

But Stratford, in spite of the humble and secluded

life led by its folk, was within the echo of the great

world. On the highroad north and east, twenty

miles distant, lay Coventry, accounted the third city

of the kingdom, with its stately buildings, its

Coventry. 3 °

legends, and its monastic memories. The Godiva pageants were celebrated in Shakespeare's day, and are kept up even yet. The ancient Mys- teries, though already distanced far in a dramatic evolution that the man from Stratford was to com- plete, were still rendered just as of old. When

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 241

Shakespeare was sixteen, in 1580, these plays were virtually suppressed; but it is conceivable that he was enterprising enough before that age to have found his way, with or without tutelage, to the fa- mous spectacles. His references to Termagant and Herod seem to come from no second-hand acquaint- ance with those blusterous, raging characters from the Mysteries. Five miles nearer Stratford were the town and castle of Kenilworth, where Kenii- Leicester had been installed by the Queen's worth- favour in the year of Shakespeare's birth. The mag- nificence of such a figure, who aspired even to the hand of his sovereign, could not have failed to quicken the slowest bucolic fancy in days like those. Surely the splendour of the masques and sports with which Leicester entertained the Queen, in the sum- mer of 1575, for seventeen days, must have reached the mind of Shakespeare, and lifted it to the level of princely contemplation. It is indeed far from likely that John Shakespeare shut himself up in Stratford throughout this festival, and deprived him- self, his wife, and his son from witnessing some part of pageants hardly to be matched in Christendom. On the same highway, five miles nearer ,

__. . , Warwick.

home, stood Warwick, with its memorials and memories of great men. The commoner sort of people throughout the shire must have known the story of Earl Thomas, who led the English knights at Cressy, and were perhaps talking with unabated won- der yet of the great Richard who made and unmade kings at will. The country abounded in scenes and s.

242 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

monuments that spoke eloquently of the past, from battle grounds and feudal castles to parish churches and Ichnield Street. To a mind like Shakespeare's all legends and reminders of this sort must have been significant and inspiring.

For such endowments and possibilities as were Shakespeare's, something of education was a vital The Free need. There was already, as by marvel, a SchToT of scn°o1 in waiting. While Mary Arden could Stratford, not read, nor John Shakespeare do much more perhaps than write his name, it was possible for their son to know the best things, in kind, that Eng- land then gave to her youth of privilege. As early as 1482 Thomas Jolyffe had granted the foundation for the Free Grammar School of Stratford. The con- ditions were that the Guild of the Holy Cross, which controlled the lands and houses, should maintain a priest ' fit and able in knowledge to teach grammar freely to all scholars coming to the school in the said town to him.' After the Reformation, which dis- solved of course the Guild, the revenues were rescued and reapplied by a charter of Edward VI. The school founded and made available thus for Shake- speare has not ceased yet its work. The Guild Hall and Grammar School, on Church Street of Old Strat- ford, stands as it did, joined at an angle greater than a right angle with the Guild Chapel, which extended along Chapel Lane. The schoolroom, which was in the second story, measured sixty-eight feet by twenty- two, and had beams overhead in lieu of ceiling. The Guild Chapel (84 x 25) was somewhat larger.

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 243

It is by no means certain that Shakespeare was ever at school in the room over the town hall, just described. There is an entry in the corporation books of March 5, 1595, to the effect that 'there shall be no school kept in the Chapel from this time following.' It seems likely that the work of the school, begun perhaps after Edward's charter in the Chapel of the Guild, was changed at that date to the room now used. It is more than probable that Shakespeare was a pupil in this school in 1571, or a little later. Walter Roche was then master, and was succeeded by Thomas Hunt six years after. One or the other of these, or perhaps both, must what have given Shakespeare instruction. Latin ^g" was certainly administered to him, and al- studied, most as certainly through the medium of Lily's Grammar ; and he may have read something from Plautus, Terence, and Horace, as well as Cicero and Vergil. There is no evidence that Greek was taught in Stratford at this time, or that Shakespeare studied it there or elsewhere.

Thus the son of the wool-dealer in Henley Street reached an acquaintance with the Latin element in English, without which he could not have become Shakespeare to the world. To have known Greek might have increased his power ; not to have known Latin would have given him a diction want- Sh , ing in universalness, and shorn of literary speare's strength. With it he has surpassed all diction< other wielders of the English tongue. He has profited by Latin idioms for terseness and potencies

244 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

not otherwise in reach. His taste was sometimes faulty, because the taste of the day was yet imperfect. But he often effects a classic turn that for neatness and certitude puts the pedants to confusion. Shake- speare's knowledge of French and Italian, for he seems to have had some first-hand acquaintance with both these languages, must have been derived from later study.

How long Shakespeare's school days lasted, there is no means of knowing. In 1577 his father's pros- perity began to wane. This circumstance is believed to have sent the lad to his first work as a wage-earner. There are other hints and scraps of evidence that the poet began to learn something of the serious side of life at about this time. His father's fortunes refused to mend. In the autumn of 1578 he was forced to secure a loan of ^40, something like ^320, or $1600 of present money, by mortgaging his wife's estate at Asbies. In the next year his daughter Anne died. All references and records concerning him in the next ten years tell of little else than distress and humiliation, and even pursuit, because of creditors. In 1592 John Shakespeare is reported, with eight others, ' for not coming monthly to church according to her majesty's laws,' the reason being not Popish recusancy, but fear of process for debt. During this period it may be fairly assumed that the eldest son aided in the support of the family ; but whether he served as a butcher, a lawyer's clerk, or a country schoolmaster, as has been variously maintained, there is no evidence to determine.

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 245

However much the younger Shakespeare may have helped his mother in the cares and burdens of her household, on the first coming of evil days, it seems clear that this aid was not increased with the appar- ently increasing needs. After 1582 we find him weighted with domestic burdens of his own; the stripling Shakespeare, not yet nineteen, has made himself a husband. The story is scarcely Shake. pleasing, and involves some mysteries. In speare's Shottery, according to the records, there mamase- were three families bearing the name of Hathaway. The head of one of these, known as Richard, made in 1581 a will, and by one provision of it left the sum of ;£6, 13-$-., Afd, to a daughter Agnes, to be paid to her on the day of her marriage. This Richard Hathaway is identified as the farmer who owned and lived in the house, now considerably reduced and altered, which is shown as Anne Hathaway's cottage. Agnes and Anne were often treated as variants of the same name. As had happened in Robert Arden's family, there was a marriage soon after the father's death ; for the Stratford register shows the birth of a daugh- ter Susanna to William Shakespeare on the 26th of May, 1583. No record of the marriage of Anne Hathaway to William Shakespeare seems to be anywhere extant. But in the consistorial court of Worcester there is a document which proves that the marriage was licensed unusually and could not have taken place earlier than November 28, preceding the date of the document in question. By this instru- ment, Fulk Sandells and John Richardson, husband-

246 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

men of Stratford, assume suretyship in the sum of £40, that no damage shall accrue to the Bishop of Worcester in consequence of licensing the marriage of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway on once asking of the bans. According to the inscription on Anne Shakespeare's tombstone, she had reached at this time the age of twenty-six. Under date of February 2, 1585, we find entered in the Stratford register the birth of Hamnet and Judith Shakespeare, twins.

There were other William Shakespeares in the see of Worcester, to which the Stratford parishes be- longed, at this time ; and another of these Williams secured a license at the bishop's court, in the same fashion, on November 27, to marry a certain Anne Whately, from near Stratford. There cannot be question which William Shakespeare became after- ward the great playwright. Fulk Sandells and John Richardson seem not to have been representatives of the bridegroom, who was perhaps with them, but of the family of the bride. Sandells is mentioned in her father's will as a ' trustie f rende and neighbour,' and Richardson was probably the John Richardson who, with his mark, witnessed the will. In a bond of the sort executed by these men, the consent of the parents or ' f rendes ' of the groom as well as of the bride was requisite, but in this one no reference to Shakespeare's family appears. As the groom was a minor, the omission is the more remarkable. Shake- speare himself, as has been said, may have been present and able to assure the bishop's officer, or John

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 247

Shakespeare may have been of the party and testi- fied to his willingness in person. Shakespeare's father, being at this time in financial straits, would not be expected to add his name to the bond, while Sandells and Richardson for their part would scarcely wish to assume suretyship in his behalf. An instru- ment of this one-sided character would be recognised by any clergyman acquainted with both contracting parties and their families, and such a clergyman undoubtedly performed the ceremony. It has been conjectured, it would seem with no great unwilling- ness, by writers affecting to regard the A great interpreter and worshipper of woman- contract of hood as no better than the commonest of marnage- men, that Shakespeare did not marry Anne Hatha- way save by compulsion. Nothing is clearer than that Shakespeare could have avoided this union had he so willed. There were cases enough in Stratford, if the birth records are to be trusted, of men who ought to have been husbands, but had escaped be- coming such. There is small reason for assuming that Shakespeare was less adventurous and resource- ful, whether or not he were better in ideals and morals, than these young townsmen. There is evi- dence, moreover, that the marriages of those days were almost always preceded by a more or less formal contract, which had all the legal force of a marriage proper. This was generally followed by the priestly ceremonial, though sometimes after much delay. Robert Arden mentions his daughter Agnes, in a certain instrument, as the 'wife' of Thomas

^248 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Stringer, although we know that the religious mar- riage was not solemnised until fully three months after the date borne by the document. In Bishop Watson's Doctrine of the Seven Sacraments, published in 1558, it is observed that persons united by pre- contract are ' perfectly married together ' ; while 'the marriage of them in the face of the Church afterward, by the ministration of the priest, is not superfluous, but much expedient for sundry causes.' The sense of the times in such matters seems to have been recognised by Shakespeare in two of the plays considered in the present volume. In The Winter's Tale he appears to have thought a pre-contract neces- sary, and sufficient, for Perdita and Florizel, before their journey to Sicily together. By like means, he secures to Olivia, in Twelfth Night, legal authority over the wavering affections, as she supposes, of the Duke's messenger (cf. p. 405). That there was a pre- contract in the instance in question must not be affirmed, nor indeed denied ; neither is it charity or good morals to insist that, where conditions of honour- able union were so easy, there was deliberate wrong. Whatever, as regards Anne Hathaway, the case may mean, the burden of proof is against those who assume or affirm that Shakespeare was not in all the affair wholly chivalrous and noble.

After this marriage, the page is blank again.

The deer- Whether Shakespeare lived with his parents

stealing in Henley Street, or whether he was able

already to maintain a home of his own, there

is not so much as a hint in knowledge. We can

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 249

be sure of nothing further than that, after the birth of Hamnet and Judith, in February, 1585, Shake- speare went to London. It is hardly possible that he went earlier than this year, or that his going was much more than a year later. There is a tradition that his departure was hastened by the persecutions of Sir Thomas Lucy, living at the hall in Charlcote, some four miles east of Stratford, on the Avon. Sir Thomas was a member of Parliament, an ex- high sheriff and a justice of the peace, and pursued Shakespeare, according to the story, for repeatedly breaking into his park enclosures and stealing his deer. There is no unlikelihood that Shakespeare had some part in the deer-stealing. That was a common enough offence against the gentry, and was looked upon as no worse morally, as some one has said, than the melon-stealing of a later day. When a man from such a community becomes great, popular report con- cerning him, at least for a generation or two, is apt to be correct. One item in the tradition, to the effect that Shakespeare avenged himself by lampooning his pursuer, is significant and invites acceptance of the whole. Shakespeare would be altogether likely to use the weapons that we know he had. The alleged first stanza of his pasquinade, remembered and contributed by an old resident, and containing puns on the family name, is extant, and can hardly be accounted for as a bucolic fabrication. Sir Thomas Shakespeare seems to have cherished no T^s°t[CeS lasting fondness for the Lucys, and prob- Shallow. ably by the character of Justice Shallow, in Merry

250 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Wives, gives some further expression to his satiric feeling. This play, at opening, presents Shallow threatening to make a star-chamber matter of a cer- tain culprit's poaching. Immediate reference is then made to his rank and pedigree and coat of arms. The Lucy coat showed three luces, or pikes, argent. In Justice Shallow's coat this number is increased to twelve, and Sir Hugh Evans is made presently (I. i. 19, 20) to affirm that 'the dozen white louses do become an old coat well.' There can be small doubt that we have here an echo of the old feud and the old joke.

What Shakespeare did when he arrived in London, or what he expected to do on reaching there, are little better than matters of conjecture. It is possible that he went on purpose to join some company of players, for he had undoubtedly seen several such perform at Stratford, and been quickened by their appeal to the imaginative life. Sir William Davenant, who affected to know more about Shakespeare's private history than anybody else, is said to be authority for the statement that he worked first before The Theatre in Shore- ditch, holding horses for the gentry who frequented there. This playhouse, which had been running since 1 577, was owned by the father of Richard Burbage, the great tragic actor of later days. The Curtain, which was the only English playhouse as yet in existence, besides The Theatre, was situated near it, and had perhaps been in operation almost as long. In one of these, certainly, Shakespeare soon found employment. In 1587 Shakespeare's name appears in conjunction

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 251

with his father's in an effort to make over the title of the Asbies estate to John Lambert, on condition of receiving from Lambert £20. It is believed that this attempted transfer, which belongs to September of the year named, drew Shakespeare home to Stratford.

For the next five years the record of Shakespeare's life is without entries. In 1592 his name appears under circumstances that argue a marked The attack change in his condition. He is grown to be ofGreene- of importance enough to have excited the jealousy of one of the first playwrights of the day, a Cambridge graduate, widely travelled and of unusual accomplish- ments, and to have suffered from him a bitter per- sonal attack. Robert Greene, once in orders, and now at the end of his career as a dramatist and poet, writes of him thus in his Groats-worth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentaunce : ' There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that, with his Ty- gers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the onely Shake-scene in a coun- trie. O that I might intreate your rare wits to be imployed in more profitable courses, and let those apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions ! I know the best husband of you all will never prove an usurer, and the kindest of them all wil never proove a kinde nurse ; yet, whilst you may, seeke you better maisters, for it is pittie men of such rare

252 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

wits should be subject to the pleasures of such rude groomes.' The death-bed warning, of which these sentences form 'a part, is addressed to three fellow- dramatists, presumably Marlowe and Nash and Lodge, who are exhorted to mend all their evil ways as well as to refrain from play-making henceforward. Of the italicised expressions, which are printed as they appear in the pamphlet, the first is plainly bur- lesqued from this line (I. iv. 137) in the Third Part of Henry VI,—

O tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide.

The play just named is one of those that Shakespeare is known to have revised, and may have been origi- nally in part the work of Greene. From the part of the pamphlet quoted, it is evident that Shake- speare is now an actor, and that he has been looked upon hitherto as not at all belonging to the class of persons that should presume to write blank verse or recast a play. How brilliantly he has done work of this ' Johannes factotum ' sort we may read in the rancour of a dying man, who is trying to exhibit a Christian spirit. It is known that, in February of this year, the company of players to which Shake- speare belonged had opened a third playhouse, called 'The Rose.' It seems to have been in con- sequence of new demands originating here that Shakespeare's powers were first called to use.

The abuse thus publicly administered to Shake- speare might have been, by an untutored, bucolic 'groom,' not altogether undeserved. There is evi-

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 253

dence, however, that it was quite uncalled for, and that Shakespeare was recognised already as Hen a man not only of rare cleverness, but of Chettie's signally courteous and upright behaviour. aP°logy- Greene's pamphlet, finished but a little before his death, was put into the hands of one Henry Chettle, who edited it and saw it through the press. Three months later, Chettle published a little book of his own, called Kind-Harts Dreame, and in the introduc- tion to this he apologises for allowing Greene's abuse to see the light. " How I," he writes, " have all the time of my conversing in printing hindred the bitter inveying against schollers, it hath been very well knowne; and how in that I dealt, I can suffi- ciently proove. With neither of them that take offence was I acquainted, and with one of them I care not if I never be. Tho other, whome at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish I had, for that, as I have moderated the heate of living writers, and might have usde my owne discretion, — especially in such a case, the author beeing dead, — that I did not I am as sory as if the originall fault had beene my fault, because myselfe have scene his demeanor no lesse civill, than he exelent in the qualitie he pro- fesses ; — besides, divers of worship have reported his uprightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writting, that aprooves his art." This is a good report of the man who came to London six years ago. The persons 'of wor- ship ' who have testified to Shakespeare's upright- ness of dealing, are pretty surely not his employers

254 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

or companions in the theatre ; he has made friends among folk of rank and influence in the city. He has the manners and bearing of a gentleman, and is as conspicuous in such accomplishments as he is excellent in his ' quality ' or profession as an actor. Moreover, his facility and grace in writing seem to have been recognised already, by his patrons and admirers, as remarkable, in spite of Marlowe and Greene and Peele, with all their learning and pres- tige. Though Shakespeare has entered this brilliant and fascinating circle of playwrights and players under circumstances that tend most subtly and strongly to undermine his character, he keeps his head, and is advancing rapidly to the front.

Chettle's reference to Shakespeare as of recognised eminence in the work of acting squares well with what is known of his prominence in the company in which he played. According to an act of Parliament, passed in the Ferrex and Porrex period of British stage history, when acting had come to be a specific occupation, all troupes of players were obliged to appear under the patronage of some nobleman or person of great influence and following at court. The company toward which Shakespeare seems to have been attracted was naturally enough the one licensed by the Earl of Leicester. Afterward this company came under the protection of the Lord Chamberlain, and in 1603 of no less a personage than King James. It is of record that the Lord Chamber- lain's Company played two comedies before Queen Elizabeth, in December, 1594, but only Kemp and

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 2$ 5

Shakespeare and Burbage are named specifically. Kemp was the first among the comedy actors Shake. of this time, as Burbage was first among speareas tragedians. If Shakespeare were named here because he is a playwright, he would be en- tered probably before Kemp. If he were but a sorry actor of comedy, he would surely stand after Burbage, or not appear at all. Among nine of the actors in the King's Company, mentioned in James's license, Shakespeare again is second, being preceded by Lawrence Fletcher, and followed by Richard Burbage. The provisions of the license are ex- tended, beyond the nine actors named, ' to the rest of their associates ' ; which would imply some dozen or fifteen as the full membership of the company. In the list of players who took part in the first presen- tation of Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, Shake- speare stands at the head; and among the players that appear in the first edition of Sejamts, by the same author, Shakespeare and Burbage rank alike. Moreover, in a list of the ' principal ' actors of Shakespeare's plays, prefixed to the Folio of 1623, Shakespeare's is the first of twenty-six names, with Burbage following. Shakespeare's dramatic great- ness probably accounts for his name being the first one in the list, but does not account for his name being in the list. If he had not been an unusually good actor, the playhouse brotherhood, which was jealous of the interests of each member, and fixed the degrees of merit, would presumably not have suffered his being ranked as on a par with Burbage.

256 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

That Shakespeare became a successful actor in the theatre of Elizabethan times must mean that Shake- ^e was °* &°°d presence and figure, and speare's that he was sprightly and graceful of man- ner. He can hardly be thought of as actu- ally rivalling the strongest type of players, — for there were giants in those days, — mainly perhaps on account of voice, which may have lacked the timbre essential to heroic parts. There is no suggestion of effeminacy about Shakespeare ; but his kindliness and sympathy toward children and women scarcely argue the brawn and weight of a Burbage personality. There are traditions that he played the Ghost in Hamlet and Adam in As You Like It, r61es evidently within the vocal limits of the man supposed. It is probable that Shakespeare was at his best in some main parts of the comedy series, as Benedict, Petru- chio, Antonio, Shylock, Jaques, though we can agreeably conceive him his own best Romeo, Mer- cutio, Horatio, Posthumus, Menenius, Philip Faul- conbridge, and Enobarbus, and many other such characters in the histories and tragedies. He is mentioned once in an epigram, by John Davies of Hereford, as a 'player of kingly parts in sport.' It goes without saying that Shakespeare compre- hended the r61es that he created better than the actors whom he set and coached to carry them re- spectively ; and that, except for histrionic limitations, he could have taken the several parts himself better than anybody else. It is at least significant that he continued in the quality of an actor, in spite of his

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 257

princely income, and the exactions of playwriting and management, till the full close of his dramatic career.

It is not to be supposed that Shakespeare worked for any length of time at mending plays before dis- covering that he could make good ones for Venus and himself. Yet if his own statement is to be Adonis. taken seriously, it was not a drama that received his first constructive effort Near the middle of 1593 ap- peared his Venus and Adonis, declared in the dedica- tion to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, to be 'the first heir of his invention.' The author of this venture has manifestly learned the ways of the world, and conceived some confidence in his ability to please one of the richest and most accomplished young noblemen of the whole kingdom. Southamp- ton was understood to have no especial antipathy to poems of an amatory nature, and this may account for something in the product not wholly to the author's mind. ' I know not,' he says, ' how I shall offend in dedicating my vnpolisht lines to your Lord- ship, nor how the worlde will censure mee for choos- ing so strong a proppe to support so weake a burthen, onelye if your Honour seeme but pleased, I account myselfe highly praised, and vowe to take aduantage of all idle houres, till I haue honoured you with some grauer labour.' Shakespeare seems to have guessed well what the public, if not his patron, wanted, and seven editions were called for in hardly more than as many years. The Vemis is not only an interpreta- tion, with considerable Renaissance freedom, of the

258 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ?

Goddess consciousness on its human side toward a Galahad ideal of the Greek mind; it is no less a study of that ideal itself. This second feature seems, not perhaps inexplicably, to have been gen- erally overlooked. In consequence Shakespeare has been credited with the baser and not the better motive of the theme. It is at least the only time that this author may be claimed to have made to him- self friends of the somewhat erotic license of the day. It was a sure path to public favour, but Shakespeare avoided it ever after.

In the next year the graver labour promised by

Shakespeare to his patron was brought out by the

same printer under the title of Lucrece.

Lucrece. ,., , .

Though like the Venus essentially in form and measure, it was in spirit and purpose a very dif- ferent piece of work. It is a study in the sentiments of a wronged woman, whose integrity and greatness of soul subordinate her plight, and whose womanly devotion rises to the strength of passion, and merges all willingness to live. Those who bought the Lucrece to gratify a salacious craving, found themselves per- vaded by very different influences, and wholly such as were wrought by the Juliet, and Hermione, and Imogen of later years. Tarquin, the counterpart study here, though handled with a potent moral pur- pose, has been as much ignored as the secondary figure in the earlier piece. There is no such repres- sion or repose in these poems as we find in Cymbe- line and The Winter's Tale ; but there are the same clairvoyance and the same sympathy, in full develop-

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 259

ment, that have made Shakespeare in other works the world's interpreter of woman to her sex. Both these poems are luxuriant and crude, and betray the shadow of the workman upon his work. But there are withal a fertility of phrase, a sureness of concep- tion and of stroke, and a sturdy defeat of all restraints of rhyme and meter, that proclaim the present mastery of the author's mind. The new poem was naturally dedicated to the same patron, who is reputed to have furnished Shakespeare with a very substantial indorsement of the work. But the story, as told by Davenant, that he gave the poet ;£iooo, while not incredible, is most likely an exaggeration. Indeed, were it not for the fact that Shakespeare is soon found investing considerable money in his home town, and that Southampton is talked of there generally as having supplied it, we might dismiss the item as wholly mythical.

In 1593 the theatres, we are told, were closed on account of the plague, and Shakespeare's leisure for authorship may have been in conse- The public quence more ample. In the winter of this taste> year the tragedy of Titus Andronicus, at least in part the work of Shakespeare, was presented with great success. This play, though impracticable and repel- lent enough, by present standards, is known to have been thoroughly acceptable to the theatre-going pub- lic of the day. Nothing was seemingly too bloody and sensational for the general taste. This is a fact to be remembered in evaluating Shakespeare's popu- larity and influence with later plays, and his service

260 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

to the stage in making them different from the ac- cepted models. An edition of the play just named was printed in 1 594 ; but whether it was identical with the Quarto issued in 1600, and essentially our present text, cannot be shown. In December of 1594 Shake- speare played before the Queen at Greenwich, as has been noted, in two comedies, and at this time, proba- bly as actor rather than author, won her admiration. On the evening of Innocents' Day, December 28, a play was rendered at Gray's Inn which is confidently believed to have been The Comedy of Errors. Other plays, as King John, Richard 77, and Richard III, are referred to this year or to the one succeeding.

There can be little doubt that Shakespeare worked industriously at play-making in 1595. Several pieces that cannot be assigned to the later dates must have taken shape within the year. Shakespeare is now easily the first figure in dramatic authorship. Mar- lowe, who seems to have been for a time his teacher, but whose ambitious and blustering manner he has outgrown, has been dead two years. Lyly and Greene Ind Peele are as good as obsolete. There is yet much of development to be compassed, at least in form. His lines are end-stopped, as well as harsh sometimes and forced. But his observation, his wit, his vision, seem perfect now. He has grown-up con- fidence, too, in life and truth as the sole basis of dra- matic endeavour and success. If he has ever been Romeo timorous or discouraged, his days of doubt and juitet. must have some time since passed away. In 1596 we find evidence that the Romeo and Juliet was

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 261

brought out at The Curtain, and with unexampled favour. It seems to have made its author the lion of society, and the most distinguished poet as well as dramatist in the kingdom.

In August of this year Hamnet, son of the poet, died at Stratford, and was buried there. No syllable of evidence exists concerning the lad's promise, or his father's hopes or grief. There are many indica- tions that Shakespeare's prosperity and popularity are beginning to reach his native borough. He seems to have released his father from debt, and to have established him beyond the necessity of meddling further with the uncertainties of trade. There is evidence that John Shakespeare had taken steps, some time before October of the same year, to secure a coat of arms from the Heralds' Granto{ College. The application was not honoured coat until further effort, three years later, in 1 599. But it is significant that the man who, as late as 1592, had been reported for non-attendance at church from fear of bailiffs, was now seeking a distinction that few citizens of Stratford had enjoyed. The expense of securing the honour was certainly not borne by him. In the spring of 1597 Shakespeare bought the great house, built by Sir Hugh Clopton before 1500, and with it grounds of nearly an acre in extent. This es- tate, known as New Place, was situated at the

New Pl3.cc

corner of Church Street and Chapel Lane, just across the latter from Guild Chapel. The house, though built substantially of brick, and with more prospect of permanency than any dwelling besides in

262 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Stratford, is not in existence now, having been taken down at the close of the seventeenth century. The buildings and grounds had not been well cared for, and Shakespeare paid for the property but £60. That some or all of the purchase money came from the donative of Southampton to Shakespeare, is a tradition, and may be true.

The year 1597 is an important one in the poet's history. It is not clear that the substantial, book- Ouartoof Buying public had been much reached by Romeo and his popularity hitherto. But now certainly the cultivated people of the city were clam- ouring for the Romeo and Juliet in printed form. That the demand was urgent, seems clear from the fact that two fonts of type were used to set up the work. This first printing did not, however, give the public an authentic text, but a patchwork substitute, made up apparently from short-hand notes and remembered passages. The owners of copyright plays were not likely to encourage the circulation of their property as literature, and would undoubtedly have suppressed all attempts of this kind, if legal measures could have been used as effectually as now. RicJiard II and Ricliard III, the latter always a popular play, were issued in quarto form this year. Thus was the foun- dation of Shakespeare's fame as a poet and literary master securely laid. Before the close of 1597 the records show that John and Mary Shakespeare entered suit in Chancery against John Lambert for the recov- ery of Asbies, another proof that means as well as courage had come back to the elder Shakespeares at

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 263

Stratford. Meanwhile, the multiplication of plays went on. At Christmas it is known that Love's Labours Lost was performed before Elizabeth at Whitehall. Shakespeare's receipts must have by this time become considerable. The lowest sum received for a play was hardly less than $250 of present money, and might be almost twice as much. Shakespeare's dramas, we may be sure, Shake. brought as high a price as anybody's. His speare's salary as an actor, with perquisites and gifts, has been estimated as not less than $4000 a year. Two or three years later, after he becomes a partner in theatrical management, his income will be four or five times as much. His means have been at every point sufficient to account for the prosperity and the transactions of which we know. The First Part of King Henry Fourth belongs prob- ably to this year, 1597, since it is entered in the Stationer's Register in 1598. The Merchant of Venice followed it in the year last named.

In 1598 begins Shakespeare's professional associ- ation with Ben Jonson, who has furnished us with the largest and best part of our know- Ben ledge concerning him as a man. Jonson J°nson- possessed considerable learning of the kind fostered in those days, and had perhaps somewhat earlier essayed stage work. He sadly lacked the tact and touch requisite for success with a public almost wholly in sympathy with Shakespeare's school. Jon- son, according to Rowe's account, had brought to Shakespeare's company one of his plays, 'in order

264 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

to have it acted ; and the persons into whose hands it was put, after having turn'd it carelessly and super- ciliously over, were just upon returning it to him with an ill-natur'd answer that it would be of no service to their company, when Shakespear luckily cast his eye upon it, and found something so well in it as to engage him first to read it through, and afterwards to recommend Mr. Jonson and his writings to the publick.' This piece, which was undoubtedly Every Man in his Humour, was brought out, as we have seen, with Shakespeare in the cast, and was success- ful. It was at best but an indifferent play, as judged by the standards of the company, and the kindness with which Shakespeare commended it to the public, if he did commend it, cannot but be held symptomatic of his mind. There was no reason, except from out- side his eminence as a playwright, that could have prompted him to regard the piece differently from the other players who turned it carelessly and super- ciliously over. ' After this,' Rowe says, ' they were profess'd friends ; tho' I don't know whether the other ever made him an equal return of gentleness and sincerity. Ben was naturally proud and insolent, and, in the days of his reputation, did so far take upon him the supremacy in wit, that he could not but look with an evil eye upon any one that seem'd to stand in competition with him.' Jonson's own testi- mony, written perhaps twenty years after the death of Shakespeare, is not less strong : ' I lov'd the man, and doe honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. Hee was, indeed, honest, and of an

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 265

open and free nature ; had an excellent phantsie ; brave notions and gentle expressions ; wherein hee flow'd with that facility that sometime it was neces- sary he should be stop'd.' These sentences are pre- ceded and followed by certain qualifications regarding his taste and style, which will be given later. A more extended and perhaps better-considered eulogium, be- ginning,—

To draw no enuy (Shakespeare) on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy Booke, and Fame :

While I confesse thy writings to be such, As neither Man, nor Muse, can praise too much, —

was contributed by him to the Folio edition of Shake- speare published in 1623.

Further testimony as to the esteem in which Shakespeare's work has come to be regarded dates from this year. In the same month in which paiiadis Shakespeare was helping bring out Ben Jon- Tamia- son's comedy, Francis Meres's Paiiadis Tamia ap- peared. In this the author, who was a man of learn- ing, makes a summary of literary names, classical and English, associating Shakespeare with authors greatly his inferior, and praising all indiscriminately. 'As the Greeke tongue,' he says, 'is made famous and eloquent by Homer, Hesiod, Euripedes, ^Eschilus, Sophocles, Pindarus, Phocylides, and Aristophanes ; and the Latine tongue by Virgill, Ovid, Horace, Silius Italicus, Lucanus, Lucretius, Ausonius, and Claudianus; so the English tongue is mightily enriched and gorgeouslie invested, in rare ornaments and resplendent abili- ments, by Sir Philip Sidney, Spencer, Daniel, Dray-

266 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

ton, Warner, Shakespeare, Marlow, and Chapman.' In another connection he mentions, as best for tragedy, ' Lorde Buckhurst, Doctor Leg of Cam- bridge, Doctor Edes of Oxforde, maister Edward Ferris, the authour of the Mirrour for Magistrates, Marlow, Peele, Watson, Kid, Shakespeare, Drayton, Chapman, Decker, and Benjamin Johnson'; and as ' the best for comedy amongst us ' he includes Shakespeare as the ninth in a list of seventeen names. But the judgments of Meres in the book at large are redeemed by two sentences, in which he treats of Shakespeare by himself. ' As the soule of Euphor- bus,' he says, 'was thought to live in Pythagoras, so the sweete wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous and hony-tongued Shakespeare ; witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his private friends, &c. — As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for comedy, witnes his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love labors lost, his Love labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, and his Merchant of Venice ; for tragedy, his Richard the Second, Richard the Third, Henry the Fourth, King John, Titus An- dronicus and his Romeo and Juliet.' This list of pieces is probably complete up to the date of writing, though the circumstance that the number of extant plays in tragedy is reported as exactly the same as of extant plays in comedy is not assuring. It is not likely that Shakespeare consciously attempted to

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 267

keep the balance even. It will have been likewise noted that Jonson is mentioned as already, in tragedy, an author of reputation. But it may be possible, as some one has suggested, that Jonson was known, 'among his private friends/ of whom Meres seems to have been one, before the acceptance of his work by the companies, as a writer of classic stage plays. The comedy of Shakespeare referred to by the title Love's Labours Won may have been one of the many Elizabethan pieces that have perished, but probably exists under the name of All's Well that Ends Well. There is small reason for believing that any drama which Shakespeare had any material share in making has been permitted to disappear.

After 1 599 Shakespeare was able to derive income from other sources than acting and writing plays. The Theatre was taken down, and from the materials, which were removed to Southwark, near London Bridge, the Globe Theatre was in part con- Globe structed. The new playhouse was rather a Theatre- large affair, accommodating it is inferred as many as two thousand patrons. Its name, The Globe, was derived from its sign — shops and like public places being designated not by street numbers but ' signs ' — of Atlas with the world upon his shoulders. Shakespeare and other actors were the lessees. What income per share was derived from the man- agement is not known, but it probably ranged from ;£ioo to £200 in money of the time. This year appears to have been also an active one in authorship ; Shakespeare seems to have produced Henry V and

268 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Much Ado before its close. There is a tradition that Elizabeth, on account of a particular liking for the part of Falstaff in Henry IV, requested Shakespeare to make a play showing that character in love, Wives of and that Shakespeare complied, writing the Windsor. Merry Wives in fourteen days. • We have seen that Sir Thomas Lucy, who died in 1600, is probably satirised in this drama. Shakespeare almost certainly would not wait till the death of his former persecutor before pillorying him in a play. The cor- rect text of Romeo and Juliet was issued this year in a new quarto.

In 1600 it is believed that Shakespeare brought out his Twelfth Night and As You Like It, which, with Much Ado, rank as his three best comedies. These pieces certainly, in point of dramatic and poetic excellence, belong together. In the rebellion of 1601 Shakespeare's company was professionally implicated, having been hired to render a play that is supposed to have been Richard II. Shakespeare does not seem to have lost favour in consequence with the Queen, as his company is shown to have played before her Majesty at Richmond palace a few weeks later. In September of this year John Shakespeare died. During the winter, in a play called The Scourge of Simony, acted by the students in St. John's College, Cambridge, Shakespeare received recognition of a novel kind. Burbage and Kemp, the chief players of the day, are introduced as having come to Cam- bridge to instruct the students in acting. Kemp is made to remark to Burbage thus : ' Few of the uni-

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 269

versity pen plaies well : they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that writer Metamorphosis, The Re_ and talke too much of Proserpina and Jup- tumefrom piter. Why, heres our fellow Shakespeare Pernassus- puts them all downe, I, and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow ! he brought up Hor- ace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him beray his credit.' This play was printed five years later, under The Returnefrom Pernassus as its first title. In May of the year following Shakespeare is recorded as the purchaser of a hundred and seven acres of land near Stratford, for which the payment of ^320 was made. Shakespeare is unable to leave London to consum- mate the transfer, and the conveyance is

J Hamlet.

sealed and delivered to Gilbert Shakespeare

as his proxy. Sometime in the spring of this year

Hamlet was brought out at the Globe Theatre.

In 1603, on the death of Elizabeth, and the acces- sion of James I, Shakespeare's company was at once licensed as the King's Players, Shakespeare ranking second in the list, with Burbage third. Hamlet was issued in the first quarto, clearly a pirated edition. It was followed in 1604 by the second quarto, in authorised text, ' enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect Shake- Coppie.' Other plays not more popular ^ure3 than this one, but in general estimation period, greater, followed in sublime succession. It is the heyday of Shakespeare's skill and power. Here belong somewhat unassignably by years Othello,

2/0 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus and King Lear, with Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens, and Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Any one of these, save the last three, would have sufficed to make a dramatist immortal. Meantime changes were coming, or had come. In spite of heavy preoccupa- tions, Shakespeare is turning his thoughts toward Stratford. In 1605 he is purchaser of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Welcombe, and Bishopton, paying ^440 for the rights secured. While he is doing the hardest literary work of his life, his mind seems most engaged with business details, and the purchase of the tithes entailed no little trouble. In the summer of 1607 Shakespeare's first-born, Su- sanna, was married to John Hall, a physician of Strat- ford. In December of that year Edmund Shakespeare, the poet's brother, was buried from the Church of St. Saviour in Southwark. He is known to have been an actor, presumably in his brother's company ; and the time of his burial, which was in the morning, would seem chosen that his fellow-actors might attend the services. On the Qth of September, 1608, Mary Arden, Shakespeare's mother, died.

Shakespeare did not suffer in his dramatic rights alone from the cupidity of unprincipled publishers. Early in 1609 a little quarto, entitled Shake-speares The Son- Sonnets neuer before imprinted, was carried net3- through the press by Thomas Thorpe. This

man had in some way secured a manuscript copy of Shakespeare's 'sugared sonnets among his private friends,' and, assuming that the author's dramatic

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 2/1

prestige would sell the work, issued an edition of it. It does not appear that the venture was especially successful. In 1591 Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella had been published under similar circum- stances, and introduced a fashion of sonneteering that lasted fully half-a-dozen years. There seems no ques- tion that the sonnets in the book throughout are Shakespeare's, but it is pretty certain that they date almost wholly from the Venus and Lucrece period of his authorship. It is manifest, besides, that many of the sonnets have covert references to Southampton, as still the patron of their author. Nearly all of the poems, which are sentimental and literary, rather than utterances of genuine feeling, are amatory, fol- lowing the conventions of the time. Meres, enu- merating further in his Palladis Tamia, had spoken thus of the school : ' These are the most passionate among us to bewaile and bemoane the perplexities of Love, — Henrie Howard, earle of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat the elder, Sir Francis Brian, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Rawley, Sir Edward Dyer, Spencer, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Whetstone, Gas- coyne, Samuell Page, sometimes fellowe of Corpus Christi Colledge in Oxford, Churchyard, Bretton.' The fashion of Petrarch's tributes to Laura, as imi- tated in English first by Wyatt and Surrey, had been extended to masculine favourites, and with about as much subtlety and subjectivity as to the real or imaginary mistresses that they sung.

The major part of the sonnets in this case deal with a man, for whom the author professes a fondness and

2/2 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

devotion surpassing the love of women. Were it estab- lished that Shakespeare ever experienced such an affec- tion as is here affirmed for any man, we should have new matter by which to evaluate his nature. But it is impossible to sequestrate the subjective element. From the language of certain sonnets it has been inferred that the worshipped lover's name was Will. Whether there was ever any single person specifi- cally and consistently in the poet's mind cannot be known ; but if there was, and of the rank and culture that the sonnets imply, it is as good as demonstrable that he did not bear this name. As for the other chief figure, the dark lady, with whom the last twenty-eight sonnets are concerned, there are uncon- Thedark ventional allusions and compliments of a kdy- kind that argue a substantial basis of fact

beneath the poetry. It is not unlikely that Shake- speare, on first entering the great world of wit and fashion, came under the spell of a brilliant but un- principled woman, connected, perhaps, with the court, or certainly with the highest social circles. There were few men in that age incapable of responding to the blandishments of such a social figure. Being himself handsome and fascinating, as we must assume, and of a temperament and spirit especially attractive to the sex that he knew so well, he could hardly have escaped the attentions of self-willed women. The chief marvel is, if there be much per- sonal history here, that Shakespeare should have imparted it so freely, and celebrated into notoriety, ' among his private friends,' a woman that he genu-

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 2/3

inely cared for. It is, indeed, quite likely that his friends would be also her friends, who might resent the frank and unsparing treatment accorded her. These sonnets do not read like poems of correction or reproof, intended for the lady's eye, or their exist- ence and later currency might be accounted for. They seem rather the spiritual diary of a man who records, for himself alone, the soundings of his heart and his progressive acquaintance with eternal law. It is possible that Shakespeare knew fully of the vogue that the 'amour' sonnets had reached abroad, and that he was really celebrating no other than some imaginary Helene or Camille, without the name, in a thoroughly personal and characteristic vein. It is, however, probable that these sonnets are in some measure autobiographical. Those who wish to estab- lish Shakespeare in literary history as a man of stained character, must have the last word in this matter. It should not be forgotten here that human goodness is but relative, and that conduct is not in itself the final test of character. There are pure men and women who care nothing for purity as such, and there are men and women who keep the whole law, yet are not in alliance with it or with the pur- poses it serves. We are sure from the Shake works that Shakespeare has left us that he speare's loved purity and truth more than all things °Ptimism- else. No man besides has so exalted goodness and worth, or manifested such faith in the fundamental instincts of humanity. The Sonnets, because of the insistent amatory burden of their sentiment, are not

2/4 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

agreeable reading in present times, and many people are ignorant of the strength and Keats-like luxuriance of the lines.

It is established that in 1609 Shakespeare's com- pany came into possession of the Blackfriars Theatre,

The Black- an<^ tnat m tne f°H°wm& year Shakespeare, friars Burbage, and Hemmings played in it. This

tre' playhouse was opened in 1 597, and for some time drew patronage away from The Theatre and The Curtain because of the novelty of boy players. It seems that Shakespeare's company suffered con- siderable reduction in receipts, and may, as hinted in Hamlet (II. ii. 343-360) have been obliged to tour in the counties, to prevent disbanding. In 1611, it is more than probable, Cymbeline, The Winters Tale, and The Tempest were brought out. Shakespeare's contract required him to furnish his company with two plays a year. As no plays seem to have been written after this date, it is presumed that his con- nection with the Globe Theatre and the King's players did not continue so long as twelve months after. The Henry VIII is believed to have been composed after this time, but only a part of it is Shakespeare's. That it was his purpose to withdraw at once to Stratford Shake- seems unlikely, since in March of 1613 London ne bought a house near Blackfriars. The house. purchase does not appear to have been made as an investment, since £>6o of the ^140 to be paid was left on mortgage. The building had been used as a shop in the lower story, and was probably wanted as a home. But if it was Shakespeare's pur-

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 2/5

pose to bring his wife and daughter to London, and live with them here, he evidently soon changed his mind. In June of this year the Globe Theatre was burned, having caught fire during a performance of King Henry VIII, but in the rebuilding and reopening no reference to Shakespeare is met with. It seems clear that he must have withdrawn to Stratford. He is heard of here in connection with an attempt to fence in some part of the common lands within the borough. Entries concerning this, from November, 1614, to September, 1615, in a diary kept by the town-clerk of Stratford, contain Shakespeare's name.

On the 25th of January, 1616, the first draft of Shakespeare's will was prepared by Francis shake Collins, a solicitor not of Stratford, but of speare's Warwick, Shakespeare being at this time, wl11' according to the opening sentence in the document, in perfect health. In February Judith Shakespeare was married to Thomas Quiney of Stratford. We find nothing after this save that Shakespeare died on the 23d of April, perhaps his birthday, after finishing his fifty-second year. There is a tradition that his disease was fever, and there is reason to believe that his death was preceded by a lingering sickness of this kind. The provisional draft of the will was never copied, but changed seemingly in haste by erasures and interlinear additions, January being corrected to March, but the day of the month standing unaltered as the twenty-fifth. To Susanna Hall is devised the bulk of the property, including New Place, the Henley Street ' messuages or tenementes with thap-

2/6 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

purtenaunces,' as also ' that messuage or tenemente with thappurtenaunces wherein one John Robinson dwelleth, scituat lyeing and being in the Blackfriers in London nere the Wardrobe.' His bequest to Ju- dith is ^300, or, in modern values, $12,000. To seven friends, including his fellow-actors Hemmings, Bur- bage, and Condell, he leaves 26s. 8d. 'apece to buy them ringes.' In the most important interlinear entry Shakespeare adds, ' I gyve unto my wiefe my second best bed with the furniture.' This was prob- ably the bed on which she habitually slept, and the afterthought of assigning it to her as her own has Thc been strangely construed as indicative, on

second- the part of her husband, of an intentional besi bcd' slight. The best or ' spare ' bed, with all the other furnishings of New Place, except the plate, go to Susanna Hall and her husband, who will re- move to New Place, and presumably care for their mother there. The transaction was not unlike what was done frequently in wills. Anne Shakespeare was then sixty years old, and probably incapable of much activity in affairs. From ill nutrition, unhygienic living, and other causes, men and women were in general as old at forty, in those times, as at sixty now. Anne Shakespeare, moreover, except in the Black- friars property, was entitled to dower, and one-third of Shakespeare's realty in and about Stratford would insure, for a plain woman, in any case, much more than a liberal support. Prefixed to the last signature of the will, which is subscribed three times, are the words ' By me,' the only ones believed to be extant,

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 2/7

except his own name, from the hand of Shakespeare. Two other authenticated signatures are preserved in documents connected with the transfer of the Black- friars property.

Shakespeare, as the owner of the tithes of Strat- ford, was entitled to burial in the chancel of the parish church, and here his grave is shown to-day. The slab covering it bears the famous inscription, according to one tradition composed, according to another selected, by the poet himself : —

GOOD FREND FOR IESVS SAKE FORBEARE, TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE. BLESE BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES, AND CVRST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES.

The explanation of such an unworthy sentiment may lie in the fear, said to have been entertained by Shakespeare, lest his bones should be in TheStrat- later time removed to the charnel house, ford bust. A few years after the burial, a life-size bust of the poet was cut in London, and placed on the wall near the grave. It is believed to have been made from a death mask, and probably preserves the main characteristics of the poet's face. The pose, how- ever, is aggressive and striking, and seems at war with everything that Shakespeare's presence could be imagined to suggest. On a tablet beneath the cushion is an inscription that somewhat redeems the rudely-cut lines, already quoted, upon the slab above the grave : —

278 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

IVDICIO PYLIVM, GENIO SOCRATEM, ARTE MARONEM, TERRA TEGIT, POPVLVS M^ERET, OLYMPVS HABET

STAY PASSENGER, WHY GOEST THOV BY SO FAST ? READ IF THOV CANST, WHOM ENVIOVS DEATH HATH

PLAST,

WITH IN THIS MONVMENT SHAKSPEARE : WITH WHOME, QVICK NATVRE DIDE : WHOSE NAME DOTH DECK YS

TOMBE,

FAR MORE, THEN COST : SIEH ALL YT HE HATH WRITT, LEAVES LIVING ART, BVT PAGE, TO SERVE HIS WITT.

obiit anno doi 1616 aetatis 53 die 23 ap.

The expense of this memorial, which was not small, is said to have been borne by his older daughter. That she was a favourite of her father is evident from the provisions of his will, of which she and her hus- band, Dr. Hall, were named executors. She must have inherited something of her father's mental superiority, or her marriage to a man of unusual in- telligence and cultivation could scarcely be explained. Her goodness also was conspicuous, —

Witty above her sexe, but that's not all, Wise to Salvation was good Mistris Hall ; Something of Shakespere was in that, but this Wholy of Him with whom she's now in blisse, —

if we are to trust the first lines of her epitaph. Both she and her husband are known to have been of Puritan sympathies.

Although the Stratford bust is crude and inartistic, the work of a monument maker and not a statuary,

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 2/9

it has served as our best means of knowing how Shakespeare looked. It was at first coloured, after a fashion of the times, in order to represent the eyes, hair, complexion, and clothing as nearly as possible to the real. In 1793 the whole figure was painted white in imitation of marble. In 1861 this coat of paint was removed, and the original colouring restored, showing the hair and beard to have been auburn-hued, and the eyes, light hazel. Besides this bust nothing authentic was for a long time known to exist except the Droeshout likeness, made by Martin r

The Droes-

Droeshout, and set on the title-page of the hout paint- Folio of 1623. This picture was praised lng- by Jonson, and though mechanical and forced is be- lieved to exhibit approximately the proportion of Shakespeare's features. In 1892 the painting from which Droeshout probably made his plate was dis- covered in a suburb of London. While there are reasons for suspecting that the painting may have been made, near the beginning of the last century or earlier, from the engraving, it is the confident opinion of experts that the world has recovered a genuiue por- trait of the author, painted from life, and at the date 1609, which the picture bears. An uncle of Martin Droeshout, the engraver, and of the same name, is known to have emigrated to England from Brabant in 1608, and to have been a painter. Because of certain marks of the Flemish school, seen in the portrait, it has been supposed that this man must have been the artist. The engraving seems clearly a cramped and mechanical attempt to reproduce the

28O WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

painting. Of other portraits claimed to be likenesses of Shakespeare, there is no authentic study of the living model, and all are at variance with the Droeshout work.

In 1623 Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's widow, died, and was buried within the chancel of Stratford church. In the same year the First Folio, the earliest collection of Shakespeare's plays, was brought out under the editorship of Hemmings and Condell, two of the actor friends named in his will. In 1632, 1663, and 1685 the Second, the Third, and the Fourth Folio appeared respectively. Of Shakespeare's daughters, Susanna lived till 1649, and Judith till 1662. None of Judith's children survived her. Elizabeth, daughter of Susanna, was the only grandchild of Shakespeare that reached maturity. She was twice married, but brought her grandfather, who is reported to have been very fond of her, no inheritors of his fame. She died childless in 1670.

It seems remarkable that Shakespeare, though indubitably a great genius, should have shown from The sane- first to ^ast no trace of the erratic and un- ness of practical temper supposed to belong to all speare's men of his sort. Various financial dealings, mind- some of them unmentioned in this sketch, show him to have been anchored beyond the dream- side of existence, and to have divined business chances as readily and unerringly as the proper construction of a play. He seems to have been singularly free from illicit attachments, to which genius is especially liable. He chafed sometimes, if we may believe his

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 28 1

one hundred and eleventh sonnet, at his vocation of a player. He was undoubtedly as upright and pure as Sir Philip Sidney, a man admittedly much better than his generation. It is clear that he grew away from his wife, and perhaps found little pleasure in the society of his younger daughter. But there was no educa- tion for women in those days ; the plodding wit could not quicken itself by learning. He was kindly and fond of companions. It would seem that he was no respecter of persons ; his plays show him inclined to satirise the pretensions of rank. The traditions concerning Shakespeare's conviviality and carousing do not at their worst prove him different from the first men of his day. Sixteenth-century tastes and morals were low at best, and present ideals that temperance reforms have brought are not a hundred years old as yet. There is much that is significant in Shakespeare's life to those who have found the man in his work. To others the facts concerning his career will seem but mutilated and empty annals. There is much that may be discerned in his biography, beyond what is attempted here, by the complete student of his mind and work.

Whether the man who wrote the plays called Shakespeare's was the Shakespeare whose career we have been following, is still doubted by some in- genious and patient readers. It would seem, accord- ing to the opinion of these good people, that the burden of proof has shifted, and that those who do not accept the theory that Bacon wrote the plays must explain how Shakespeare, without knowledge

282 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

or education, could have produced them. To assume that William Shakespeare, of Stratford- upon-Avon, could not have written the plays that The Bacon bear his name, is to predicate stricter limita- question. tions of genius in this case than are admitted in other departments of the world's work. Shake- speare's task in making the English drama was not greater than Giotto's in making the art of south- ern Europe, and his discipline was not less ample. Sophocles produced the best dramas of classic time without other preparation than reading the plays that ^Eschylus wrote. Shakespeare had only the works of Greene and Peele and Lyly as exemplars, but he saw how their weakness could be made strength. This seeing, this vision, is all that distin- guishes genius from plodding minds. Schools do not produce vision ; they dispense the products of it. We must not set bounds to the seer's seeing. We cannot presume to know the degree to which the faith of an Hermione, the integrity of a Juliet, or the beauty of an Arthur or a Mamillius reveal them- selves in the soul of Shakespeare. With this power of seeing, Mozart composes minuets and performs them at sight when he is but four years old. The present writer once knew of an ignorant Irish woman, unable to read or write, who solved abstruse mathematical problems intuitively. There are num- berless instances, among the ranks of the uneducated, of feats similar; and it is by no means clear that Shakespeare's achievements really surpass these ac- cepted marvels.

SHAKESPEARE THE MAN 283

On the other hand, if Bacon or some other man of learning wrote the poems and plays called Shake- speare's, we should expect to find many things not present, and not to find many things that are pres- ent, in his works. If the author of Cymbeline had been expertly trained in Latin quantities, could he have made the stress in Posthumus fall upon the second syllable ? If he knew classic instances and parallels, would he not have used them ? But the man who wrote the works called Shakespeare's was plainly shut off from the world of books, except Holinshed, Plutarch, and Montaigne, and what the pupil of Stratford Free School might be expected to have reached an acquaintance with. The only classi- cal learning exhibited in the plays of Shakespeare is embodied in quotations from the Accidence, Sententice Pueriles, Lily's Latin Grammar and the Eclogues of Mantuanus, which were used in the schools of the day. It is hardly likely that a man who had read Latin at Cambridge would quote a passage from Ter- ence, as the author of The Taming of the Shrew does certainly, in the incorrect form that appears in Lily's Grammar. The person who did that had pretty certainly never seen Terence in the standard text. There are besides many anachronisms and uncon- sidered references, such as making Galen to have lived before the times of Coriolanus, and putting allusions to the bulls of Bashan into the mouth of Antony, which are inconsistent with good scholar- ship and a well-trained mind. Bacon could have had no motive to conceal his reading. If Bacon wrote

284 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

under the disguise of Shakespeare's name, the ex- pedient would have succeeded no less completely than it has succeeded, had the plays been as full of learning as Ben Jonson's.

So we are forced back to the position of demand- ing, if the Bacon question must still be argued, that the advocates of the theory accept fully the burden of proof. We are all anxious to know the truth, and have no least willingness to crown a mistaken master. When Bacon shall have been proved the author of Cymbeline, and The Winters Tale, and Romeo and Juliet, and of Macbeth, all lovers of the plays before called Shakespeare's will rejoice to right a wrong, and give unwilling merit its full due.

\

VII

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS

BEN JONSON, in his Timber or Discoveries Made upon Men and Matter, remarks concerning Shakespeare thus : ' I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare that, in his writing, whatsoever he penn'd, hee never blotted out line. My answer hath beene, would he had blotted a thou- sand. . . . His wit was in his owne power ; — would the rule of it had beene so too ! Many times hee fell into those things, could not escape laughter ; as when hee said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, — Casar thou dost me wrong; hee re- Shake- plyed, — C&sar did never wrong but with just the^iasst'1 cause ; and such like ; which were ridicu- cists. lous.' Of course there is 'no such reading in the present text of Julius C&sar, and probably was not when Jonson wrote. The Folio of 1623, the first col- lected edition of Shakespeare's dramas, contains the only extant form of the piece, and must have been issued before that time. Jonson aided in the publi- cation of the Folio, and should have known how the lines (III. i. 47, 48) referred to ran. We fancy that we catch a note of envy in his words. It is likely enough that Shakespeare knew little of the art of polishing, and perhaps but partially understood the

285

286 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

need. It seems certain that he wrote with remarkable fluency, being never bothered for a word. Jonson's utterance voices the criticism of the classicists, who find everywhere too great latitude and liberty of dic- tion. If he could have written like Jonson himself, he would not have pleased his critics, for there were no classical standards as yet. No man has ever been great enough — save Dante — to shape the taste of a whole people. Shakespeare's plays were profounder than any others, and were cast in loftier language, yet were easier to read. His success, like Bunyan's, came from the commoner sort of folk. No writer was ever more available to thoughtful, discerning minds, whether educated or not, than he.

It is often remarked, as derogatory to Shakespeare, that he borrowed his plots, and was therefore un- shake- original. To be original is to see to the borrowed bottom of things ; it is not merely to com- piots. pass unique sayings. Shakespeare surely saw first principles as profoundly as any thinker who has left record of himself. The seer who under- stands all social phenomena, does not need to create the data or circumstances that he would explain. The man who knows life, will not manufacture texts by which to preach its lessons. The greater includes the less. Shakespeare was certainly capable of creat- ing a new plot for every play. Being a busy man, and writing, as he supposed, for his own generation, and not for posterity, he was willing to minimise his labour.

Many attempts have been made to divide the

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 287

works of Shakespeare into definite and well-marked groups, answering to specific periods of Divisions development, but with only partial success, ofthepiays. By all such classifications, Romeo and Juliet must be parted too far from Cymbeline. The division of the Folio into comedies, histories, and tragedies is serviceable, but not final, since the histories are in strictness either tragical or comedial in their nature. From interior reasons it is well to consider Shake- speare's work provisionally under the heads of Incident Plays, Personal Plays, and Moral Plays. These di- visions are not chronological, and do not at all fol- low the course of development in the author's mind. Among Incident Plays, in which incidents are the chief dramatic basis of treatment, are to be reckoned Titus Andronicus, Comedy of Errors, Midsummer Nighfs Dream, and The Tempest. In the second group belong typically Richard III, Henry V, and in- deed most of the so-called histories, with Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Much Ado, and Cymbeline. In each of these dramas the interest centres in some cer- tain personality, as Shy lock, Viola, Imogen, and this personality is presented and treated for its own sake. Under Moral Plays are to be classed Macbeth, Coriolanus, Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, and King Lear. In these character is not treated, as in Richard III, chiefly and finally for its own sake. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and King Lear are portrayed to us, not for what they are, but for what can be wrought from their potencies and postulates of character.

288 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

It is difficult to suggest a better division for the practical student, at least in his earlier studies of Twoprinci- Shakespeare's plays. Much labour has been pal periods, spent in showing that this author passed through several stages of technical improvement in his blank verse and other details of form. All the results are interesting, as proving the soundness and sufficiency of Shakespeare's mind, but are not par- ticularly satisfying to those still seeking acquaintance and fellowship with that mind. There can be no question that Shakespeare grew in facility and power of utterance. There is no evidence that he grew in wisdom, or in knowledge of human nature, or indeed in art. It is well to realise that in plays of a certain early period he is much conditioned in his paragraphs by the form, and that his characters tend to talk in a constant dialect which is clearly the author's and not their own. Later, after a certain point, the speech of the characters is largely differentiated, and such mastery is reached over metre and other elements of form as to enhance by them rather than reduce the sum of power. We may recognise generically a stage of preparation and a period of maturity and strength. Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice mark this zenith of technique in the comedies ; Hamlet marks it in the tragedies. To go further than this is to go outside the evident and universal characteristics of Shakespeare's work. How valueless chronologic grounds have proved in the classification is seen from the circumstance that Julius Casar is held to have been produced next to Hamlet, yet does not

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 289

belong in the same rank of development with that play.

It has been the opinion of some excellent scholars that Shakespeare's work followed closely certain attitudes and preoccupations of his mind ; The , that at one time he was depressed and pessi- simistic • mistic, probably from wrongs ; and that the F great tragedies, as Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Lear, dating from this period, are shadowed with his doubt and weighted with his suffering. It would be helpful if we could penetrate Shakespeare's reserve to the extent of finding with certainty any personal mood or weakness mingled with his work. But it seems impos- sible to be sure of any such subjectivity. It is true that his last three plays, Cymbeline, Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, are optimistic ; but it is not safe to assume that Othello or Macbeth would have ended comedially if written like by itself. them in the last months of his authorship. One play, the Troilus and Cressida, laid in times of degeneracy, when even a Hector's judgment is warped by the blandishments of a Helen, is wanting in noble ele- ments, and stands by itself. There is the same spirit in the earlier dramas as in the latest ; Viola is treated as tenderly as Imogen. In the heavy tragedies of the so-called pessimistic period we can discern the same governing faith and compelling optimism, and the same redeeming or redeemed use of woman's power as we have been contemplating in Romeo and Juliet and The Winter's Tale, or may find in every other stage of the poet's work, and in scarcely less

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

degree. Hamlet and King Lear will perhaps yield proof most easily.

The notion that Hamlet lacked energy and deci- sion of character has been held by many critics, but Hamiefs it would seem with too great deference to scruples. the authority of first expounders. Of course the revenge called for by the Ghost, if carried out summarily, would make Hamlet King of Denmark. Hamlet, from failing to remember or understand the terms of his commission, ' Howsoever thou pursuest this act, taint not thy mind,' apparently believes him- self required to strike down the King immediately on sight. The intent of his father's words is plain ; they give him the largest liberty as to place and time, and forbid expressly that he incur the censure of his con- science or his self-respect. To escape the wounded name of having killed his uncle to gain the throne, as all the world, in default of absolute evidence con- cerning his father's death, will hold him responsible for doing, he thinks (III. i. 56-88) of suicide. He will run the King through with his rapier, then destroy himself. Since his father's demand for ven- geance, which was a royal, not a domestic or a per- sonal, requisition, he has been in constant practice (V. ii. 221) with his sword. He has set honestly about the business of cleansing the throne of Den- mark. He recognised (I. v. 189, 190) at the outset the national character of his commission, —

The time is out of joint. O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right !

He realises now that it will cost him either his honour

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 29 1

or his life. He naturally hesitates in the face of such a fate ; he loves the life that he feels he cannot save. He delays the moment, and believes that he may fairly require further proof of his uncle's guilt. His scheme succeeds ; the King stops the play that has caught his conscience. Hamlet, in his excitement, imagines that he may yet show the King a murderer to Denmark. He is tempted to despatch the culprit by striking him, while praying, through the back ; but the unnational, unprincely quality of the vengeance gives him pause. His mother summons him, appar- ently to scold him, to her closet. He will go straight- way and inflict on her the bloodless punishment due, as he assumes, for complicity in his father's murder.

Hitherto the Queen has been on her husband's side. So far as the audience is concerned, it has despised her. The author will not send Hamlet to his death, in spite of his mother's sin, without restor- ing her love to him and his to her. Further- The Queen more, Shakespeare will bring her to our o™usg^.to sympathies, and invest her with unsuspected pathies. strength ; he will turn her against her husband, and add immeasurable pathos to the close by her enthu- siasm and devotion to her son. He will not wind up the play without making her fill, by repudiating her former self, the place of the woman she should have been. This insistent need of a typic, genuine woman- hood, even in a play founded on lust and murder, is of the essence of the optimism that we have affirmed of Shakespeare.

Indeed, the attempt to redeem Gertrude to herself

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

and to the play, in the face of what would seem insuperable artistic difficulties, is indicative of the degree of Shakespeare's wish to mitigate the sin and wrong with which he was forced, for plot reasons, to begin the piece. Nowhere else in this work, perhaps nowhere else in the other dramas, does he accomplish a larger feat. It would take years, in real life, to bring about the changes that are effected here within the compass of two hundred lines. The business opens summarily (III. iv) after seven lines of con- nection with the preceding scene. ' Now, mother, what's the matter,' says the summoned visitor, in a How boyish, familiar, unprincely salutation. It is

Shake- some time, we may be sure, since Hamlet deems AC has Deen asked to come to his mother's Queen. closet. ' Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended,' is the significant reply. This tainted mother will essay to school her son, his father's avenger. ' Mother, you have my father much offended.' The retort makes her wince : does Hamlet know? But no matter; there is but one thing to be done. She must assume a virtue, if she have it not. ' Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.' These words should make him realise his impertinence. But Hamlet takes issue ; he has indeed come with no other purpose than to take issue. So he answers impetuously, echoing by con- traries, ' Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.' The Queen's natural rejoinder is surprise, injured innocence, at that word ' wicked,' — ' Why, how now, Hamlet, have you forgot me ? ' ' No, by the

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 293

rood, not so. You are the Queen, your husband's brothers wife, and — would it were not so — you are my mother' Thus far our sympathies are with Hamlet. It is time that these things were said to the Queen by somebody, and we care not if they are said to her by her son.

Here the first integral division of the scene closes. The Queen is bound, of course, to make a show of indignation; she starts forth vaguely, per- Thesecond haps with the thought of summoning the division of King. • Nay, then, I'll set those to you the scene' that can speak.' Hamlet now takes his mother by the shoulders, and thrusts her into a chair. ' Come, come, and sit you down ; you shall not budge ; you go not until I set you up a glass where you may see the inmost part of you.' Very natural is it that this woman should recoil from such a programme. Her ' Help, ho,' is echoed from behind the arras by Polonius, whom Hamlet, hoping it is the King, strikes down.

Here ends the second part of this strange scene. Were we present, we should exclaim against this vio- lence of Hamlet towards his mother. Then The begin. we should be immeasurably awed by the ningofour spectacle of the dead body lying at the bottom of the arras. Death is the great reformer of prejudice; and now, in the sight of Polonius slain, we find that we have charity not only for that man's weakness, but also for the Queen's. One death has made amends, in some degree, not for him merely, but for the twain together. This is helped, moreover,

294 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

by the discovery, flashed upon us at this astounding moment, through the Queen's surprise at the charge of ' killing a king,' that she was not privy to her husband's murder. With this beginning, Hamlet goes on to enforce a sort of spiritual penance, not without great cost to himself as our hero, for his mother. As she stands aghast, wringing her hands in anguish, Hamlet again forces her to sit, affirming that he will wring her heart. Plainly, Shakespeare's hand is heavy upon his hero. For the sake of bring- ing back Hamlet to his mother, who has lost him ; for the sake of having the mother minister to the son in love and sympathy at the end of the play; for the sake besides of bringing an erring woman back to such relations with society as will enable her love and sacrifice for her son to have influence with us, Shake- speare will make the son harsh and brutal to his mother here. At Hamlet's first words the Queen retreats again behind the prerogative of her sex, — ' What have / done, that thou darest wag thy tongue in noise so rude against me ? ' His answer is as near to the suggestion of her guilt as he dare go, or as the author can artistically permit : —

Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty, Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows As false as dicers' oaths.

The Queen refuses to admit that she understands this language. ' Ay me,' she says, —

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What act That roars so loud and thunders in the index ?

It were indeed unseemly that a royal mother — this royal mother, who is to be restored to the love and devotion of her son — should go in definiteness much beyond. Hamlet is made to refrain from answering her question. The author turns him aside, in the declamation beginning, we shall remember, —

Look here, upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers, —

into a tirade against her present husband, not alto- gether relevant to the indictment which Hamlet has been pressing. At its close the Queen cries out : —

O Hamlet, speak no more ! Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul, And there I see such black and grained spots As will not leave their tinct.

Here ends the third division, the third stage, in this closet interview. Our feelings of dislike and revul- sion have changed to surprise, and something like concern, as we see the marks of contrition in the face of the Queen, and hear her words of confession to her son. Yet it is only to us and for our sake dra- matically that she admits the consciousness of wrong. We begin to realise what the task is which Shake- speare has here set himself. If this were life, we should be content to part company here and thus with the Queen, to wish her no evil, and to The stage forget her existence. But this is not the end, of Pitv- . nor even yet the middle of the scene ; there are still

296 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

large changes to be wrought within our sympathies. The means first used is pity. Hamlet is made to go on scurrilously, beyond all reason, first by implica- tion against her who sits aghast and trembling, —

Nay, but to live . . Stewed in corruption, —

to which the Queen can only cry out, breaking in upon his violence : —

Oh, speak to me no more ! These words like daggers enter in my ears. No more, sweet Hamlet.

This has indeed gone too far. Will he drive her crazy ? She is no longer at war with conscience, is no longer indignant at the voice that is calling her to account. But he has put himself, as the instrument of her penitence, wholly in the wrong, and now essays to punish her. All her pleading, even with her hands stopping her ears, is of none effect. Were this scene actual, we should interfere for her, we should plead in her behalf with her against her persecutor. Help- less as she, we are forced to listen as Hamlet raves on against the King : —

A murtherer and a villain ; A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord ; a vice of kings ; A cutpurse of the empire and the rule, — A king of shreds and patches.

The fourth stage in the transactions of the scene The fourth begins at this point. The wrong done by the stage. Queen to herself she feels and has acknow- ledged. The wrong done to her dead husband re-

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mains paramount in our consciousness. How can that be taken from our thought, from the associations of her past ? The Ghost is brought in to answer. Hamlet, unpersuaded as to his father's will, asks in dismay whether he be not come to chide his tardy son, that lets go by the important acting of his dread command. The Ghost makes but a perfunctory and evasive answer, — ' Do not forget,' — as if Hamlet, whose soul is full of the obligation to revenge, whose days and nights have been chafed and fevered at the delay, at whose feet lies even now the dead body of Polonius, slain because mistaken for the King, could have forgotten. Then the real concern of this shadowy visitant, which he conceals for obvious rea- sons from his son, is betrayed. He has come, from old love of the Queen, to stop her punishment. He will not reveal himself to her; remorse might destroy her life. He would save her all further suffering, if he may, even of the thorns that prick and sting her in her bosom. With majestic tenderness he turns Hamlet's eyes to the spectacle that they Have too little regarded hitherto. ' Look, amazement (distrac- tion) on thy mother sits. Take her part against her other self, which condemns her for her sin. Her imagination has been too much wrought upon al- ready. Speak to her, as thou shouldst, in . kindness and sympathy.' There can be no mistaking the spirit or the purpose of this rebuke ; Hamlet should have remembered that he is forbidden (I. v. 85, 86) to contrive against his mother aught. At the first apparition of the Ghost, in the first act, Hamlet showed

298 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

little fear. His present fright seems to mark how deeply he feels that he is in the wrong.

When an injured husband forgives, the rest of the world drops the matter. So we here and now drop Tfac the cause of the elder Hamlet, as against

Ghost's for- Gertrude, from our thought. Moreover, the giveness. vojce of iove an(j forgiveness that we have heard is a voice from the other world, speaking with other than the authority of men. The Ghost tarries to make sure that Hamlet does 'speak' to her, indeed, but not in the former way, and look upon her, not as an avenger, but a reconciled son. Satisfied that his stern rebuke is heeded, that there will be no more harsh words, he goes his way. At the moment when the Queen recovers her self-possession, finding Hamlet as she thinks distracted, she is restored to her former self, redeemed, and she carries the audience and the reader with her.

Now comes the next step in the plan. What of the future of the Queen ? Shall she live still with The fifth tne paramour who killed Hamlet's father? step. Were she to presume this, or seem to pre-

sume it, the presumption would be fatal to the pur- pose that Shakespeare has thus far attempted. Of course, under all the circumstances, since Gertrude cannot know of the vengeance awaiting Claudius, she must continue to be Queen of Denmark, and wife to Hamlet's uncle. But how shall the author make us see this and realise it in such a way that, from this time, we shall be no more scandalised at the thought. To have Hamlet discuss the question,

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and affirm to his mother that it were right and well so to do, might be Ben Jonson, or Otway, or Colley Gibber, but it would not be Shakespeare. To him there is apparently but one way, though he be again compelled to levy injuriously upon his hero. Hamlet is made, sentimentally and absurdly, to urge upon his mother the very opposite course : advice which he does not seem to remember afterwards, and advice which he surely did not mean. He knew that his mother could not cease to be wife to the King even if she would, and that her contrition is not sufficient to prompt her immuring herself behind convent walls, even if she could. The situation is clear to us, and its effect on us complete, when we hear Hamlet bid his mother ' go not to his uncle's bed.'

The author is ready for another step. The mother and her son are restored to each other. Her feeling toward him and his feeling toward her The Queen are such as have not been since he came with^Ham- back from Wittenberg. What shall be their let. relations hereafter? Shall she stand with the King, as hitherto, against her son, or against the King and on Hamlet's side ? With her woman's intuition she now knows that Hamlet the elder has been murdered, and that Hamlet the younger cannot make peace with the King. Moreover, there can be no pathos at the close of the play, if Hamlet have not his mother's love entire and fully. But how are we to know of this alliance apart from what we see hereafter? Hamlet in playful irony bids his mother let the King coax from her his secret, namely, that he is

300 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

essentially not in madness, but mad in craft. Her answer is unequivocal, the most motherly and unaf- fected thing she has said thus far in the play : —

Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breathe What thou hast said to me.

There is yet another integral part of the scene to be developed. Hamlet believes again in his mother; Proof of tne instincts to confide in her as his best Hamlet's friend possess him again just as in youth trust in the and boyhood, when he told her his ills, his Queen. hopes, his projects. He is now made to give proof of his new and perfect trust. He is in possession of the King's secrets. The young nobility, or some of them, are apparently in league for his defence. Through some agency of theirs the know- ledge of the mandate, in the sealed letters, has been communicated to Hamlet. The purpose of the King he will, by the aid of friends, forestall ; for he is utterly powerless alone. The King manifestly does not dare touch Hamlet upon the soil of Denmark. Seemingly in fear of an uprising, he keeps his court still in Kronberg, or the Marienlist palace, on the island of Seeland, away from the capital. To with- hold from the King, at such a time, the least hint of his danger, is a supreme test of Gertrude's new loy- alty to her son. That Hamlet intrusts his mother with the knowledge that he can command the King's most secret counsels, is the strongest possible proof of his renewed devotion. With no fear lest his con- fidence shall be betrayed, with no further exhortation,

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this son, bidding his mother a familiar and affection- ate ' good night ' that brings back lively associations of earlier years, goes out from the scene. He has suffered some detriment as a hero, but that shall be repaired ; while, on the other hand, both he and the play have gained a mother.

The Queen begins her new r61e strongly at the opening of the next scene. She puts on a profound sighing, and tells the valiant falsehoods that The Hamlet is mad as the sea and wind, and is Queen's weeping because he has killed Polonius. new r le' The King turns her report to his advantage against Hamlet, at which she sulks, and breaks seemingly into tears. We can hardly believe that her grief is genuine, when we remember her small concern, at the end of the last scene, about his going. Hitherto she has never appeared, except in the closet scene, apart from her husband. She does not, except for the fenc- ing contest and at the burial, come in with him again. She shows anxiety at Ophelia's grave over Hamlet's na'fve dealings with Laertes, and his forgetting to feign that he is mad. Divining that the King and Laertes are plotting mischief, in connection with the wager, she sends word privately to Hamlet that he use some gentle entertainment to Laertes, before they fall to play. Divining further, after the fencing begins, that the King's enthusiasm for Hamlet is ungenuine, and that it is not intended that he shall come out of the sport alive, she sends him her napkin for his brows, and drinks excitedly to his success, resisting the King's attempt to take the goblet from her. There

302 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

is no other way to give him courage against his en- emy, so she carouses to his fortune and the King's confusion. She assists, and perhaps of purpose, Hamlet's punishment of her husband's crimes.

The play has long been the most popular, in part because the most enigmatical, of all the dramas. There is no reason to suppose Shakespeare intended, in the title character, to propound a mystery. It is doubtful if any of the critics who have called Hamlet a dreamer, a palaverer, or a coward, would have been, possessing a like sense of honour, less slow to strike. They find themselves influenced most perhaps by Hamlet's soliloquy (IV. iv.) over the proposed cam- paign of Fortinbras in Poland. They find him going tractably away into indefinite exile, far from the chance of vengeance, yet breathing out all the while fresh threatenings and slaughter in his father's name. To have made a hero who, at his best of wisdom and endeavour, should resolve that ' from this time forth his thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth,' while he is actually expecting to be stayed at an impossible dis- tance from the object of his revenge, would have been to make game of the readers and spectators of Hamlet for all time. But Hamlet, as we have seen, does not Hamlet expect to be exiled indefinitely in England, magnifi- perhaps not even to be landed there. In a

cent in

action. few days he shall be back, within a rapier's length again of the King's body. When the ap- pointed moment comes, Hamlet is magnificent in action. Though the King is surrounded with his court and attendants, well armed, many of them cer-

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tainly loyal to himself, Hamlet awes them all into helplessness as he orders the doors locked, stabs the King through with the envenomed blade, and forces him to drink off the poisoned wine. It is difficult to see how the objectors could have made the hero of this play behave, under the circumstances of the plot, much better than Shakespeare has ordained the course of the Hamlet that we find. Infinitely perplexed as to the form and manner of his duty, he accepts his fate, when once the path is opened, with divine repose and strength. Literature shows nowhere a nobler protagonist of right and truth.

King Lear is generally considered as the greatest of Shakespeare's tragedies, at least in point of grim and titanic suffering. Here a spoiled and wilful ruler, who has rioted in emotional excesses for fourscore years, is suddenly subjected to unspeakable wrongs and crosses, and what with humiliation, and what with cold and hunger and neglect, loses his mind. But insanity thus caused is not incurable ; removal of the occasion brings back his reason. Thus the ultimate point of the drama involves regeneration, redemption of a violent nature by violence, and the play is largely given to the ap- plication and administering of the remedial forces. When he can no longer hold his kingdom, or take a city, he learns how to rule his spirit, and is really ready at last to live.

It will be perhaps most helpful to contemplate the play as divided into these two parts : the evolution and operation pf Lear's punishments ; the moral con-

304 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

valescence of his mind. The origin and develop- Thetwo ment °f tne disease Shakespeare takes for divisions of granted. The first great shock comes to Lear this play. f rom ^ revoit Of Cordelia, in the opening

scene. There have been three daughters in this king's household ; there is but one now, and the mother has for some time been dead. Goneril, the eldest, a fleshly and avaricious creature, big of bone and masculine in fibre, is now outside the family with a husband, — as it would seem of her own securing, — the Duke of Albany. Regan, also wedded to a subject, has left her father's home for the Earl of Cornwall's castle ; she, as we cannot doubt, much of her mother's mould, small of stature, refined and womanly, and nearer to her father's heart. Cordelia and her father have made a home together, and for some years perhaps it has been his will to keep this daughter, his last and least, as he calls her, a petite creature, weaker in presence and more lovable, immeasurably more lova- ble than Regan, to himself. When she shall wed, it is determined that her husband shall be at least a prince, and two suitors of this rank have long made their amorous sojourn at the court, waiting the father's pleasure. At length King Lear, perhaps awakening to the injustice of keeping her unmarried to cheer his fireside, proposes to endow her with the choicest of his lands, part the residue between her sisters, and withdraw from the palace that would be desolate without her. Goneril and Regan, realising that neither is their father's favourite, scheme to secure as large a portion as they each can of the dismembered

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kingdom. Blind to the jeopardy of a divided sov- ereignty, and anxious as it would seem but to have his old ears tickled with outrageous flattery, Lear plans to. go out in a blaze of glory, and to exalt Cor- delia with such a gift as king's hands never gave before. Perhaps he has thought, by the richness of her dowry, in itself a kingdom, to keep her prince with her in Britain, and so spend his days still with her.

So the first of his calamities comes to King Lear, much as if another drama of Job were to be enacted, in the first scene. It is a spectacular, yet a The first domestic, situation. There are no courtiers calamity, called to be witnesses save Kent and Gloster, with Gloster's son, which last-named person, according to the Folio, remains, and reads, perhaps, in the strange procedures, the chance of a traitorous career. Before the King, now entering, is borne the coronet that is to rest on Cordelia's brows, as the earnest of her dowry. The King takes the throne and calls immediately for a map of Britain. He knows what affection each of his daughters bears him, yet he bids for protestations, feigning, though the portion of each is predetermined, that he will match his giving with their saying. Goneril goes soberly though the farce of formulat- ing her affection, making it as extreme as breath can phrase it, and giving the whole the momentum of her overplus of personality. Cordelia, who cannot be oratorical, feels that she is outclassed already, and resolves not to be heard in competition with such falseness. Regan, with seeming greater confidence

306 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

in her father's favour, with greater womanliness, takes her sister's sermon for her text, — ' only she comes too short.' The suspicion is aroused here, to be confirmed later, that Regan's part could scarcely have been played as we find it, had there been no rival to give her the cue. But now the proud father, having cleared the field, and settling himself for his joy, not the joy alone of hearing Cordelia testify to her affection, but withal the joy of making her mistress of half his kingdom, asks her to do her part in this abdication ceremonial. There is silence. He bids her speak. With inexplicable and unfeeling deliberation she answers, ' Nothing.' Lear cannot at first believe his ears. He makes inquiry if she means unfilially and wilfully to disappoint him, and she dares, stand- ing in all her helplessness before him to say, ' Ay.' It is the bitterest moment in this father's life. But there is no help for it. This defiance must be punished, and the thunderbolts of wrath fall upon her head.

The discipline of adversity is now administered, with all of Shakespeare's terrible dramatic condensa- Goneni's ^on» to ^e rumed King. Even before the ambition. fjrst scene closes, Goneril bespeaks Regan's cooperation in her father's ruin. Does she think to crowd out Regan and her weakling husband, and so make herself sole heir ? She has inherited all the force of her father's will, and joins withal such con- sciencelessness and cruelty as make her monstrous beyond example among Shakespeare's women. She knows that her father is tyrannical, and can be driven

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 307

easily to exasperation. She means to goad him to leave her, and she will control her sister's sympathies toward him. So within a fortnight comes the order to put on weary negligence toward the King and all his followers. The result is that Lear falls in a rage, orders out his horses only just stalled for their fodder after hunting, and sets out for Gloster without touch- ing the dinner that he was demanding to have imme- diately served. Goneril despatches a letter to Gloster, to prevent Regan from receiving her father there.

Lear rides all night on the way to Gloster town, only to find Regan and her husband gone, of purpose, to Gloster castle. Following also thither, he discovers Kent whistling and singing in the stocks, on the castle esplanade. Lear's wrath has cooled overnight ; but, at this insult to himself through his servant, it blazes out again. He feels the madness coming ; how is he to endure such insolence ? Cornwall and Regan at last appear, and at a covert signal, probably from the former, Kent is set at liberty. But the half-famished father is not asked within. Little by little Regan's and Cornwall's courage comes. Regan tells her father that he is old, and insignificant, begs him to go back to her sister and ask forgiveness. Lear cannot take this seriously, and Regan cannot find the words to exasperate her father as Goneril's language did.

Ask her forgiveness ?

Do you but mark how this becomes the house : ' Dear daughter, I confess that I am old. Age is unnecessary. On my knees I beg That you'll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.'

308 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

We should have expected another curse as terrible as the one pronounced, just before leaving the Duke Regan a of Albany's palace, upon Goneril. But Lady *Mac- Lear seems to feel that this is the one prop beth. now left ; the self-control that keeps back denunciation here shows that there is chance of cure. Goneril now arrives, and at sight of her Lear loses all mastery over himself. He feels the madness coming, and pleads with Goneril to save him. Hunger and exhaustion urge him, and he consents even to go back with her. But Goneril will not have it so, and by denying him his knights makes him break out in tears, and turn his steps away toward the barren and houseless moor. Cornwall proposes that they with- draw within the castle. Regan, like a Lady Mac- beth, all unendowed for cruelty, in the excitement of an almost realised ambition, is found consenting to the work her sister and her husband have determined. Regan could not of her own purpose have thrust out her father. Goneril was needed to bring to pass this turn. She has been summoned by the author for this artistic object, through the motive of preventing Regan from taking her father's part.

In the Third Act Lear's agony is complete. To break with his fourscore years of privilege and Lear pities princely living, and sink to the lowest depths his fool. of deprivation and suffering, would turn the wits of any man. But it is worth while that he find himself too poor to feed his devoted fool, since his heart begins to soften. The more he raves, the more patient and forgiving he becomes. Little by little he

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 309

loses the power to identify his surroundings, though he yet sees pictures of his happy past, and remembers Tray and Blanche and Sweetheart, Cordelia's pet dogs, amid all the wreck of ideas and fancies. Then comes the worst ; that exquisite irritableness so often noted in the pathology of the insane to-day, when they cry out that the stars burn them, takes possession of his mind. Even the fool forgets his gibes and foolishness. Even Edgar, trepidated by the presence of his father, whom he must keep from recognising the tones of his voice, is moved to tears and pity. The punishment of Lear is full, for he has forgotten, in the sufferings of others, his own woes.

Lear has been thought a savage and brutish nature. But the language that he uses argues a mind of singular refinement, and proves Learnot him capable of much loftiness of mood and savage or vision. A man is not so well known by the vocabulary he uses as by the elevation of thought that compels the selection of noble words. Even Lear's curses, so awful in their fierceness, are sublime. Were Lear bloodthirsty, he would have put Cordelia to death, when she crossed him, and struck down Goneril and Regan, while they baited him before Gloster castle, with his sword.

Goneril is sensual, and, with all of woman's false- ness, false at heart. She exalts Oswald to Regan the post of favourite, puts on him princely nearer to clothing, sets him at writing letters in her th°n ^ name, girds him with a sword and calls Goneril. him ' my gentleman.' Kent makes him betray the

310 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

fact that he has no gentleman's breeding and cannot use a sword. But Goneril's fondness for his shape, and his dainty ' clerk ' services, does not hinder her from attempting to appropriate Edmund in an in- trigue, as soon as she has the chance to woo him. Regan is not of such coarse mould, and is fairly ladylike (IV. v) over her rival's letter. Goneril would have gained possession of such a missive, under like circumstances, at any cost. Regan's worst conclu- sion concerning her sister's character is that she does not love her husband. Goneril's purity of thought would not have hindered a grosser judgment.

Cordelia has been pronounced the most beautiful of Shakespeare's feminine creations, but this judg- ment seems not well advised. She has plainly no such sympathy with her father in his violence and passion as Imogen feels when Cymbeline banishes Posthumus. She shows something of Lear's un- shrinking, combative disposition, when she brings upon herself her father's curse. She knew what the disappointment would mean to him, she was well aware that her father would curse her to his own infinite hurt and sorrow ; but she forced him to his fate. What was it, furthermore, in outside conditions, that brought into play before her father this unsus- pected wilfulness ? Was it nineteenth-century revolt against enforced marriage with a designing suitor? Was it revulsion against the transparent flattery of her sisters? Was it that conscious love had arisen between France and herself, during his amorous sojourn, already, while that Burgundy was in prece-

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dence with her father ? Shakespeare has not helped us, with his wonted consideration, in these hard matters.

Cordelia rises to her height of favour with us when the music plays softly, and the daughter kisses her restored and regenerate father awake. The recon. What could be more pathetic than the cli- ciiiation. max (IV. vii. 71) here, when Lear puts up his hand to the tears on Cordelia's face to make sure that they are tears indeed, that she is not a soul in bliss, and, so, far beyond his reach. Dimly, but potently in his consciousness, even in his madness, he has held fast to the presence of Cordelia, and felt his sin. Step by step he comes back into possession of himself, a self now beautiful in forbearance and forgiveness and humility : —

You must bear with me. Pray you now Forget and forgive ; I am old and foolish.

The scene ends in an idyllic picture. The gigantic frame of the once violent father, a little bent with recent suffering, his wealth of gray hair all dishev- elled, is supported by the slender, upstrained arm of Cordelia, which cannot well reach to his shoulder, as she walks to his slow step out from the tent into the air and sunshine. Small wonder is it that we hear this king saying after the battle and the capture, —

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

312 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,

Who loses, and who wins, who's in, who's out,

And take upon 's the mystery of things,

As if we were God's spies : and we'll wear out,

In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,

That ebb and flow by the moon.

Yet this is the monster who, quaking with rage, had said to Cordelia scarcely one moon ago : —

The barbarous Scythian, Or he that makes his generation messes To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom Be as well neighbour'd, piti'd, and reliev'd As thou my sometime daughter.

We shall hardly call the piece a pessimistic study, wrought from the broodings of an injured mind. The whole ends tragically, following the course in Holin- shed, and Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle. Cordelia, to save her father, invaded England. Lear, to be saved by his daughter, became a traitor in his own kingdom. Lear survives his cure, and might have reigned again, but the cost of his follies kills him.

Three more great tragedies, Othello, Antony and Cleopatra , and Coriolanus belong to the strenuous juiitu period, from which Lear and Macbeth sprang. catsar. To these, that we may make the group of principal tragedies complete, Julius Ccesar should be added. The last-named drama antedates Othello, Lear, and perhaps Macbeth, we shall remember, by half a dozen years. It is a piece plain and homely, like the Droeshout portrait, yet no less masterly than the others, and not less despairing in tone and spirit. The

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pall of destiny is upon it. Liberty is in its shroud, yet the people keep holiday. They have lost even recognition of what their forefathers did when they thrust out the Tarquin. They have no principles; Pompey's triumph over the enemies of Rome, or Caesar's triumph over Pompey, are all the same to them. There is no longer any patriotism among them, and the strong arm is the only rule that they will re- spect. Nowhere else does Shakespeare lay his hand so heavily upon one of the world's great ones as he presumes to do in his treatment of Caesar here. We are forced to discard our notions of Caesar's greatness, and hold him dotardly and mean, until our consent to his death is won. Brutus represents the highest type of the Graeco-Roman mind, unconscious because with- out sense of sin, having no inward struggles, such as make Hamlet typical of the Gothic race, erring continually, yet incapable of self-distrust. By a feminine resolution he joins the conspirators, believ- ing that justice as administered by himself will redeem the self-seeking character of their cause. Portia is one of the noblest of Shakespeare's women, and deserves treatment as a principal character for her own sake. But, lest she absorb attention, she is shown but twice, being used as an aid in forcing our consent to Caesar's death. There is much of political philosophy and sociology in the piece. It is not a play to be lightly studied.

Othello has been regarded by many students and critics as the highest triumph of Shakespeare's art. It is a study in the consequences of a union between

314 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

two natures equally true and noble, but of different races, and of unlike station and culture. Desdemona is the child of fortune, born in a palace, and bred to a life of elegant leisure, yet strong and intolerant of the degeneracy which her race had reached. Othello has been brought up in camps, and lacks the refinement that comes from the pursuits of Renaissance literature, and the cultivation of art and music. Desdemona has been fascinated by Othello's simple and elemental greatness of soul. Othello has been flattered by Desdemona's admiration for his prowess and exploits. Since her father would never consent to her marriage with a Moor, Desdemona determines to trust herself to Othello's keeping, and turns her back upon her family and her circle. The question to be worked out dramatically is whether her trust in Othello is warranted, whether he is capa- ble of appreciating and guarding the jewel he has won. Can he work out her destiny with his own ? Did they err to wed from such disparate stations and modes of living ?

Had they remained always in the native environ- ment of the bride, it is likely that their happiness would have been unmarred. Shakespeare wishes the trial made under harder conditions. He devises the threat of a Turkish attack on Cyprus, to get Othello and his wife away from Venice. In the chief fortified * ,dty of the island, where Othello is absolute ruler urkder martial law, we can better study the nobility of tfre husband's mind. A storm is made to have destroyed the Turkish fleet, and the new-married pair

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 315

are free to work out their felicity under circumstances in which they should have been peculiarly all the world to each other. The tempter of their peace comes in the shape of a cowardly and heartless office- seeker. He gets Othello's lieutenant into disgrace with his chief, and is made acting-subaltern in his stead. To secure this post perpetually, he makes Othello jealous of Cassio, the suspended lieutenant, a courtly and accomplished countryman of Desde- mona's, and manages to elicit a virtual order to put this man to death by assassination. In so far he has succeeded. But the wild nature that he has aroused will not stop with the death of Cassio. Othello feels that he must destroy the woman who has given her- self into his care. Had he been of Desdemona's race and breeding, he would have read her face, and found her soul. Being a Moor, he cannot know the difference between her and any other woman, born in a palace, of half her worth and rareness. The woman who craves manliness and strength must not compound for these virtues by forfeiting all the amenities and accomplishments of the highest living. Seldom will a match so made turn out to have been based upon the true affinities. The whole tragedy turns upon the material circumstance of Desdemona's handkerchief, given to Cassio in Othello's sight by Bianca, Cassio's mistress, who is introduced for this and another kindred purpose into the play.

The Antony and Cleopatra is popularly assumed to deal baldly and unsparingly with unethical and even disreputable social conduct. The relations of the

3l6 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

title characters are as told of in history so notorious that most readers approach the play with some mis- Antony and giving. But Shakespeare exercises no pes- cuopatra. simistic privileges even here. No diligent and discerning student finds himself scandalised over the course of the plot, or the matter in the lines. There is the same eventual release and redemption from evil that we have noted in other dramas of this period. There are really two tragedies fused into one. The tragedy of Antony culminates in Act IV ; the tragedy of Cleopatra is developed in Act V. The art of the author is perhaps more potently exercised in this drama than elsewhere in all his works. The piece opens with a situation that confirms the tradi- tions and presumption touching the title characters. Antony is dancing attendance upon the Queen in a most un-Roman and unstalwart fashion. But as we listen to the dialogue we become persuaded that the blame does not belong equally to Rome and Egypt. Antony is not the principal in the case; Cleopatra solicits his devotion publicly and unblushingly. We are thus drawn into something like sympathy for Antony, which is increased when Cleopatra presently goads him into refusing audience to the messengers. Little by little we are led to give countenance to Antony, as he hears the reports of the messengers, since sent for, and regrets the death of his shrewish wife. He refuses to use the freedom that has now come to him ; he will leave Cleopatra, and take up the duties of his rule. Cleopatra gibes him, and plies him with all her wiles, from pretended wrath to tears,

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 317

to prevent his going. Antony is considerate and chivalrous, but firm ; and the play finds itself pro- vided with a hero. The author begins at once, before the scene finishes, to redeem Cleopatra, and almost accomplishes this by the enthusiastic and whole-souled way in which he makes her give up her control. Before the act is closed, the play is provided also with an irresistible heroine. By no sort of means, if Shakespeare had attempted to treat these characters, as history presents them, together, could he have made them practicable for his purpose. By withdrawing Antony from Cleopatra, and leaving the burden of blame to be borne by her, the author grounds the whole on ethic principles. In like fash- ion he develops and completes the tragedy of Antony by making Cleopatra chargeable with his ruin. Then he redeems again his heroine. Antony perishes be- cause he has been too generous, and esteemed himself too lightly. Cleopatra, because undisciplined, selfish, self-willed, has been the evil genius of his career. But there are magnificent possibilities in her nature. In any other environment she might have been alto- gether noble. Bred under the corrupt influences of a degenerate civilisation, vain and self-indulgent almost beyond belief, she is nevertheless grand in strength and vision. The death of Antony, and the determi- nation to save herself from Caesar, arouse her better powers. Right aspirations possess her. In the sub- limity of her dying thoughts she forgets the royal finery in which she has ordered herself arrayed. Her selfishness is merged in the completeness of her re-

318 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

nunciation. That she comes to death when she has but begun to live is of the essence of this second tragedy. The tragedy of Cleopatra is greater than the tragedy of Antony, for Antony had never lived selfishly or ignobly. The play is a study in charac- ter consequences, and makes for righteousness more potently than a thousand sermons.

In strong contrast with Julius Ccesar and Antony and Cleopatra stands Coriolanus, a play of stalwart _ . , and patriotic Rome in the early age. The

Coriolanus. '

beginnings of the latter-day degeneracy, which is exhibited so powerfully in the first two of the dramas just named, are hinted at. The plebeians have achieved their first conquest of power, and are using it irresponsibly and wildly against the aristo- cratic party. The newly appointed tribunes resort to demagoguery at the outset, and enrich (cf. IV. vi. 160) themselves at the people's cost. The potent figure in the play is Volumnia, the perfect type of Roman womanhood, from whose strength the conquerors of the world were born. It is her pride, her life, to have been the mother of a hero, who has done the state noble services, who bears the marks of twenty-seven wounds, and has come the third time home crowned with the oak. The father of this champion seems to have been no patriot, struck no blows for his country, saved the life of no citizen ; for nowhere does this proud dame mention him. The son inherits his mother's strength, but derives a foolish, bragging egotism seemingly from the father. Coriolanus cares nothing, or next to nothing, for the state. He covets

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 319

only to be invincible, and would, as he declares, change sides to fight with Tullus Aufidius, whom he thinks he outrivals, and who is everything that a Co- riolanus cannot be. Cominius and Titus Lartius and Menenius are typic representatives of the better class that has built Rome and is defending it and sus- taining the burdens of its civic life. Volumnia, who once saves her son and once the state, in his despite, is no whit unwomanly, making up in motherly devo- tion what she loses by the exercise of a more than masculine force of will. The beautiful thing in the play is the boyish obedience of Coriolanus to his mother. His wife Virgilia is his counterpart, as well as Volumnia's foil, shrinking from her husband's feats, and happy in him for his personal and domestic worth. The play has been called a tragedy of pride. It is rather a tragedy of selfishness and self-will. With a little more willingness to sacrifice for the gen- eral good, Coriolanus might have been the chief figure in Roman annals. But he was so made up that he became instead a traitor. The play is also in part a study in the civics of classic time, when the state seemed not to exist for its citizens, but its citi- zens for the state.

The great plays of the list, while generally sup- posed to comprise only these that we have dealt with from among the tragedies, must fairly in- The great elude some of the comedies. There can comedies- be small doubt as to the choice ; no one of these six, As You Like it, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew, Midsummer Night's

32O WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

Dream, and Much Ado about Nothing, can be left out. Some glimpses of the human nature and of the art in these, time must be found to add.

Much Ado about Nothing is well named, being one

of the slenderest of all the plays. It is founded upon

the reciprocal irritation that some strong

Muck Ado.

natures seem to feel at sight of each other, when they are nevertheless near to being complete affinities. Beatrice is in this case the stronger, and is drawn with something like a motherly impulse to Benedict, who has been advised to conquer his fond- ness for her. Benedict is for his part flattered that one who has put him down in wit-combats should affect him hopelessly. To give substance to the piece, and afford the lovers a makeshift motive for dealing with each other, there is a second plot. It would not do to have Beatrice made game of in her own house, so she is presented to us as but a niece to Leonato. Leonato's daughter is traduced by a Spanish villain, and Benedict engages, because Bea- trice requests it, to avenge her. But the plot has been overheard by Dogberry and Verges, two blun- dering English constables, imported to Messina to furnish farcical matter for the piece. Italian officers would have known and used their native tongue unambitiously and correctly. Hero suffers in a way that amounts to tragedy; but we do not take her troubles very seriously, the play getting thus its proper counterpoise of sorrow. Benedict does not fight his friend Claudio, and was made to challenge him merely to establish to us the seriousness of his

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 321

feeling, and the subordination of his mind and will to Beatrice. In spite of the lightness of the plot, profound principles of psychology and human nature are depended upon to keep the whole sensible and sound.

The Midsummer I\iighfs Dream seems to have been inspired by the wish to make a play dealing with fairies and the unseen world of their activ- ... ,

Miasum-

ity. In Shakespeare's age the popular mind mer Night's was still astir over interferences assumed to Dream- come from the domain of tricksy spirits, and Robin Goodfellow was believed in perhaps as steadfastly as any person mentioned in the catechism. The title betrays how slight were the obligations that Shake- speare was willing to assume for the characters and happenings of the piece. Quite evidently it would be impossible to found a play upon the loves or for- tunes of a Titania and an Oberon ; these cannot be made more than incidental to the drama as a whole, however spectacular the mischief they are to do. So the dramatisation, based upon the occasion of the nuptials of the great Theseus, king or "duke" of Athens in the heroic age, and Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, belongs to a world much higher than the plane of elves, higher almost than the human. As the maximum consummation, in part fancifully conceived, we desire that the felicity or comfort of this virtually demigod and demigoddess pair may not be marred by any untoward or ill-advised entertain- ment. We wish that their union might (cf. I. i. 16-19) be solemnised in epic style, or at least with as much

322 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

dignity as was ever compassed by the masterpieces of the Athenian stage. Also we are in lively sym- pathy with Hippolyta, who (I. i. 122) would not have Theseus unrelenting, in the midst of his own happi- ness, toward other lovers not so fortunate as them- selves. By the graciousness of the pair all turns out comedially and well, the ridiculous effort of Bottom and his companions — who are borrowed from Eng- land like Dogberry and Verges in Much Ado — fur- nishing the clownish or burlesque components, and focussing the action after the fairy part of the play has been wound up. The majesty and greatness of the Duke's mind, and the divine reserve of Hippolyta's disposition, are brought out in the first paragraphs of Act V, and lift these personages to their superior level, though modern playing does not in general bring this out. The two other pairs of lovers are taken up into their company to furnish audience to the players. There is very palpable satire upon the subjectivity of love in the juice of the flower, and in the fact that Demetrius is not disabused of its charm, but marries Helena on the strength of its influence alone. The makeshift heroine of the play is Helena, and the hero, Demetrius.

The Taming of the Shrew appears to have been 'adapted from an earlier play, which is still extant. Taming of It bears some resemblance to Much Ado in the shrew. tnat jt js j^ jn Italy, has a double plot, and possesses a heroine that is perhaps echoed in Beatrice of the later play. The summary expedients of Petru- chio, as well as their effect upon Katherina, are pretty

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 323

largely brought over from the earlier version, and leave in consequence for the student interpretative difficulties unusual in Shakespeare's work. It is cer- tain that to many readers the results seem to be derived without definite or reasonable causation. Petruchio knows that Katherina is a good woman at heart, a little headstrong at the beginning, and now but in small degree responsible for the plight in which he finds her. Katherina knows that Petru- chio is a good man, and that he sees through her and likes her ; and she is helpless. She has been driven to unfilial and defiant conduct by wrong home treat- ment until she almost believes herself irredeemably bad. Petruchio saves her in her own despite. The discipline that marriage brings to strong natures, generally in long years of renunciation, is condensed into a fortnight of half -ironic compulsion. The In- duction of the earlier play is retained by Shakespeare, who apologetically saves by it the necessity of pre- senting the piece as a sober or first-hand study in domestic wisdom.

Twelfth Night stands as a comedy somewhat apart from the three plays now considered. In it the char- acter of Maria goes well with the women Twelfth of the preceding; Viola and Olivia rank Ni£ht- rather with the women of the tragedies. Incapable of coarse or biting speech, and without wit-combat gifts, Viola is still as strong as Beatrice or Helena or Katherina. She does indeed what none of these could do, recovering her lost lover by charity and gentleness with strategy. Shakespeare seems to

324 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

have borrowed the main features of the plot from GT Ingannati, an Italian comedy dating from 1537. The heroine of this play, once beloved by a noble- man, and separated from him by residence in another city, learns that he has so far forgotten her as to pay court to a rich lady of his circle. Disguising herself, she enters his service, and is soon sent to woo as his proxy the new flame. But the lady falls in love with his messenger and rejects him. Shakespeare seems to have been attracted to this plot by the possibilities in the r61e of the heroine, and he has made Viola the most refined and noble woman of all the comedies. Orsino, to suit this part, is conceived as in love with his ideals, as Romeo was, worshipping Olivia as Rosa- lind was worshipped, afar off. Since Orsino has not yet found his Juliet, he wooes by proxy. He has not quite reached the point, when the course of the play is stopped, of discerning her. But he is already hedged about by the occult and subtle influences of her sex ; the strange comfort of Viola's presence and ministries has almost won him to himself. Yet she wooes Orsino with great unselfishness and sympathy, being always ready to yield him on seeing that he has Olivia's affection. She is withal just and true to her rival, though with infinite opportunity to be false. Managing to see Olivia's face, and discover- ing there beauty perhaps superior to her own, she shows no dislike of it or its possessor. She is as gentle and optimistic as Imogen, and as self-poised. There is somewhat of the same comic satire as is seen in the former plays. Olivia is made to reject

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 325

the Duke because of his effeminate advances, but falls in love with his page, who is a woman. Later her affections are transferred without difficulty to Sebastian, who can scarcely be of larger proportions or more manly in appearance than his sister. There is some rough comedy, to keep the sentiment parts of the play from seeming too strained and trivial. Sir Toby is provided in part to insure physical means for the arrest and immurement of Malvolio. With- out the egotism and sanctimony of this last character, the main business of the play would seem too bald. The drinking and maudlin talk and singing, the jokes of the clown, and the countrified graces of Sir Andrew's dancing make the background on which the love matters of the people of quality fail to look absurd. It is the most refined of all the comedies, and mingles comedy, humour, and pathos in an un- wonted combination.

As You Like It is perhaps the most pleasing, in the popular judgment, of all the comedies. It seems to have been written in a vision of sheer ro- AS YOU mance, centring about Arden, home of the Like If- Robin Hoods in France, and inspired by Lodge's novel of Rosalynde. It is an idyl of the forest, of emancipated, unconventional existence ; and the main incidents are managed without much reason or probability. Rosalind is the impersonation of pure womanhood, unweighted with philosophy, or heavy, self-conscious declamation, and saved by adversity from the vice of selfishness. Orlando is well born, but reared meanly as a rustic, and so enabled to over-

326 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

match the great wrestler in brawn. He is endowed for victory, that he may win the admiration and love of Rosalind. In Arden the differences wrought by conventionalism disappear ; Orlando is as acceptable as anybody. There have been cruel banishments and wrongs, these seeming in the atmosphere of palaces but incidental, inevitable. In the primitive simplicity of Arden they look monstrous. Touch- stone keeps the echo of the old life well in our ears, yet with true fool consistency matches with a wench of sheepfolds. Touchstone is the most genial and polished of all clowns, always content to spare his tongue rather than sting a sufferer. The deep and searching glimpses of life under varying conditions constitute the chief charm of the piece. It seems not to have been written for the sake of any par- ticular idea or character, and lacks the rough comedy of preceding plays.

In The Merchant of Venice Shakespeare's interest appears to have centred in Shylock as the typic Tke Mer- sixteenth-century Jew. The study shows chant of remarkable insight into the Hebrew con- Vmtce. sciousness, and goes far toward alleviating various Christian prejudices against the race. To the superficial reader Shylock has too often seemed nothing but the impersonation of greed and malice. The story of the bond, and of the lady of Belmont, who donned the garb of a lawyer and rescued the surety, probably attracted the author to this theme. The love part of the play must of course be second- ary, since Bassanio is a spendthrift, and cannot be

GROUPINGS OF THE PLAYS 327

made much of as a hero. Portia must be clever rather than — like her namesake in the Julius Ccesar — great, or we shall regret the match. So, after Shylock, Antonio appears to hold the author's artistic attention, and furnishes the work its name. Culti- vated readers in Shakespeare's time perhaps dis- cerned, as we sometimes do not, the extraordinary marks of breeding, of instinctive and unconscious courtesy, with which the play begins. We are inclined to put the piece into the hands of school- boys, as an approach to Shakespeare. We were wiser to save it till at least the primer of modern gentility has been mastered. No people, no age, has rivalled in generous and high-minded considera- tion the Venetian aristocracy of the times in ques- tion. Nothing short of the noble fellowship, and sympathy, and more than fatherly devotion, that we see in Antonio, could have enabled him to forget how Bassanio had abused his bounty. On no other basis of intercourse and esteem could Antonio have been made, in reason, to subscribe to such a bond. The treatment of Portia, in the matter of the caskets, is exquisite, and reveals again the author's infinite knowledge of woman's nature. The legal conclu- sions that Shakespeare makes Portia propound in the trial scene have been much criticised, but it is not clear that he intended them to be different from the feminine judgments that they very palpably are. The play is perhaps least satisfying in the repudia- tion, by Jessica, of her father. Converts from Juda- ism are not made often in just such fashion. The

328 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

second love plot is needed to give substance and dig- nity, by contrast, to the first.

There are other plays, tragedies as well as come- dies, which, were such summarisings helpful, might be added to the list now finished. But there can be little profit, save sometimes as a clew, in anticipating the main conclusions of personal study. All these things may become open secrets to the prepared mind. The gift of insight, which we all use so well outside of books, needs to be quickened by the ex- pert study of a few plays. Any one who can read character in actual life, can learn to read it essentially as well in dramas and novels.

VIII

PERSONAL STUDY OF THE PLAYS

IT seems scarcely practicable to contribute more toward showing what Shakespeare is, and of what worth he is or may be to the world, in an introductory, provisional view, than has now been done. All great literature, as has been illustrated, is potential, meaning much more than is conveyed or said. Enough has been shown, it is hoped, to make clear how Shake- speare and other masters communicate things that cannot be told. The highest cannot be spoken ; but we can be made, by art, to experience it. To bore is to tell, or try to tell, the whole.

There is no way to comprehend Shakespeare with less labour than is requisite to comprehend a single play. To know one of his dramas thoroughly To know is equivalent to knowing Shakespeare. To one Play is have studied the thirty-seven plays superfi-

cially, is not to know him or them. It were speare. as wise to attempt studying a picture gallery over in half-a-dozen hurried visits. All the world is aware how long it takes to know a painting. There is as much to learn in a great play of Shakespeare's as in any product of the painter's art. The man whose desire is to come into acquaintance and fellowship with Shakespeare and like master spirits, and is

329

330 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

willing to use his leisure to that end, may achieve his wish. To make this practicable, inductive out- Useofthe h'nes, in the shape of Questions, have been Questions, added to this volume. They reduce the unit of difficulty, yet leave all the ethic and artistic meaning to be discerned independently by the learner. All the discussions, indeed, of the several plays con- sidered, except the first, were intended to prepare for work of this kind. In the case of Cymbeline, the rights of the reading public, it is confessed, have been invaded. But this one piece was sacrificed, as was in part explained at the time, for the sake of the rest and of Shakespeare at large. No Questions on this play, consequently, have been appended ; but The Winter's Tale and Romeo and Juliet are analysed entire, and without reference to the partial treatment attempted in earlier pages.

The first desideratum, in the Shakespeare work proposed, is an edition that explains all allusions The litera- and all Elizabethan peculiarities in the text.

Shake^ ^ w^ no* much a^> until some personal speare. comprehension of the given play has been reached, to resort to Shakespeare commentaries and manuals. The impressions of other people cannot be substituted for ours, and were this possible, would only retard the development of insight. The problems of literary discernment are our own, and must be worked out patiently, like school tasks, without copy- ing from our fellows. After we have grasped the essential meanings of a play, it is well to examine the opinions of critics concerning it, and weigh our

PERSONAL STUDY OF THE PLAYS 331

conclusions in the light of theirs. There are many helps of this kind, and the number is almost daily increasing. Chief among books for collateral or supplemental reference are the Variorum volumes of Mr. Furness, which give not only variant readings of the text, but likewise some of the best notes and comments from all expounders. The list includes, at present writing, Romeo and Jttliet, Macbeth, Ham- let, Lear, Othello, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, The Tempest, Midsummer Nighfs Dream, The Win- ter's Tale, and Much Ado, Among books that may be profitably consulted, after study of a play, are Coleridge's Lectures on Shakespeare ; Gervinus's Shakespeare Commentaries; Dowden's Shakspere, his Mind and Art ; Hudson's Shakespeare, his Life, Art, and Characters ; Grant White's Studies in Shake- speare ; Mrs. Jameson's Characteristics of Women; Ulrici's Shakespeare's Dramatic Art; Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; and George Brandes's Shakespeare, A Critical Study. Some in- formation concerning great stage interpreters of principal plays can be conveniently reached in Dow- den's Introduction to Shakespeare, and the reprinted papers of The Home Circle Library. For further study of Shakespeare as man and author, J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shake- speare, and Sidney Lee's Life, will be most useful. They have been drawn upon largely in the prepara- tion of the biographical sketch in the present volume. For a summary of- results in the investigation of Shakespeare's form, especially with reference to

332

WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE?

the chronology of certain plays, the Introduction to The Leopold Shakspere will be found suggestive and valuable. More extended reading upon this topic would carry the student to the Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, and other works not in the scope of the present treatise. Any working Shakespeare library should include further Abbott's Shakespearian Grammar, Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexi- con, and Bartlett's Concordance to Shakespeare.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

OUTLINE QUESTIONS

I

THE WINTER'S TALE ACT I

SCENE I

1 (a) What is the point in having one of these courtiers address the other, by name, at the very beginning? (b) How does the author manage to make known to his audience, which is without printed programmes, what countries are represented here ? How too does he show to which the courtiers respectively belong? (c) What 'difference' (1. 4) between Bohemia and Sicily does Archidamus seem to have in mind ?

2 (#) Does it appear (11. 6-8) that Camillo and Archidamus are introduced for their own sakes, or for some other reason? (£) What does Archidamus (11. 9-14) imply as to the character of the entertainment that the Sicilian court has furnished or is furnishing? (c} Is there any hint as to whether the entertain- ment, or the visit, has been prolonged or brief ? (d) Can you explain why Camillo (11. 18, 19) seems willing to accept, instead of deprecating, the immoderate acknowledgments tendered by Archidamus ?

3 (a) What is implied (11. 23, 24) by Camillo as to the extent to which Bohemia has put himself under obligation to Sicily? (£) What purpose, to us, does the rest of his paragraph serve? (c) Does there seem to be any reason why Mamillius is men- tioned, but not his mother? (d) Why is the scene cast in prose? (e) Why could not this scene be dispensed with?

335

336 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? [I. n

SCENE II

1 (a) At what time of year (cf. i. 6) are we to understand that this play opens? (b) In what season, then, must Polyxenes have begun his nine months' stay? (c) In the story from which Shakespeare drew, Sicily was the visiting king, and Bohemia the host. Is there any apparent reason why the author has reversed these rdles? (d) Which would be the pleasanter country at any time of year? Besides, how far does this absurd lingering of Polyxenes seem due to the character of the man? (e) What in the tone or language (11. 1-9) of the first paragraph would seem meant to be significant as to the strength and caliber of this king?

2 (a) Do you think that Leontes, from his reply (11. 9, 10), expects that his friend will withdraw speedily? (b) Do you imagine that Leontes is now exercised for the first time over his friend's visit? With what evident feeling and motive does he speak? (c) What is the effect of his utterance upon Polyxenes? (d) Why does Polyxenes add to his reply ' I have stay'd to tire your royalty ' ? (*) Is the effect upon Leontes of saying this apparently what he expected?

3 (a) Why is the next utterance (1. 16) so curt? (b) Why does Leontes, having his wish, propose another week of stay?

(c) What would have been the harm of letting Polyxenes with- draw, on a day's notice, as he proposes? (d) What of Leontes proposing to compromise by making the limit three days and a half ? How far is it large-minded and royal?

4 (a) How can Polyxenes insist now (11. 23, 24) that his affairs ' do even drag ' him homeward ? (£) Why does he allude (1. 26) to the charge or expense of his staying? (c) Why does Leontes call on the Queen to speak? (d) What do you find in the tone and spirit of his words to her? (e) Why has she not spoken before?

5 (a) Why does the Queen say that she was intending to hold her peace even longer? Do you think this true wholly? (b) What means (11. 31, 32) 'this satisfaction the bygone day proclaim'd ' ? (c) Do you judge, from the next two lines, that she thinks her husband and Polyxenes are merely fencing?

(d) Is the answer (1. 33) of Leontes literal or ironical ?

I. II] THE WINTER'S TALE 337

6 (#) Is there any reason apparently why Hermione speaks thus of Polyxenes, and not to him? (b) Does she mean to im- ply, in (11. 34-37) her next paragraph, that Polyxenes does not care for his family? (c) Do you think that he has a wife? (d) Why, since she will allow Leontes (11. 39-42) a month beyond the limit, does she not adventure a larger borrowing?

7 (a) On what invitation does Hermione base (11. 44, 45) her seeming importunities? (£) Do you think she wishes to keep Polyxenes from staying? (c) Would you have remained on such requests as hers? (d) Why does Polyxenes, under such conditions, accede?

8 (a) Why does Hermione at once (1. 60) start talk 'of my lord's tricks and yours'? (£) Why does she solicit (11. 65, 66) uncivilly from her friend testimony that her husband was 'the verier wag o' the two ' ? (c) Why does not Leontes talk, and why does she not try to engage him as well as Polyxenes in the new topic? (d) Do you think the Queen enjoys the advantage (11. 80-86) that she soon wins over Polyxenes? Why does she push it?

9 (a) Why should Leontes (1. 86) now speak, and in the way he does ? (fr) Does Hermione probably recognise the spirit of the question which he asks ? (c) What does her husband wish or intend apparently by his next remark? (d) Does the rest of the paragraph (11. 88, 89) seem to go well with what he has just said?

10 (a) With what feeling does Hermione take up the last utterance of her husband? (£) Does she seem brilliant and facile in the lines (11. 90-101) that follow? Do you get the impression that she likes wit-combats of this kind? (c) Does she seem troubled? (d) What is the effect (11. 101-105) °f her words upon Leontes ? (e) Is what he says wholly genuine, has his feeling altered?

n (a) What does Hermione do when Leontes has said his answer? (b} Why does she not prolong the interview that she was called in to save? (c} What did Elizabethan etiquette require when a lady wished to turn aside, as here, from some group or station in an audience-room ? (d} Do you think Shake- z

338 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? [I. n

speare expects us to approve Leontes here (11. 108-119) 'n

he says? Do you think he intends to make us detest him?

Why does he cause us to overhear the King's words?

12 (a) Has the smutched nose of Mamillius any influence with us as regards his mother? (£) Do you find the King's jealousy wholly unjustifiable up to this point? (c) How far are you inclined to blame him for what he goes on (11. 128-146) to say?

13 (a) Does Hermione hear anything of what Leonles is say- ing to the boy and to himself? (b) What apparently (1. 146) has Polyxenes noticed? (c) What word in Hermione's reply has stress ? (d) What does Hermione mean in asking her hus- band (1. 150) if he is 'moved'? (e) How far is Leontes telling (11. 151-160) the truth?

14 (a) What do you infer (1. 155) is the King's age?

(b) What pleases him (1. 162) in Mamillius's answer? (c) Do you see any motive or animus in (11. 163-165) Leontes's ques- tion? (*/) If the lad's mother were living, would or would not Leontes be likely, in his present mood, to allude to her?

15 (a) Why does Leontes now (1. 172) withdraw from his friend and the Queen? (£) Why has not Shakespeare had the Queen and Polyxenes withdraw, before this, from the King?

(c) Why does Hermione (11. 177, 178) make answer as she does?

(d) Is it apparent why Mamillius (1. 190) does not go away as bid? (e) What is in his mind seemingly that prompts (1. 208) his last words ?

16 (a) Why has the author withdrawn Mamillius and his mother with Polyxenes ? (£) What has he accomplished by use of them, and how has Mamillius helped? (c) Why does the author not close the scene ? (d) What explanation of Camillo's presence during what has passed ?

17 (a) Does Leontes apparently wish or expect Camillo to behave as if he understood what he had heard and witnessed? (£) Why does not Camillo so behave? (c) What is the 'result of his attempt to be evasive? (d) Do you like this man Camillo? Why? (i) How does Leontes first (11. 235-241, 242-249) at- tempt to control Camillo? (/) Do you think that the King is yet clear as to what he would have Camillo do ?

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18 (a) Does Leontes recommend himself in his open conver- sation about his Queen? (£) What sort of a plot would you expect such a man, in such a state of mind, to make? (c) Do you think Camillo respects the Queen, or cares for her welfare ? (</) Why is Leontes made to speak (11. 313, 314) of Camillo's advancement, is it for Camillo's sake or ours ? (e) Why does he consent (11. 333, 334) to believe, and to do the crime ? (/") What of the condition that (11. 335, 336) he requires, is it significant? (g) What has been accomplished in this part of the scene? (/r) Why was this not made into a scene by itself ?

19 (a) Why does the author have Camillo utter the soliloquy (11. 351-364) that follows the agreement? (£) Why does he (1. 364) refuse to salute Polyxenes? (c) Why has the King (11. 370-375) failed to keep his promise to seem friendly ? (d) Do you think Camillo intended at first to betray the plot? (^) Show how the understanding between him and Polyxenes is evolved. (f) Do you recognise any Sicilian, rather than Bohemian, characteristics in Leontes?

20 (0) Does Polyxenes show that he has had suspicions of the jealousy that he has caused? (£) Does he appear to realise that the Queen may in any manner suffer or be profited by the course he takes? (c) Do you feel sure of the reason ? (</) Do you recognise any Bohemian, rather than Sicilian, characteristics (cf. i (<:), above) in this man? (e) Does the scene, all things considered, seem long? (/") Does it show marks of haste or condensation anywhere?

ACT II

SCENE I

1 (a) Do your impressions of Hermione appear to be the same now as in the scene just finished? (b) Does Mamillius, now that his nose has had attention, seem to have the same mother that he had before? (c) Why is he made (11. 5, 6) to object to the petting of the First Lady? (d) Why is he made (11. 7-11) to give his observations concerning brows?

2 (d) Are boys of Mamillius's age generally found in conver- sation with their elders? (b) Was Mamillius at play with his toys when the scene opened ? (c) What do you infer from this, and from (1. 22) 'I am for you again'? (</) What do you find in the circumstance that this lad seems to tell his mother stories that he has not heard from her? Where does he get them? (e) Is there anything significant in the way he holds to his sen- tence (11. 29, 30), without restarting, in spite of the interruption?

3 (a) Can you see the object of bringing Mamillius and his mother thus together in the foreground? (b) What has given Leontes the impulse to come here? (c) Why does he bring along his lords? (*/) What did he think or intend to do on finding Hermione? (e) What does he do (11. 36-53) in the first moments ? (f) What makes him disappoint himself ?

4 (a) What action seems to accompany (1. 56) 'Give me the boy ' ? (b) Can you find the motive for this ? (c) Are you sure as to what lies back (1. 58) of Hermione's inquiry? (d) What can have been the reason of the King's paragraph (11. 64-78) to the lords? (e) Why should Hermione answer what is not addressed to her? (/") How far does she show excitement or humiliation or grief ? (g) How would most women, in such a presence, at such a moment, have behaved?

5 (d) After Leontes has again spoken, what is prevailingly her feeling? (6) Do you take it that Leontes intended, when

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he came, to condemn (1. 104) beforehand those who might be minded to speak for her? (V) Do you think he intended to apprehend her in just this way? (d) What of the force, and the greatness of it, that defeats him thus?

6 (a) Is it unwomanly and weak that Hermione should now (11. 107-115) address the lords? (£) Why does she not appeal to them to save her? Can you imagine such a thing happening under present circumstances ? (c ) Why is it that Hermione feels no dread of anything? (d) Do you suppose the lords feel any such fear as she is lacking in?

7 (a) Does Leontes think (1. 115) that he is kept from speak- ing? (£) Does Hermione feel, and intend to exploit, her su- premacy over all the rest ? Does she really give honour here to whom honour is due? (c) Do you think the King has ever felt the effect of her displacing, silencing personality before?

(d) Does the subordination that she has effected here seem due to constant forces of personality, or to a new sentiment or mood ?

(e) Does Hermione seem like one who would wish to rule her husband ? Do you think her inclined to shrewishness or egotism ?

8 (a) Why does not Leontes say the things he is so desirous of uttering ? Has Hermione really left for him since no pause ? (6) What do you find in (11. 116-124) her final paragraph?

(f) When do you think Leontes gives (1. 125) his order, before or after the Queen has set forth? (d} What indeed does his order, or (1. 103) the previous one, really call for? Were this a low criminal, what would his guards be doing or have done? (e) What do they do, how do they 'guard' the Queen? (/) Why do they not obey the King, and why does he not call them to account for failing to proceed as he intended?

9 (a) What has been accomplished so far in this scene? (£) Why should not a new scene begin at this point? Does the part of the play that we have had seem self-sufficing or pre- liminary? (c) Which of the lords that now speak is specifically our proxy? (</) What comes of the dialogue, up to 1. 180, be- tween Leontes and his lords? (<?) What is the effect on us, as regards both Leontes and the Queen, of knowing that the case has been referred to Delphi? (/) What does Leontes intend (1. 197) apparently to say in public?

342 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [II. n

SCENE n

1 (rt) Would it have made any difference in our impressions if Paulina had come with a lady instead of this ' Gentleman ' for her usher? (6) What do you say of her manner or bearing with the Gaoler; is it unwomanly? (c) Why does Shakespeare have the Gaoler require that the attendants (1. 13, 14) be withdrawn? (d) Why does Paulina say (1. 26) 'a boy'f

2 (a) Why does not Paulina see the incongruity (11. 31-35 and 37-39) between the two things she proposes ? (£) Do you think the Queen will take kindly to the idea of having her child carried to the King? (c) If she does, how will you explain her yielding? (d) Does Paulina seem of stronger will and presence than Hermione? (e) Do your impressions of Hermione seem to have undergone any change since Paulina appeared ? Can you explain what has really happened?

3 (a) Do the think the birth of this daughter, in the jail, has made any change in Hermione's feeling about her troubles? (£) Would it not have been better, dramatically, if the author had permitted us to see the interior of the prison? (c) Why does not the Gaoler, as a matter of course, propose to get per- mission from the King (11. 57, 58) to pass the child? (d) How is it that Hermione, though disgraced and helpless, has (1. 64) the Gaoler's sympathy ? (e) How do you think the feeling about her is in Sicily? (/) What is this scene for?

SCENE III

1 (a) What do the first six words tell us ? (£) Is the reason that the King gives the right one? (c) Why does he wish Hermione destroyed? (d) What word in 1. n has stress? Who has told the boy the dishonour of his mother? (e) What means 'fix'd the shame on't in himself1? (/) How fully does Leontes seem to realise the meaning of what he is made to tell us here?

2 (a) Who is meant (1. 18) by him? (b) Has Paulina chanced upon a good hour to appear with the child before the King? (c) Do you think that the author has prepared Paulina and the King especially in order that her visit may be successful? (d) Do you imagine that Paulina's voice is soft, and that she

II. in] THE WINTER'S TALE 343

uses low tones in the King's anteroom ? (e) How far is she happy in the selection of an opening topic ?

3 (a) Can you think of any reason why the King has charged that Paulina, more than other court women, should be kept away ? (b) Do you think that Antigonus, speaking (1. 45) of 'your dis- pleasure's peril and on mine,' was wholly serious ? (c) Does the King appear capable, even in his present mood, of appreciating the humour of it ? (d) Do you think Antigonus really proud (1. 50) of his henpecked condition ? (e) Can you explain how it is that Paulina has never learned the existence or use of such a thing as tact?

4 (a) Why has the author made Paulina such a person as will drive the King, as at once (1. 61) happens, to force her from his presence? (£) The guards again, as when bidden in the first scene (1. 103) of this act to remove Hermione, fail to obey. Is it for like reasons? (c) Do you think any contrast is intended?

(d) In what attitude do you see Paulina (11. 63, 64) in her defi- ance of the King's men? (e) Do you understand how she can propose to leave the child ? (/") Which would engage your own attention chiefly, were the scene actual, at this moment, Paulina and the soldiers, or the child ?

5 (a) How does the action of the King intensify the situa- tion? (b) Why does the author wish the excitement and confu- sion enhanced? (c) Was or was not the offence implied in * Traitors ' (1. 72) likely to be considered serious in Elizabethan times? (d} How do you think Antigonus looks when Paulina (11. 76-79) prevents his obedience to the King's command? Why does not he speak? (e) Why is not the King infuriated at his hesitation?

6 (a) In whose power now is the child? Would Paulina be permitted, if she willed, to carry it back to its mother? (b) What has been accomplished thus far in this scene ? (c) Does Paulina really intend to exasperate the King further? (^) Do you think the King's statement (11. 90, 91), which is not denied, a true one?

(e) How can the King endure Paulina's talk (11. 97-108) about the child ? (/") Can you see why the author makes her venture it? Or) Why does the King allow himself to be baffled thus long of his purpose ?

344 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [IL HI

7 (a) Where is the child this while? (£) Do you believe the King's threat (1. 114) means anything? (c) Are you concerned more, at this moment, for the child or for Paulina? (d) In the inevitable moment that is approaching, what do you think Paulina will do? Will she make good (11. 62, 63) her threat? (e) Was there any special point in Elizabethan times in (I. 121) 'on your allegiance'? (/) Is there any effect from using it in this case?

8 (a) What, from Paulina's language (1. 125), do we know is taking place? (£) Is or is not change indicated (11. 127 and 130) in ' What needs these hands ' ' So, so ' ? (c) Why does she, in the last of these lines, say 'we'? (</) Why has she not resisted the effort to eject her? (e) Has her failure to do so made us note and feel the abandonment of the child more fully?

9 (a) What further step has now been taken in this scene? (£) Does the King believe what he says (1. 131) to Antigonus about his wife's behaviour? (c) Why has he not proceeded against the child's life till now? (</) What would you be will- ing to have happen to the child, provided it be saved (11. 132- 134) from the fate demanded by the King? (e) How far do you suppose the author intended and expected this feeling? (/) Is there any justice, or was there, according to Elizabethan no- tions, in making a man responsible for the conduct of his wife? (g) Why does not the King first punish Paulina herself for her defiance and disrespect?

10 (a) Has or has not the First Lord spoken before in this scene? (£) What qualities do you discern in him? (c) What motives prompt him to cross the King at this most dangerous moment? (<f) Why does the King yield? (e) Why should he not now turn to some other of his lords or servants ? (/) Why does he extort in advance the oath?

11 (a) If Antigonus had not been henpecked, do you or do you not think he would have accepted such a commission? (£) Can you understand how he can repeat (11. 184, 185) his oath, yet declare that immediate death had been more merci- ful ? Can you comprehend the nature, the consciousness of such a man? (c) Do you think the character unreal? (d) Do the words of Antigonus (11. 185-187) to the child make the moment harder or easier for us to bear? (e) Does the announcement of

II. in] THE WINTER'S TALE 345

the messengers make or not make the exit of Antigonus with the child more practicable to ourselves? Why?

12 (a) What is the motive (1. 197) of the messengers' has- tening? (£) Does it seem likely that they have hurried also before arriving at the shores of this island ? (c) If the oracle is to determine the truth of the King's accusations, why does he summon a session? (d) How or why, while the Queen lives, is the King's heart (1. 206) a burthen to him? (e) Do you realise how far the author has advanced the plot, and how sternly he has controlled our sympathies, since the opening of this scene ? Explain.

ACT III

SCENE I

I (a) Why are these messengers made to be talking yet, even in Sicily, of their experiences at Delphi ? (£) Is there any differ- entiation attempted in the characters of the two men? (<r) Do they or do they not know the purport of the response they carry ? (d) Do you think it fairly possible to question whether they have genuine despatches from Delphi or not? (/) Do you think, from their call (1. 21) for fresh horses, that they have not yet started ? Is there Folio authority for the setting of the scenes ? (/) What is the purpose of this scene ? Does it serve other pur- poses than one ?

SCENE II

1 (a) Do you take it that in Sicily the King usually opened the sessions in person? (b) Does he seem to show humiliation, or regret, or some other feeling? (c) Has the author presented Hermione and Paulina before? (d) Does the author seem to need Paulina here in the same manner as before? (<?) What points in character in the two women are there in common?

2 («) Does Hermione's strength, in her first paragraph of defence, seem or not seem unwomanly? Does or does not the diction seem masculine ? (6) What qualities of greatness in sen- timent and spirit are apparent in it? (c) How much of imperial presuming, of undeference like Paulina's to the King's place and person, can you find in it? (d) Does Hermione seem changed in any way since her imprisonment ? (*) Does Leontes rise in repose and dignity in (11. 55-58) his first interruption? Why? (/") How far does Hermione lose repose and dignity in attempt- ing to reply to the strictures of her husband ?

3 (a) After Hermione resumes her defence do you discern further qualities in (11. 62-77) her speaking of Polyxenes and Camillo ? (b) Can you imagine what Leontes has to base (11. 78,

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79) his new innuendo on? (V) Can you explain why Hermione does not give way to vituperation and grief on his reference (1. 88) to her babe? (d) How can Leontes publicly prejudge (11. 91, 92) her guilty when he has promised a just and open trial ? What feelings or forces compel him to act in this way ? (/) What effect does his threatening have upon his wife? CO What new sentiments and qualities do you find in (11. 92- 117) her paragraph at large?

4 (a) Is the First Lord officially entitled to speak in this court? (b) Is this the point in the proceedings where it was intended that the oracle should be introduced? (c) Can you explain why, in Hermione's reference (11. 120-124) to her father, there is no thought of appealing to him for justice or protection? (d) Do you understand that this paragraph is said in the hear- ing of the whole court? (e) What need here of a paragraph at all?

5 (a) What officer apparently administers the oath to Cleom- enes and Dion ? (b) Is it dramatically well that we have seen them before? Why? (c) Is there seemingly any reason why Leontes is made, by (1. 132) his order, to participate in this formal moment of suspense? (</) Was it in accord with court etiquette for a group of lords like this one to break out, in antici- pation of their chief, in a demonstration? (f) Are they, or are they not, sure on which side the enthusiasm of the King will vent itself ? (/) Which seems the ampler feeling, Hermione's or the lords' ?

6 (a) What does the King mean (1. 142) by 'proceed'? (£) Can you explain how a servant could presume (1. 143) to interrupt the august sessions, summoned for the trial of a queen, by such an hysterical intrusion? (c) What is the meaning of 'mere conceit and fear,' exactly what has caused the death of the prince? (d?) How far are we to understand, from the King's acknowledgment (11. 147, 148), that he has been insincere all the while? (e) Why does not Hermione swoon immediately on knowledge of Mamillius's death? (/") Do you think it or not think it hard for Leontes to say (11. 150-154 and 154-173) what he says in the face of all the sessions and the lords? Why does not the author have him confess his villany in an aside? (g) To what extent are you changing your opinion of the man ?

348 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [III. n

7 (a) Does the language of Paulina, on reentering, seem unaffected and natural ? Has her talk, the matter or the manner of it, at anytime seemed mannish, masculine? (£) How would you name her most salient characteristics? (c) What effect is produced on us, as regards the King, by (11. 180-200) her invec- tives? (d) Should you or should you not think, from (11. 201- 203) the manner of her reference, that Hermione is really dead? (e) Why does not Leontes say something ? (/) What do you say of the climax (11. 208-215) to which she carries her assault?

8 (a) What is the effect of having the King beg that she go on? (6) Does the First Lord appear (1. 218) to assume that the Queen is already dead? (c) How does he rank with the men of the play so far? (d) Can you account now for Paulina's tears, and her regret and asking for forgiveness? (e) What is the effect of this as regards her, and as regards the King? (/) Do you think that her tears are in part (11. 231, 232) for the loss of her husband? (g) Why has Shakespeare put this in? (A) How long ago apparently did she give her husband up ?

9 (a) Why should Leontes deprecate the pity of Paulina? (£) What do you say of the penance he proposes, is it manly? (c) What are now your feelings toward this man? (rf) Can you explain why he now wishes (11. 235, 243) to be led to the bodies of his queen and son by Paulina, and not by some one of his lords?

SCENE in

i (a) Has Antigonus any nurse or maids of honour with him to care for the babe ? (£) How has the business that he has in hand impressed apparently the crew? Do you think they know what child it is and what is the purpose fully of their voyage? (c) Why does not the mention (11. 12, 13) of the creatures of prey seem to stir Antigonus? (</) Do you think you can bear to see him expose the child? (e) Why does the author make Antigonus to have had (11. 17-37) the dream of the child's mother? Does it help him or us? (/) How do you explain his thinking the Queen guilty? He did not once think so. (g) What do you say of his manner of parting with the child ? How far is it consistent with his cruel, unwavering purpose?

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2 (a) What is meant (1. 47) by 'character'? (b) And what means 'these'? And how may they 'both breed thee, and still rest thine ' ? (c) Why does the author show us this man pursued, while the child stays safe? (d) Is it, or is it not, removed from our sight? Why? (e) Do you find this episode thus far tragical? Can you explain why? (/) Why does the author have Antigonus perish ?

3 (a) Why does the text change to prose ? (£) How much contrast, dramatic and other, between the foregoing and the situation now begun ? Would the shepherd, dressed as in Shake- speare's days, look more rustic or less than such a figure now ? How would the court attire of Antigonus compare with the dress of the gentry in present times ? (c) What time of the year has now been reached? (d) Does the shepherd seem drawn more by his fondness for children, or by the rich mantle and other articles that he sees? (e) How does the Clown look and act, when he appears, to call out (1. 83) his father's question? Do you think he was quaking?

4 (a) Which story of marvel gets precedence of the other? Why? (£) What means (11. 130, 131) 'Let my sheep go,' and what state of mind does this measure to us? (c) Why does the shepherd wish to know (1. 138) 'what' the stranger is? (rf) Why is the author at pains to make us know that the body of Antigonus shall have burial ? (e) Can you explain why the last part of this scene is comedial, though it deals with death?

ACT IV

SCENE I

1 (a) What do you imagine was the make-up of the actor taking the part here of Father Time? (£) How far do you think the effect of his utterance, if the personification seemed com- plete, would approach the hallucination that the author wished ? (c) What means (1. 8) self-born hour? What may we say that each hour is usually born of ? (d) From the mention (11. 22-25) of Florizel and Perdita, what may we infer this setting forward of the plot is for?

2 (a) How much of Father Time's paragraph is properly Chorus talk ? (6) This scene has been pronounced spurious by certain critics. What signs of Shakespeare's hand and mind are discerned about it? (c) What marks and features seem to fix it below the standard of Shakespeare and of the play ?

SCENE II

1 (a) Why is not Polyxenes willing that Camillo should at least go on a visit to Sicily? (fr) How does it chance that the King's mind turns (11. 28, 29) to thoughts of his son so sud- denly? (c) Is it usual for a prince, leaving no knowledge of his whereabouts, to be absent from court three days? How far would it be possible to do this without resorting to disguises ? (</) Whose wealth, in the King's suspicion (11. 44-46), appar- ently, has made the homely shepherd rich ? (e) What has trans- formed the shepherd, from very nothing to an unspeakable estate, and how long since did the change, as it would seem, take place ?

2 (a) How can Camillo (1. 48) have heard of the shepherd's daughter? Is he perhaps (cf. 11. 36, 37) especially intimate with Florizel, or is he perhaps, his guardian? (£) What do you think of the King's plan of reaching a conversation with the shepherd? Why does he not summon the man to court?

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(c) Shakespeare evidently wants Camillo along (11. 57, 58) at the coming interview. Do you or do you not consider that he has, by having the King magnify a small matter, artistically pre- pared for it ? (d) Why is the scene cast in prose ?

SCENE III

1 (*z) How is Autolycus dressed ? (£) Where was the family linen (1. 5) dried, in Shakespeare's day, after washing? (c) If the first three stanzas are intended to show the character of this fellow, what is the interruption (11. 13, 14) for? (*/) What does Autolycus mean (11. 23, 24) about his ' traffic,' and the ' lesser linen ' ? (e) What does he mean (1. 27) by ' caparison,' and (11. 28, 29) 'gallows and knock are too powerful'? (/) Why does he cry out ' A prize ! ' ?

2 (a) What does Autolycus mean (1. 36) by ' if the springe hold ' ? (6) Why does not the Clown see Autolycus ? (c) What is to be judged, from (11. 34, 35) 'fifteen hundred shorn,' as to the extent of the shepherd's holdings ? (rf) What tastes do you discern, in what the Clown says of his sister, that you would not look for in a shepherd's daughter ? What especially does he mean in (1. 43) ' she lays it on ' ? (^) What does the Clown do, as (1. 54) he makes his outcry ?

3 (a) What does Autolycus get the Clown to do ? (b) What does he mean in (1. 74) ' O, good sir, tenderly, O ' / (c) Why is he so unwilling that the Clown should think of giving him money ? (d) Whom is Autolycus describing (11. 91-93) as his assailant? (e) Why is he disposed to decline (1. 123) further kindness from the Clown ? (/) Is it, or is it not, to the credit (11. 13, 14) of Prince Florizel that this man has been driven from the court ?

SCENE rv

I (a) What differences in imaginative and in practical quality between Florizel's and Perdita's first paragraphs to each other ?

(b) What is Perdita's meaning in (11. 12-14) 'I should blush To see you so attired, sworn, I think, To show myself a glass ' ?

(c) How does the author manage to cover, with somewhat of plausibility, the rather remarkable ' extremes ' of dress that

352 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? [IV. iv

we see here ? (</) What purpose is Florizel's next utterance (11. 14-16) made to serve ? (e) How far do you think Perdita, from her second paragraph, willing to advance her station ?

2 (a) What 'difference' (1. 17) probably does Perdita sup- pose divides them ? (b) How has the Prince been able, in such proximity to the palace, to keep his identity from the shepherd folk he is now to meet? (<:) Why should Perdita, being, as she must suspect, beautiful, feel uncomfortable in any finery ? (</) What do you say of Florizel's way of reassuring her in his next paragraph ? (*) How much does it weigh with Perdita ? (f) Why is not his next argument of better potency ?

3 (a) What makes Florizel sure (1. 53) of Perdita's ability to entertain < sprightly ' ? (b) Why does the shepherd scold Perdita, at sight, for neglecting guests that are but just ap- proaching ? (c) In what sense, under the circumstances, is it true that she is (1. 62) retired ? (d) How do you suppose that Polyxenes and Camillo have disguised themselves ? (<?) What is probably now the real age of the King ?

4 (a) How does Perdita chance to think of flowers, in this moment of embarrassment, as a means of welcome ? (£) What is the meaning (1. 76) of 'grace and remembrance' ? (c) What does it signify that a shepherd girl of sixteen years greets guests like these with such a formula ? (d) What do you say of the excuse, after she is reminded of her slip, that she attempts ? (e) Is there any point of character, moral or mental, in her ready acceptance (1. 97) of Polyxenes's argument ? (/) Why does she not yield to the obligation of the principle if it is true ? Is there other than a woman's reason ?

5 (a) What do you say of the flowers that (11. 103-106) she next bestows, and the manner of bestowing ? (£) Which stands in subordination to the other, at this point, the shepherd girl to the King, or the opposite ? Why ? (c) What would be the natural effect of such a compliment as (11. 109, no) Camillo's, pronounced by a veteran courtier, upon an unsophisticated country maid? (d) Whom does she now (1. 112) address? And what do you say of the mind, the vision that finds expres- sion for itself, even under embarrassment, in such lines (11. 115-

IV. iv] THE WINTER'S TALE 353

127) as follow ? (>) What is Perdita's meaning in 11. 134, 135, and what prompts her saying it ?

6 (#) After the girls from the neighbouring farms take (1. 132) the flowers, what becomes of them and of the swains ? (£) What do you say (11. 135-146) of Florizel's compliment ? (c) What, of Perdita's response ? (d) Do you think, that, were Perdita aware that the King's son wished to make her Queen of Bohemia, she would consent? Why ? (e) What will be neces- sary to ensure the willingness that we can guess must be forth- coming ? (_/") Do any of the guests overhear what they have been saying ? (g) Where do Florizel and Perdita (11. 153, 154) now go ?

7 (a) How do we find that Perdita (11. 156-159 and 159-161) has impressed the visitors from the palace ? (£) What does Camillo mean (1. 161) by 'queen of curds and cream ' ? (^) Do you imagine there is any difference between the dancing of Perdita and her lover and of the rest ? (</) Why do you think the author introduces this dance ? (e) Does the shepherd talk (11. 168-176) of his daughter's lover and their loves as you would expect such a man to do ? Is there anything to be explained ? (/) What does the shepherd, in his last allusion (11. 178-180), mean ?

8 (a) Why has the servant (1. 181) come to his master about the pedler ? (b) What of the popularity of such ballads as are now shown, and what of the importance of pedlers like this one, among English country-folk of Shakespeare's day ? (c} What is significant (1. 215) in Perdita's warning? (d) Is the talk of Dorcas and Mopsa (11. 239-243) better or worse than might have been expected of shepherd girls like these ? Why is it given here ? (e) What point in having Perdita's brother upbraid them ?

9 (a) Why is not Perdita interested in either the ballads or the finery ? (b) Autolycus is a character supplied by Shake- speare to the borrowed plot ; can you see why it was needed ? (c) What do you take it that the shepherd and Polyxenes (11. 316, 317) are in 'sad talk' over? What is the latter satisfying himself about ? (d) Does the dance of twelve Satyrs serve any other purpose than of dramatic embellishment ? (e) How much has been thus far accomplished in this scene ?

2 A

354 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? [IV. iv

10 (a) Why does the diction change now (1. 353) to verse?

(b) Do you find any sarcasm (11. 353-366) in the King's first words to his son? What seemingly does he intend? (c) Is there anything in Florizers answer that would tend to incense his father? (d) What similarly in his next paragraph but one? (e) Do you think Camillo's feeling, from what (1. 389) he says, the same as the King's? (/) Is there anything to be noted (11. 390-393) in Perdita's answer?

11 (a) Is this (11. 393-396) a ceremony of any moment? (Cf. p* 248.) (b) Does it seem (11. 403-412) from the King's ironical inquiries, and (11. 412-414) Florizel's reply, that the pres- ence of the groom's father was imperative at the ceremony of a precontract? (c) Show how the King's rage evolves itself. (d) Is he angered specifically by Perdita? (e) Why does he propose (1. 435) to destroy her beauty? What does his feeling show ? (/") Why was it necessary for the author to get Polyxe- nes so angry here? (g) To do this, has he or has he not been obliged to do violence to the character?

12 (a) What qualities do you find (11. 451-460) in Perdita's comments? (£) What should Florizel, if he does not intend (1. 456) to yield to Perdita's pleading, do? Is he in doubt?

(c) Do you find any character symptoms in (11. 460, 461) what Camillo says to the shepherd? Does he think the shepherd to blame? (d) Why does not Perdita reply (11. 470-472) to her father? (e) Why does Perdita (1. 474) 'look so upon' Florizel? And why does he ask, under the circumstances, the question? (/) Do you think the author meant anything by the name Florizel?

13 (a) Why did not Camillo withdraw with the King? (b) What starts Perdita (1. 484) again ? (c) How far do you consider Camillo loyal to Polyxenes, who confides in him com- pletely, at this point? (d) What influences him most? (e) Show how the disobedience evolves a plan. (/") What need of the awkward drawing (1. 516) of Perdita aside? (g) Can you ex- plain how Camillo can treasonably aid the lovers? Does he propose to keep the King unaware of his conduct?

14 (a) How do you account for Perdita's confident answer (11. 585-587) to Camillo, who should stand for the great world to

IV. iv] THE WINTER'S TALE 355

her? (b) Why, at last (11. 593, 594), should she blush at com- pliments from him? (c) Why again does the author resort (1. 604) to drawing his actors aside? (d) Why is it necessary that Autolycus should tell (11. 605-630) what he has been doing, and at such length ? (e) Does Camillo really think that letters from Leontes (1. 634) shall satisfy Polyxenes? (/") What clothing does Florizel exchange with Autolycus?

15 (a) What does Autolycus (11. 699, 700) mean by 'more matter ' ? (U) What at last have the shepherd and his son got through their heads? (c) What do they propose to do, and from what motive? (</) What are the air and manner of Autolycus as (1. 736) he challenges the shepherd and the Clown? (<?) What is he expecting to do? (/") Why does he not send these men on to the King, and win a larger reward than he can expect from the Prince? (g) Is it probable that Florizel wore a sword, that Autolycus now shows? (^) Of what use is the exchange of clothing to Florizel?

1 6 (a) Why does the author have Autolycus (11. 753-763) ex- ploit his clothing and manners before the shepherds? (£) How does he get these men to go with him? (r) Why should the fellow, with court clothes on, wish (1. 856) to 'look upon' the hedges as he goes toward the wharf? (^) What further use, since the festival, is Shakespeare putting Autolycus to? («) Re- membering his gifts, and his career at court, do you find the character comprehensible? (/) How closely does Perdita seem now to belong to her old friends ? Why ?

17 (a) What has been accomplished in this scene ? (£) Why did not the author divide it ?

ACT V

SCENE I

1 (a) Do you think it would be or not be an easy problem, were you writing the play, to introduce Leontes again ? (b) Has the author chosen an advantageous moment and situation ? Why ? (c) What point in having Cleomenes and Dion the chief spokes- men here? (d) How do you find Leontes disposed toward the purpose they have in mind? (<?) How does Paulina chance to be here, among the men, with no companions of her own sex? (/) What is the effect of the manner and matter (11. 12-16) of her first paragraph ?

2 (a) Which way go your sympathies in the argument be- tween Dion and Paulina? (£) What proof of the King's self- discipline and contrition in (11. 49-54) his words to Paulina? (c) What effect does the King's committing his future to Paulina's keeping have on our conception of his character? (d) Show how the author brings the King plausibly to such consent. (e) Would it have done as well to postpone, until (1. 84) the entry of the Prince, what has now been done in this scene? Why?

3 (a) Why does the Gentleman stop (11. 86, 87) to speak of Perdita while giving the important news ? (£) How has Florizel's idea of pranking her up (IV. iv. 10) in court clothing assisted, materially, her entry at her father's court ? What sort of a youth was it necessary to make Florizel, in order to bring this about? (c) Why should Paulina object (11. 95-103) to the Gentleman's enthusiasm? How does he chance to have celebrated Hermione in verse? (d) Why is Paulina made to administer Job's comfort (11. 115-118) to the King? (e) Is it clear why the King does not deal with her, in such moments, in a tone of more authority ?

4 (a) What do we now know (1. 126) was Mamillius's age at the opening of the play? (b) What do you say of the King's

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V. II] THE WINTER'S TALE 357

impressions of Florizel? (c) And what of his impressions of Perdita? Is it her beauty, or her presence, her dignity, that strikes him? (d) Do you think Perdita has ever realised the difference between her own strength of mind and Florizers? (e) Why does he say (1. 138) 'command,' — why should not 'consent' have seemed a sufficient stretching of the truth? (/) Why does the author have Florizel tell so many valiant falsehoods concerning his 'wife' and her family to the King? (g) After accepting Perdita creditably as a princess, why is not Leontes startled and scandalised (11. 180-185) at the amended news?

5 (a) Can you explain why Perdita has not shown sorrow for her father (1. 202) till now? (6) How can Florizel (11. 208, 209) palter in answer to the very serious question of the King? (c) How is it (1. 215) with Perdita now? (d) What makes Leontes so strangely complaisant (11. 223, 224) toward a maid of very uncertain origin? (^) Is Paulina really afraid (11. 224- 227) that Leontes will forget his years? (/") Who must, of the long separated kings, make the advances now ?

SCENE II

1 (a) Why are the reconciliation and the identification of Perdita's belongings not shown? (£) What of the effectiveness of the means the author uses in substitution for direct enactment? (c) Does Shakespeare mean that ballad-makers (1. 28) can say great meanings better than poets? What is the truth concerning the ballad elements in our literature? (*/) What does the Third Gentleman's reference (1. 40) to 'the majesty of the creature' make clear to us ? (e) Do you think that we have Shakespeare's or the Third Gentleman's estimate (1. 106-108) of Julio Romano's merits? (f) What word has stress in (1. 113) the first clause of the Second Gentleman's last paragraph ?

2 (a) What means (11. 135, 136) 'blossoms of their fortune'? What has been done to them? (£) Do you think Shakespeare intends any satire upon the pretensions of rank in certain of the following paragraphs? (^r) What of the Clown's attempt to re- form Autolycus? (d) In what sense does Autolycus insist upon taking the Clown's phrase, ' tall fellow of thy hands ' ? (e) What has been accomplished in this scene ?

358 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? [V. ill

SCENE III

1 (a) Has the Clown secured admittance, for Autolycus among his 'kindred,' to the group who are here to see the picture? Is he himself or his father among the number? (6) How does the author manage, at the outset, to make us understand that Leontes has not entered Paulina's house before ? (c) Why was it well and necessary to do this ? (</) What do you say of the strength and speed by which this scene proceeds to its main business ? (e) What do you say of the dramatic effect of the silence (1. 20), after the curtain is drawn, and of Paulina's calling attention to this effect of what is seen ?

2 (a) What feelings do you find (11. 23-29) in Leontes now ? (£) What do you say (11. 42-46) of Perdita's responsiveness? Why should she venture, with such people in such a place, to be so demonstrative? (c) Why does not Paulina allow her to kiss her mother's hand? (ef) Why does Camillo (1. 49) speak of ' sorrow ' here ? (e) What is Polyxenes' attitude or action in the next paragraph? (/) Is Paulina surprised (11. 56-59) at the effect of her device? Why should she be?

3 (a) Do you think Hermione moves of purpose, or be- cause she cannot control her agitation at her husband's tears? (£) What is the effect upon Leontes? (t) Do you conclude from his question (1. 63) that he suspects? (</) Does Polyxenes (11. 65, 66) see what he sees? (<?) Why does Leontes say (1. 71) ' twenty years ' ? (/") Do you think the rest of the company (11. 74-80) now share Leontes' and Paulina's understanding, or how nearly have they reached it?

4 (0) Why does not (11. 84, 85) Perdita yet divine the situa- tion ? (£) What was the feeling of the times concerning witch- craft? (c) What was the belief of James I touching such matters? (</) By the way, does there seem to be any possible suggestion of James I in the character of this Leontes ? (*) Why should the King forbid (11. 97, 98) conscientious scruples and obedience to them?

5 (a) What of the dramatic interest (1. 98) of this moment, as the music is played softly? (b) Why does Hermione hesitate to descend? How long seemingly is the delay? (c) What ap-

V. in] THE WINTER'S TALE 359

pears (1. 104) to have been the effect of her first movements? (//) To whom is 'start not' said, and to whom 'do not shun'? (e) What pause do the words of Paulina cover? (/) Which moves toward the other?

6 (a) What is evident (1. in) as to Hermione's feeling? (£) Why does not the author have her speak at once ? (c) Show how Paulina's presence is made useful in these situations, (d) Do you think Perdita kneels (1 . 1 1 9) a second time ? Why is it neces- sary that Hermione be asked to turn and regard her? (e) Has or has not Hermione known till now that Perdita is found?

7 (a) What do you say of Hermione's language to her daugh- ter? Is it wanting in dignity and grace? (£) What do you imagine is Hermione's expression and pose as she says this? (c) Where is the climax of this scene? (d) Is it natural that Paulina should call attention (11. 130-135) to her lone condition? (*) What need for the comedial touch of matching her with Camillo ? (/") How is the author managing the descent from his climax ?

8 (a) What prompts from Leontes his pleading (1. 147) 'look upon my brother'? (b) Why has Florizel (11. 149-151) been left unrecognised till now ? (c) Why is Paulina made to 'lead' the company away? (d) Where is Camillo's place in it ? (e) What are your impressions concerning this close of the scene and of the play?

9 (a) Do you think that Hermione understood what the part she was asked to play would involve ? (6) Is this play a tragedy or a comedy? Why? (c) Who are the enabling characters in it? (d) What new ideas of strength in helplessness, and of the influences of a righteous will, have been brought home to you ? (e) On what principles is this play based? (/) What seem to you to be the ultimate meanings, or lessons, in it?

II

ROMEO AND JULIET ACT I

SCENE I

1 (a) What word in the first line has stress ? (£) What is the real business of these men ? (c) How does the author ap- prize us dramatically which house they serve ? (d) How does he show their antipathy toward the rival family ? (e) Do you think, or not think, that he intends (11. 9 and 39, 40) to differen- tiate the two men in point of bravery ?

2 (a) Why should it be assumed (1. 45) that either side should ' begin ' ? (£) How can Sampson (1. 48) bite his thumb 'at' the approaching ruffians ? (c) How does it help (1. 57) to deny what he has done ? (d) What are the final steps in the evolution of the quarrel ? (e) Why should the coming (1. 65) of one of Montague's kinsmen alter the case in the way it does ? (/) Would it have affected an Englishman in the same way ? What race differences are apparent here ?

3 (a) What, up to the present point, seems the object of this scene ? (£) What do you know at once, from his attempt (1. 72) to part the fighters, is the nature of Benvolio ? (c) How does Tybalt express himself (1. 73) in thouf (d) What kind of a man does he register himself, in his actions here, to be ? (e) Which house thus far seems superior? Do the citizens (1. 81) seem to discriminate ?

4 (a) How does Capulet chance (1. 81) to be in his gown, and swordless ? (£) Whom does he command (11. 82) to fetch his sword ? (c) Why does Lady Capulet, in a moment of such excitement, call (1. 83) for a 'crutch'? (d) Why does Lady Montague (1. 87) hold back her husband ? (e) Do you

360

I. II] ROMEO AND JULIET 361

judge from the Prince's rebuke (11. 89-93) that blood has been shed already ? (/) Do you take it that this is one (1. 96) of the three brawls, or were they something worse ?

5 (a) What do you say of the language used by the Prince in dealing with the offenders ? Is the stilted, sophomoric quality intended to characterise the Prince, or is it due to the author's faults of style ? (t>) Is this Prince an old man ? (c) What is the use of showing, at such pains, the savagery of an Italian street fight ? (d) What need of marks of the Italian nature observed in it? (e) How differently would English offenders against the peace and an English magistrate have behaved ?

6 (a) What is clear (11. 125-132) as to Romeo's and Ben- volio's habits and disposition ? Are they dissipated, roystering young men ? (<$) What are your impressions (11. 137-148, 152- 161) of Montague ? Is he a coarse man & Does he ever read ?

(c) Do you judge Romeo (11. 137-146) like him ? (d) Do you find, or not find, marks of effeminacy in- either ? (e) If these were Englishmen, what different conclusions of character would you form ?

7 (a) Do you understand that Romeo (1. 166) is not aware of the time of day, or that he has just seen (1. 168) his father ? What is the author trying to tell us by these means ? (b) What further hints and signs (11. 177-189) in Romeo's first long para- graph ? (c) Does this man seem really in love ? Why ?

(d) Why should he assume (11. 214-220) that his lady-love cannot be won ? (e) Do you think him unadvised concerning women ? (/) Do you think him diffident, unused to best Verona society ? (g) Can you explain why this young man, exquisitely endowed, and with every privilege, finds life so heavy ? (ft) Is there anything typically Italian in the case?

SCENE II

I (a) What does Paris seem to have been saying that Capulet now answers by ' but ' ? (b) Why should Capulet accept, as he does (1. 3) personally, the responsibility for disturbances arising, like the last one, without his knowledge or consent? (c) What of Paris's interest in the feud, as shown (1. 6) by ' now ' ? (d*) What does Capulet mean (1. 8) by 'a stranger in the world'? (e) Do

362 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [I. n

you think Paris wholly acceptable to Capulet ? (/) What seems to be lacking in him as a lover?

2 (a) How is Capulet different, in modes of thought and speech, from Montague? Which is more matter-of-fact and native, which has achieved more refinement ? (b) What do you say of the author's means of getting rid of Paris and Capulet ? (c) How should Capulet have given the list to a servant who cannot read? And why should not the servant confess himself unequal to the commission? (</) How is the new conversation of Benvolio and Romeo related to their last dialogue? Have they separated since? (e) Which was before subordinated to the other? (/) Which is subordinated now?

3 (a) How does Romeo chance (1. 58) to address the servant ? (£) Was he bound by customs of the time to notice him ? What would Tybalt probably, in Romeo's place, have done ? (c) How does it happen that it is Romeo and not Benvolio who helps the servant? (d) Why does not Romeo at once (11. 60, 64) assist the fellow? (<?) Are we to infer anything from the fact that Paris's name is not included in the list?

4 (<z) Why is the servant now (11. 76, 78, 80) so evasive to the gentleman who has befriended him ? (b) Why does he invite Romeo (11. 84, 85) after all? (c) Is it plausible that he should not know whom he is talking with ? (d) When and how does Benvolio seem to have learned (1. 88) who is Romeo's flame? (<?) How was it possible for Romeo to think of entering the home of his father's foe? (/") What is his motive for so doing? (g) What is the object of this scene?

SCENE in

i (a) Why does the author make Juliet enter to her mother and the Nurse instead of discovering her to us with them? (£) Why should not Juliet have appeared (1. 3) at the first call ? (c) Why should not the mother, instead of the Nurse, answer (1. 6) her first inquiry? {d) What makes Lady Capulet dismiss and recall the Nurse? (e) Can you explain Juliet's reticence and dis- tantness ? Why should she not have been here with her mother and the Nurse all the while ?

I. v] ROMEO AND JULIET 363

2 (a) How is it that the Nurse can forestall the intended con- versation with such matters as she tells ? (b) What kind of a woman do you see she is ? (c) How far were social conditions different in Italy, with reference (1. 61) to the Nurse's wish, from now with us? (d) Can you explain why Juliet does not speak? (e) What subordination is apparent after (1. 65) the mother's question ?

3 (a) Do you think Juliet's response (1.66) sincere? (b) How does Lady Capulet's argument (11. 69-73) strike you? Do you think such effect intended? (<:) Were the older children spoken of (ii. 14) by Capulet, hers? (d) How much older than she seems Capulet? (e) Was it usual for Italian mothers, intending marriages, to ask such questions as the one (1. 79) now ventured ? (/) Why, in Lady Capulet's paragraph, the rhymed lines? Or) WThat do you find more, in Juliet's response, dutifulness or inclination ? (^) With such a mother, and such a Nurse, what was to be expected?

SCENE IV

1 (#) In the stage direction Mercutio has displaced Benvolio, standing next the hero. What do you infer from this? (£) Who of the newcomers here, according (ii. 67-74) to the list, may have been invited? (c) Does Romeo seem the same as before? (</) Which is nearer his mind and temperament, Benvolio or Mercutio ? (e) What, up to 1. 53, are your impressions of this company?

2 (a) What do you say of the following paragraph of Mer- cutio, as part of the running conversation? (&) What impres- sions, as respects Mercutio, does it make upon you? (c) Do you find Romeo subordinated by it to Mercutio? (d) Is Benvolio shown here, in your judgment, at the true level of his mind? (e) What conception of Romeo comes to you from his last para- graph ? QO What seems to be the purpose of this scene ?

SCENE v

I (a) What is the effect of the stress on Where's, in the first line? (&) What is the entertainment to which Capulet's guests are bidden? (c) Why this opening talk and bustle between the

364 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [I. v

servants given? (</) What Guests and Maskers (1. 17) do Capulet and his daughter 'meet'? (e) What are your impressions of Capulet here as a host? (/) What seems un-English in the talk and manners of the man ?

2 (a) Why is Lady Capulet not mentioned? (£) What does Romeo mean by (1. 47) 'hangs upon the cheek of night'? (c) What in Juliet that we have seen impresses him? (d) Do you understand Romeo now? (e) Do you suppose that Tybalt (1. 56) recognises only the voice of Romeo, and not his meaning? (/) Can you explain why Capulet (1. 67) is not incensed at Romeo?

3 (a) Is the report of Romeo (1. 70) in Verona likely to be correct? (£) How do you explain Capulet's readiness to echo such things of an enemy? (c) How is it to be explained (1. 78) that Tybalt insists? (d) What word in 1. 81 has stress? (e) What point in having Tybalt thus assume the enmity of the family toward Romeo? (/) What point in having Tybalt withdraw from the house in anger? (g) Does Paris seem to have made use of his invitation? Why?

4 (a) What point in having the foregoing occur before we hear Romeo's words to Juliet ? (£) How do you like his manner of addressing her? Is there any character in it, or only gallantry? (c ) Does it seem that Juliet understands the voice, the words, the worship, as we understand them ? (d) Why does Juliet say (1. 99) 'pilgrim' and (1. 102) 'palmer'? Is Romeo's mask perhaps of such a sort? What kind of a mask (iv. 32) is Mercutio wear- ing? (e) What is the 'shrine' (1. 96) that Romeo professes to profane? (/) Why should Juliet deprecate the proposed kiss upon her hand, a common courtesy of the time?

5 (a) How far do you think Juliet intends to invite (1. 107) what follows ? (£) What do you say of Romeo's diffidence, or far-off worship, that he seemed to feel toward Rosaline ? (c ) Is it probable that Rosaline discerned Romeo ? (d) Why does the Nurse address Romeo (1. 114) as 'bachelor'? (e) Why does she say, thus, to a stranger (11. 118, 119), that Juliet shall inherit wealth ?

6 (a) Why does Romeo feel and say (1. 120) that his life is his foe's debt ? Why does he not propose to drop Juliet forth-

I. v] ROMEO AND JULIET 365

with from his thought ? (£) What prompts the remark (1. 121) of Benvolio ? (c) For whom was (1. 124) the 'trifling, foolish banquet' intended ? (d) To what does Capulet (1. 125) respond by asking, ' Is it e'en so ' ? (e) Why does not Juliet ask directly (1. 134) who the stranger is ? (/") Why should she recognise the possibility of his being a married man, since he has not behaved like one ?

7 (a) Why does the Nurse (1. 139) say 'your' instead of 'our'? (b) What means (1. 140) 'only hate'? (c) How does this help the meaning of ' only love ' ? (d} What means (1. 142) 'prodigious birth'? (^) How can one who has never been known personally, or been even seen before, be a ' loathed enemy'? (_/") Why is Juliet's fibbing answer (1. 144) made known to us? (g) What has been accomplished in this scene? (K) Why is the First Act brought to its conclusion here ?

ACT II

SCENE I

1 (a) Does the Chorus prefixed to this act seem to hasten or retard the events anticipated ? (b) Where are the ' five or six Maskers,' who accompanied Romeo and his friends hither? (c) How has Romeo managed to be apart from Mercutio and Benvolio ? (</) Why has he not told them of his new passion, and dismissed them? (e) Does he seem like an unpractical, irresolute dreamer, as at the beginning of the play? (/) De- velop fully the author's evident meaning here.

2 (a) Is it to be taken as characteristic of Benvolio that it (1. 5) comes over him where Romeo is? (b) What is the effect on us of Mercutio proposing and attempting (1. 6) to ' conjure ' too? Why cannot he take his friend more seriously? (c) Why does not this closing of Romeo's intimacy with his friends belong to the First Act ? (d) Is there any subordination, in this situ- ation, of them to him or him to them? (e) How is Benvolio contrasted with Mercutio here?

SCENE II

1 (a) What has been Romeo's impulse or aim in scaling the enclosure of the hated Capulets? (b) How different would be the behaviour of an Anglo-Saxon Romeo ? (c) How does Juliet chance to appear at the very window he approaches? (d) What do you say of Romeo's soliloquy? What qualities of mind and spirit are palpably in evidence? (^) How does he become surer (1. 10) that it is Juliet who has appeared? (/) What is signified and measured to us in the long silence before she sighs ?

2 (a) Does Romeo say his second paragraph aloud ? (b) What is the burden of the words (11. 33-36) that we now hear Juliet say? (<:) Does or does not Romeo, hearing his name, understand fully what she has said ? (d) What discovery (11. 38, 39) is Juliet making? (e) What is the sense (1. 48) of 'for'? What word in the line has stress? (/) Does Romeo, in his answer (11. 49-51), seem to understand her dismay?

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II. n] ROMEO AND JULIET 367

3 (a) Does Juliet recognise (11. 52, 53), apparently, who has addressed her? (£) What do you say of (11. 53-57) Romeo's response ? (c} In what mood, with what feeling, does she utter the first two lines of her response? (d) In what mood, with what feeling, does she say (1. 60) the last sentence in it ? (e) What different shape does Juliet's dismay (11. 62-65) now take? (/) Masculine minds are supposed to be matter-of-fact and practical, feminine minds imaginative. Does the dialogue now beginning illustrate? Explain.

4 (a) What marvel (1. 79) is in Juliet's mind? Is it natural? (£) While Juliet is asking these matter-of-fact questions, what is going on in her mind besides and chiefly? Do you think she appreciates Romeo's answer (11. 80-84) to her last question? (c) Do you think she has grounds, as she understands them, in her consciousness, for what (11. 85-106) she now says? Or does she do all recklessly, from the fascinating wish to keep this earliest lover ? (d) Do you find her shallow, silly in her philosophy, or the reverse? Why? (e) What other qualities are to be discerned in the things she says?

5 (a) What feeling is shown and emphasised (1. 100) in ' gentleman ' ? (V) What makes Romeo similarly address Juliet (1. 107) by 'lady ' ? (c) What do you think would be the effect of such confidence upon an unworthy nature? (d) Why does not Juliet recognise the efforts that Romeo makes to assure her? Why has she no anxiety at all? (e) What feeling (11. 116-124) now asserts itself? (/) Why is Romeo (1. 125) so far from sharing the same feeling?

6 (<z) How fully is Juliet (1. 130) understood by Romeo? (£) What do you say of her answer to this last question ? Is it maidenly, or overbold ? (c) Do you think Juliet has begun to realise, as yet, that Romeo must not seek another interview of this kind? (d) Why does the author have the Nurse call Juliet away? (*?) How do you think Juliet says (1. 137) 'sweet Mon- tague'? (/) What do you find in the circumstance of her taking leave of him with these words?

7 (a) How much do you think Romeo appreciates of all this? (£) What has come into Juliet's mind (11. 142-148) since she said (1. 120) 'good night'? (c} Why is the Nurse made

368 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [II. n

(1. 149) to call Juliet again? (</) What do you find stronger (1. 150) in Juliet, her caution or her faith? (e) Why has not Romeo said anything as to a practical outcome of their attachment? Does he not realise the situation? (/) Is it, or is it not, credible that a girl of fourteen, who has never acted for herself, should be equal to such an exigency? (g) How would an Anglo-Saxon Juliet have done?

8 (<z) Why should not Romeo expect (11. 156-158) and be ready, after such felicity, to withdraw? (b) How differently would an Anglo-Saxon Romeo behave? (c) How does Juliet now (1. 1 59) call Romeo, and what is the need of doing it in such a way? (d) What is the quality, now (11. 159-164), of Juliet's ideas and language? (e) Why does Juliet call her lover again (1. 168) by name, after he is returned and waiting? (/) Why has she called him back? And why (1. 171) has she forgotten ?

9 (a) Where has this scene its climax? (b) What has been accomplished in it? (<:) Which of the twain must withdraw and close the scene? (d) What instincts and motives bring this about ? (e) Does Romeo keep, in the concluding conversation, to his imaginative heights ? (/") Does Juliet keep to her practical, matter-of-fact level? (g) How do you explain?

SCENE III

1 (a) Why does the author make Friar Laurence tell (1. i) the time of the scene? (b) Why is the scene in rhyme? (c) Of what rank, in the society of the time, has the Friar come? (</) What impressions of the man, and of his mind, do you form from the opening paragraph ? (e) Do you, or do you not, judge, from (11. 31-42) the Friar's greeting, that he knows Romeo well and is fond of him ? Show what is involved in this.

2 (a) Does Romeo's explanation (11. 49-54), or the manner of it, argue especial qualities in the hero's mind, and if such, what? (b) What is the effect of the Friar's scolding (11. 65-80) upon us? (c) Has Romeo deserved it? (d) What does the Friar mean (1. 90) by one respect? (e) If the houses are reconciled, will it, or will it not, profit the Friar or his chapter? (/") Was there, or was there not, rivalry between the Franciscan and the Benedictine orders in his day?

II. v] ROMEO AND JULIET 369

SCENE IV

1 (a) What is the time of this scene? (b) Where do you think Romeo will keep himself while he awaits Juliet's messenger? (c) What is Mercutio's implication (1. 10) respecting the chal- lenge? (rf) Why should Benvolio (1. u) have a different con- viction ? (e) Which character is subordinated here, and how ?

2 (a) How far does Romeo seem the same, with his two friends, as when they were last together? (£) What subordi- nation, in the new situation, is brought about, and how ? (c) Does Romeo recognise (1. 107) who are approaching ? (</) Why has Peter accompanied the Nurse ? (<?) Why should the Nurse, before accosting the object of her search, ask for her fan? What is she, like some younger Italian women, probably wearing (cf, Hamlet, II. 445-447) to increase her height ?

3 (a) Why has the author made Mercutio talk coarsely, and Romeo (11. 121, 122) rebuke his friend? (£) Can you explain why the Nurse, in (1. 124) inquiring for Romeo, addresses, after what has just happened, all three? (c) What do Benvolio and Mercutio infer is the Nurse's message, and from whom? (d?) What is the effect of Mercutio's conduct on our feelings toward him, and toward Romeo? (e) What do you say of the Nurse's plea (11. 172-181) for her mistress? Is she truly anxious? (/) What more remarkable manifestation of her intelligence and character follows? (£•) Why has the author introduced these lines?

4 (a) How is it that Romeo assumes (1. 192) that Juliet will come for shrift to Friar Laurence rather than elsewhere? (b~) Why does the Nurse refuse (1. 194), and then accept (1. 197), Romeo's coin? What is the position of the Nurse in the Capulet household? (c) Does the Nurse seem to interest Romeo (11. 213-219) by what she says of Paris? (d} Why is the Nurse's ignorance of the alphabet brought out? (e) Why does she make Peter (1. 232) go before?

SCENE V

I (a) What can have caused this three hours' delay ? (£) Why is Juliet waiting in the 'orchard'? (c) Why is this opening

2B

37O WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [II. v

paragraph given? (</) What is Juliet's natural inference from the unreadiness of the Nurse to answer anything? (e) Why is she unready and evasive? (/) What does the author bring out by this means?

2 (a) How do you account for the Nurse's absurd talk (11. 38- 45) about Romeo? (b) Why does she break off (11. 58, 59) and ask, 'Where's your mother1? (c) Whose leave (1. 69) has Juliet been obliged to get, and why? (d) Why does the Nurse persist in withholding (1. 71) the details that Juliet so desires to know? (e) What do you say (1. 72) of the effect of the Nurse's words? (/") What of the spirit that she shows in this last paragraph? (g) Why did not Shakespeare have the lovers arrange, in the second scene, for their meeting at Friar Laurence's cell, and save the scenes between ?

SCENE VI

1 (<z) Why is it well to have Friar Laurence have and express misgivings over the proposed union? (£) Why has the author made Juliet enter to Romeo and the friar? (c) Show how he helps Juliet, in the sentences she is made to utter, in this hard situation, (d) What does the friar mean by his answer (1. 22) to her greeting?

2 (a) Why is Romeo, in his two paragraphs, made to express so much affection? (£) Would it not have been better had Juliet expressed less? (c) Where does the friar (1. 35) conduct the lovers? (d) Why does Shakespeare not show the marriage ceremony ? (e) What need of presenting the lovers together in the friar's cell?

ACT III

SCENE I

1 (a) Show how Benvolio is in character here, (b) Do you think Mercutio has or has not reason for implying that it is Ben- volio and not himself who is inclined to quarrels? Why is he made to talk so ? (c) Do you think Benvolio or Mercutio more critical? (</) What is now the time of day? (i) Has Romeo yet seen Tybalt's challenge ? Why ?

2 (a) To whom does Tybalt say (1. 40), ' Follow me close,' and why? (b) Has Mercutio any especial reason for trying to provoke Tybalt? (c) Why is Benvolio concerned that (1. 56) 'all eyes gaze' on them? (d) What proof (1. 59) of Tybalt's anxiety to see Romeo ? (tf) What race differences made apparent here?

3 (a) What does Tybalt expect will be the effect (11. 63, 64) of his words on Romeo ? (£) Were it not for Romeo's new love for the Capulets, would or would not Tybalt have been disap- pointed? (c) If this were an Anglo-Saxon Romeo, would the answer to Tybalt be altered from (11. 65-68) what we find? (d) What is the point of Tybalt's insolence (1. 69) in 'boy'? Which is the older of these two ? (e) What feelings apparent (11. 71-75) in Romeo's rejoinder? (/") What do you say of this paragraph? How far is it the utterance of the lover rather than of the gentleman ?

4 (#) How do .you think Mercutio interprets Romeo's answers and forbearance? (V) How is Tybalt minded to fight Mercutio now (1. 86), having declined before? (c) Why is Romeo still (1. 87) so unaroused and gentle? And why is not Benvolio's voice also heard in protest? (d) How is it that Romeo is now (11. 89-93) so loud and potent? (e) Why does he say 'Hold Tybalt ! good Mercutio'?

5 (a) Why does Tybalt disappear so suddenly? (£) Why does not this party think of flight ? (c) Where do you think the

3/2 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [III. I

stress in Benvolio's question (1. 95) falls? Has Benvolio helped Romeo beat down their swords? (</) What do you say of this mortal hurt of Mercutio's? Is it due to an ordinary thrust? What was the spirit of the man who made it? (e) Why does not Mercutio tell Romeo (11. 107, 108) sooner, and more petulantly, how the hit was made?

6 (a) What do you say (1. 109) of Romeo's answer? (£) Why is it Benvolio, and not Romeo, who is asked to help? (c) How far do you find your sympathy aroused for Mercutio? (</) Why is Romeo made (11. 114-120) to remark in a soliloquy about his fate? (e) Why is the death of Mercutio so immediate?

7 (a) How far are Romeo's feelings changed (11. 124, 125) by (11. 121-123) Benvolio's words? (£) Can you see the reason why Tybalt ventures to come back? (c) What must be the air, the manner (1. 126) that he shows? (d) Can you explain the sudden change in Romeo's feeling? (e) How far would an Anglo-Saxon Romeo change like this?

8 (a) What does Romeo mean (1. 130) by 'take the villain back again'? Is this like Romeo? (b) What do you say of the rest of this paragraph to Tybalt? Are you disappointed in your hero? (c) What effect does Tybalt's answer (11. 135, 136) make on you? (d) Do you find Romeo inclined to brag? (e) How long does the bout last? (/") What does this show as to the resources of the combatants? (g) Which is the older and heavier and more practised champion apparently?

9 (a) Why has not Benvolio done something, or proposed to do something, to avenge his friend? (£) Why have not the citizens appeared already? (c) Why does Romeo hesitate, and need repeated exhortation, to flee? (d) What does Romeo mean (1. 141) in 'I am fortune's fool'? (e) What are your feelings toward him now?

10 (a) Why does Benvolio remain? (£) Why does the First Citizen (II. 144, 145) arrest Benvolio for answering his question? (c) Can you see any reason why the author should wish to set us more completely (11. 153, 154) against Lady Capulet? (d) Do we learn anything further, from (11. 158, 179) Benvolio's account, about the duel between Tybalt and Romeo ? (e) Does Benvolio,

III. n] ROMEO AND JULIET 3/3

in his report, favour his friend? Why could he (11. 177, 178) not ' draw to part them ' ?

1 1 (a) Why does not Romeo's mother make some counter- plea against (11. 185, 186) Lady Capulet's request for vengeance? (b) Why should the Prince (11. 191, 192) change his mind when Montague speaks? (c) What do you think of the justice of Romeo's sentence? (d) How are your impressions now rel- atively of Mercutio's and Romeo's powers ? (2) Have you had the same estimate from the first? (/) For what was Mercutio chiefly needed ? (g) Why was he made so brilliant ? (-#) What use in special and at large has the author made of Benvolio? (/) Does he appear again?

SCENE II

I (a) What is the time of this scene? (b) How long is it since we saw Juliet here before? (c) Do you or do you not con- clude that her having been shown here in the orchard before has anything to do with her being presented, waiting for Romeo, now? (d) How far and in what way do you find your impres- sions of Juliet altered from such as were formed in the second scene of the last act ? (f) What has taught Juliet so much since her mother talked to her of Paris ?

2 (a) What of the language, the imagery, of this opening paragraph? (£) In this intensest activity of her imagination, how far do you find the objective, Imogen-like qualities observed in former scenes ? (c ) Do you or do you not find anything in phrase or manner suggestive of a masculine personality? (d) How differently would an Anglo-Saxon Juliet have soliloquised ? (e) Do you or do you not here find anything unmaidenly and gross ?

3 (a) What signifies the sombre hues and tints that Juliet's imagination uses, and the absence, for an Italian mind like hers, of intense, warm colours ? (b) Of what character are the strong ideas and terms in (11. 10-21) the middle part of the paragraph? (<:) How well does it appear that Juliet understands herself at this interesting moment? (d) Why do you suppose Shakespeare has made us overhear this paragraph, or rather has made her utter it on purpose for us to overhear? (e) What do you say of the means used to stop the soliloquy? (/) What dramatic need of

374 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [III. 11

having the Nurse bring the rope-ladder and throw it down in our sight ?

4 (a) Why does the author repeat, in the lines following, the part of the Nurse in the fifth scene of the last act ? (b) If his wish be, as seems, to make Juliet believe that her husband is dead, what must be his artistic motive ? Is it for effect upon Juliet or ourselves ? (c) Is the Nurse, in your opinion, more than willing, does she intend, to give Juliet pain ? (</) Do you take it that Tybalt, as (1. 61) she says, has been good to the Nurse ? (e) Can you see reasons why (1. 66) Juliet should have been fond of such a cousin ?

$ (a) How must Juliet have conceived of Tybalt (1. 71) as slain by Romeo ? (b) How can you account for (11. 73-85) what she says explaining it ? (c) Why does the Nurse so quickly (11. 85-90) turn to denunciation ? (d) What effect of this, and especially of her last words, on Juliet ? Can you explain ? (e) How fully does she now realise (11. 101-107) how the killing happened ?

6 (a) How is it that Juliet did not realise (1. 108) the Nurse's word concerning Romeo ? (£) Why does she think, from ' banished,1 that Romeo is already gone ? (c) Why does she now (1. 127) ask for her father and her mother ? (</) Why does she assume (11. 130-137), concerning her fate, the worst ? (e) What, after all the pain she has caused Juliet, starts up the Nurse ? (/) Can you account for Juliet's thinking (1. 142) to send the ring ?

SCENE III

1 (a) Where is Romeo when the Friar (1. i) summons him to come forth ? (b) What does this scene connect with ? How much time has elapsed ? (c) How is it that the Friar now tells (1. n) what the sentence is, Romeo not knowing ? (d) Why is it that Romeo prefers death to banishment ? Is he in his right mind ? How would an Anglo-Saxon Romeo feel ? (<?) Which of the two is subordinated here, and how ?

2 (a) What, at the knocking (1. 71), gives the Friar concern ? (b) What do the quick repeated knockings show as to the new- comer's state of mind ? (c) Why does Romeo assume (11. 94-

III. v] ROMEO AND JULIET 3/5

98) that Juliet's love has ceased because of Tybalt's death ? (d) How should the Friar know more (11. 117 and 135) of lovers' philosophy than Romeo ? (e) Whom does the author make responsible for Romeo's visit to his wife ? Why does Shakespeare do this ?

3 (a) Why has the author made, on both sides, such ado before allowing Romeo to go to Juliet's chamber ? Is it for their sake or for ours ? (b) What is the Friar's motive ? Why does he wish to make the marriage irrevocable ? (c) Why did not the Nurse, at the outset, give Romeo the ring ? (W) Why does the author have the Nurse withdraw in advance of Romeo and not with him ? (e) Do you think the Friar's plan (11. 150- 154) practicable and wise ? (/") Who are meant (1. 150) by ' we ' ? (g) Will Romeo's absence, apparently, when the marriage is proclaimed, assist or hinder the reconciliation of the houses ?

SCENE IV

1 (a) Why should Paris have come to the home of the Capu- lets, at such a time, on business of his own ? (6) Is it signifi- cant that, at this visit, Lady Capulet also is present ? (c) Do you take it that Paris has been pressing his suit for Juliet, to her father, since (I. ii) we saw him last ? (<a?) How long do you infer (1. 7) he has at this time stayed ? (e) What makes Capu- let (11. 12, 13) think it best now to accede ?

2 (a) Does it seem that Lady Capulet has spoken to Juliet, since (I. iii) their first talk, of Paris's suit ? (£) Why does the author make Capulet (1. 15) in such haste to have Juliet ap- proached ? (c) How does Shakespeare make (11. 19-28) this scandalous speed plausible ? (</) How well do you like Paris's opinion (1. 29) of the plan ? (e) What further characterisation of Capulet is to be found in this scene ? (/") Why do we not hear more, in this conference with Paris, from Lady Capulet ? (g) What additional light is thrown upon the character of Juliet's mother in this scene ?

SCENE v

I (a) Did Lady Capulet go, as bidden, to Juliet's chamber before she went to bed ? Why ? (£) How far is Juliet's first

376 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? [III. v

paragraph marked with her former and usual matter-of-fact qual- ity, and how far Romeo's first, with the opposite ? (c) What Italianism does Shakespeare venture in 1. 12 ? Where, in scenes preceding, has he once at least borrowed the same idiom ? (</) Are you not surprised that Juliet should soberly speak (11. 13-16) of the daybreak in the way she does ? How do you explain ? (e) What do you say of Romeo's answering para- graph ? Is what is said genuinely meant ? (/) How far might an Anglo-Saxon Romeo be expected to feel and say the like?

2 (a) What words in 1. 25 have stress ? (6) What has caused (1. 26) the change in Juliet ? Does the remainder of the paragraph sound like her new or her former self ? (c) Why should the Nurse (1. 37) say 'Madam1? (</) What does Juliet (1. 41), after she hears the Nurse's warning, do ? (*) Is it according to nature, or is it not, that Juliet does not respond (1. 42) to Romeo's farewell ? Where is she when he is next addressed ? (/") Is the parting, on Romeo's side, in accord with his masculine nature ?

3 (a) Why is not Romeo inclined now, as at other times (cf. I. iv. 106-111), to look with Juliet (1. 54) on the dark side of their future ? In what points are her nature and his alike ? (b) How far does Romeo seem really (11. 58, 59) to catch Juliet's mood ? (c) What hint as to companionship with her mother is Juliet (1. 67) made to give us ? Can you account for such relations between a mother and her only child ? (d) When did Juliet's tears begin ? (e) Why does she resort (1. 69) to fibbing ?

4 (a) Why should Lady Capulet assume (1. 70), with no evidence and without preliminaries, such a cause for her daugh- ter's weeping ? (£) Why does Juliet make such extended use of the subterfuge offered by her mother ? (c ) Do you think the mother proposes to poison Romeo for her own vengeance, or to humour Juliet? (rf) What does Juliet mean (1. 98) in 'I would temper it ' ? Would she need to see this man, to accom- plish this ? (e) What race differences patent in this dialogue ? (/) How did Shakespeare know so well how an Italian daugh- ter and her mother, of the top of respectability, would talk at such a time ?

III. v] ROMEO AND JULIET 377

5 (a) What do you say (11. 106, 107) of Juliet's words to her mother ? What mood is in them ? Are there tears yet in her voice ? (b) What feeling (1. 112) follows ? (c) What change (11. 117, 1 1 8) comes now ? Are there tears in the tones here ?

(d) How far did the author intend to make the energy (1. 122: 'I swear') of her language significant? (e) What (11. 125, 126) is her mother's feeling ?

6 (a) Why should Capulet (11. 127-138) talk at such length of Juliet's weeping ? (b) Can you explain Lady Capulet's man- ner (1. 141) of seconding her husband ? (c) How far has Capu- let (1. 145) 'wrought' Paris to be Juliet's suitor? (d) What does Juliet really mean (1. 149) by 'thankful for hate'?

(e) How far does Capulet seem to understand what she has said ? (/) What do you say of his language to her ?

7 (a) Is it or is it not now clearer why Shakespeare has not made Capulet of the same mould as the Montagues ? (£) What does Juliet (11. 159, 160), now kneeling, propose to say to her father ? (c) How does the author prevent her doing this ? (d) Why is the Nurse made (11. 169, 170) to protest against Capulet's abuse ? (f) Why does not Juliet confess to her mother (11. 200-203) that she is a wife already ? (/") Do you think Lady Capulet afraid to stand up for her child ?

8 (a) Why does not the Nurse now disclose Juliet's relation with Romeo ? (b) What is the ground of Juliet's dismay, her obligation to Romeo, or her obligation to duty ? (c) Whom does it seem that Juliet has depended on chiefly hitherto, her parents or the Nurse ? (d) Why has Shakespeare given the play a nurse that will propose to Juliet such infamy ? (<?) Why is she betrayed into speaking disparagingly of Romeo ? (/) What race characteristics distinguish her from such a figure in an Anglo-Saxon household ?

9 (a) How is it that Juliet has never (1. 228) till now dis- cerned the moral nature of her companion? (£) How would an Anglo-Saxon Juliet, at (1. 230) the point where her Italian sister dissembles, have behaved ? (c) And what of the immediate and unhesitating prevarication (11. 231-233) to her mother? How would that strike us in a heroine of our own race? (*/) Is this a difference in nature or in training? (*) What do you say of

378 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [IIL v

Juliet's idea of (11. 236-239) the 'sins' of the Nurse? What does this hint as to Juliet's ethic and religious training? (/) What is the effect on Juliet of this defection of the Nurse? (g) Do you think Juliet really has the power (1. 242), in case of an adverse issue, that she supposes ? (A) How would an English or American girl of equivalent maturity and strength prepare for failure ?

ACT IV

SCENE I

1 (a) At what time of the day does this scene open? (£) How far have the events of the last scene reached, at its beginning? (c) What has Paris come to Friar Laurence for? (d) Has he waited to learn, from her parents, Juliet's mind? (*) Do you imagine that what he says (11. 9-12) of Capulet's purpose is a fair and truthful statement ? How does he know ? (/") Why is Paris unwilling to take any share of responsibility for the hurried marriage ?

2 (a) How is it that Paris, too bashful to woo, is now (11. 18, 20, 22, 24) so bold? (£) Whom does Juliet mean (1. 25) by 'him1? (c) What do you say in general of Juliet's answers? How far do you find her petulant, indignant, spiteful? (d) Do you think her really more tolerant, or less tolerant, in her feelings toward Paris here than a Northern Juliet would be? Can you identify the forces the principles involved? (e) What does Paris mean (1. 29) by i abused with tears ' ?

3 (a) What effect is produced on you by Paris' talk? (£) What do you say of Juliet's manner of getting free of Paris? Is she precipitate? Does he guess her feeling? (t) How does the author make us sure what that feeling is? Why does he do this? (d) Can you explain how Juliet (11. 50, 51) should be peevish and unreasonable? (e) How is it that (1. 54) she has a knife? (/) Does the Friar believe that Juliet will do as she proposes?

4 (a) What (11. 71-74) is the artistic purpose that Shake- speare is occupied with now? (£) Do you think Juliet naturally a fearless woman? Do you believe that she realises (11. 77-85) what she is saying? (c) What do you say (11. 87, 88) of her motive as she interprets it? Do you think it natural or not natural that she should understand so clearly the forces that

379

380 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [IV. I

control her being? (rf) Do you think that the author has or has not brought her to womanhood too speedily? (e) Why does the Friar cry 'Hold,' and repeatedly, to Juliet?

5 (a) Why does not Juliet confess, or get absolved, before such a momentous undertaking? Why does not the Friar require it? (£) Were there ever concoctions capable of pro- ducing such results as (11. 95-106) the Friar describes? How far was the belief of Shakespeare's audiences in such things different from ours? (c) Why is the Friar made to outline to us, in advance, the operation of the potion? (</) Why does he speak of Juliet being ' uncovered ' on the bier, and dad in the best of her daily wearing?

6 (a) Is there anything in the Friar's plan, besides relief, that furnishes a motive to Juliet? (6) Why does the Friar utter (11. 119, 120) any hint of a proviso? (c) What do you find (1. 121) in Juliet's mood? (d) Why does the Friar refer again (11. 123, 124) to Romeo? (e) Why does not this high-bred girl at least thank the Friar before withdrawing? (/) Do you think that Juliet (1. 125) realises much of what is before her?

SCENE II

1 (a) How many guests at first (III. iv. 23) did Capulet pro- pose to have at Juliet's wedding? What does the present prepa- ration (1. 2) seem to argue ? (£) How do you explain the change ? (c) Has the Nurse (11. 11,12) told Lady Capulet what Juliet bade? (</) How far do you blame Juliet (11. 15 and 18-22) for looking merry and practising deceit? Who is responsible for her actions here? (e) What punishment for affecting enthusiasm (1. 24) now comes? (/) Does Juliet (11. 25-27) seem to mind? Would other Juliets probably feel in the same way at such a turn?

2 (a) Why does Juliet (1. 28) still kneel? (£) Who does Capulet (1. 30) intend should go to tell Paris of the shortened interval? (c) Why does Juliet take the Nurse away? (d) Why does Lady Capulet (1. 36) holdout for Thursday? (e) What is the time-scheme, thus far, of the play?

3 (a) Why is Capulet insistent (1. 37) that the wedding shall be changed to Wednesday? (b) Why has Shakespeare

IV. in] ROMEO AND JULIET 381

wished, through him, to change the time? (c) How will Capu- let's stirring about (1. 39) assist? (d) Whom (I. 43) does Capu- let try to summon ? Is he now alone ? (e) Do you find or not find that you dislike this man ? (/) Do you like him or not like him better than Romeo's father?

SCENE III

1 (a) How far is Juliet (1. i) giving herself concern over what she shall meet Romeo in, and how she shall look? (i1) What of her character is discerned in this? (c) Would Northern Juliets typically seem different or not different here? (</) Why did the Friar require (1. 2) that Juliet 'lie alone'? (e) Why is Lady Capulet so late (ii. 41) in complying with her husband's wish? (/) What do you say of Juliet's way (11. 7-10) of dealing with her mother, who has come to help? (g) Where does Juliet get her strength of character?

2 («) What is Juliet's feeling (1. 14) as she bids her mother and the Nurse farewell? (£) Are you disappointed that (1. 18) she calls for help ? Why does she yield to the impulse ? (c} How is it that, to bring ' them ' back, she calls for the Nurse alone ? (a?) What effect is produced, by (11. 18, 19) her rallying herself, upon our sympathies ? (e) What do you say (11. 21-23) °f tne logic and order of her procedure ?

3 (a) What is the practical result (11. 24-29) of her second inquiry ? (&) What kind of a temperament and mind do we (11. 30-35) now find are Juliet's ? (c) What effect of such visu- alising and realising, as follow upon the plausibility of her act ? (</) What is the result of this realising, in Juliet's intense and vivid vision, of her coming experiences in detail ? (e) Of what imaginative quality (11. 36-54) do you find these lines ?

4 (a) How does Juliet chance to realise now (11. 55, 56), ap- parently for the first time, her cousin Tybalt's hate ? (b) Why does she cry out that Tybalt should stay ? (c) Why does she call to Romeo, and propose to come to him at such a moment of peril ? Does she think perhaps to go to them, in spirit, by way of the vial, or what is her thought ? (d) What do you say of the force, the energy, of the paragraphs in this scene ? (e) Have your impressions of Juliet been altered in any way ?

382 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [IV. iv

SCENE IV

1 (a) What is the point of showing, now, while Juliet lies as in death upstairs, the bustle and commotion below in Capulet's mansion ? (b) Of what use is Capulet making himself in the preparations ? (c) Why should it be the Nurse who (11. 6-8) takes Capulet to task for staying up ? (d) What seems to be the spirit (11. 14, 17, and 18) of the servants in these extra de- mands ? (e) Why is not Peter more acceptable ?

2 (a) How does Capulet enable himself to make the discov- ery (1. 20) that it is day ? (b) How far is it significant that he (1. 23) selects the Nurse to apprise Juliet ? (c) Why should he propose (1. 25) ' to chat ' with Paris at such a time ? (</) How many times has Capulet charged somebody to stir or hasten in this scene ? How much acquaintance with the things going on does all this argue ? («) Why has Capulet been made of late such an important figure ? And since when ?

SCENE v

1 (a) Why has Shakespeare not permitted Juliet's mother to be the first to enter here ? (b) By what rule of efficacy does the Nurse seem to select (11. 2, 3) awakening words ? (c) Why (1. 10) does not the author introduce Paris (cf. i. 107, 108) here, and suit the taste of his times ? (d) How is it that Juliet is not found, as the Friar seems to have intended, lying in her bed ? (e) What accompanies (1. 13) the Nurse's saying 'Lady, lady, lady' ? (/) Does the Nurse get (1. 16) the aqua vitae called for ? Why does she call for it ?

2 (a) What is the effect of the sight (11. 19-21) upon Lady Capulet ? (£) What new impressions have you of her nature ? Does she seem Italian now ? (c) Has Capulet heard (1. 22) ap- parently the call for help ? (rf) Why does the Nurse (1. 23) add ' deceased ' to her excited outcry ? (e) What does Lady Capu- let do in connection with (1. 24) her next exclamation ?

3 (a) What do you say of Capulet's utterance (11. 25-29) as he lays his hands upon his child ? Why is there, from this man of all men, poetic language ? (b) Does it seem that the lips (1. 27) are closed or parted ? (c) What does Capulet mean (1. 32) by ' ties up my tongue ' ? (d) Does it seem that Capulet

IV. v] ROMEO AND JULIET 383

or Lady Capulet connects this death with the forced marriage ? (e) Why should Friar Laurence1 and the musicians enter Juliet's apartments ? Should the setting perhaps be changed ?

4 (a) How far does Capulet's grief (11. 34-40) seem tender and genuine ? (b) Why is the Nurse's lamenting (11. 49-54) so demonstrative 1 (c) Can you interpret what Paris in his grief (11. 55-58) is saying ? (d) Why is the author keeping this situation open with so much talk ? (e) Of what use is (11. 65-83) the preachment of the Friar ?

5 (a) What do you say of the practicalness (11. 84-90) of Capulet's response ? (6) From which of her parents has Juliet seemingly derived her matter-of-fact tendencies of mind ? (c) How does Shakespeare manage to close the dialogue ? (d) What need to hurry the supposed burial of Juliet ? (e) How is it that the musicians have not been dismissed ? (/) How is it that the Nurse has not withdrawn before ? What purpose does the author serve by retaining her as he does ?

6 (a) What is there in the Nurse's figure that (11. 100, 101) excites comment ? (£) Has Peter, do you think, been sent here by anybody ? (c ) Why is it that his sorrow is so strong ? (d) Why does the author keep the musicians now, for this hardly edifying dialogue ? (e) Is it or is it not well to close the scene with a dallying anticlimax ?

ACT V

SCENE I

1 (a) At what time in the day, apparently, does the scene open ? Is it soon after Romeo's rising ? (£) Why is Romeo so inclined to trust to the flattering truth of dreams ? Where hitherto has he been shown superior to their spell ? (c) Why does the author, in this first paragraph, give us again the typic Romeo of the earlier scenes ? (</) What does this manner of referring (1. 6) to Juliet betray ? (e) What new impressions come as to the difference between this man's manner of thinking and living and Juliet's? (/) Is this difference due to race, or sex, or personality ?

2 (a) Why does not Balthasar (1. 11) speak? (£) Are there letters (1. 13) in sight ? (c) Is it significant that Romeo makes no inquiry about his mother ? (d) What do you say of Balthasar's report (11. 17-21) of Juliet's death ? Is he a man of refinement and culture ? (e) What has happened (1. 22) that makes him ask pardon ?

3 (a) Why does Romeo ask no questions about the cause ? (b) What does (1. 24) his defiance show? (c) Is Romeo trust- ing the truth of dreams now? What has stopped the boyhood in him? (d) When did Juliet stop her dreaming and become woman ?

4 (a) Is there anything Italian in Romeo's manner and con- duct here? (b) What does Balthasar (11. 27-29) fear? (c) Why does Romeo (1. 34) say 'Juliet,' and not ' my lady,' now? Is his mind in excitement or repose? (d) Do you think it natural or not natural that the sight of the shop (11. 42-48) should come back to him vividly in such detail? Might this happen to an Italian if not to an Anglo-Saxon mind ? (e) What need of having Romeo add the remaining lines in this paragraph?

384

V. in] ROMEO AND JULIET 385

5 (a) What do you say of Romeo's way (11. 58-60) of bidding for the poison? Do you think he has other money here? (b) Why does Romeo crave drugs of such instantaneous action ? Is it to end life with the utmost quickness, or to escape the pains of death, or for some other reason? (<:) Do you think the apothe- cary yields to Romeo's pleading or his offer? Does he or does he not understand that he could have a larger sum on demanding it? (W) Have you seen Romeo in a compelling mood before? (e) How far is it from Mantua to Verona? (/) Do you think Balthasar will tell Romeo the particulars of Juliet's death as they ride together? Why?

SCENE II

1 (a) What do you say of the dramatic opening, under present circumstances, of this scene ? (b) Would it or would it not have been better were this scene introduced before the last? (c) How far has the element of destiny been introduced before ? (d ) What impressions, apart from knowledge, come to you with reference to the issue ?

2 (a) What difference between the Friars is evident? (V) Why did not Friar Laurence tell his brother the dear import of the letter ? (c) How long is it since Juliet took the potion ? (d ) What time of day did she drink it? What time of day has now been reached? (e) Does the Friar's amended plan seem practicable?

SCENE III

1 (a) At what hour, apparently, does this scene open ? (£) Why (1. 2) would Paris not be seen? What advantage does Shake- speare borrow thus? (c) Why should Paris have had his page come to carry the flowers? (d) What impressions and feelings concerning Paris now shape themselves ? (e) What use is made of having the page at hand ?

2 (#) Has the arousement of Romeo's mind subsided? (b) What effect (1. 40) is produced upon Balthasar by Romeo's words? (c) Is Balthasar a man easily affrighted? Where have we evidence in the earlier part of the play? (*/) Do you think Romeo capable of carrying out his threats (11. 33-36) with such a man? (e) Are there race characteristics or differences here? Explain.

2C

386 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [V. Hi

3 (a) What does Romeo apparently (1. 41) give to his man? (£) Why does Shakespeare make this action seem (11. 43, 44) to betray Romeo's purpose? (c) What do you say of Romeo's words (11. 45-48), as he wrenches open the iron bolts of the tomb ? How do they measure the energy of his action? (d) What are your feelings toward Paris, as he attempts to arrest Romeo? (e) How should you have imagined Romeo would deal with him? How do you explain his tender consideration and plead- ing?

4 (a) For what chief use, as we now see, was the page brought in ? (£) Is the fight shorter or longer, apparently, than the one in which Tybalt met his death? Why? Has Romeo the same feeling toward his victim as at that time? (c) How do you explain Romeo's sublime willingness (1. 74) to allow the dead man's wish, and lay the body in his Juliet's grave? (</) What word in 1. 77 has chief stress? Would an Anglo-Saxon Romeo have failed to catch and hold the meaning? (e) How far does Romeo's feeling change when he knows Paris was his rival? (/) What do you say of the feeling that manifests itself (11. 80, 81) in his next action ? (g) Does the sight of Juliet, in all her reviv- ing, awakening beauty, make him lay seemingly the body of Paris farther off ?

5 (0 ) What influences are perhaps arousing the feeling (1. 89) Romeo wonders at? (t>) Why is not Juliet (1. 96) pale? (c) What do you say of (11. 101-109) his last words to Juliet? Can you discern the secret of their power? (d) How is it that he does not perceive that (11. 1 13, 1 14) the lips have life? (e) Has he obeyed the directions (i. 77) of the apothecary ? Why ?

6 (a) What has Friar Laurence (1. 122) stumbled over?

(b) What does the Friar's word (1. 124) show as to his feeling in finding Balthasar? Why should he have such feeling?

(c) Why does Shakespeare keep (1. 131) Balthasar from looking upon the scene within the tomb ? What do you say of his man- ner of bringing this about? (^) Can you explain (11. 137-139) Balthasar's dream? Why should he have failed to stay awake? (e) What signifies the fact that (1. 142) both swords are gory?

7 (a) What was a chief dread of Juliet about awaking? (£) What word (1. 148) seems to show that this feeling has

V. m] ROMEO AND JULIET 387

lasted through her trance? (c) Why does she not (1. 150) see Romeo, and why asks for him so immediately? (d) What effect is produced on Friar Laurence (1. 151) by the noise? Is this plausible ? (e) Why does he not stand by the work he has begun? (/) Does he expect to move Juliet by (11. 154-158) the considerations he uses?

8 (a) Why is not Juliet (1. 160) afraid to be left alone in the tomb? (b) How is it that she does not cry out for causes, reasons ? (c) Why is there no grief ? (</) Why is she so hap- pily anxious to seek death? (e) Show how far she is yet (1. 168), in this extreme moment, like her old objective self. CO Why should Juliet be concerned at the noise? (g) Why is the dagger (1. 169) ' happy'? (ft) Why has she so great joy, so little horror, in her act? (z) What is un-Saxon in the manner of this awaking, and this death ?

9 (a) Should you have expected the page to bring watchmen earlier? (£) Why does the First Watchman bid (1. 178) ' raise up the Montagues ' ? (<:) What (1. 188) is the time now reached ? Why has the author so accelerated it ? (d) Why does he bring together again the company which he presented early in the first scene ? (e) Does Capulet understand (1. 203) that his daughter is only just dead?

10 (a) What sort of a mother (1. 210) do we see that Romeo had? How far does he seem to have derived her nature? (b) What necessity that we should hear the Friar (11. 231-269) rehearse the story? (c) What real need (1. 271) of corroborat- ing the Friar's testimony? (d) Is the letter (1. 275) a logical factor, and is it of use? (e~) Does Montague's proposal and promise (1. 299) seem characteristic? (/") How far is the au- thor's statement (11. 9-11 of Prologue) a true summary of the play ? (£•) What ultimate meanings, or lessons, has it brought ?

Ill

TWELFTH NIGHT ACT I

SCENE I

1 (a) What is the mood of Orsino? (£) What does his fondness for music and the fragrance of violets argue as to his temperament and nature ? (c) What do his reflections (11. 9-15) signify as to his power of analysis and intellectual culture? (</) Do you infer, from (1. 16) Curio's question, that the Duke is or is not accustomed to ride to hounds ? (e) What do you con- clude, from this inference, as to the essential manliness or effeminacy of the hero?

2 (a) What do we find has drawn the Duke away from manly exercises? (£) What does he mean in (1. 20) 'purged the air of pestilence'? (c) What should this signify as to Orsino's ideals, and the purity of his mind? (</) How does the Duke here resemble Romeo in his love for Rosaline? (e) How far should a comedy differ in tone and substance from a tragedy?

J 3 (a) What does the exclusion of Valentine (1. 24) from the palace of a neighbour argue as to the feelings of the hostess? (£) What do you say of her proposing to shut herself up for ^ seven years indoors ? Does this seem prompted by natural grief, or by some other motive? (c) What of the aversion that can propose to itself, for relief, such deprivation and discomfort? (d) Does the Duke seem wanting in acumen and judgment, more than, or much more than, Romeo? Why does he not see through the subterfuge of the lady? (e) How different does this Orsino seem from a typical Italian hero ? (/") How does Orsino propose (11. 40, 41) to beguile the time?

388

I. in] TWELFTH NIGHT 389

SCENE II

1 (a) Why should Viola, in this situation, be the first to speak ? (£) Why does not this high-born young woman speak with more grief (1. 5) about her brother? Does it seem that his death or rescue is the first and most fundamental thing in her thoughts? (c) What do you say (11. 8-17) of the Captain's explainings ? Is the polished language due to unusual education, or to the influence of the person who is addressed? (d) Why does not Viola speak, if not more about her brother, at least about the destination for which they shipped, how she may con- tinue her journey? (e) Does it or does it not appear likely that she has heard others (1. 28) than her father speak of this Duke? Why does she add the last clause of the sentence ?

2 (a) How far do the inquiries of Viola remind you of Juliet's questioning of her Nurse on first meeting Romeo? (£) What is the difference between (1. 35) 'What's she' and Who's she? What would be a proper answer to the latter? (c) Why should Viola wish (1. 41) to 'serve 'that lady? (</) What are we to understand from 'made mine own occasion mellow'? (i) Should you say that her brother, on setting out, was a party to the scheme, or plan, according to which his sister's ' estate ' was to be kept concealed ?

3 (a) What, said by the Captain, seems to change Viola's rather distant wish to a resolution? (b) Why should she, who can (1. 52) pay bounteously, desire to be a servant to anybody? (c) Why has she concluded to change from the Countess to (1. 55) the Duke? (d) What do you conceive are the propor- tions of Viola's figure? Why does she not (1. 56) offer herself for the Duke's service as a page? (e) What do you say of the self-sufficiency and strength of this young woman, and the motives arousing them? (/) In how far does she remind you of Juliet? (g) From what country, apparently, have Viola and her brother sailed? (k) In what seems Illyria different from Italy?

SCENE III

I (a) What is Sir Toby's status in this household ? (V) How did such a man reach knighthood ? (c) What is he in appear- ance and figure? (d) What are your impressions of Maria?

390 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? [I. in

On the strength of what does she presume (11. 8, 9) to take her mistress's uncle to task ? (e) Are we or are we not to recognise more than a household interest in (11. 14, 15) her next reference to his weakness? (/) From where, apparently, did Sir Toby bring in (1. 16) the foolish knight? (£•) Which seems to have the better of the other in this dialogue?

2 (a) How does Sir Andrew contrast, in appearance and figure and manners, with Sir Toby? What do you say of his manner of greeting ? (b) How stiould such a fellow have become a knight? (c) What in Sir Andrew's behaviour seems to prompt (1. 52) Sir Toby's 'accost'? (d) Why should Sir Andrew fail so egregiously in catching Sir Toby's meaning? (e) Do these knights seem to be Illyrians, or of what other race? (/) Do you think Sir Toby refers to Maria correctly (1. 54) as his niece's chambermaid? (g) Does she appear to belong to the same nationality as Viola, or as the knights?

3 (a) What effect does Sir Toby's assent (1. 92) to Sir An- drew's theory of his slow wit seem to have upon his visitor? (£) Can you account for Olivia's restrictions (11. 115-117) upon herself, about a husband, supposing that Sir Toby tells the truth ? (c) Why should Sir Andrew mention (11. 120, 121) his fondness for masques and revels here? Has he been entertained with these? (d) Does Sir Andrew's quickness or grace of movement seem to be of the kind called for in the ' galliard ' ? Does he know apparently what sort of dance is meant? (e) Has Sir An- drew ever been out of England ? Has Sir Toby ?

4 (a) Why does Sir Toby set about flattering his friend?

(b) What sort of a show (11. 149-151) does Sir Andrew furnish?

(c) Why does Sir Toby wish to keep Sir Andrew from going home? (d) Why is not Olivia, in this scene laid in her own house, presented to us ? (e) Why is this rather inconsequential comedy shown first and instead ?

SCENE rv

. I (a) Would a Valentine be likely to take to a new servant, like taesario, with no trace of jealousy, after three days of overshadow- ing? How can this newcomer have thus approved herself to everybody, by conduct or by nature? (£) Why should Viola

I. v] TWELFTH NIGHT 391

ask (1. 7) whether her master is inconstant in disposition? (V) What does (1. 10) the Duke's call, and the manner of it, show? (d) Does it appear (11. n, 12) that Valentine knows the extent to which Viola has gained her master's confidence ? (e) Do you think that the Duke is diffident, unaccustomed to the society of refined women? Why does he think of sending Caesario rather than any other of his more tried servants ?

2 (a) Do you think that Viola's manner of humouring her master, and of inventing select and gentle offices, is fairly illus- trated in the paragraphs following? (b) What does the Duke seem (1. 21) to mean by 'leap all civil bounds' ? (c) Do you think that Viola has expected (1. 23) or coveted this mission? (d) Why should she hesitate to see her rival ? (e) Do you think she will (11. 41, 42) do her best for the Duke, or for herself? (/") How would .this scene have struck you if Scene iii had been omitted, or placed after ?

SCENE v

1 (a) Why should Maria care where the Clown has been? (£) What sort of a mistress has she, to remit punishment at her excuse? (c) How much does the Clown care for her help? (d) What is the Clown's point in referring (11. 29, 30) to her wit and Toby's drinking? (e) Why should the author introduce Olivia after the dialogue of two such servants as Maria and the Clown ? (/) And what sort of a personage in appearance and air is Malvolio ?

2 (a) What evidently (1. 41) does the Fool essay with his mistress? (^) In what spirit does she answer? (c) How does the Clown manage to baffle her resolve not to hear him? (d) How does Malvolio stand, and look, the while? (e) What character- isation of their mistress is effected incidentally withal ?

3 (a) With what feeling (11. 79, 80) does Olivia end her dis- pleasure for the Fool's truanting? (£) How do you think the Fool likes Malvolio (11. 81-83) for his good word? (c) What do you think (11. 89-96) is the measure of Malvolio's mind? (d?) What might be the effect on Malvolio of his mistress's digni- fying him thus with her society? (e) Can you see any point of the author's in bringing on Viola after such an introduction as

£

• tl

392 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE? [I. v

has now been furnished? (/) Is there advantage of any kind in having the drunken Sir Toby (1. 112) 'hold him in delay1? (£•) Is it wise for Olivia (1. 117) to commission her steward to dismiss, after his own pleasure, the suit of the Duke?

4 (a) How has Olivia (11. 118, 119) made the Clown aware that his fooling grows stale? What is causing his decline? (£) Why does not the author let Viola come in? Why does he give us (11. 126-146) Sir Toby's maudlin talk, and the Fool's weak wit, instead? (c) What makes Maria and Sir Toby both sure that the man at the gate is not a servant but a gentleman?

(d) What is the effect, on us, of hearing Malvolio (11. 147-171) discourse solemnly and stiffly about Viola and her insistence?

(e) Why does not Viola at once announce herself as the mes- senger of the Duke, the ruler of the country? (/) Why does Olivia resolve to see the visitor?

5 (a) Why does Olivia (1. 172) call Maria her 'gentle- woman1? (£) Do you understand why Olivia should have re- sorted, before the Duke's messengers, to this veil? (c) To whom does Viola (11. 182, 183) appeal for knowledge as to which Olivia is? (d) Whom does she address in (1. 186) 'Good beauties1? (e) Why does she not answer (1. 190) whence she comes? (/) Do you think she has really (1. 193) made up a speech and 'conned' it?

6 (a) Do you think that Viola betrays, or does not betray, in all this, her sex? (£) Do you think that such influences as are palpable here would be potent or not to a man like, for instance, the Duke? (c) Is the mollification of Maria (1. 218) by a coin a wise expedient? How would a man have managed in such an exigency? (d) What, besides curiosity, prompts Olivia (1. 235) to send out the attendants and Maria, and hear the visitor? (e) Why is she willing (11. 252, 253) to unveil? (/) What makes Viola ask it ?

7 (a) Do you think, or do you not think, that Viola finds Olivia beautiful, as beautiful as herself ? What effect, upon Viola, of the seeing do you discern ? (£) With what sincerity or with what

onesty does Viola act the advocate to her master? (c) Why is there a change from prose to verse? (rf) Do you think Viola (11. 274, 275) means to exaggerate? (e) Why should not Olivia

I. v] TWELFTH NIGHT 393

be enamoured of a man (11. 276-282) of such qualities as she enumerates ? (/) What does Viola evidently see in this answer? How far is she impersonal (11. 283-286) in her rejoinder?

8 (<z) By what different course of wooing, apparently, mightv the Duke succeed? (£) What do you say (11. 286-295) of the mode Viola proposes ? Is it virile or womanish ? (c) Is it the manner or the person that Olivia (1. 295) approves? Why does she ask the question following? (</) What word in 1. 300 has stress? (e) What does (1. 302) Olivia offer? Is this what is given usually to a servant?

9 (a) How can Olivia, who rejects Orsino's effeminate ad- vances, fall in love with a woman? (£) What makes her send Malvolio after with the ring? Will he probably execute her wish completely? (c) What do you say of this scene as a whole? (d) What has been gained by making Maria, in comparison with her mistress, so strong? (e) If the comedy parts in the first por- tion (11. 1-176) were left out, what would be the effect upon the scene and on the piece? (/) What two veins of comedy are apparent in the construction of this play? (g) What would be the effect if either were used alone ?

ACT II

SCENE I

1 (a) Why should Antonio (1. i) wish Sebastian to stay, or to allow his company ? (b) What is the ' malignancy ' (1. 4) of Sebastian's fate, or the evidence of it ? (c) Why apparently does Antonio ask (11. 9, 10) the destination of his new friend's travel ? (</) Where, after the first three words, is the stress in Sebastian's answer ? (e) What of the consideration, the cour- tesy, shown (11. 1 1-16) by Sebastian to the stranger ? (/) Did Viola seem to regret, when (I. ii) first shown to us, her escape from drowning, though a woman, and conceiving her brother dead ? Why should Sebastian regret rescue more ?

2 (a) Would it seem that Viola (11. 26, 27) resembles her brother in figure ? (6) Would the purpose of the voyage, what- ever it may have been, seem Sebastian's rather, or Viola's ? Did Viola weep after the shipwreck ? (c) How is it that after all Sebastian (11. 43, 44) is 'bound' to Orsino's court? (</) Do you or do you not find it necessary to assume some motiv% for Sebastian's evasions, and for his unwillingness that this anxious friend should keep with him further ? (*) What do you imagine this motive is ? (/) What other reason (11. 40-43) than grief brings Sebastian near to tears ? (g) What is the purpose of this scene ?

SCENE n

i (a) Do you think Malvolio has 'run1 after Viola, as bidden by his mistress ? (£) Do you find Viola (11. 3, 4) inso- lent to Olivia's servant ? (c) What do you say (11. 5-7) of Mal- volio's scolding ? What tone do you catch in it ? (</) Why does not Malvolio speak (1. n) of Viola's returning to-morrow, as Olivia bade? (e) Why does not Viola at once (1. 13) deny that she left a ring with Olivia ? (/) Whose ring does Mal-

394

II. in] TWELFTH NIGHT 395

volio think he is throwing on the ground ? What do you say of his excuse for doing this ? Does he believe that Viola threw it to his mistress ?

2 (a) Why is not Viola (1. 19) well satisfied and gleeful that her rival is falling in love with her? (b) What does this signify concerning the character of the present heroine ? (c) Do you think it too much that Shakespeare makes her pity Olivia ? (d) Why does she now regret (11. 28, 29) the disguise she wears ? (*) What do you say too (11. 30-33) of her insight and her philosophising ?

3 (a) Why is not Viola worried about the outcome of her affection for the Duke ? (b) Why is she not confident ? (c) If Olivia could be made to conceive a proper and sufficient fondness for the Duke, what would be Viola's attitude and feel- ing ? (d) What plans, now that there can be no affection be- tween the Duke and her rival, does she begin to frame for her own profit ? (e) Is this scene tragical or comedial ? (/) What purpose or purposes does it serve ?

SCENE III

1 (a) Why does the author take the trouble to bring out (11. 1-5) that Sir Toby has had some schooling, but Sir Andrew, not ? (£) Where have these roysterers been keeping late hours together hitherto ? (c} How is it that they are carousing to-night in Olivia's house, and with Olivia's wine ? (d) Does it appear that the Clown has been trying (11. 22-25) to improve the qual- ity of his work ? (e) What do you say of the stanzas (11. 4°-45 and 48-53) sung by the Clown ? Are they more coarse or less coarse than would seem fitting to the scene ?

2 (a) Why does Maria (1. 76) appear ? (£) Why does she stay ? (c) In whose name does Malvolio (11. 93-99) administer his rebuke ? (d) What do you say of a lady that (11. 102-108) sends a servant to give her uncle notice ? (e) Do you think (11. 128-129) that Malvolio neglects his badge of office ? (/) Why is Maria not concerned (11. 132, 135) at Malvolio's threat ?

3 (a) Do you think that Olivia (11. 143, 144) is more exact- ing, or less, than hitherto ? (£) What does Maria mean (11. 151,

396 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [II. ni

152) in saying that Malvolio is sometimes a kind of Puritan ? Have you seen any signs of pietism in his talk or actions ? Does Maria (11. 159, 160) give final testimony of a convincing sort ?

(c) Why has the author been at such pains to establish motives for the trick to be played upon Malvolio ? (d) Has Maria brought the fresh liquor lately called for ? (e) What is the ground of her confidence that (11. 190, 191) there shall be no more disturbance to-night ?

4 (a) Why does the author make Sir Andrew (1. 197) boast of his past? (£) Why should so much amorous endeavour, in Maria's wooing of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew's hopeless tarrying for Olivia, accompany the main course of the plot ? (c) What becomes (1. 199) of Sir Andrew's money? (d) Why did Sir Toby propose (1. 198) to give up for the night? (e) Why does he resolve differently (1. 207) at last? (/) Where do the knights go to burn (1. 206) the sack? (g) Why is not the Clown, after Malvolio's exit, heard from?

SCENE IV

1 (a) At what time of the day does this scene open ? (£) Where is the Duke entering from? (c) Why should he preface (11. i, 2) his greeting and his request by 'now'? And is there anything to be remarked about the Duke's calling for music at such an hour? (</) Why is it Curio (1. 8), and not Caesario, who answers? (e) How does the Clown chance to be on hand at this time? Has he passed the night in the Duke's palace ?

2 (a) Is it or is it not significant that the Duke should wish (11. 15-20) to talk to Viola as a companion, not a servant, while the Clown is sought? (£) Why does the Duke, or Shakespeare rather, have music play during these moments? (c) Do the feminine influences of Viola seem or not seem to have touched the Duke more nearly than when we last saw them together?

(d) How far does the situation, or the Duke's talk, appear to arouse Viola to demonstrativeness ? What in her speaking seems to impress the Duke (1. 23) as 'masterly'? (e) Why does she indulge herself (11. 25, 29) in equivocal answers? Is it for cunning, or the comfort of veiled confession ?

II. iv] TWELFTH NIGHT 397

3 (a) Does the Duke (]. 28) appear to recognise that Viola is devoid of rank? How far is the utterance mere compliment? (£) How much older is the Duke, seemingly, than Viola?

(c) Why should he speak (1. 30) with such emphasis at the notion of a mere page enamoured of a woman of greater years ? And what do you say (11. 31-36) of the after observations ? What do they argue about the man? (d) Why should the Duke (1. 44) prefer the Clown's singing to Viola's? (e) Is it clear that Viola has presented herself as (I. ii. 56) a eunuch, according to her plan ?

4 (a) In how far does the Clown's song here resemble the one rendered in the last scene? (£) What influence, with reference to the rather tender sentiments of the present situation, has the last scene exerted upon us? (c) Why has the author been at such pains to bring in this singing from Olivia's jester?

(d) Why does the Duke wish (1. 82) Curio and the attendants to withdraw, while he commissions Viola, whereas (I. iv) these were all present before? (e) Why should the Duke be more ready to send to Olivia now than before the talk to Viola and the singing? Why does he refer (11. 86, 87) to Olivia's wealth, since it is inferior to his own?

5 (a) What feelings seem (11. 91-95) to be uppermost in Viola's mind ? How far is self-interest, how far is motherly con- sideration, the controlling motive? (b) What do you say (11. 96-106) of Orsino's next deliverance, as in comparison with preceding ones? (c) Does the Duke (1. 106) interrupt Viola? (d} Is her meaning when finished what she began to say? Has anything like this happened in her speech before? (e) Do you think she has any expectation that her meaning (11. 110-118) may in some way be divined? (/") Does what she here says seem consistent with the view that Orsino was a stranger when her service to him began? (^f) Why does not Shakespeare make the antecedent circumstances, as in the play of Gl"1 Ingan- nati, clearer?

6 (a) Do you think Viola expects, or not, such a question (1. 122) as now follows? (b) Do you think that she has spoken to any one here (1. 124) about Sebastian? (c) Why does she (1. 125) change the subject, which she has herself introduced, so

398 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [II. iv

abruptly? (</) What of comedy do you find in this scene, and of what sort? (#) Do you find other than comedial elements here ? (/") What new impressions have you of Viola? (g) What seems to have been the purpose of this scene?

SCENE v

1 (a) Has Fabian been presented to us before? (£) Why does Sir Toby (1. 6) think Malvolio niggardly? (f) For whose entertainment is Maria managing her trick, and with what motive? (d) What does she mean (11. 20, 21) that Malvolio has been doing? (e) Why, apparently, does the author make Malvolio (11. 27-33) soliloquise about his 'fortune,' in advance?

2 (a) How far does it seem necessary to have Malvolio arouse the wrath of Sir Toby and Sir Andrew ? (b) Why is Fabian so anxious lest they be overheard? Why is Maria made to withdraw ? (c) How has Olivia seemed to her steward, that he can suppose the communication hers? (d) Is it or is it not remarkable that Maria has devised and executed so good a counterfeit ? How has she gained her accomplishments ? (*) What prospects or possibilities has, seemingly, Sir Toby, in the author's thought, to engage her machinations? (/) How much younger than Sir Toby is, apparently, his niece?

3 (a) Why do not Maria and the knights realise the risk of counterfeiting a ' declaration ' from the mistress of the establish- ment? (b) How can the author avert the consequences of it from these persons ? (c) Do you consider Sir Toby's enthusiasm (1. 206) genuine? (d) What of the resources of imagination (11. 207, 210) shown by Sir Andrew in his excited state of mind? (i) How should the author think it necessary to make us know, by Maria, beforehand, how Malvolio will behave? (/) Why should such a scene as this be put after such a scene as the preceding?

4 (a) How does Maria, in her pursuit of Sir Toby, help Viola with us in her hopes and purpose ? (b) What difference would it make, in our feelings toward Viola, if the Duke were wooing Olivia, in presence, after a virile fashion? (c) How far would Olivia be capable, under the most favorable circumstances, of

II. v] TWELFTH NIGHT 399

appreciating the Duke's intelligence and worth ? (d) How much harm does Olivia's rejection do the Duke with us ? (e) If Mal- volio's ineffectual presumption were removed from the play, what character, besides Olivia, would suffer? (/") For the sake of which character was the play composed?

ACT III

SCENE I

i (a) Does it seem that Viola recognises this Feste, her late rival in singing before the Duke? (*) Is it the habit of this Fool (11. 6, 7) to explain in detail his jokes? (c) Comparing his utterances here with what he (I. v.) has been saying to his mistress, do you find him inclined, or not inclined, to spare the Duke's messenger? (d) Do you find any suggestion (11 44-46) of a motive? (e) What is the Clown's temper and meaning (11. 63-65) in his last words?

2 (a) How far is Viola's mind preoccupied (11. 67-75)

her personal troubles? (£) Can you see any reason why she is made to pronounce this soliloquy here? (c) Where do Sir Toby and Sir Andrew come from ? Do they or do they not still show effects of burning sack ? (d) What do you say of Viola's success in playing a man's part in their presence? Does she seem or not seem to improve in her assumed r61e?

3 (a) Do you think that Viola is trying (11. 95, 96) to cap- tivate Olivia yet more? (&) What do you say (11. 103, 104: 'leave me to my hearing') of the impression Olivia must be making upon her people? Has she put on her veil? (c) Why does Olivia ask (1. 107) Viola's name? (</) Why does Viola affect humility ? How would her woman's feeling naturally prompt her to behave? (e) Why does Viola betray (1. 121) so quickly that she comprehends? What probably would a man have done? (/) What do you say (11. 122-133) of Olivia's more explicit declaration? Is it unseemly? Does it seem like Olivia? (£•) How far was it once considered permissible fora lady like Olivia to make advances to one beneath her rank?

4 (a) What do you say (1. 134) of Viola's scrupulous truth- fulness to her rival ? (b) What does Olivia (1. 138) apparently think is the reason for the unresponsiveness of this page ? (c) What is the dramatic use (1. 140) of the striking of the

400

III. in] TWELFTH NIGHT 40!

clock ? (d) What is Olivia's point in preferring the lion to the wolf? (e) Why does Olivia (1. 142) so foolishly attempt to unsay herself? (/) What is the effect of the utterance, as a whole, upon Viola ? (g) Does it seem (1. 148) that Viola has given Olivia the jewel (II. iv. 126) sent by the Duke ?

5 (a) What prompts (1. 150) Olivia's question ? What does she hope to elicit ? (b) What do you say of Viola's answer ? Why is she not more pointed ? (c) What does Olivia mean in her reply? (W) In what sense does Viola (1. 156) use 'fool' ? (e) How far do you think Viola feels (11. 157, 158) the emotions that Olivia thinks she reads ?

6 (<z) Can you account for the outbreak that follows ? (fr) What is your feeling toward Olivia here ? (c) What do you think was the look, the manner of Viola, as (11. 169-174) she re- plies, judging from the effect upon Olivia ? (d) Why does not Olivia attempt to detain her, or to continue the conversation ? (i) Are we to judge anything, from Olivia's admission in the last line of the scene, as to what she thinks now of the messenger ? (/") Has or has not Viola done her duty in trying to speed her master's suit ?

SCENE II

1 (<z) What is the time of this scene with reference to the last one ? (£) Of what use here (11. 4, 5) is Fabian ? (c) What 'favours' has Olivia bestowed upon Sir Andrew ? \d) Do you think Olivia did (1. 11) see Sir Andrew ? (i) What has Olivia done to Viola that Sir Andrew considers favours ?

2 (a) Why is Fabian shown (11. 19-31) talking thus against his mistress ? (£) What do you say of the evolving of the chal- lenge ? (c) Why does Fabian expect that (1. 61) the letter will not reach Viola ? (d) Why does the author make Maria tell in details how Malvolio looks ? (e) Do you think that Olivia (1. 88), were it not for her troubles, would strike him ? (/) What is the purpose of this scene ?

SCENE III

i (a) Has Antonio been complying (1. 4) with Sebastian's wish ? Why ? (£) Where are these men now, and how long is

2 D

402 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [III. in

it since we last saw them ? (c) Has Sebastian apparently yet visited Orsino's court? (</) Does he or does he not seem minded to take Antonio with him thither ? (e) Why is Sebas- tian so evasive about his place of lodging ?

2 (a) Is Antonio (11. 26, 27) a citizen of Illyria ? (£) What (1. 35) is Antonio's offence ? (c) Why does he insist (1. 38) on leaving with Sebastian his purse ? (</) Why does he propose the place of lodging ? (<?) Is this attachment of Antonio for Sebastian, being thoroughly un-Saxon, reasonable and credible here?

SCENE IV

1 (a) Why did not Olivia detain Viola, when she was with her, rather than try to induce her to return ? (b) How does Olivia (11. 5-7) think to use Malvolio ? (c) How is it that Olivia is more tolerant of Malvolio than of the Duke ? (</) What does ho, ho (1. 1 8) indicate ? (e) What words in (11. 26, 27) Olivia's second reply ? (/") What is evidently (1. 32) her notion as to the cause of this strange behaviour ?

2 (a) Why does Maria (11. 37, 40) work herself into the situation ? Why is her mistress silent ? (b) How must Mal- volio have accounted for his mistress's surprise ? (c) How do you like Olivia in this dialogue ? Is the sum of your impressions of her altered ? (d) Do you think the author is preparing, by what he gives us here, to bring Viola and Olivia together again, or is it for some other comedial action ? (e) What would Olivia have done (1. 67), apparently, if she had not been called away ? Why does she think of ' cousin ' Toby now ?

3 («) What do you say (11. 71-92) of Malvolio's soliloquy ? How far are you anxious, now, as to what may happen to him ? (b) Is Sir Toby (11. 93-96) in earnest or pretending ? (c) In what does the comedy of the dialogue following consist ? (d) Who will force (11. 148, 149) Malvolio into the dark room and bind him ? (e) How does Fabian (1. 156) know that more fun is coming ?

4 (a) Why has the Clown given place to Fabian in these situations ? How do Fabian and Feste differ ? (b) Why does not Sir Toby think best, after all, to give the letter to Viola ?

nl y-j TWELFTH NIGHT 4°3

Do you think he explains,

overhear? (,) Why does Viola appear so changed? Will she wear (1.228) Olivia's jewel?

< (a) What do you say (11. 240-246) of Sir Toby's chal- i 5 v-n«. he seem, or not seem, to have associated with

ri's" - r? » "--'S'S^r s

enable (1. 342) Antonio's interference ?

A ^ How are we to explain Antonio's being or coming

6 (a) How are f violais request

here ? (*) What do you say (11. 354, 355) ol v ° *

.

Why does the author carry the matte

007-307) so far ?

, f viola1* reoose and self-possession

friends ?

ACT IV

SCENE I

1 (a) How has Sir Andrew missed Viola ? (3) How does Sebastian chance to be passing ? (<:) How is it that Olivia (1. 6) has sent after Viola again ? (</) How does this character on the whole sustain the sacrifices that the author has been forced to make of it as a r61e ? (*) What does the Clown suppose that the supposed Caesario (1. 20) gives him money for ? (f) How far does Sebastian speak and act like his sister ?

2 («) What does Sir Andrew (1. 27) strike Sebastian with ? (b) With what does Sebastian (1. 30) apparently strike Sir Andrew in return ? (c) Why has the Clown put himself on the side opposite (1. 32) to those that he has sided with hitherto ? (</) What (1. 34) is Sir Toby doing ? (*) What (11. 47-49) >s Sir Toby's opinion of his skill with the rapier ? In what attitude does Olivia find him ?

3 (a) What signifies Olivia's way of addressing (1. 49) her uncle? Why is it not 'cousin' Toby? (£) Why does Olivia (1. 51) ask if it shall be 'ever' thus? What must have been the 'fruitless pranks' (1. 59) that she speaks of? (c) Why cannot Sebastian imagine (1. 65) that some one else may be mad besides himself? (</) Is it natural that a man of Sebastian's birth and breeding should follow Olivia so passively? (i) What sort of comedy is this ?

SCENE II

I (a) Why should Maria (11. 1-4) wish to carry the joke further? (b) Where did Sir Toby go after being sent away by his niece? And why is not Sir Andrew with him? (c) How far is there satire in this use of the character of Sir Topas? (rf) How should Maria be equal (1. 70) to providing a priest's gown and a false beard so readily? How must Shakespeare have conceived her? (e) Why has not Sir Toby found, at least since 1. 31, the diversion that Maria expected? (_/") What signs of a maudlin consciousness have we noted of late in Sir Toby ?

404

IV. in] TWELFTH NIGHT 405

2 (a) Why does Sir Toby wish (11. 71-77) a formal report of Malvolio's condition, and one rendered to him in his chamber, from the Clown? (£) Why does the author permit or insure such delay in our knowing the outcome of Sebastian's being drawn by Olivia into her palace? (c) What tempts the Clown (11. 102-109) to play his double part? Why does the author in- troduce anything so farcical? (d) How far do you think the Clown is influenced, in (1. 121) his promise, by what (11. 72-74) he has heard Sir Toby say? (i) What are your feelings toward Malvolio now? (/") What purposes has this scene been made to serve?

SCENE III

1 (a) What words in the first line have stress? (£) Why did Shakespeare need somebody to stand recipient, in Viola's place, of Olivia's affection? Why does he not leave Olivia, whom he has used for plot purposes so unreverently, lorn? (c) What are your impressions of Sebastian, who calls Olivia's impetuous suit to him (1. 11) a ' flood of fortune,' in comparison with his sister? Does or does not the author seem to care much for this character? (d) Has Olivia appeared to Sebastian as more potent and effective (1. 17), in controlling her affairs and people, or less efficient and strong, than we have found her?

2 (a) Would our feelings, if Olivia had proposed (1. 26) the final ceremony, have been the same or not the same as now? (b*) How far was the precontract, here proposed by Olivia, less binding? (c) Do you think that what Olivia does would strike an audience in Shakespeare's time differently from a modern one? (d) Do you think Viola could have been capable of such a course as this with the Duke? (e) How is it to be explained that Olivia, who would be considered more modest and retiring than Viola, has been brought into such a r61e ? Is the human nature here correct?

ACT V

SCENE I

1 (a) Why does not Fabian (1. 6) wish to make Malvolio's letter, as he would have done earlier, a matter of common know- ledge? (b) Has Viola been back at the Duke's palace since leaving here? (c) What has, at last, drawn out the Duke to come to Olivia's home in person? (rf) Why does the author allow, by (11. 9-52) the Duke's talk with the Clown, so much de- lay? (e) How is it to be explained that (1. 53) the Officers bring Antonio here?

2 («) What do you say of the intellectual and executive suffi- ciency shown (11. 54-62) in the Duke's paragraph to his officer? How far does the Duke seem the same as in former scenes? (b) How far does he appear (11. 72-75) anxious to recognise the kindness done to his page? (c) Does (1. 100) the Countess hear the Duke's words about her? (</) What signifies Olivia's ad- dressing her visitor (1. 104) before he has paid his respects to her? (*) What does she mean (1. 106) by her first words to Caesario?

3 (a) Why does the author make Olivia (1. 109) uncivil to the Duke, who is also governor and master of the state ? (b) Why does Olivia think it necessary (11. 111-113) to De uncivil ? (c) How has the Duke (11. 125, 128) found out Olivia's fondness for Cae- sario? Has Viola betrayed it? Has the Clown, or who? (d) Why does Viola (11. 145, 146) follow the Duke so willingly? Would an Anglo-Saxon Viola have done so? (e) Do you think she in- tends to reveal her identity to the Duke? (/) Does the Duke (11. 137-139) hear her confession? Why does she make it to Olivia's ears?

4 (a) How does Viola probably explain (1. 147) Olivia's claims? (£) Why is she not more aroused? (c) How can Olivia say (1. 153) 'as great as that thou fear'st'? (</) Why is not Viola (1. 173) even yet dismayed? (e) What is significant

406

V. I] TWELFTH NIGHT 407

in (1. 178) Sir Andrew's saying 'he' instead of giving any name? (/) What is the use (1. 187) of such a farcical turn just here?

5 (a) How does the Duke know (1. 199) that Sir Toby is a gentleman? (b) Does Sir Toby seem intoxicated here? (c) Why does he use (11. 212-214) such plain language to his friend? (d) Where had the knights set upon Sebastian, and upon what occasion? (i) What must have been the effect (1. 223) of seeing another Viola appear? WThy does not Olivia speak? How soon does anybody say anything ?

6 (a) Where (1. 228), in Antonio's question, is the stress? (£) Where is it (1. 233) in Sebastian's question? (c) Is it the brother or the sister that seems (11. 233-243) the more aroused? (d) What do you say (11. 256-260) of Viola's withholding her- self from embracing her brother? (e) What do you say of the diction and the repose of this paragraph ?

7 (a) Why is not Olivia (11. 266-270) heard from ? (£) How far is this comedial, and according to what idea or form of com- edy? (c) What do you say (11. 276-279) of Viola's words to the Duke? Are they in keeping? (d) Would she say perhaps that her occasion (I. ii. 43) is now mellow? Does she seem to have had faith in such an issue? (e) Why does the author de- vise means (11. 281-284) of keeping us from seeing Viola again, as at the opening, in her proper clothing?

8 (a) Do you think (1. 284) that Malvolio wears a sword? (£) Why should the course of the play be delayed over the read- ing of Malvolio's letter? (<:) Why should Malvolio (1. 323) be brought in, but not Maria? (d) What is the author's point (11. 324-328) in having Olivia make her offer to the Duke? (i) Why is the Duke (11. 322, 335) taken into the company that shall judge Malvolio? (/) What do you say of the showing and the impression (11. 338-363) that Malvolio makes?

9 (a) What in (1. 377) Olivia's words starts Fabian up? (<$) Does Fabian state (11. 366-371) the responsibility fairly to himself? (c) Why does Shakespeare make Maria to have achieved her ends already? (d} Why does the author wish Malvolio to be absent from the close? How does the Clown's quotation (11. 378-385) insure that? {e) Why has the author connected

408 WHAT IS SHAKESPEARE ? [V. I

Malvolio (11. 283, 390) with Viola's benefactor? (/) Why is not Antonio rewarded, to us, for his Italian devotion to Viola's brother? (£•) Why (11. 393, 394) are all stayed at Olivia's home? (Jt) Does there seem point in the way of closing, and in having such a clown sing such a song? (/) What are your impressions as to the meaning of this play?

INDEX

All's Well that Ends Well, 267.

Antigonus, amusing to the half-insane Leontes, 127; refuses to obey the King, 127 ; bidden by the King to expose the child, 128; dreams of the Queen, 134; poetic justice of his death, 134.

Antony and Cleopatra, 182, 270, 315.

Apollo's oracle, appealed to, 123; findings of, 132; impugned by Leontes, 132.

Arden, Mary, 237, 238, 245, 270.

Arden, Robert,. 237, 238, 240, 247.

Arviragus, an Apollo nature, 75, 77; comes nearer to his sister's sympa- thies, 79 ; sounds the harp, 81 ; determines obsequies, 84 ; resolves to share in the battle, 92; resem- blance to his mother, 102.

Aston Cantlowe, 237, 240.

Astrophel and Stella, 271.

As you Like It, 256, 268, 325.

Bacon question, 281.

Banquo, as Duncan's chamberlain, 203 ; his defection, 205 ; not awaked by the castle bell, 210; his death required by the plot, 212; his ene- mies, 214 ; apparition of, raised by the Witches, 215; the apparition managed so as to ruin Macbeth, 216 ; his apparition again produced, 219.

Belarius, intolerant of the King's Latin tastes, 65 ; recognises Clo- ten, 80; kept from the obsequies, 84; drawn by the lads into the battle, 92 ; helps rescue the King,

94-

Benvolio, 151, 156, 177. Blackfriars Theatre, 274. Brooke, Romeus and Juliet of, 149. Burbage, Richard, 250, 255, 268, 274, 276.

Camillo, kept as a witness of the King's bickering, 116; his consent to poison Polyxenes, 117; a dis- guised gudst at the festival, 144; captivated by Perdita, 145; dis- loyal to Polyxenes, 147.

Capulet, 152, 156, 158, 179.

Character drawing, art of, 153.

Chettle, Henry, apology of, 253.

Chorus, in Romeo and Juliet, 160; in The Winter's Tale, 161.

Cloten, assaults Posthumus, 17; belated in dissipation, 43; calls Imogen 'sister,' 49; embittered by Imogen, 53; puts on garments of Posthumus, 71 ; reaches Wales, 77 ; slain by Guiderius, 80 ; left as in burial beside Imogen, 86.

Comedy of Errors, 260, 287.

Cordelia, 304, 305, 306, 309, 310, 311, 312.

Coriolanus, 182, 270, 318.

Cornelius, gives pretended drugs to Queen, 28 ; disarms fear of the audience, 29; brings court ladies to Wales, 96.

Coventry, 240.

Cromwell, Thomas, injunction of,

237-

Cymbeline, defies Rome, 59; has Latin tastes, 65; rescued by his sons and Posthumus, 94.

Cymbeline, use of the two Gentlemen in, 9 ; maximum consummation in, 184 ; obstacles in, 225 ; subjective climax in, 230 ; date of, 274; place of, 287.

Cyrano de Bergerac, 235.

Davenant, Sir William, 250, 259. Donalbain, aroused by the bell,

210.

Doricles, pseudonym of Florizel, 143. Droeshout, Martin, 279.

409

4io

INDEX

Droeshout painting, 279.

Duncan, a weak personage, 185 ; not presented as in Holinshed, 190; like Polonius, 192 ; fails to reward Macbeth, 199; is unsuspicious, SGI ; brought to Macbeth's castle, 203 ; of the Edward Confessor type, 222.

Dunsinane, 224.

Edward the Confessor, not an effi- cient ruler, 222; type of, used to assist Malcolm, 222.

Emerson, quoted from, 131.

Euriphile, not mentioned in the fu- neral song, 85 n.

Evan Harrington, 232.

Every Man in his Humour, 255, 264.

First Act, proper ending of, 205. First Folio, 14, 184, 189, 227, 255, 279,

280, 285. First Lord, serves as the reader's

Eroxy, 123 ; demands the response •om Delphi, 132. First Witch, wrecks a ship, 195 ; as

Norn of the Past, 196. Fleance, pursued, 214. Folios, Second, Third, and Fourth,

280.

Fourth Act, a preparing time, 223. Free Grammar School, of Strattord,

242.

Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, re- deemed by Shakespeare, 291 ; restored to her son, 299; prevari- cates to the King in his behalf, 301 ; drinks to his success, 301.

Ghost of Hamlet the Elder, return of, 297 ; his forgiveness of Gertrude, 298.

Globe Shakespeare, 14 n.

Globe Theatre, 267, 275.

Goneril, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310.

Greene, Robert, responsible for the appeal to Delphi, 124; his mention of a jury not borrowed, 129 ; attack of, on Shakespeare, 251.

Guiderius, more active and martial of the brothers, 73 ; like his sister, 75; kills Cloten, 80; determines the place of burial, 84 ; drawn by

Arviragus into the battle, 92 ; aids in rescue of King, 94.

Hall, Dr. John, 270, 278.

Hall, Elizabeth, 280.

Hamlet, scruples of, 200; drastic use of, for artistic ends, 294, 301 ; trusts again his mother, 300 ; his soliloquy over campaign of Fortinbras, 302; magnificent in action, 302.

Hamlet, 256, 269, 288, 290.

Hathaway, Anne, 246, 248, 276, 280.

Hemmings, John, 274, 276, 280.

Henry IV, Hrst Part of, 263.

Henry V, 267, 287.

Henry VI, Third Part of, 252.

Henry VI II, 274, 275.

Hermione, called on by the King to keep his friend from going, 112; offers an excuse for her husband, 114; draws Polyxenes aside, 115; her sorrow for her husband, 121 ; her faith in the right, 122, 130; the womanliness of her part, 131 ; un- aroused by the response, and the death of Mamillius, 133; swoons at her husband's confession, 133; compared with Imogen, 134; the secret of her power, 135.

Holinshed, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191, 199, 212, 213, 219, 312.

lachimo, lies in wait for Ppsthumus, 22; outwits him, 27; in awe of Imogen, 34; his strategy of the trunk, 41 ; his fear in Imogen's chamber, 46; exasperates Posthu- mus. 55 ; drawn into the British wars, 77; conscience of, aroused, 93; confesses to Imogen, 99.

Imogen, repose of, n ; objectiveness of, 19; influence of, on lachimo, 34 ; deceived by the strategy of the trunk, 41 ; a reader, 43 ; made ca- pable of embittering Cloten, 52; lured away from court, 62; willing to go to Italy, 69; her supposed death, 81 ; willing to go away from the supposed grave of her hus- band, 88 ; refuses to save Lucius, 98 ; sorrows for her father's loss, 102; her character, 105; compared to Hermione, 134.

Incident plays, 287.

Interpretation of a play, 5.

INDEX

411

Jonson, Ben, 255, 263, 279, 285.

Juliet, age of, 153; promises to be dutiful, 155 ; discerns Romeo's na- ture, 158 ; of Gothic temperament, 160; gives up her hate of the Montagues, 166; her matter-of-fact mind, 167; plans for herself and Romeo, 168, her faith, 170; for- gets to arrange, with Romeo, the hour, 172; an Imogen-nature, 175; power of, over Shakespeare's au- diences, 175 ; tries to confess to her father, 179; accepts death, in ef- fect, for Romeo's honour, 179; does not ask for reasons, 180.

Julius Casar, 288, 312.

Kemp, William, 255, 268. King James, 225, 254, 269. King John, 260. King Lear, 182, 270, 303. Kronberg, 300.

Label, interpolated use of, 104.

Lady Capulet, 152, 153, 154, 155, 159.

Lady Macbeth wills her husband's advancement, 200; aroused by news of the King's coming, 201 ; prays for help against her weak- ness, 201 ; worships her husband, 202 ; controls her husband, 205 ; essays the killing, 207; her first blunder, 209; her swoon, 211 ; ap- pears but once as Queen, 211 ; drives away her guests, 217 ; walks in her sleep, 224.

Lady Macduff, butchery of, 219; idealised through her son, 220.

Lear, not savage or brutish, 309.

Leontes, insults of, to King of Bohe- mia, in, 112; puts on his Queen the burden of making Polyxenes stay, 112; his jealousy, 113; his irony to the Queen, II5'< goes aside with Mamillius, 116; invades the Queen's apartments, 120; ex- asperated by her repose, 122; ap- plies to the oracle at Delphi, 123 ; stands in awe of the Queen's strength, 126; forces Antigonus to expose the child, 128 ; summons the sessions, 129 ; impugns the oracle, 132; confesses his insin- cerity, 133; proposes daily grief, 137.

Literature, an institutional device, 7. Literature of Shakespeare, 330, 331. Love's Labour's Lost, 263. Love's Labour's Won, 267. Lucius, belittled by the author, 98 n. Lucrece, 258.

Macbeth, how to make a hero of, 186 ; did not kill Macdonwald, 186 ; obliged to defeat the Danes, 191 ; aided by witchcraft, 191 ; delivers Scotland, 193; cousin of Duncan, 193; the hero of the country, 196; his loyalty to the king, 198 ; a free moral agent, 199 ; feeis his first fear, 202 ; his first blunder, 209 ; subordi- nation to Macduff, 210; appears crowned but once, 211 ; as the Third Murderer, 214 ; sleepless and crazed, 215; identifies the appari- tion of Banquo, 216; his acceler- ated decline, 218 ; withdraws to Dunsinane, 224.

Macbeth, 182; first scene in, 187; a simple play, 194 ; knocking on the gate in, 208 ; why a tragedy, 213 ; made perhaps on requisition of King James, 225 ; production of, 270 ; place of, in the grouping, 287.

Macdonwald, 185, 186, 191, 205.

Macduff, the strong man of the play, 209; disconcerts Macbeth, 210; characterised through his son, 220 ; subordinated by Malcolm, 221 ; his new motive for vengeance, 223.

Major obstacle in Macbeth, 198; resolution of, 205, 208; in Cymbe- line, 226; in The Winter's Tale, 227 ; in Romeo and Juliet, 229 ; in Richard Carvel, 231 ; in Quentin Durward, 232; in Evan Harring- ton, 233 ; in The Princess, 234.

Malcolm, saved from capture, 190; made Prince of Cumberland, 199; aroused by the bell, 210; must suc- ceed Macbeth, 220; subordinates Macduff, 221 ; amended martially, 223.

Mamillius, praised for his mother's sake, in; used against Hermione, 115; prefers his mother's company to toys, 118; his penetration, 119; his ghost stories, 119; instructed by his father in his mother's shames, 126.

4I2

INDEX

Man's selfishness and woman's sacri- fice, 180.

Marienlist palace, 300. Masters of the witches, 188, 191. Maximum consummation,i84,i93,i97,

211, 212, 224, 229, 231, 233, 234, 235.

Measure for Measure, 270.

Merchant of Venice, 182, 263, 287, 288, 326.

Mercutio, nearest friend to Romeo, 156; ridicules Romeo's devotion, 163; not high-minded, 164; appro- priation and merging of, in Romeo, 177.

Meres, Francis, 265, 271.

Merry Wives of Windsor, 249, 268.

Midsummer Night's Dream, 287, 321.

Minor Obstacle in Macbeth, 197; resolution of, 199, 205; in Cymbe- line, 226; in The Winter's Tale, 228 ; in Romeo and Juliet, 229 ; in Richard Carvel, 231 ; in Quentin Durward, 232; in Evan Harring- ton, 233 ; in The Princess, 234.

Moral Hays, 287.

Much Ado, 268, 287, 320.

Mysteries, the ancient, 240.

Novel, constructed on Shakespeare's plan, 197, 230; Richard Carvel, 231 ; Quentin Durward, 231 ; Evan Harrington, 232; Quo Vadis, 235.

Nurse, Juliet's, 152, 153, 154, 160, 171, 172, 177, 179.

Othello, 182, 269, 289, 313.

Palladis Tamia, 265, 271.

Paris, 152, 155, 157.

Pauline, not found in Greene s novel, 124 ; the need of such a character, 124, 125; brings the babe before the king, 126; defies the king's guards, 127 ; pursues the king with invective, 133; relents, and begs the king's forgiveness, 134; keeps the queen in hiding, 137.

Perdita, arrayed in palace finery, 143 ; tested, as mistress of the festi- val, 144; makes her own social forms, 145; captivates Camillo, 145; keeps aloof from the finery, 146 ; tried by the anger of the King, 147; subordinated to her mother, 148 ; her precontract, 248.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 270.

Personal Plays, 287.

Pisanio, patronised by the Queen, 17; a man of years, 21 ; perplexed by Imogen, 66; prepares Imogen to seek her husband, 68 ; enters ser- vice of Cloten, 71.

Polyxenes, strange attachment of, to King of Sicily, in ; his rhetorical leave-taking, in; piqued by his friend, 112; considers himself per- suaded by Herrnione to remain, 113; his inconsistency, 116; in- sensible to the consequences of his flight, 118 ; in disguise at the sheep- shearing festival, 144; used as means of turning the plot, 146.

Posthumus, relatively weak, 12; as- saulted by Cloten, 18 ; over-reached by lachimo, 26, 55; his unmanly vengeance, 61; his remorse, 92; strikes Imogen, 100; forgives lach- imo, 103.

Precontract of marriage, 146, 247, 248.

' Principalities,' use of, in Macbeth, 186.

Prolonged time, impressions of, in Romeo and Juliet, 170.

Puns in Romeo and Juliet, 168.

Queen, pretends sympathy with Imogen, 10; brings Cymbeline to interrupt the lovers, 14; receives drugs from the court physician, 28 ; answers Lucius, 58 ; twits the king of slowness, 70 ; death reported by Cornelius, 96.

Queen Elizabeth, 241, 260, 263, 268, 269.

Quentin Durward, 231.

Quiney, Thomas, 275.

Reading between the lines, 194. Reading Shakespeare.difnculties of, 4. Regan, 304, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310. Returne from Pernassus, 269. Richard Carvel, 231. Richard II, 260, 262, 268. Richard III, 260, 262, 287. Richardson, John, 246. Robert of Gloucester's Chronicle, 31 2. Roman lieutenant, sets out to meet

Lucius, 87. Romeo, in love with his ideals of love,

151 ; falsely enamoured of Rosaline,

INDEX

413

152 ; considerate of the servant, 152 ; discovers Juliet, 156; enters the garden of the Capuleis, 163 ; over- hears Juliet's soliloquy, 165; his romantic mind, 167 ; innerits Mer- cutio's gifts and brilliancy, 177.

Romeo and Juliet, purpose of street fray in, 150; deeper meaning of, 178; superior to Cymbellne, 181; maximum consummation in, 184; brought out at The Curtain, 261 ; printed, 262.

Rosaline, 152, 162, 163.

Rosalynde, of Thomas Lodge, 325.

Ross, 193, 198, 219, 222.

Ross and Angus, 197, 198.

Sandells, Fulk, 246.

Scourge of Simony, 268.

Second Witch, as Norn of the Present, 196; prophecy of, con- firmed, 198.

Sejanus, 255.

Separation of acts of a play, 217.

Sergeant, need of, 190; time of his coming from the field, 192.

Shakespeare, Edmund, 239, 270.

Shakespeare, Gilbert, 239.

Shakespeare, Hamnet, 246, 261.

Shakespeare, Joan, 239.

Shakespeare, John, marriage of, 237 ; birthplace of, 238; removal of, to Stratford, 238 ; purchase of Henley Street house by, 239; pursued for debt, 244.

Shakespeare, Judith, 246, 275, 280.

Shakespeare, Richard, 239.

Shakespeare's company, 254.

Shakespeare's public, 2.

Shakespeare, Susanna, 245, 270, 276, 278.

Shakespeare's women, 142, 174.

Shakespeare, William, climaxes of, 84 ; models of, 107 ; as a revealer, 108 ; as artist, 109 ; of same ideals at twenty-eight as at forty-six, 175 ; unchanged in insight, 181; birth of, 236 ; first mention of, 236 ; mother of, 237; teachers of, 243; Latin, knowledge of, 243; mar- riage of, 245; Sir Thomas Lucy's persecution of, 249; removal to London, 250; attack upon, by Greene, 251 ; applies for coat armour, 261 ; buys New Place,

261 ; Jonson's tribute to, 265 ; Mere's praise of, 265; buys tithes ot Strattord, 270 ; optimism of, 273 ; buys a house in Blacktriars, 274 ; returns to Stratford, 275 ; his will, 275; inscription on tomb of, 277; saneness of, 280; conviviality of, 281 ; originality of, 286.

Shallow, Justice, 249.

Shottery, 240.

Sidney, Sir Philip, 271, 281.

Siward, the Elder, used to amend Malcolm, 223.

Sonnets, Shakespeare's, 270; dark lady of, 272.

Stratford bust, 277.

Stratford upon Avon, 239.

Subjective climax, in Shakespeare's plays, 136; in Macbeth, 217; in Cymbeline, 230; in The Winter's Tale, 230; in Romeo and Juliet, 230; in Richard Carvel, 231; in Quentin Durward, 232 ; in Evan Harrington, 233 ; in Tennyson's The Princess, 234.

Taming of the Shrnv, 283, 322.

Theatre, the, 175, 250.

The Princess, of Tennyson, 234.

The Tempest, 274, 287.

Third Act begins new action, 128,

211.

Third Murderer, 214. Third Witch, not summoned, 189;

aids Macbeth, 191; as Norn of the

Future, 197.

Timber, Ben Jonson's, 285. Timon of Athens, 270. Titus Andronicus, 259, 287. Tragedy, first condition of, 184. Troilus and Cressida, 270, 289. Twelfth Night, 176, 182, 248, 268, 287,

288, 323.

Ultimate purpose of novels, 233 ; of Richard Carvel, 233; of Quentin Durward, 233 ; of Evan Harring- ton, 234.

Use of the questions, 4, 330.

Venus and Adonis, 257. Viola, 176, 287.

Warwick, 241. What all men seek, 6.

INDEX

What it is to be educated, 7.

What Shakespeare can supply, 7.

Winter's Tale, opened like Cym- belint, in; subjective climax in, 230 ; plot of, not absurd, 140 ; maxi- mum consummation in, 184; may be considered a comedy, 228 ; date of, 274.

Witches, use of, at once in Macbeth

187; their storm, 187; their com- ing together, 188; different in knowledge, 188; their summons, 188 ; return of, 195 ; wind up their charm, 196; produce the air- drawn dagger, 206; raise an ap- parition of Banquo, 215; compro- mise Macbeth, 216. Wriothesley, Henry, 257, 259, 263.

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