ROMEO AND JULIET is the only tragedy which Shakespeare has written entirely on a love-story. It is supposed to have been his first play, and it deserves to stand in that proud rank. There is the buoyant spirit of youth in every line, in the rapturous intoxication of hope, and in the bitterness of despair. It has been said of ROMEO AND JULIET by a great critic, that 'whatever is most intoxicating in the odour of a southern spring, languishing in the song of the nightingale, or voluptuous in the first opening of the rose, is to be found in this poem'. The description is true; and yet it does not answer to our idea of the play. For if it has the sweetness of the rose, it has its freshness too; if it has the languor of the nightingale's song, it has also its giddy transport; if it has the softness of a southern spring, it is as glowing and as bright. There is nothing of a sickly and sentimental cast. Romeo and Juliet are in love, but they are not love-sick. Everything speaks the very soul of pleasure, the high and healthy pulse of the passions: the heart beats, the blood circulates and mantles throughout. Their courtship is not an insipid interchange of sentiments lip-deep, learnt at second-hand from poems and plays,—made up of beauties of the most shadowy kind, of 'fancies wan that hang the pensive head', of evanescent smiles and sighs that breathe not, of delicacy that shrinks from the touch and feebleness that scarce supports itself, an elaborate vacuity of thought, and an artificial dearth of sense, spirit, truth, and nature!—It is the reverse of all this. It is Shakespeare all over, and Shakespeare when he was young.
We have heard it objected to ROMEO AND JULIET that it is founded on an idle passion between a boy and a girl, who have scarcely seen and can have but little sympathy or rational esteem for one another, who have had no experience of the good or ills of life, and whose raptures or despair must be therefore equally groundless and fantastical. Whoever objects to the youth of the parties in this play as 'too unripe and crude' to pluck the sweets of love, and wishes to see a first-love carried on into a good old age, and the passions taken at the rebound, when their force is spent, may find all this done in the Stranger and in other German plays, where they do things by contraries, and transpose nature to inspire sentiment and create philosophy. Shakespeare proceeded in a more straightforward and, we think, effectual way. He did not endeavour to extract beauty from wrinkles, or the wild throb of passion from the last expiring sigh of indifference. He did not 'gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles'. It was not his way. But he has given a picture of human life, such as it is in the order of nature. He has founded the passion of the two lovers not on the pleasures they had experienced, but on all the pleasures they had NOT experienced. All that was to come of life was theirs. At that untried source of promised happiness they slaked their thirst, and the first eager draught made them drunk with love and joy. They were in full possession of their senses and their affections. Their hopes were of air, their desires of fire. Youth is the season of love, because the heart is then first melted in tenderness from the touch of novelty, and kindled to rapture, for it knows no end of its enjoyments or its wishes. Desire has no limit but itself. Passion, the love and expectation of pleasure, is infinite, extravagant, inexhaustible, till experience comes to check and kill it. Juliet exclaims on her first interview with Romeo:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,My love as deep.
And why should it not? What was to hinder the thrilling tide of pleasure, which had just gushed from her heart, from flowing on without stint or measure, but experience which she was yet without? What was to abate the transport of the first sweet sense of pleasure, which her heart and her senses had just tasted, but indifference which she was yet a stranger to? What was there to check the ardour of hope, of faith, of constancy, just rising in her breast, but disappointment which she had not yet felt? As are the desires and the hopes of youthful passion, such is the keenness of its disappointments, and their baleful effect. Such is the transition in this play from the highest bliss to the lowest despair, from the nuptial couch to an untimely grave. The only evil that even in apprehension befalls the two lovers is the loss of the greatest possible felicity; yet this loss is fatal to both, for they had rather part with life than bear the thought of surviving all that had made life dear to them. In all this, Shakespeare has but followed nature, which existed in his time, as well as now. The modern philosophy, which reduces the whole theory of the mind to habitual impressions, and leaves the natural impulses of passion and imagination out of the account, had not then been discovered; or if it had, would have been little calculated for the uses of poetry.
It is the inadequacy of the same false system of philosophy to account for the strength of our earliest attachments, which has led Mr. Wordsworth to indulge in the mystical visions of Platonism in his Ode on the Progress of Life. He has very admirably described the vividness of our impressions in youth and childhood, and how 'they fade by degrees into the light of common day', and he ascribes the change to the supposition of a pre-existent state, as if our early thoughts were nearer heaven, reflections of former trails of glory, shadows of our past being. This is idle. It is not from the knowledge of the past that the first impressions of things derive their gloss and splendour, but from our ignorance of the future, which fills the void to come with the warmth of our desires, with our gayest hopes, and brightest fancies. It is the obscurity spread before it that colours the prospect of life with hope, as it is the cloud which reflects the rainbow. There is no occasion to resort to any mystical union and transmission of feeling through different states of being to account for the romantic enthusiasm of youth; nor to plant the root of hope in the grave, nor to derive it from the skies. Its root is in the heart of man: it lifts its head above the stars. Desire and imagination are inmates of the human breast. The heaven 'that lies about us in our infancy' is only a new world, of which we know nothing but what we wish it to be, and believe all that we wish. In youth and boyhood, the world we live in is the world of desire, and of fancy: it is experience that brings us down to the world of reality. What is it that in youth sheds a dewy light round the evening star? That makes the daisy look so bright? That perfumes the hyacinth? That embalms the first kiss of love? It is the delight of novelty, and the seeing no end to the pleasure that we fondly believe is still in store for us. The heart revels in the luxury of its own thoughts, and is unable to sustain the weight of hope and love that presses upon it.—The effects of the passion of love alone might have dissipated Mr. Wordsworth's theory, if he means anything more by it than an ingenious and poetical allegory. THAT at least is not a link in the chain let down from other worlds; 'the purple light of love' is not a dim reflection of the smiles of celestial bliss. It does not appear till the middle of life, and then seems like 'another morn risen on midday'. In this respect the soul comes into the world 'in utter nakedness'. Love waits for the ripening of the youthful blood. The sense of pleasure precedes the love of pleasure, but with the sense of pleasure, as soon as it is felt, come thronging infinite desires and hopes of pleasure, and love is mature as soon as born. It withers and it dies almost as soon!
This play presents a beautiful coup d'oeil of the progress of human life. In thought it occupies years, and embraces the circle of the affections from childhood to old age. Juliet has become a great girl, a young woman since we first remember her a little thing in the idle prattle of the nurse. Lady Capulet was about her age when she became a mother, and old Capulet somewhat impatiently tells his younger visitors:
—I've seen the day,That I have worn a visor, and could tellA whispering tale in a fair lady's ear,Such as would please: 'tis gone, 'tis gone, 'tis gone.
Thus one period of life makes way for the following, and one generation pushes another off the stage. One of the most striking passages to show the intense feeling of youth in this play is Capulet's invitation to Paris to visit his entertainment.
At my poor house, look to behold this nightEarth-treading stars that make dark heav'n light;Such comfort as do lusty young men feelWhen well-apparel'd April on the heelOf limping winter treads, even such delightAmong fresh female-buds shall you this nightInherit at my house.
The feelings of youth and of the spring are here blended together like the breath of opening flowers. Images of vernal beauty appear to have floated before the author's mind, in writing this poem, in profusion. Here is another of exquisite beauty, brought in more by accident than by necessity. Montague declares of his son smit with a hopeless passion, which he will not reveal:
But he, his own affection's counsellor,Is to himself so secret and so close,So far from sounding and discovery,As is the bud bit with an envious worm,Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
This casual description is as full of passionate beauty as when Romeo dwells in frantic fondness on 'the white wonder of his Juliet's hand'. The reader may, if he pleases, contrast the exquisite pastoral simplicity of the above lines with the gorgeous description of Juliet when Romeo first sees her at her father's house, surrounded by company and artificial splendour.
What lady's that which doth enrich the handOf yonder knight?O she doth teach the torches to burn bright;Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,Like a rich jewel in an Aethiop's ear.
It would be hard to say which of the two garden scenes is the finest, that where he first converses with his love, or takes leave of her the morning after their marriage. Both are like a heaven upon earth: the blissful bowers of Paradise let down upon this lower world. We will give only one passage of these well-known scenes to show the perfect refinement and delicacy of Shakespeare's conception of the female character. It is wonderful how Collins, who was a critic and a poet of great sensibility, should have encouraged the common error on this subject by saying—'But stronger Shakespeare felt for man alone'.
The passage we mean is Juliet's apology for her maiden boldness.
Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face;Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheekFor that which thou hast heard me speak to-night.Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain denyWhat I have spoke—but farewell compliment:Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say, aye,And I will take thee at thy word—Yet if thou swear'st,Thou may'st prove false; at lovers' perjuriesThey say Jove laughs. Oh gentle Romeo,If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully;Or if thou think 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.In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond;And therefore thou may'st think my 'haviour light;But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more trueThan those that have more cunning to be strange.I should have been more strange, I must confess,But that thou over-heard'st, ere I was ware,My true love's passion; therefore pardon me,And not impute this yielding to light love,Which the dark night hath so discovered.
In this and all the rest her heart, fluttering between pleasure, hope, and fear, seems to have dictated to her tongue, and 'calls true love spoken simple modesty'. Of the same sort, but bolder in virgin innocence, is her soliloquy after her marriage with Romeo.
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,Towards Phoebus' mansion; such a wagonerAs Phaeton would whip you to the west,And bring in cloudy night immediately.Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night;That run-aways' eyes may wink; and RomeoLeap to these arms, untalked of, and unseen!—-Lovers can see to do their amorous ritesBy their own beauties: or if love be blind,It best agrees with night.—Come, civil night,Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,And learn me how to lose a winning match,Play'd for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:Hood my unmann'd blood bating in my cheeks,With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold,Thinks true love acted, simple modesty.Come night!—Come, Romeo! come, thou day in night;For thou wilt lie upon the wings of nightWhiter than new snow on a raven's back.—-Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-brow'd night,Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die,Take him and cut him out in little stars,And he will make the face of heaven so fine,That all the world shall be in love with night,And pay no worship to the garish sun.—-O, I have bought the mansion of a love,But not possess'd it; and though I am sold,Not yet enjoy'd: so tedious is this day,As is the night before some festivalTo an impatient child, that hath new robes,And may not wear them.
We the rather insert this passage here, inasmuch as we have no doubt it has been expunged from the Family Shakespeare. Such critics do not perceive that the feelings of the heart sanctify, without disguising, the impulses of nature. Without refinement themselves, they confound modesty with hypocrisy. Not so the German critic, Schlegel. Speaking of Romeo and Juliet, he says, 'It was reserved for Shakespeare to unite purity of heart and the glow of imagination, sweetness and dignity of manners and passionate violence, in one ideal picture.' The character is indeed one of perfect truth and sweetness. It has nothing forward, nothing coy, nothing affected or coquettish about it;—it is a pure effusion of nature. It is as frank as it is modest, for it has no thought that it wishes to conceal. It reposes in conscious innocence on the strength of its affections. Its delicacy does not consist in coldness and reserve, but in combining warmth of imagination and tenderness of heart with the most voluptuous sensibility. Love is a gentle flame that rarefies and expands her whole being. What an idea of trembling haste and airy grace, borne upon the thoughts of love, does the Friar's exclamation give of her, as she approaches his cell to be married:
Here comes the lady. Oh, so light of footWill ne'er wear out the everlasting flint:A lover may bestride the gossamer,That idles in the wanton summer air,And yet not fall, so light is vanity.
The tragic part of this character is of a piece with the rest. It is the heroic founded on tenderness and delicacy. Of this kind are her resolution to follow the Friar's advice, and the conflict in her bosom between apprehension and love when she comes to take the sleeping poison. Shakespeare is blamed for the mixture of low characters. If this is a deformity, it is the source of a thousand beauties. One instance is the contrast between the guileless simplicity of Juliet's attachment to her first love, and the convenient policy of the nurse in advising her to marry Paris, which excites such indignation in her mistress. 'Ancient damnation! oh most wicked fiend', &c.
Romeo is Hamlet in love. There is the same rich exuberance of passion and sentiment in the one, that there is of thought and sentiment in the other. Both are absent and self-involved, both live out of themselves in a world of imagination. Hamlet is abstracted from everything; Romeo is abstracted from everything but his love, and lost in it. His 'frail thoughts dally with faint surmise', and are fashioned out of the suggestions of hope, 'the flatteries of sleep'. He is himself only in his Juliet; she is his only reality, his heart's true home and idol. The rest of the world is to him a passing dream. How finely is this character portrayed where he recollects himself on seeing Paris slain at the tomb of Juliet!
What said my man, when my betossed soulDid not attend him as we rode? I thinkHe told me Paris should have married Juliet.
And again, just before he hears the sudden tidings of her death:
If I may trust the flattery of sleep,My dreams presage some joyful news at hand;My bosom's lord sits lightly on his throne,And all this day an unaccustom'd spiritLifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,(Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to think)And breath'd such life with kisses on my lips,That I reviv'd and was an emperor.Ah me! how sweet is love itself possessed,When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!
Romeo's passion for Juliet is not a first love: it succeeds and drives out his passion for another mistress, Rosaline, as the sun hides the stars. This is perhaps an artifice (not absolutely necessary) to give us a higher opinion of the lady, while the first absolute surrender of her heart to him enhances the richness of the prize. The commencement, progress, and ending of his second passion are however complete in themselves, not injured, if they are not bettered by the first. The outline of the play is taken from an Italian novel; but the dramatic arrangement of the different scenes between the lovers, the more than dramatic interest in the progress of the story, the development of the characters with time and circumstances, just according to the degree and kind of interest excited, are not inferior to the expression of passion and nature. It has been ingeniously remarked among other proofs of skill in the contrivance of the fable, that the improbability of the main incident in the piece, the administering of the sleeping-potion, is softened and obviated from the beginning by the introduction of the Friar on his first appearance culling simples and descanting on their virtues. Of the passionate scenes in this tragedy, that between the Friar and Romeo when he is told of his sentence of banishment, that between Juliet and the Nurse when she hears of it, and of the death of her cousin Tybalt (which bear no proportion in her mind, when passion after the first shock of surprise throws its weight into the scale of her affections), and the last scene at the tomb, are among the most natural and overpowering. In all of these it is not merely the force of any one passion that is given, but the slightest and most unlooked-for transitions from one to another, the mingling currents of every different feeling rising up and prevailing in turn, swayed by the master-mind of the poet, as the waves undulate beneath the gliding storm. Thus when Juliet has by her complaints encouraged the Nurse to say, 'Shame come to Romeo', she instantly repels the wish, which she had herself occasioned, by answering:
Blister'd be thy tongueFor such a wish, he was not born to shame.Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit,For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown'dSole monarch of the universal earth!O, what a beast was I to chide him so!
Nurse. Will you speak well of him that kill'd your cousin?
Juliet. Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?Ah my poor lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,When I, thy three-hours' wife, have mangled it?
And then follows on the neck of her remorse and returning fondness, that wish treading almost on the brink of impiety, but still held back by the strength of her devotion to her lord, that 'father, mother, nay, or both were dead', rather than Romeo banished. If she requires any other excuse, it is in the manner in which Romeo echoes her frantic grief and disappointment in the next scene at being banished from her.—Perhaps one of the finest pieces of acting that ever was witnessed on the stage, is Mr. Kean's manner of doing this scene and his repetition of the word, BANISHED. He treads close indeed upon the genius of his author.
A passage which this celebrated actor and able commentator on Shakespeare (actors are the best commentators on the poets) did not give with equal truth or force of feeling was the one which Romeo makes at the tomb of Juliet, before he drinks the poison.
—Let me peruse this face—Mercutio's kinsman! noble county Paris!What said my man, when my betossed soulDid not attend him as we rode! I think,He told me, Paris should have married Juliet!Said he not so? or did I dream it so?Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,To think it was so?—O, give me thy hand,One writ with me in sour misfortune's book!I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave—For here lies Juliet.
. . . . . .
—O, my love! my wife!Death that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yetIs crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,And Death's pale flag is not advanced there.—Tybalt, ly'st thou there in thy bloody sheet?O, what more favour can I do to thee,Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain,To sunder his that was thine enemy?Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,Why art thou yet so fair! I will believeThat unsubstantial death is amorous;And that the lean abhorred monster keepsThee here in dark to be his paramour.For fear of that, I will stay still with thee;And never from this palace of dim nightDepart again: here, here will I remainWith worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, hereWill I set up my everlasting rest;And shake the yoke of inauspicious starsFrom this world-wearied flesh.—Eyes, look your last!Arms, take your last embrace! and lips, O youThe doors of breath, seal with a righteous kissA dateless bargain to engrossing death!—Come, bitter conduct, come unsavoury guide!Thou desperate pilot, now at once run onThe dashing rocks my sea-sick weary bark!Here's to my love!—[Drinks.] O, true apothecary!Thy drugs are quick.—Thus with a kiss I die.
The lines in this speech describing the loveliness of Juliet, who is supposed to be dead, have been compared to those in which it is said of Cleopatra after her death, that she looked 'as she would take another Antony in her strong toil of grace;' and a question has been started which is the finest, that we do not pretend to decide. We can more easily decide between Shakespeare and any other author, than between him and himself.—Shall we quote any more passages to show his genius or the beauty of ROMEO AND JULIET? At that rate, we might quote the whole. The late Mr. Sheridan, on being shown a volume of the Beauties of Shakespeare, very properly asked—'But where are the other eleven?' The character of Mercutio in this play is one of the most mercurial and spirited of the productions of Shakespeare's comic muse.
We wish that we could pass this play over, and say nothing about it. All that we can say must fall far short of the subject; or even of what we ourselves conceive of it. To attempt to give a description of the play itself or of its effect upon the mind, is mere impertinence: yet we must say something.—It is then the best of all Shakespeare's plays, for it is the one in which he was the most in earnest. He was here fairly caught in the web of his own imagination. The passion which he has taken as his subject is that which strikes its root deepest into the human heart; of which the bond is the hardest to be unloosed; and the cancelling and tearing to pieces of which gives the greatest revulsion to the frame. This depth of nature, this force of passion, this tug and war of the elements of our being, this firm faith in filial piety, and the giddy anarchy and whirling tumult of the thoughts at finding this prop failing it, the contrast between the fixed, immoveable basis of natural affection, and the rapid, irregular starts of imagination, suddenly wrenched from all its accustomed holds and resting-places in the soul, this is what Shakespeare has given, and what nobody else but he could give. So we believe.—The mind of Lear staggering between the weight of attachment and the hurried movements of passion is like a tall ship driven about by the winds, buffeted by the furious waves, but that still rides above the storm, having its anchor fixed in the bottom of the sea; or it is like the sharp rock circled by the eddying whirlpool that foams and beats against it, or like the solid promontory pushed from its basis by the force of an earthquake.
The character of Lear itself is very finely conceived for the purpose. It is the only ground on which such a story could be built with the greatest truth and effect. It is his rash haste, his violent impetuosity, his blindness to everything but the dictates of his passions or affections, that produces all his misfortunes, that aggravates his impatience of them, that enforces our pity for him. The part which Cordelia bears in the scene is extremely beautiful: the story is almost told in the first words she utters. We see at once the precipice on which the poor old king stands from his own extravagant and credulous importunity, the indiscreet simplicity of her love (which, to be sure, has a little of her father's obstinacy in it) and the hollowness of her sisters' pretensions. Almost the first burst of that noble tide of passion, which runs through the play, is in the remonstrance of Kent to his royal master on the injustice of his sentence against his youngest daughter—'Be Kent unmannerly, when Lear is mad!' This manly plainness which draws down on him the displeasure of the unadvised king is worthy of the fidelity with which he adheres to his fallen fortunes. The true character of the two eldest daughters, Regan and Gonerill (they are so thoroughly hateful that we do not even like to repeat their names) breaks out in their answer to Cordelia who desires them to treat their father well—'Prescribe not us our duties'—their hatred of advice being in proportion to their determination to do wrong, and to their hypocritical pretensions to do right. Their deliberate hypocrisy adds the last finishing to the odiousness of their characters. It is the absence of this detestable quality that is the only relief in the character of Edmund the Bastard, and that at times reconciles us to him. We are not tempted to exaggerate the guilt of his conduct, when he himself gives it up as a bad business, and writes himself down 'plain villain'. Nothing more can be said about it. His religious honesty in this respect is admirable. One speech of his is worth a million. His father, Gloster, whom he has just deluded with a forged story of his brother Edgar's designs against his life, accounts for his unnatural behaviour and the strange depravity of the times from the late eclipses in the sun and moon. Edmund, who is in the secret, says when he is gone: 'This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars: as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tale, and my nativity was under Ursa Major: so that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. I should have been what I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.'—The whole character, its careless, light-hearted villany, contrasted with the sullen, rancorous malignity of Regan and Gonerill, its connexion with the conduct of the under-plot, in which Gloster's persecution of one of his sons and the ingratitude of another, form a counterpart to the mistakes and misfortunes of Lear—his double amour with the two sisters, and the share which he has in bringing about the fatal catastrophe, are all managed with an uncommon degree of skill and power.
It has been said, and we think justly, that the third act of OTHELLO, and the three first acts of LEAR, are Shakespeare's great masterpieces in the logic of passion: that they contain the highest examples not only of the force of individual passion, but of its dramatic vicissitudes and striking effects arising from the different circumstances and characters of the persons speaking. We see the ebb and flow of the feeling, its pauses and feverish starts, its impatience of opposition, its accumulating force when it has time to recollect itself, the manner in which it avails itself of every passing word or gesture, its haste to repel insinuation, the alternate contraction and dilatation of the soul, and all 'the dazzling fence of controversy' in this mortal combat with poisoned weapons, aimed at the heart, where each wound is fatal. We have seen in OTHELLO, how the unsuspecting frankness and impetuous passions of the Moor are played upon and exasperated by the artful dexterity of Iago. In the present play, that which aggravates the sense of sympathy in the reader, and of uncontrollable anguish in the swollen heart of Lear, is the petrifying indifference, the cold, calculating, obdurate selfishness of his daughters. His keen passions seem whetted on their stony hearts. The contrast would be too painful, the shock too great, but for the intervention of the Fool, whose well-timed levity comes in to break the continuity of feeling when it can no longer be borne, and to bring into play again the fibres of the heart just as they are growing rigid from over-strained excitement. The imagination is glad to take refuge in the half-comic, half-serious comments of the Fool, just as the mind under the extreme anguish of a surgical operation vents itself in sallies of wit. The character was also a grotesque ornament of the barbarous times, in which alone the tragic ground-work of the story could be laid. In another point of view it is indispensable, inasmuch as while it is a diversion to the too great intensity of our disgust, it carries the pathos to the highest pitch of which it is capable, by showing the pitiable weakness of the old king's conduct and its irretrievable consequences in the most familiar point of view. Lear may well 'beat at the gate which let his folly in', after, as the Fool says, 'he has made his daughters his mothers'. The character is dropped in the third act to make room for the entrance of Edgar as Mad Tom, which well accords with the increasing bustle and wildness of the incidents; and nothing can be more complete than the distinction between Lear's real and Edgar's assumed madness, while the resemblance in the cause of their distresses, from the severing of the nearest ties of natural affection, keeps up a unity of interest. Shakespeare's mastery over his subject, if it was not art, was owing to a knowledge of the connecting links of the passions, and their effect upon the mind, still more wonderful than any systematic adherence to rules, and that anticipated and outdid all the efforts of the most refined art, not inspired and rendered instinctive by genius.
One of the most perfect displays of dramatic power is the first interview between Lear and his daughter, after the designed affronts upon him, which till one of his knights reminds him of them, his sanguine temperament had led him to overlook. He returns with his train from hunting, and his usual impatience breaks out in his first words, 'Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go, get it ready.' He then encounters the faithful Kent in disguise, and retains him in his service; and the first trial of his honest duty is to trip up the heels of the officious Steward who makes so prominent and despicable a figure through the piece. On the entrance of Gonerill the following dialogue takes place:
Lear. How now, daughter? what makes that frontlet on?Methinks, you are too much of late i' the frown.
Fool. Thou wast a pretty fellow, when thou had'st noneed to care for her frowning; now thou art an O withouta figure: I am better than thou art now; I am a fool, thouart nothing.—Yes, forsooth, I will hold my tongue; [ToGonerill.] so your face bids me, though you say nothing.Mum, mum.
He that keeps nor crust nor crum,Weary of all, shall want some—That's a sheal'd peascod! [Pointing to Lear.]
Gonerill. Not only, sir, this your all-licens'd fool,But other of your insolent retinueDo hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forthIn rank and not-to-be-endured riots.I had thought, by making this well known unto you,To have found a safe redress; but now grow fearful,By what yourself too late have spoke and done,That you protect this course, and put it onBy your allowance; which if you should, the faultWould not 'scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,Which in the tender of a wholesome weal,Might in their working do you that offence,(Which else were shame) that then necessityWould call discreet proceeding.
Fool. For you trow, nuncle,The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,That it had its head bit off by its young.So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.
Lear. Are you our daughter?
Gonerill. Come, sir,I would, you would make use of that good wisdomWhereof I know you are fraught; and put awayThese dispositions, which of late transform youFrom what you rightly are.
Fool. May not an ass know when the cart draws thehorse?—Whoop, Jug, I love thee.
Lear. Does any here know me?—Why, this is notLear:Does Lear walk thus? speak thus?—Where are his eyes?Either his notion weakens, or his discerningsAre lethargy'd—Ha! waking?—'Tis not so.—Who is it that can tell me who I am?—Lear's shadow?I would learn that: for by the marksOf sov'reignty, of knowledge, and of reason,I should be false persuaded I had daughters.—Your name, fair gentlewoman?
Gonerill. Come, sir:This admiration is much o' the favourOf other your new pranks. I do beseech youTo understand my purposes aright:As you are old and reverend, you should be wise:Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;Men so disorder'd, so debauch'd, and bold,That this our court, infected with their manners,Shows like a riotous inn: epicurism and lustMake it more like a tavern, or a brothel,Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speakFor instant remedy: be then desir'dBy her, that else will take the thing she begs,A little to disquantity your train;And the remainder, that shall still depend,To be such men as may besort your age,And know themselves and you.
Lear. Darkness and devils!Saddle my horses; call my train together.—Degenerate Bastard! I'll not trouble thee;Yet have I left a daughter.
Gonerill. You strike my people, and your disorder'd rabbleMake servants of their betters.
Enter Albany
Lear. Woe, that too late repents—O, sir, are you come?Is it your will? speak, sir.—Prepare my horses.—[To Albany.]Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child,Than the sea-monster!
Albany. Pray, sir, be patient.
Lear. Detested kite! thou liest. [To Gonerill.]My train are men of choice and rarest parts,That all particulars of duty know;And in the most exact regard supportThe worships of their name.—O most small fault,How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!Which, like an engine, wrench'd my frame of natureFrom the fixt place; drew from my heart all love,And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!Beat at the gate, that let thy folly in,[Striking his head.]And thy dear judgement out!—Go, go, my people!
Albany. My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorantOf what hath mov'd you.
Lear. It may be so, my lord—Hear, nature, hear: dear goddess, hear!Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intendTo make this creature fruitful!Into her womb convey sterility;Dry up in her the organs of increase;And from her derogate body never springA babe to honour her! If she must teem,Create her child of spleen: that it may live,To be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her!Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;Turn all her mother's pains, and benefits,To laughter and contempt; that she may feelHow sharper than a serpent's tooth it isTo have a thankless child!—Away, away![Exit.]
Albany. Now, gods, that we adore, whereof comes this?
Gonerill. Never afflict yourself to know the cause;But let his disposition have that scopeThat dotage gives it.
Re-enter Lear
Lear. What, fifty of my followers at a clap!Within a fortnight!
Albany. What's the matter, sir?
Lear. I'll tell thee; life and death! I am asham'dThat thou hast power to shake my manhood thus:[To Gonerill.]That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,Should make thee worth them.—Blasts and fogs upon thee!The untented woundings of a father's cursePierce every sense about thee!—Old fond eyes,Beweep this cause again, I'll pluck you out;And cast you, with the waters that you lose,To temper clay.—Ha! is it come to this?Let it be so:—Yet have I left a daughter,Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable;When she shall hear this of thee, with her nailsShe'll flay thy wolfish visage. Thou shalt findThat I'll resume the shape, which thou dost thinkI have cast off forever.
[Exeunt Lear, Kent, and Attendants.]
This is certainly fine: no wonder that Lear says after it, 'O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heavens,' feeling its effects by anticipation: but fine as is this burst of rage and indignation at the first blow aimed at his hopes and expectations, it is nothing near so fine as what follows from his double disappointment, and his lingering efforts to see which of them he shall lean upon for support and find comfort in, when both his daughters turn against his age and weakness. It is with some difficulty that Lear gets to speak with his daughter Regan, and her husband, at Gloster's castle. In concert with Gonerill they have left their own home on purpose to avoid him. His apprehensions are fast alarmed by this circumstance, and when Gloster, whose guests they are, urges the fiery temper of the Duke of Cornwall as an excuse for not importuning him a second time, Lear breaks out:
Vengeance! Plague! Death! Confusion!Fiery? What fiery quality? Why, Gloster,I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
Afterwards, feeling perhaps not well himself, he is inclined to admit their excuse from illness, but then recollecting that they have set his messenger (Kent) in the stocks, all his suspicions are roused again, and he insists on seeing them.
Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloster, and Servants.
Lear. Good-morrow to you both.
Cornwall. Hail to your grace!
[Kent is set at liberty.]
Regan. I am glad to see your highness.
Lear. Regan, I think you are; I know what reasonI have to think so; if thou should'st not be glad,I would divorce me from thy mother's tomb,Sepulch'ring an adultress.—O, are you free?[To Kent.]Some other time for that.—Beloved Regan,Thy sister's naught: O Regan, she hath tiedSharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture, here—[Points to his heart.]I can scarce speak to thee; thou'lt not believe,Of how deprav'd a quality—o Regan!
Regan. I pray you, sir, take patience; I have hopeYou less know how to value her desert,Than she to scant her duty.
Lear. Say, how is that?
Regan. I cannot think my sister in the leastWould fail her obligation; if, sir, perchance,She have restrain'd the riots of your followers,'Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,As clears her from all blame.
Lear. My curses on her!
Regan. O, sir, you are old;Nature in you stands on the very vergeOf her confine: you should be rul'd, and ledBy some discretion, that discerns your stateBetter than you yourself: therefore, I pray you,That to our sister you do make return;Say, you have wrong'd her, sir.
Lear. Ask her forgiveness?Do you but mark how this becomes the use?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.
Regan. Good sir, no more; these are unsightly tricks:Return you to my sister.
Lear. Never, Regan:She hath abated me of half my train;Look'd blank upon me; struck me with her tongue,Most serpent-like, upon the very heart:—All the stor'd vengeances of heaven fallOn her ungrateful top! Strike her young bones,You taking airs, with lameness!
Cornwall. Fie, sir, fie!
Lear: You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flamesInto her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,You fen-suck'd fogs, drawn by the powerful sun,To fall, and blast her pride!
Regan. O the blest gods!So will you wish on me, when the rash mood is on.
Lear. No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse;Thy tender-hefted nature shall not giveThee o'er to harshness; her eyes are fierce, but thineDo comfort, and not burn: 'Tis not in theeTo grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,And, in conclusion, to oppose the boltAgainst my coming in: thou better know'stThe offices of nature, bond of childhood,Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude;Thy half o' the kingdom thou hast not forgot,Wherein I thee endow'd.
Regan. Good sir, to the purpose. [Trumpets within]
Lear. Who put my man i' the stocks?
Cornwall. What trumpet's that?
Enter Steward
Regan. I know't, my sister's; this approves her letter,That she would soon be here.—Is your lady come?
Lear. This is a slave, whose easy-borrow'd prideDwells in the fickle grace of her he follows:—Out, varlet, from my sight!
Cornwall. What means your grace?
Lear. Who stock'd my servant? Regan, I have good hopeThou did'st not know on't.—Who comes here? O heavens,
Enter Gonerill
If you do love old men, if your sweet swayAllow obedience, if yourselves are old,Make it your cause; send down, and take my part!—Art not asham'd to look upon this beard?—[To Gonerill.]O, Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?
Gonerill. Why not by the hand, sir? How have Ioffended?All's not offence, that indiscretion finds,And dotage terms so.
Lear. O, sides, you are too tough!Will you yet hold?—How came my man i' the stocks?
Cornwall. I set him there, sir: but his own disordersDeserv'd much less advancement.
Lear. You! did you?
Regan. I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.If, till the expiration of your month,You will return and sojourn with my sister,Dismissing half your train, come then to me;I am now from home, and out of that provisionWhich shall be needful for your entertainment.
Lear. Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd?No, rather I abjure all roofs, and chooseTo be a comrade with the wolf and owl—To wage against the enmity o' the air,Necessity's sharp pinch!—Return with her!Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless tookOur youngest born, I could as well be broughtTo knee his throne, and squire-like pension begTo keep base life afoot.—Return with her!Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpterTo this detested groom. [Looking on the Steward.]
Gonerill. At your choice, sir.
Lear. Now, I pr'ythee, daughter, do not make me mad;I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell:We'll no more meet, no more see one another:—But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;Or, rather, a disease that's in my flesh,Which I must needs call mine: thou art a bile,A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle,In my corrupted blood. But I'll not chide thee:Let shame come when it will, I do not call it:I did not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove:Mend when thou canst; be better, at thy leisure:I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,I, and my hundred knights.
Regan. Not altogether so, sir;I look'd not for you yet, nor am providedFor your fit welcome: Give ear, sir, to my sister;For those that mingle reason with your passionMust be content to think you old, and so—But she knows what she does.
Lear. Is this well spoken now?
Regan. I dare avouch it, sir: What, fifty followers?Is it not well? What should you need of more?Yea, or so many? Sith that both charge and dangerSpeak 'gainst so great a number? How, in one house,Should many people, under two commands,Hold amity? Tis hard; almost impossible.
Gonerill. Why might you not, my lord, receive attendanceFrom those that she calls servants, or from mine?
Regan. Why not, my lord? If then they chanc'd to slack you,We would control them: if you will come to me(For now I spy a danger) I entreat youTo bring but five-and-twenty; to no moreWill I give place, or notice.
Lear. I gave you all—
Regan. And in good time you gave it.
Lear. Made you my guardians, my depositaries;But kept a reservation to be follow'dWith such a number: what, must I come to youWith five-and-twenty, Regan! said you so?
Regan. And speak it again, my lord; no more with me.
Lear. Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour'd,When others are more wicked; not being the worst,Stands in some rank of praise:—I'll go with thee;[To Gonerill.]Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,And thou art twice her love.
Gonerill. Hear me, my lord;What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,To follow in a house, where twice so manyHave a command to tend you?
Regan. What need one?
Lear. O, reason not the need: our basest beggarsAre in the poorest thing superfluous:Allow not nature more than nature needs,Man's life is cheap as beast's: thou art a lady;If only to go warm were gorgeous,Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st;Which scarcely keeps thee warm.—But, for true need—You heavens, give me that patience which I need!You see me here, you gods; a poor old man,As full of grief as age; wretched in both!If it be you that stir these daughters' heartsAgainst their father, fool me not so muchTo bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger!O, let no woman's weapons, water-drops,Stain my man's cheeks!—No, you unnatural hags,I will have such revenges on you both,That all the world shall—I will do such things—What they are, yet I know not; but they shall beThe terrors of the earth. You think, I'll weep:No, I'll not weep:—I have full cause of weeping; but this heartShall break into a hundred thousand flaws,Or e'er I'll weep:—O, fool, I shall go mad![Exeunt Lear, Gloster, Kent, and Fool.]
If there is anything in any author like this yearning of the heart, these throes of tenderness, this profound expression of all that can be thought and felt in the most heart-rending situations, we are glad of it; but it is in some author that we have not read.
The scene in the storm, where he is exposed to all the fury of the elements, though grand and terrible, is not so fine, but the moralizing scenes with Mad Tom, Kent, and Gloster, are upon a par with the former. His exclamation in the supposed trial-scene of his daughters, 'See the little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see they bark at me,' his issuing his orders, 'Let them anatomize Regan, see what breeds about her heart,' and his reflection when he sees the misery of Edgar, 'Nothing but his unkind daughters could have brought him to this,' are in a style of pathos, where the extremest resources of the imagination are called in to lay open the deepest movements of the heart, which was peculiar to Shakespeare. In the same style and spirit is his interrupting the Fool who asks, 'whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman', by answering 'A king, a king!'
The indirect part that Gloster takes in these scenes where his generosity leads him to relieve Lear and resent the cruelty of his daughters, at the very time that he is himself instigated to seek the life of his son, and suffering under the sting of his supposed ingratitude, is a striking accompaniment to the situation of Lear. Indeed, the manner in which the threads of the story are woven together is almost as wonderful in the way of art as the carrying on the tide of passion, still varying and unimpaired, is on the score of nature. Among the remarkable instances of this kind are Edgar's meeting with his old blind father; the deception he practises upon him when he pretends to lead him to the top of Dover-cliff—'Come on, sir, here's the place,' to prevent his ending his life and miseries together; his encounter with the perfidious Steward whom he kills, and his finding the letter from Gonerill to his brother upon him which leads to the final catastrophe, and brings the wheel of Justice 'full circle home' to the guilty parties. The bustle and rapid succession of events in the last scenes is surprising. But the meeting between Lear and Cordelia is by far the most affecting part of them. It has all the wildness of poetry, and all the heartfelt truth of nature. The previous account of her reception of the news of his unkind treatment, her involuntary reproaches to her sisters, 'Shame, ladies, shame,' Lear's backwardness to see his daughter, the picture of the desolate state to which he is reduced, 'Alack, 'tis he; why he was met even now, as mad as the vex'd sea, singing aloud,' only prepare the way for and heighten our expectation of what follows, and assuredly this expectation is not disappointed when through the tender care of Cordelia he revives and recollects her.
Cordelia. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty!
Lear. You do me wrong, to take me out o' the grave:Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am boundUpon a wheel of fire, that mine own tearsDo scald like molten lead.
Cordelia. Sir, do you know me?
Lear. You are a spirit I know: when did you die?
Cordelia. Still, still, far wide!
Physician. He's scarce awake; let him alone awhile.
Lear. Where have I been? Where am I?—Fair daylight?—I am mightily abus'd.—I should even die with pity,To see another thus.—I know not what to say.—I will not swear these are my hands:—let's see;I feel this pin prick. 'Would I were assur'dOf my condition.
Cordelia. O, look upon me, sir,And hold your hands in benediction o'er me:—No, sir, you must not kneel.
Lear. Pray, do not mock me:I am a very foolish fond old man,Fourscore and upward;Not an hour more, nor less: and, to deal plainly,I fear, I am not in my perfect mind.Methinks, I shou'd know you, and know this man;Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorantWhat place this is; and all the skill I haveRemembers not these garments; nor I know notWhere I did lodge last night: do not laugh at me;For, as I am a man, I think this ladyTo be my child Cordelia.
Cordelia. And so I am, I am!
Almost equal to this in awful beauty is their consolation of each other when, after the triumph of their enemies, they are led to prison.
Cordelia. We are not the first,Who, with best meaning, have incurr'd the worst.For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down;Myself could else out-frown false fortune's frown.—Shall we not see these daughters, and these sisters?
Lear. No, no, no, no! 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 laughAt gilded butterflies, and hear poor roguesTalk of court news; and we'll talk with them too—Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out;—And take upon us 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.
Edmund. Take them away.
Lear. Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,The gods themselves throw incense.
The concluding events are sad, painfully sad; but their pathos is extreme. The oppression of the feelings is relieved by the very interest we take in the misfortunes of others, and by the reflections to which they give birth. Cordelia is hanged in prison by the orders of the bastard Edmund, which are known too late to be countermanded, and Lear dies broken-hearted, lamenting over her.
Lear. And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life:Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life.And thou no breath at all? O, thou wilt come no more,Never, never, never, never, never!—Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.—-
He dies, and indeed we feel the truth of what Kent says on the occasion—
Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him,That would upon the rack of the rough worldStretch him out longer.
Yet a happy ending has been contrived for this play, which is approved of by Dr. Johnson and condemned by Schlegel. A better authority than either, on any subject in which poetry and feeling are concerned, has given it in favour of Shakespeare, in some remarks on the acting of Lear, with which we shall conclude this account.
The Lear of Shakespeare cannot be acted. The contemptible machinery with which they mimic the storm which he goes out in, is not more inadequate to represent the horrors of the real elements than any actor can be to represent Lear. The greatness of Lear is not in corporal dimension, but in intellectual; the explosions of his passions are terrible as a volcano: they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that rich sea, his mind, with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This case of flesh and blood seems too insignificant to be thought on; even as he himself neglects it. On the stage we see nothing but corporal infirmities and weakness, the impotence of rage; while we read it, we see not Lear, but we are Lear;—we are in his mind, we are sustained by a grandeur, which baffles the malice of daughters and storms; in the aberrations of his reason, we discover a mighty irregular power of reasoning, immethodized from the ordinary purposes of life, but exerting its powers, as the wind blows where it listeth, at will on the corruptions and abuses of mankind. What have looks or tones to do with that sublime identification of his age with that of THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES, when in his reproaches to them for conniving at the injustice of his children, he reminds them that "they themselves are old!" What gesture shall we appropriate to this? What has the voice or the eye to do with such things? But the play is beyond all art, as the tamperings with it show: it is too hard and stony; it must have love-scenes, and a happy ending. It is not enough that Cordelia is a daughter, she must shine as a lover too. Tate has put his hook in the nostrils of this Leviathan, for Garrick and his followers, the showmen of the scene, to draw it about more easily. A happy ending!—as if the living martyrdom that Lear had gone through,—the flaying of his feelings alive, did not make a fair dismissal from the stage of life the only decorous thing for him. If he is to live and be happy after, if he could sustain this world's burden after, why all this pudder and preparation—why torment us with all this unnecessary sympathy? As if the childish pleasure of getting his gilt robes and sceptre again could tempt him to act over again his misused station—as if at his years and with his experience anything was left but to die.' [Footnote: See an article, called 'Theatralia', in the second volume of the Reflector, by Charles Lamb.]
Four things have struck us in reading LEAR:
1. That poetry is an interesting study, for this reason, that it relates to whatever is most interesting in human life. Whoever therefore has a contempt for poetry, has a contempt for himself and humanity.
2. That the language of poetry is superior to the language of painting; because the strongest of our recollections relate to feelings, not to faces.
3. That the greatest strength of genius is shown in describing the strongest passions: for the power of the imagination, in works of invention, must be in proportion to the force of the natural impressions, which are the subject of them.
4. That the circumstance which balances the pleasure against the pain in tragedy is, that in proportion to the greatness of the evil, is our sense and desire of the opposite good excited; and that our sympathy with actual suffering is lost in the strong impulse given to our natural affections, and carried away with the swell-ing tide of passion, that gushes from and relieves the heart.