"Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell."
Afterward, when the deed has been committed, and a knocking is heard at the gate, he cries:
"Wake Duncan with thy knocking. I would thou couldst."
Let me give one more instance of dramatic action. When Antony speaks above the body of Cæsar he says:
"You all do know this mantle: I rememberThe first time ever Cæsar put it on—'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,That day he overcame the Nervii:Look! In this place ran Cassius' dagger through:See what a rent the envious Casca made!Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed,And as he plucked his cursed steel away,Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it."
THERE are men, and many of them, who are always trying to show that somebody else chiseled the statue or painted the picture,—that the poem is attributed to the wrong man, and that the battle was really won by a subordinate.
Of course Shakespeare made use of the work of others—and, we might almost say, of all others. Every writer must use the work of others. The only question is, how the accomplishments of other minds are used, whether as a foundation to build higher, or whether stolen to the end that the thief may make a reputation for himself, without adding to the great structure of literature.
Thousands of people have stolen stones from the Coliseum to make huts for themselves. So thousands of writers have taken the thoughts of others with which to adorn themselves. These are plagiarists. But the man who takes the thought of another, adds to it, gives it intensity and poetic form, throb and life,—is in the highest sense original.
Shakespeare found nearly all of his facts in the writings of others and was indebted to others for most of the stories of his plays. The question is not: Who furnished the stone, or who owned the quarry, but who chiseled the statue?
We now know all the books that Shakespeare could have read, and consequently know many of the sources of his information. We find inPliny's Natural History, published in 1601, the following: "The sea Pontis evermore floweth and runneth out into the Propontis; but the sea never retireth back again with the Impontis." This was the raw material, and out of it Shakespeare made the following:
"Like to the Pontic Sea,Whose icy current and compulsive courseNe'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due onTo the Propontic and the Hellespont———"Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,Shall ne'er turn back, ne'er ebb to humble love,Till that a capable and wide revengeSwallow them up."
Perhaps we can give an idea of the difference between Shakespeare and other poets, by a passage from "Lear." When Cordelia places her hand upon her father's head and speaks of the night and of the storm, an ordinary poet might have said:
"On such a night, a dogShould have stood against my fire."
A very great poet might have gone a step further and exclaimed:
"On such a night, mine enemy's dogShould have stood against my fire."
But Shakespeare said:
"Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me,Should have stood, that night, against my fire."
Of all the poets—of all the writers—Shakespeare is the most original. He is as original as Nature.
It may truthfully be said that "Nature wants stuff to vie strange forms with fancy, to make another."
THERE is in the greatest poetry a kind of extravagance that touches the infinite, and in this Shakespeare exceeds all others.
You will remember the description given of the voyage of Paris in search of Helen:
"The seas and winds, old wranglers, made a truce,And did him service; he touched the ports desired,"
And for an old aunt, whom the Greeks held captive,
"He brought a Grecian queen whose youth and freshnessWrinkles Apollo, and makes stale the morning."
So, in Pericles, when the father finds his daughter, he cries out:
"O Helicanus! strike me, honored sir;Give me a gash, put me to present pain,Lest this great sea of joys, rushing upon me,O'erbear the shores of my mortality."
The greatest compliment that man has ever paid to the woman he adores is this line:
"Eyes that do mislead the morn."
Nothing can be conceived more perfectly poetic.
In that marvellous play, the "Midsummer Nights Dream," is one of the most extravagant things in literature:
"Thou rememberestSince once I sat upon a promontory,And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's backUttering such dulcet and harmonious breathThat the rude sea grew civil at her song,And certain stars shot madly from their spheresTo hear the sea-maid's music."
This is so marvellously told that it almost seems probable.
So the description of Mark Antony:
"For his bountyThere was no winter in't—an autumn t'wasThat grew the more by reaping.His delights Were dolphin-like—they showed his back aboveThe element they lived in."
Think of the astronomical scope and amplitude of this:
"Her bed is India—there she lies a pearl."
Is there anything more intense than these words of Cleopatra?
"Rather on Nilus mud lay me stark nakedAnd let the water-flies blow me into abhorring."
Or this of Isabella:
"The impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,And strip myself to death as to a bedThat longing I've been sick for, ere I yieldMy body up to shame."
Is there an intellectual man in the world who will not agree with this?
"Let me not liveAfter my flame lacks oil, to be the snuffOf younger spirits."
Can anything exceed the words of Troilus when parting with Cressida:
"We two, that with so many thousand sighsDid buy each other, most poorly sell ourselvesWith the rude brevity and discharge of one."Injurious time now with a robber's hasteCrams his rich thievery up, he knows not how;As many farewells as be stars in heaven,With distinct breath and consigned kisses to them,He fumbles up into a loose adieu,And scants us with a single famished kiss,Distasted with the salt of broken tears."
Take this example, where pathos almost touches the grotesque.
"O dear Juliet, why art thou yet so fair?Shall I believe that unsubstantial death is amorous,And that the lean, abhorred monster keeps thee hereI' the dark, to be his paramour?"
Often when reading the marvellous lines of Shakespeare, I feel that his thoughts are "too subtle potent, tuned too sharp in sweetness, for the capacity of my ruder powers." Sometimes I cry out, "O churl!—write all, and leave no thoughts for those who follow after."
SHAKESPEARE was an innovator, an iconoclast. He cared nothing for the authority of men or of schools. He violated the "unities," and cared—nothing for the models of the ancient world.
The Greeks insisted that nothing should be in a play that did not tend to the catastrophe. They did not believe in the episode—in the sudden contrasts of light and shade—in mingling the comic and the tragic. The sunlight never fell upon their tears, and darkness did not overtake their laughter. They believed that nature sympathized or was in harmony with the events of the play. When crime was about to be committed—some horror to be perpetrated—the light grew dim, the wind sighed, the trees shivered, and upon all was the shadow of the coming event.
Shakespeare knew that the play had little to do with the tides and currents of universal life—that Nature cares neither for smiles nor tears, for life nor death, and that the sun shines as gladly on coffins as on cradles.
The first time I visited the Place de la Concorde, where during the French Revolution stood the guillotine, and where now stands an Egyptian obelisk—a bird, sitting on the top, was singing with all its might.—Nature forgets.
One of the most notable instances of the violation by Shakespeare of the classic model, is found in the 6th Scene of the I. Act of Macbeth.
When the King and Banquo approach the castle in which the King is to be murdered that night, no shadow falls athwart the threshold. So beautiful is the scene that the King says:
"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the airNimbly and sweetly recommends itselfUnto our gentle senses."
And Banquo adds:
"This guest of summer,The temple-haunting martlet, does approveBy his loved mansionry that the heaven's breathSmells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze,Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this birdHath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle.Where they most breed and haunt,I have observedThe air is delicate."
Another notable instance is the porter scene immediately following the murder. So, too, the dialogue with the clown who brings the asp to Cleopatra just before the suicide, illustrates my meaning.
I know of one paragraph in the Greek drama worthy of Shakespeare. This is in "Medea." When Medea kills her children she curses Jason, using the ordinary Billingsgate and papal curse, but at the conclusion says: "I pray the gods to make him virtuous, that he may the more deeply feel the pang that I inflict."
Shakespeare dealt in lights and shadows. He was intense. He put noons and midnights side by side. No other dramatist would have dreamed of adding to the pathos—of increasing our appreciation of Lear's agony, by supplementing the wail of the mad king with the mocking laughter of a loving clown.
THE ordinary dramatists—the men of talent—(and there is the same difference between talent and genius that there is between a stone-mason and a sculptor) create characters that become types. Types are of necessity caricatures—actual men and women are to some extent contradictory in their actions. Types are blown in the one direction by the one wind—characters have pilots.
In real people, good and evil mingle. Types are all one way, or all the other—all good, or all bad, all wise or all foolish.
Pecksniff was a perfect type, a perfect hypocrite—and will remain a type as long as language lives—a hypocrite that even drunkenness could not change. Everybody understands Pecksniff, and compared with him Tartuffe was an honest man. Hamlet is an individual, a person, an actual being—and for that reason there is a difference of opinion ias to his motives and as to his character. We differ About Hamlet as we do about Cæsar, or about Shakespeare himself.
Hamlet saw the ghost of his father and heard again his father's voice, and yet, afterwards, he speaks of
"the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns."
In this there is no contradiction. The reason outweighs the senses. If we should see a dead man rise from his grave, we would not, the next day, believe that we did. No one can credit a miracle until it becomes so common that it ceases to be miraculous.
Types are puppets—controlled from without—characters act from within. There is the same difference between characters and types that there is between springs and water-works, between canals and rivers, between wooden soldiers and heroes.
In most plays and in most novels the characters are so shadowy that we have to piece them out with the imagination.
One waking in the morning sometimes sees at the foot of his bed a strange figure—it may be of an ancient lady with cap and ruffles and with the expression of garrulous and fussy old age—but when the light gets stronger, the figure gradually changes and he sees a few clothes on a chair.
The dramatist lives the lives of others, and in order to delineate character must not only have imagination but sympathy with the character delineated. The great dramatist thinks of a character as an entirety, as an individual.
I once had a dream, and in this dream I was discussing a subject with another man. It occurred to me that I was dreaming, and I then said to myself: If this is a dream, I am doing the talking for both sides—consequently I ought to know in advance what the other man is going to say. In my dream I tried the experiment. I then asked the other man a question, and before he answered made up my mind what the answer was to be. To my surprise, the man did not say what I expected he would, and so great was my astonishment that I awoke.
It then occurred to me that I had discovered the secret of Shakespeare. He did, when awake, what I did when asleep—that is, he threw off a character so perfect that it acted independently of him.
In the delineation of character Shakespeare has no rivals. He creates no monsters. His characters do not act without reason, without motive.
Iago had his reasons. In Caliban, nature was not destroyed—and Lady Macbeth certifies that the woman still was in her heart, by saying:
"Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it."
Shakespeare's characters act from within. They are centres of energy. They are not pushed by unseen hands, or pulled by unseen strings. They have objects, desires. They are persons—real, living beings.
Few dramatists succeed in getting their characters loose from the canvas—their backs stick to the wall—they do not have free and independent action—they have no background, no unexpressed motives—no untold desires. They lack the complexity of the real.
Shakespeare makes the character true to itself. Christopher Sly, surrounded by the luxuries of a lord, true to his station, calls for a pot of the smallest ale.
Take one expression by Lady Macbeth. You remember that after the murder is discovered—after the alarm bell is rung—she appears upon the scene wanting to know what has happened. Macduff refuses to tell her, saying that the slightest word would murder as it fell. At this moment Banquo comes upon the scene and Macduff cries out to him:
"Our royal master's murdered."
What does Lady Macbeth then say? She in fact makes a confession of guilt. The weak point in the terrible tragedy is that Duncan was murdered in Macbeth's castle. So when Lady Macbeth hears what they suppose is news to her, she cries:
"What! In our house!"
Had she been innocent, her horror of the crime would have made her forget the place—the venue. Banquo sees through this, and sees through her.
Her expression was a light, by which he saw her guilt—and he answers:
"Too cruel anywhere."
No matter whether Shakespeare delineated clown or king, warrior or maiden—no matter whether his characters are taken from the gutter or the throne—each is a work of consummate art, and when he is unnatural, he is so splendid that the defect is forgotten.
When Romeo is told of the death of Juliet, and thereupon makes up his mind to die upon her grave, he gives a description of the shop where poison could be purchased. He goes into particulars and tells of the alligators stuffed, of the skins of ill-shaped fishes, of the beggarly account of empty boxes, of the remnants of pack-thread, and old cakes of roses—and while it is hardly possible to believe that under such circumstances a man would take the trouble to make an inventory of a strange kind of drug-store, yet the inventory is so perfect—the picture is so marvellously drawn—that we forget to think whether it is natural or not.
In making the frame of a great picture—of a great scene—Shakespeare was often careless, but the picture is perfect. In making the sides of the arch he was negligent, but when he placed the keystone, it burst into blossom. Of course there are many lines in Shakepeare that never should have been written. In other words, there are imperfections in his plays. But we must remember that Shakespeare furnished the torch that enables us to see these imperfections.
Shakespeare speaks through his characters, and we must not mistake what the characters say, for the opinion of Shakespeare. No one can believe that Shakespeare regarded life as "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." That was the opinion of a murderer, surrounded by avengers, and whose wife—partner in his crimes—troubled with thick-coming fancies—had gone down to her death.
Most actors and writers seem to suppose that the lines called "The Seven Ages" contain Shakespeare's view of human life. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The lines were uttered by a cynic, in contempt and scorn of the human race.
Shakespeare did not put his characters in the livery and uniform of some weakness, peculiarity or passion. He did not use names as tags or brands. He did not write under the picture, "This is a villain." His characters need no suggestive names to tell us what they are—we see them and we know them for ourselves.
It may be that in the greatest utterances of the greatest characters in the supreme moments, we have the real thoughts, opinions and convictions of Shakespeare.
Of all writers Shakespeare is the most impersonal.. He speaks through others, and the others seem to speak for themselves. The didactic is lost in the dramatic. He does not use the stage as a pulpit to enforce some maxim. He is as reticent as Nature.
He idealizes the common and transfigures all he touches—but he does not preach. He was in-terested in men and things as they were. He did not seek: to change them—but to portray, he wasNature's mirror—and in that mirror Nature saw herself.
When I stood amid the great trees of California that lift their spreading capitals against the clouds, looking like Nature's columns to support the sky, I thought of the poetry of Shakespeare.
WHAT a procession of men and women—statesmen and warriors—kings and clowns—issued from Shakespeare's brain. What women!
Isabella—in whose spotless life love and reason blended into perfect truth.
Juliet—within whose heart passion and purity met like white and red within the bosom of a rose.
Cordelia—who chose to suffer loss, rather than show her wealth of love with those who gilded lies in hope of gain.
Hermione—"tender as infancy and grace"—who bore with perfect hope and faith the cross of shame, and who at last forgave with all her heart.
Desdemona—so innocent, so perfect, her love so pure, that she was incapable of suspecting that another could suspect, and who with dying words sought to hide her lover's crime—and with her last faint breath uttered a loving lie that burst into a perfumed lily between her pallid lips.
Perdita—A violet dim, and sweeter than the lids of Junos eyes—"The sweetest low-born lass that ever ran on the green sward." And Helena—who said:
"I know I love in vain, strive against hope—Yet in this captious and intenable sieveI still pour in the waters of my love,And lack not to lose still,Thus, Indian-like, Religious in mine error, I adoreThe sun that looks upon his worshipper,But knows of him no more."
Miranda—who told her love as gladly as a flower gives its bosom to the kisses of the sun.
And Cordelia, whose kisses cured and whose tears restored. And stainless Imogen, who cried:
"What is it to be false?"
And here is the description of the perfect woman:
"To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;To keep her constancy in plight and youth—Outliving beauty's outward with a mindThat doth renew swifter than blood decays."
Shakespeare done more for woman than all the other dramatists of the world.
For my part. I love the Clowns. I loveLaunceand his dog Crabb, andGobbo, whose conscience threw its arms around the neck of his heart, andTouchstone, with his lie seven times removed; and dear oldDogberry—a pretty piece of flesh, tedious as a king. AndBottom, the very paramour for a sweet voice, longing to take the part to tear a cat in; andAutolycus, the snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, sleeping out the thought for the life to come. And greatSir John, without conscience, and for that reason unblamed and enjoyed—and who at the end babbles of green fields, and is almost loved. And ancientPistol, the world his oyster. AndBardolph, with the flea on his blazing nose, putting beholders in mind of a damned soul in hell. And the poorFool, who followed the mad king, and went "to bed at noon." And the clown who carried the worm of Nilus, whose "biting was immortal." AndCorin, the shepherd—who described the perfect man: "I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat—get that I wear—owe no man aught—envy no man's happiness—glad of other men's good—content."
And mingling in this motley throng,Lear, within whose brain a tempest raged until the depths were stirred, and the intellectual wealth of a life was given back to memory—and then by madness thrown to storm and night—and when I read the living lines I feel as though I looked upon the sea and saw it wrought by frenzied whirlwinds, until the buried treasures and the sunken wrecks of all the years were cast upon the shores.
AndOthello—who like the base Indian threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe.
AndHamlet—thought-entangted—hesitating between two worlds.
AndMacbeth—strange mingling of cruelty and conscience, reaping the sure harvest of successful crime—"Curses not loud but deep—mouth-honor,—breath."
AndBrutus, falling on his sword that Cæsar might be still.
AndRomeo, dreaming of the white wonder of Juliet's hand. AndFerdinand, the patient log-man for Miranda's sake. AndFlorizel, who, "for all the sun sees, or the close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide," would not be faithless to the low-born lass. AndConstance, weeping for her son, while grief "stuffs out his vacant garments with his form."
And in the midst of tragedies and tears, of love and laughter and crime, we hear the voice of the good friar, who declares that in every human heart, as in the smallest flower, there are encamped the opposed hosts of good and evil—and our philosophy is interrupted by the garrulous old nurse, whose talk is as busily useless as the babble of a stream that hurries by a ruined mill.
From every side the characters crowd upon us—the men and women born of Shakespeare's brain. They utter with a thousand voices the thoughts of the "myriad-minded" man, and impress themselves upon us as deeply and vividly as though they really lived with us.
Shakespeare alone has delineated love in every possible phase—has ascended to the very top, and actually reached heights that no other has imagined. I do not believe the human mind will ever produce or be in a position to appreciate, a greater love-play than "Romeo and Juliet." It is a symphony in which all music seems to blend. The heart bursts into blossom, and he who reads feels the swooning intoxication of a divine perfume.
In the alembic of Shakespeare's brain the baser metals were turned to gold—passions became virtues—weeds became exotics, from some diviner land—and common mortals made of ordinary clay outranked the Olympian Gods. In his brain there was the touch of chaos that suggests the infinite—that belongs to genius. Talent is measured and mathematical—dominated by prudence and the thought of use. Genius is tropical. The creative instinct runs riot, delights in extravagance and waste, and overwhelms the mental beggars of the world with uncounted gold and unnumbered gems.
Some things are immortal: The plays of Shakespeare, the marbles of the Greeks, and the music of Wagner.
He knew the conditions of success—of happiness—the relationsthat men, sustainto each other, and the duties of all. He knew the tides and currents of the heart—the cliffs and caverns of the brain. He knew the weakness of the will, the sophistry of desire—and "That pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision."
He knew that the soul lives in an invisible world—that flesh is but a mask, and that "There is no art to find the mind's construction In the face."
He knew that courage should be the servant of judgment, and that
"When valor preys on reason it eats the sword It fights with."
He knew that man is never "master of the event, that he is to some extent the sport or prey of the blind forces of the world, and that
"In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men."
Feeling that the past is unchangeable, and that that which must happen is as much beyond control as though it had happened, he says:
"Let determined things to destiny Hold unbewailed their way."
Shakespeare was great enough to know that every human being prefers happiness to misery, and that crimes are but mistakes. Looking in pity upon the human race, upon the pain and poverty, the crimes and cruelties, the limping travelers on the thorny paths, he was great and good enough to say:
"There is no darkness but ignorance."
In all the philosophies there is no greater line. This great truth fills the heart with pity.
He knew that place and power do not give happiness—that the crowned are subject as the lowest to fate and chance.
"Within the hollow crownThat rounds the mortal temples of a kingKeeps death his Court, and there the antic sitsScoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,Allowing him a brief and little sceneTo monarchize by fear and kill with looks,Infusing him with self and vain conceit—As if this flesh that walls about our lifeWere brass impregnable; and humored thus,Comes at the last and with a little pinBores through his castle wall—and farewell king!"
So, too, he knew that gold could not bring joy—that death and misfortune come alike to rich and poor, because:
"If thou art rich thou art poor;For like an ass whose back with ingots bowsThou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey,And death unloads thee."
In some of his philosophy there was a kind of scorn—a hidden meaning that could not in his day and time have safely been expressed. You will remember that Laertes was about to kill the king, and this king was the murderer of his own brother, and sat upon the throne by reason of his crime—and in the mouth of such a king Shakespeare puts these words:
"There's such divinity doth hedge a king."
So, in Macbeth
"How he solicitsHeaven himself best knows; but strangely visited peopleAll swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,The mere despairs of surgery, he cures;Hanging a golden stamp about their necks.Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spokenTo the succeeding royalty—he leavesThe healing benediction."With this strange virtueHe hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,And sundry blessings hang about his throne,That speak him full of grace."
Shakespeare was the master of the human heart—knew all the hopes, fears, ambitions, and passions that sway the mind of man; and thus knowing, he declared that
"Love is not love that altersWhen it alteration finds."
This is the sublimest declaration in the literature of the world.
Shakespeare seems to give the generalization—the result—without the process of thought. He seems always to be at the conclusion—standing where all truths meet.
In one of the Sonnets is this fragment of a line that contains the highest possible truth:
"Conscience is born of love."
If man were incapable of suffering, the words right and wrong never could have been spoken. If man were destitute of imagination, the flower of pity never could have blossomed in his heart.
We suffer—we cause others to suffer—those that we love—and of this fact conscience is born.
Love is the many-colored flame that makes the fireside of the heart. It is the mingled spring and autumn—the perfect climate of the soul.
IN the realm of comparison Shakespeare seems to have exhausted the relations, parallels and similitudes of things, He only could have said:
"Tedious as a twice-told taleVexing the ears of a drowsy man.""Duller than a great thaw.Dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage."
In the words of Ulysses, spoken to Achilles, we find the most wonderful collection of pictures and comparisons ever compressed within the same number of lines:
"Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,—A great-sized monster of ingratitudes—Those scraps are good deeds passed; which are devouredAs fast as they are made, forgot as soonAs done; perseverance, dear my lord,Keeps honor bright: to have done is to hangQuite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery."Take the instant way;For honor travels in a strait so narrowWhere one but goes abreast; keep then the path;For emulation hath a thousand sonsThat one by one pursue; if you give way,Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,Like to an entered tide, they all rush byAnd leave you hindmost:Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,O'errun and trampled on: then what they do in present,Tho' less than yours in past, must o' ertop yours;For time is like a fashionable hostThat slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,And with his arms outstretched as he would fly,Grasps in the comer:Welcome ever smiles,And Farewell goes out sighing."
So the words of Cleopatra, when Charmain speaks:
"Peace, peace:Dost thou not see my baby at my breastThat sucks the nurse asleep?"
NOTHING is more difficult than a definition—a crystallization of thought so perfect that it emits light. Shakespeare says of suicide:
"It is great to do that thingThat ends all other deeds,Which shackles accident, and bolts up change."
He defines drama to be:
"Turning the accomplishments of many yearsInto an hour glass."
Of death:
"This sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod,To lie in cold obstruction and to rot."
Of memory:
"The warder of the brain."
Of the body:
"This muddy vesture of decay."
And he declares that
"Our little life is rounded with a sleep."
He speaks of Echo as:
"The babbling gossip of the air"—
Romeo, addressing the poison that he is about to take, says:
"Come, bitter conduct, come unsavory guide,Thou desperate pilot, now at once run onThe dashing rocks thy sea-sick, weary bark."
He describes the world as
"This bank and shoal of time."
He says of rumor—
"That it doubles, like the voice and echo."
It would take days to call attention to the perfect definitions, comparisons and generalizations of Shakespeare. He gave us the deeper meanings of our words—taught us the art of speech. He was the lord of language—master of expression and compression.
He put the greatest thoughts into the shortest words—made the poor rich and the common royal.
Production enriched his brain. Nothing exhausted him. The moment his attention was called to any subject—comparisons, definitions, metaphors and generalizations filled his mind and begged for utterance. His thoughts like bees robbed every blossom in the world, and then with "merry march" brought the rich booty home "to the tent royal of their emperor."
Shakespeare was the confidant of Nature. To him she opened her "infinite book of secrecy," and in his brain were "the hatch and brood of time."
THERE is in Shakespeare the mingling of laughter and tears, humor and pathos. Humor is the rose, wit the thorn. Wit is a crystallization, humor an efflorescence. Wit comes from the brain, humor from the heart. Wit is the lightning of the soul.
In Shakespeare's nature was the climate of humor. He saw and felt the sunny side even of the saddest things. "You have seen sunshine and rain at once." So Shakespeare's tears fell oft upon his smiles. In moments of peril—on the very darkness of death—there comes a touch of humor that falls like a fleck of sunshine.
Gonzalo, when the ship is about to sink, having seen the boatswain, exclaims:
"I have great comfort from this fellow;Methinks he hath no drowning mark upon him;His complexion is perfect gallows."
Shakespeare is filled with the strange contrasts of grief and laughter. While poor Hero is supposed to be dead—wrapped in the shroud of dishonor—Dogberry and Verges unconsciously put again the wedding wreath upon her pure brow.
The soliloquy of Launcelot—great as Hamlet's—offsets the bitter and burning words of Shylock.
There is only time to speak of Maria in "Twelfth Night," of Autolycus in the "Winter's Tale," of the parallel drawn by Fluellen between Alexander of Macedon and Harry of Monmouth, or of the marvellous humor of Falstaff, who never had the faintest thought of right or wrong—or of Mercutio, that embodiment of wit and humor—for of the grave-diggers who lamented that "great folk should have countenance in this world to drown and hang themselves, more than their even Christian," and who reached the generalization that
"the gallows does well because it does well to those who do ill."
There is also an example of grim humor—an example without a parallel in literature, so far as I know. Hamlet having killed Polonius is asked:
"Where's Polonais?""At supper.""At supper! where?""Not where he eats, but where he is eaten."
Above all others, Shakespeare appreciated the pathos of situation.
Nothing is more pathetic than the last scene in "Lear." No one has ever bent above his dead who did not feel the words uttered by the mad king,—words born of a despair deeper than tears: