The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story Part 6

"When he was here, He did incline to sadness; and ofttimes Not knowing why."

This uncaused melancholy that distinguishes Romeo, Jaques, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Vincentio is not more characteristic of the Hamlet-Shakespeare nature than the way Posthumus behaves when Iachimo tries to make him believe that he has won the wager. Posthumus is convinced almost at once; jumps to the conclusion, indeed, with the heedless rapidity of the nave, sensitive, quick-thinking man who has cultivated his emotions and thoughts by writing in solitude, and not the suspicions and distrust of others which are developed in the market-place. One is reminded of Goethe's famous couplet:

"Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt."

Posthumus is all in fitful extremes; not satisfied with believing the lie, he gives Iachimo Imogen's ring as well, and bursts into a diatribe:

"Let there be no honour Where there's beauty; truth, where semblance; love, Where there's another man,"

and so forth. Even Philario, who has no stake in the matter, is infinitely harder to convince:

"Have patience, sir, And take your ring again; 'tis not yet won: It may be probable she lost it."

Then this "unstable opposite," Posthumus, demands his ring back again, but as soon as Iachimo swears that he had the bracelet from her arm, Posthumus swings round again to belief from sheer rapidity of thought.

Again Philario will not be convinced. He says:

"Sir, be patient, This is not strong enough to be believed Of one persuaded well of--"

But Posthumus will not await the proof for which he has asked. He is convinced upon suspicion, as Oth.e.l.lo was, and the very nimbleness of his Hamlet-intellect, seeing that probabilities are against him, entangles him in the snare. Even his servant Pisanio will not believe in Imogen's guilt though his master a.s.sures him of it. Shakespeare does not notice this peculiar imprudent haste of his hero, as he notices, for example, the hasty speech of Hotspur by letting Harry of England imitate it, simply because the quick-thinking was his own; while the hurried stuttering speech was foreign to him. Posthumus goes on to rave against women as Hamlet did; as all men do who do not understand them:

"For even to vice They are not constant, but are changing still."

And Posthumus betrays as clearly as ever Hamlet did that he is merely Shakespeare masquerading:

"I'll write against them, Detest them, curse them--yet 'tis greater skill In a true hate, to pray they have their will: The very devils cannot plague them better."

"Write against them" indeed! This is the same threat which Shakespeare uses against his dark mistress in Sonnet 140, and every one will admit that it is more in the character of the poet and man of letters than in that of the warrior son-in-law of a half-barbarous king. The last line here, because it is a little superfluous, a little emphatic, seems to me likely to have a personal application. When Shakespeare's mistress had her will, did she fall to misery, I wonder?

I may be allowed to notice here how intensely characteristic all this play is of Shakespeare. In the third scene of the third act, life in the country is contrasted to its advantage with life at Court; and then gold is treated as dirt by the princely brothers--both these, the love of country life, and the contempt of gold, are, as we shall see later, abiding peculiarities of Shakespeare.

When we come to Posthumus again almost at the end of the play we find that his anger with Imogen has burned itself out. He is angry now with Pisanio for having executed his order and murdered her; he should have "saved the n.o.ble Imogen to repent." Surely the poet Shakespeare and not the outraged lover speaks in this epithet, "n.o.ble."

Posthumus describes the battle in which he took so gallant a part in Shakespeare's usual manner. He falls into rhyme; he shows the cheap modesty of the conventional hero; he tells of what others did, and nothing of his own feats; Belarius and the two striplings, he says:

"With their own n.o.bleness ... gilded pale looks."

Unfortunately one is reminded of the exquisite sonnet line:

"Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy."

"Gild" is one of Shakespeare's favourite words; he uses it very often, sometimes indeed as in this case, ineffectively.

But the scene which reveals the character of Posthumus beyond all doubt is the prison scene in the fifth act. His soliloquy which begins:

"Most welcome, bondage, for thou art a way, I think, to liberty "--

is all pure Shakespeare. When he determines to give up life, he says:

"O Imogen!

I'll speak to thee in silence,"

and Hamlet at his death comes to the self-same word:

"The rest is silence."

The scene with the gaoler is from Hamlet's soul; Posthumus jests with his keeper as Hamlet with the gravedigger:

"So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the s.h.i.+p pays the shot;"

and the Hamlet melancholy:

"I am merrier to die than them art to live;"

and the Hamlet riddle still unsolved:

"I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct them the way I am going; but such as wink, and will not use them."

When the messenger comes to bring him to the king, Posthumus cries:

"Thou bringest good news, I am called to be made free,"

for there are "no bolts for the dead."

Those who wish to see how Shakespeare's mind worked will compare Posthumus' speech to Iachimo, when he has learned the truth, with Oth.e.l.lo's words when he is convinced of his own fatal error and of Desdemona's chast.i.ty. The two speeches are twins; though the persons uttering them should be of totally different characters. The explanation of this astounding similarity will be given when we come to "Oth.e.l.lo."

It is characteristic of Posthumus that he should strike Imogen in her page's dress, not recognizing her; he is ever too quick--a mere creature of impulse. More characteristic still is the way he forgives Iachimo, just as Vincentio forgave Angelo:

"Kneel not to me: The power that I have on you, is to spare you, The malice towards you, to forgive you. Live, And deal with others better."

In judging his fellow-men this is Shakespeare's harshest word.

Posthumus, then, is presented to us in the beginning of the play as perfect, a model to young and old, of irreproachable virtue and of all wonderful qualities. In the course of the play, however, he shows himself very nimble-witted, credulous, and impulsive, quick to anger and quicker still to forgive; with thoughts all turned to sadness and to musing; a poet--ever in extremes; now hating his own rash errors to the point of demanding the heaviest punishment for them; now swearing that he will revenge himself on women by writing against them; a philosopher--he jests with his gaoler and consoles himself with despairing speculation in the very presence of the Arch-Fear. All these are manifestly characteristics of Hamlet, and Posthumus possesses no others.

So far, then, from finding that Shakespeare never revealed himself in his dramas, I have shown that he pictured himself as the hero [Footnote: A hypercritic might contend that Jaques was not the hero of "As You Like It"; but the objection really strengthens my argument. Shakespeare makes of Jaques, who is merely a secondary character without influence on the action, the princ.i.p.al person in the play simply because in Jaques he satisfied his own need of self-revealing.] of six plays written at widely different times; in fact that, like Rembrandt, he painted his own portrait in all the critical periods of life: as a sensuous youth given over to love and poetry in Romeo; a few years later as a melancholy onlooker at life's pageant in Jaques; in middle age as the pa.s.sionate, melancholy, aesthete-philosopher of kindliest nature in Hamlet and Macbeth; as the fitful Duke incapable of severity in "Measure for Measure," and finally, when standing within the shadow, as Posthumus, an idealized yet feebler _replica_ of Hamlet.

CHAPTER IV. SHAKESPEARE'S MEN OF ACTION: THE b.a.s.t.a.r.d, ARTHUR, AND KING RICHARD II.

It is time now, I think, to test my theory by considering the converse of it. In any case, the attempt to see the other side, is pretty sure to make for enlightenment, and may thus justify itself. In the mirror which Shakespeare held up to human nature, we not only see Romeo, and Jaques, Hamlet, Macbeth and Posthumus; but also the leonine, frank face of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, the fiery, lean, impatient mask of Hotspur, and the cynical, bold eyes of Richard III. Even if it were admitted that Shakespeare preferred the type of the poet-philosopher, he was certainly able, one would say, to depict the man of action with extraordinary vigour and success. He himself then must have possessed a certain strength of character, certain qualities of decision and courage; he must have had, at least, "a good stroke in him," as Carlyle phrased it. This is the universal belief, a belief sanctioned by Coleridge and Goethe, and founded apparently on plain facts, and yet, I think, it is mistaken, demonstrably untrue. It might even be put more plausibly than any of its defenders has put it. One might point out that Shakespeare's men of action are nearly all to be found in the historical plays which he wrote in early manhood, while the portrait of the philosopher-poet is the favourite study of his riper years. It would then be possible to suggest that Shakespeare grew from a bold roistering youth into a melancholy, thoughtful old age, touching both extremes of manhood in his own development. But even this comforting explanation will not stand: his earliest impersonations are all thinkers.

Let us consider, again, how preference in a writer is established.

Everyone feels that Sophocles prefers Antigone to Ismene; Ismene is a mere sketch of gentle feminine weakness; while Antigone is a great portrait of the _revoltee_, the first appearance indeed in literature of the "new woman," and the place she fills in the drama, and the ideal qualities attributed to her girlhood--alike betray the personal admiration of the poet. In the same way Shakespeare's men of action are mere sketches in comparison with the intimate detailed portrait of the aesthete-philosopher-poet with his sensuous, gentle, melancholy temperament. Moreover, and this should be decisive, Shakespeare's men of action are all taken from history, or tradition, or story, and not from imagination, and their characteristics were supplied by the chroniclers and not invented by the dramatist. To see how far this is true I must examine Shakespeare's historical plays at some length Such an examination did not form a part of my original purpose.

It is very difficult, not to say impossible, to ascertain exactly how far history and verbal tradition helped Shakespeare in his historical portraits of English worthies. Jaques, for instance, is his own creation from top to toe; every word given to him therefore deserves careful study; but how much of Hotspur is Shakespeare's, and how much of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d? Without pretending, however, to define exactly the sources or the limits of the master's inspiration, there are certain indications in the historical plays which throw a flood of light on the poet's nature, and certain plain inferences from his methods which it would be folly not to draw.

Let us begin with "King John," as one of the easiest and most helpful to us at this stage, and remembering that Shakespeare's drama was evidently founded on the old play ent.i.tled "The Troublesome Raigne of King John,"

let us from our knowledge of Shakespeare's character forecast what his part in the work must have been. A believer in the theory I have set forth would guess at once that the strong, manly character of the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was vigorously sketched even in the old play, and just as surely one would attribute the gentle, feminine, pathetic character of Arthur to Shakespeare. And this is precisely what we find: Philip Fauconbridge is excellently depicted in the old play; he is called: