Shakspere and Montaigne Part 19

_Androgyno_. Of that an _obstreperous_ lawyer bereft me.

_Nano_. O wonderful change, when sir lawyer forsook thee!

For Pythagore's sake, what body then took thee?

_Androgyno_. A good dull mule.

_Nano_. And how! by that means Thou wert brought to allow of the eating of beans?

_Androgyno_. Yes.

_Nano_. But from the mule into whom didst thou pa.s.s?

_Androgyno_. Into a very strange beast, by some writers called an a.s.s; By others, a precise, pure, _illuminate brother_, Of those devour flesh, and sometimes one another; And will drop you forth a libel, or a sanctified lie, Betwixt every spoonful of a Nativity [30] pie.

Nano then admonishes Androgyno to quit that profane nation. Androgyno answers that he gladly remains in the shape of a fool and a hermaphrodite.

To the question of Nano, as to whether he likes remaining a hermaphrodite in order to 'vary the delight of each s.e.x,' Androgyno replies:--

Alas, those pleasures be stale and forsaken; No 't is your fool wherewith I am so taken, The only one creature that I can called blessed; For all other forms I have proved most distressed.

_Nano_. Spoke true, as thou wert in Pythagoras still.

This learned opinion we celebrate will,...

With a song, praising fools, the Interlude closes.

In act ii. sc. 2, after Mosca and Volpone have erected a stage upon the stage, Volpone enters, disguised as a mountebank, and abuses those 'ground ciarlatani' (charlatans, impostors) 'who come in lamely, with their mouldy tales out of Boccaccio.' Then there is a most clear allusion to Hamlet (act iv. sc. 6), where he informs his friend Horatio, by letter, of his voyage to England when he was made prisoner by pirates, who dealt with him 'like thieves of mercy.' A further remark of Volpone on 'base pilferies,' and 'wholesome penance done for it,'

may be taken as a hit against Hamlet's 'fingering' the packet to 'unseal their grand commission;' for which, in Jonson's view, he would be forced by his father confessor, in a well-regulated Roman Catholic State, to do penance.

This is what Volpone says:--

'No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground ciarlatani, that ... come in lamely, with their mouldy tales out of Boccaccio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist; some of them discoursing their travels; and of their tedious captivity [31] in the Turks' galleys, when, indeed, were the truth known, they were the Christians' gallies, where very temperately they eat bread and drunk water, as a wholesome penance, [32] enjoined them by their confessors for base pilferies.'

Shakspere, as we have already explained, got a 'pill' in 'The Poetaster,'

whereupon 'our fellow Shakespeare,' as is maintained in the 'Return from Parna.s.sus,' 'has given him' (Jonson) 'a purge that made him bewray his credit' Now Ben, clearly enough, calls this answer of the great adversary--a 'finely wrapt-up antimony,' whereby minds 'stopped with earthy oppilations,' are purged into another world.

Volpone says:--'These t.u.r.dy-facy, nasty-paty, lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groat's worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapt up in several scartoccios (covers), [33] are able, very well, to kill their twenty a week, and play; yet these meagre, starved spirits, who have stopt the organs of their minds with earthy oppilations, want not their favourers among your shrivelled sallad-eating artizans, [34] who are overjoyed that they may have their half-pe'rth of physic; though it purge them into another world, it makes no matter.'

Jonson then continues his satire against 'Hamlet' by making Volpone, disguised as a mountebank, sell medicine which is to render that 'purge'

('Hamlet') perfectly innocuous. He calls his medicine 'Oglio del Scoto:'

[35] good for strengthening the nerves; a sovereign remedy against all kinds of illnesses; and, 'it stops a dysenteria, immediately.'

Nano praises its miraculous effects in a song:--

Had old Hippocrates, or Galen, That to their books put med'cines all in, But known this secret, they had never (Of which they will be guilty ever) Been murderers of so much paper, Or wasted many a hurtless taper; No Indian drug had e'er been famed, Tobacco, sa.s.safras not named; Ne yet of guac.u.m one small stick, sir, Nor Raymund Lully's great elixir.

Ne had been known the _Danish Gonswart_, Or Paracelsus, with his long sword.

Is not HAMLET here as good as indicated by name?

The Danish Prince appears on the stage in his 'inky cloak.' No doubt, Jonson picked up the word 'Gonswart' (_gansch-zwart_, in Flemish) among his Flemish, Dutch, and other Nether-German comrades of war in the Low Countries. Surely, the Danish Prince 'All-Black' is none else but Hamlet clad in black.

In the same scene, the connection between Hamlet and Ophelia also is satirically pulled to pieces. In 'Eastward Hoe' (1605), Jonson and his party do the same in the most indecent and most despicable manner.

Nano, praising the sublime virtues of the 'Oglio del Scoto,' sings:--

Would you live free from all diseases?

Do the act your mistress pleases, Yet fright all aches from your bones?

Here's a medicine for the nones. [36]

The scene of the action in 'Volpone' is laid in Venice. During the whole scene above-mentioned, Sir Politick Would-Be and a youthful gentleman-traveller are present Others have already pointed out that, by the former, Shakspere is meant. [37] The traveller, Peregrine, is a youth whom the jealous Lady Politick once declares to be 'a female devil in a male outside,'--again an allusion to Shakspere's 'two loves' which he himself describes in Sonnet 144.

The words, also, with which Hamlet (act iii. sc. 3) praises his friend Horatio (the Shaksperian ideal of a Horace) are ridiculed by Jonson in this scene. Sir Politick Would-Be says to Peregrine:--

Well, if I could but find one man, one man, To mine own heart, whom I durst trust, I would--

When the stage is raised on the theatre for Volpone, who is disguised as a quacksalver, Sir Politick wishes to enlighten Peregrine as to the fellows that 'mount the bank.' [38] We need not explain that this is directed against the 'so-called stage-poets' and players. It will easily be perceived that the meaning of the subsequent conversation is the same as in the Preface of 'Volpone,' where Jonson says that 'wis and n.o.ble persons 'ought to' take heed how they be too credulous, or give leave to these invading interpreters to be over-familiar with their fames.'

Sir Politick (describing the fellows, one of which is to mount the bank) says:--

They are the only knowing men of Europe!

Great general scholars, excellent physicians, [39]

Most admired statesmen, profest favourites, And Cabinet counsellors to the greatest princes; The only languaged men of all the world!

_Peregrine_. And I have heard, they are most lewd [40] impostors Made all of terms and shreds, no less beliers Of great men's favours, than their own vile med'cines...

In act iv. sc. 1, Sir Politick gives counsels to the young Peregrine, which are a manifest satire upon Polonius' fatherly farewell speech to Laertes; and here again, let it be observed, religious tendencies are made the subject of persiflage.

_Sir Politick_. First, for your garb, it must be grave and serious Very reserved and locked; not tell a secret On any terms, not to your father; scarce A fable, but with caution; make sure choice Both of your company and your discourse; beware You never speak a truth--....

And then, for your religion, profess none, But wonder at the diversity of all; And, for your part, protest, were there no other But simply the laws o' th' land, you could content you.

Nic Machiavel and Monsieur Bodin, both Were of this mind.

In act iii. sc. 2, it is openly said that English authors namely, such as understand Italian, have stolen from Pastor Fido 'almost as much as from MONTAIGNIe' (Montaigne). In vain we have looked for traces of Montaigne's Essays in other dramas that have come down to us from that epoch. That Shakspere must have been conversant with the Italian tongue, Charles Armitage Brown has tried to prove, and according to our opinion he has done so successfully. [41]

The talkative Lady Politick wishes to offer some distraction to the apparently sick Volpone. She recommends him an Italian book in these words:--

All our English writers, I mean such as are happy in the Italian, Will deign to steal out of this author mainly; Almost as much as from _Montagnie_: [42]

He has so modern and facile a vein, Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear! [43]

When Sir Politick (act v. sc. 2) is to be arrested (he is suspected of having got up a conspiracy, and betrayed the Republic of Venice to the Turks), he a.s.serts his innocence; and when his papers are to be examined, he exclaims:--

Alas, Sir! I have none but notes Drawn out of play-books-- And some essays. [44]

Mosca (act i-v. sc. 2), spurring on his counsel, says:--

Mercury sit upon your thundering tongue, Or the _French Hercules_ [45] and make your language As conquering as his club, to beat along, As with a tempest, flat, our adversaries.

Hamlet, when asked by the King how he 'calls the play, answers:--'_The Mouse-trap_.' Mosca calls his own cunningness with which he thinks he can overreach his master, the '_Fox-trap_.'

If our intention were not to restrict this treatise to desirable limits, many more satirical pa.s.sages might be pointed out in 'Volpone,' which are manifestly directed against 'Hamlet' and Shakspere. Those who take a deeper interest in the subject, will discover not a few pa.s.sages of this kind in 'Volpone.'