The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story Part 11

"Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect The very life-blood of our enterprise; 'Tis catching hither, even to our camp."

Then Shakespeare pulls himself up and tries to get into Hotspur's character again by representing to himself the circ.u.mstance:

"He writes me here, that inward sickness-- And that his friends by deputation could not So soon be drawn; nor did he think it meet--"

and so forth to the question: "...What say you to it?"

"_Wor_. Your father's sickness is a maim to us.

_Hot_. A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off:--"

Shakespeare sees that he cannot go on exaggerating the injury--that is not Hotspur's line, is indeed utterly false to Hotspur's nature; and so he tries to stop himself and think of Hotspur:

"And yet, in faith, it's not; his present want Seems more than we shall find it: were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast? to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?

It were not good; for therein should we read The very bottom and the soul of hope, The very list, the very utmost bound Of all our fortunes."

After the first two lines, which Hotspur might have spoken, we have the sophistry of the thinker poetically expressed, and not one word from the hot, high-couraged soldier. Indeed, in the last four lines from the bookish "we read" to the end, we have the gentle poet in love with desperate extremities. The pa.s.sage must be compared with Oth.e.l.lo's--

"Here is my journey's end, here is my b.u.t.t, And very sea-mark of my utmost sail."

But at length when Worcester adds fear to danger Hotspur half finds himself:

"_Hot_, You strain too far.

I rather of his absence make this use:-- It lends a l.u.s.tre, and more great opinion, A larger dare to our great enterprise, Than if the earl were here; for men must think, If we, without his help can make a head To push against the kingdom; with his help We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.-- Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole."

And this is all. The scene is designed, the situation constructed to show us Hotspur's courage: here, if anywhere, the hot blood should surprise us and make of danger the springboard of leaping hardihood. But this is the best Shakespeare can reach--this fainting, palefaced "Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole." The inadequacy, the feebleness of the whole thing is astounding. Milton had not the courage of the soldier, but he had more than this: he found better words for his Satan after defeat than Shakespeare found for Hotspur before the battle:

"What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, And what is else not to be overcome; That glory never shall his wrath or might Extort from me."

When Shakespeare has to render Hotspur's impatience he does it superbly, when he has to render Hotspur's courage he fails lamentably.

In the third scene of this fourth act we have another striking instance of Shakespeare's shortcoming. Sir Walter Blount meets the rebels "with gracious offers from the King," whereupon Hotspur abuses the King through forty lines; this is the kind of stuff: "My father and my uncle and myself Did give him that same royalty he wears; And when he was not six and twenty strong, Sick in the world's regard, wretched and low, A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home, My father gave him welcome to the sh.o.r.e; ..."

and so on and on, like Hamlet, he unpacks his heart with words, till Blount cries:

"Tut, I came not to hear this."

Hotspur admits the reproof, but immediately starts off again:

"_Hot_. Then to the point.

In short time after he deposed the king; Soon after that, deprived him of his life,"

and so forth for twenty lines more, till Blount pulls him up again with the shrewd question:

"Shall I return this answer to the king?"

Hotspur replies:

"Not so, Sir Walter; we'll withdraw awhile.

Go to the king.....

And in the morning early shall mine uncle Bring him our purposes; and so farewell."

And yet this Hotspur who talks interminably when he would do much better to keep quiet, a.s.sures us a little later that he has not well "the gift of tongue," and again declares he's glad a messenger has cut him short, for "I profess not talking."

The truth is the real Hotspur did not talk much, but Shakespeare had the gift of the gab, if ever a man had, and Hotspur was a mouthpiece. It is worth noting that though the dramatist usually works himself into a character gradually, Hotspur is best presented in the earlier scenes: Shakespeare began the work with the Hotspur of history and tradition clear in his mind; but as he wrote he grew interested in Hotspur and identified himself too much with his hero, and so almost spoiled the portrait. This is well seen in Hotspur's end; Prince Henry has said he'd crop his budding honours and make a garland for himself out of them, and this is how the dying Hotspur answers him:

"O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth!

I better brook the loss of brittle life Than those proud t.i.tles thou hast won of me; They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh:-- But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool, And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy, But that the earthy and cold hand of death Lies on my tongue:--no, Percy, thou art dust, And food for ----"

Of course, Prince Henry concludes the phrase, and continues the Hamlet-like philosophic soliloquy:

"_P. Henry_. For worms, brave Percy: fare thee well, great heart!-- Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!

When that this body did contain a spirit, A kingdom for it was too small a bound; But now two paces of the vilest earth Is room enough: ..."

I have tried to do justice to this portrait of Hotspur, for Shakespeare never did a better picture of a man of action, indeed, as we shall soon see, he never did as well again. But take away from Hotspur the qualities given to him by history and tradition, the hasty temper, and thick stuttering speech, and contempt of women, and it will be seen how little Shakespeare added. He makes Hotspur hate "mincing poetry," and then puts long poetic descriptions in his mouth; he paints the soldier despising "the gift of tongue" and forces him to talk historic and poetic slush in and out of season; he makes the aristocrat greedy and sets him quarrelling with his a.s.sociates for more land, and the next moment, when the land is given him, Hotspur abandons it without further thought; he frames an occasion calculated to show off Hotspur's courage, and then allows him to talk faint-heartedly, and finally, when Hotspur should die mutely, or with a bitter curse, biting to the last, Shakespeare's Hotspur loses himself in mistimed philosophic reflection and poetic prediction. Yet such is Shakespeare's magic of expression that when he is revealing the qualities which Hotspur really did possess, he makes him live for us with such intensity of life that no number of false strokes can obliterate the impression. It is only the critic working _sine ira et studio_ who will find this portrait blurred by the intrusion of the poet's personality.

It is the companion picture of Prince Henry that shows as in a gla.s.s Shakespeare's poverty of conception when he is dealing with the distinctively manly qualities. In order to judge the matter fairly we must remember that Shakespeare did not create Prince Henry any more than he created Hotspur. In the old play ent.i.tled "The Famous Victories of Henry V.," and in the popular mouth, Shakespeare found roistering Prince Hal. The madcap Prince, like Harry Percy, was a creature of popular sympathy; his high spirits and extravagances, the vigorous way in which he had sown his wild oats, had taken the English fancy, the historic personage had been warmed to vivid life by the popular emotion.

Shakespeare was personally interested in this princely hero. As we have seen, he dims Hotspur's portrait by intrusion of his own peculiarities; and in the case of Harry Percy, this temptation will be stronger.

The subject of the play, a young man of n.o.ble gifts led astray by loose companions, was a favourite subject with Shakespeare at this time; he had treated it already in "Richard II."; and he handled it here again with such zest that we are almost forced to believe in the tradition that Shakespeare himself in early youth had sown wild oats in unworthy company. Helped by a superb model, and in full sympathy with his theme, Shakespeare might be expected to paint a magnificent picture. But Prince Henry is anything but a great portrait; he is at first hardly more than a prig, and later a feeble and colourless replica of Hotspur. It is very curious that even in the comedy scenes with Falstaff Shakespeare has never taken the trouble to realize the Prince: he often lends him his own word-wit, and now and then his own high intelligence, but he never for a moment discovers to us the soul of his hero. He does not even tell us what pleasure Henry finds in living and carousing with Falstaff. Did the Prince choose his companions out of vanity, seeking in the Eastcheap tavern a court where he might throne it? Or was it the infinite humour of Falstaff which attracted him? Or did he break bounds merely out of high spirits, when bored by the foolish formalities of the palace?

Shakespeare, one would have thought, would have given us the key to the mystery in the very first scene. But this scene, which paints Falstaff to the soul, tells us nothing of the Prince; but rather blurs a figure which everyone imagines he knows at least in outline. Prince Henry's first speech is excellent as description; Falstaff asks him the time of day; he replies:

"Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unb.u.t.toning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know...."

This helps to depict Falstaff, but does not show us the Prince, for good-humoured contempt of Falstaff is universal; it has nothing individual and peculiar in it.

Then comes the speech in which the Prince talks of himself in Falstaff's strain as one of "the moon's men" who "resolutely s.n.a.t.c.h a purse of gold on Monday night," and "most dissolutely spend it on Tuesday morning." A little later he plays with Falstaff by asking: "Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack?" It looks as if the Prince were ripe for worse than mischief. But when Falstaff wants to know if he will make one of the band to rob on Gads.h.i.+ll, he cries out, as if indignant and surprised:

_P. Hen_. Who, I rob? la thief? Not I, by my faith.

_Fal_. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellows.h.i.+p in thee, nor thou earnest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten s.h.i.+llings.

_P. Hen_. Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap.

_Fal_. Why, that's well said.

_P. Hen_. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.

He is only persuaded at length by Poins's proposal to rob the robbers.

It may be said that these changes of the Prince are natural in the situation: but they are too sudden and unmotived; they are like the nodding of the mandarin's head--they have no meaning; and surely, after the Prince talks of himself as one of "the moon's men," it would be more natural of him, when the direct proposal to rob is made, not to show indignant surprise, which seems forced or feigned; but to talk as if repenting a previous folly. The scene, in so far as the Prince is concerned, is badly conducted. When he yields to Poins and agrees to rob Falstaff, his words are: "Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us,"--a phrase which hardly shows wild spirits or high courage, or even the faculty of judging men, and the soliloquy which ends the scene lamely enough is not the Prince's, but Shakespeare's, and unfortunately Shakespeare the poet, and not Shakespeare the dramatist:

"_P. Hen_. I know you all and will awhile uphold The unyoked humour of your idleness.

Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds To smother up his beauty from the world, That, when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, he may be more wondered at, By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapours, that did seem to strangle him. ..."

If we could accept this stuff we should take Prince Henry for the prince of prigs; but it is impossible to accept it, and so we shrug our shoulders with the regret that the madcap Prince of history is not illuminated for us by Shakespeare's genius. In this "First Part of Henry IV.," when the Prince is not calling names with Falstaff, or playing prig, he either shows us a quality of Harry Percy or of Shakespeare himself. Everyone remembers the scene when Falstaff, carrying Percy's corpse, meets the Princes, and tells them he has killed Percy:

_P. John_. This is the strangest tale that e'er I heard.

_P. Hen_. This is the strangest fellow, brother John.-- Come, bring your luggage n.o.bly on your back: For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I'll gild it with the happiest terms I have."

Both in manner and in matter these last two lines are pure Shakespeare, and Shakespeare speaks to us, too, when Prince Henry gives up Douglas to his pleasure "ransomless and free." But not only does the poet lend the soldier his own sentiments and lilt of phrase, he also presents him to us as a shadowy replica of Hotspur, even during Hotspur's lifetime. We have already noticed Hotspur's admirable answer when Glendower brags that he can call spirits from the vasty deep: