TIMON OF ATHENS

‘What! Michael Cassio?That came a wooing with you, and so many a time,When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,Hath ta’en your part, to have so much to doTo bring him in?—Why this is not a boon:’Tis as I should intreat you wear your gloves,Or feed on nourishing meats, or keep you warm;Or sue to you to do a peculiar profitTo your person. Nay, when I have a suit,Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,It shall be full of poise, and fearful to be granted.’

‘What! Michael Cassio?

That came a wooing with you, and so many a time,

When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,

Hath ta’en your part, to have so much to do

To bring him in?—Why this is not a boon:

’Tis as I should intreat you wear your gloves,

Or feed on nourishing meats, or keep you warm;

Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit

To your person. Nay, when I have a suit,

Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,

It shall be full of poise, and fearful to be granted.’

Othello’s confidence, at first only staggered by broken hints and insinuations, recovers itself at sight of Desdemona; and he exclaims

‘If she be false, O then Heav’n mocks itself:I’ll not believe it.’

‘If she be false, O then Heav’n mocks itself:

I’ll not believe it.’

But presently after, on brooding over his suspicions by himself, and yielding to his apprehensions of the worst, his smothered jealousy breaks out into open fury, and he returns to demand satisfaction of Iago like a wild beast stung with the envenomed shaft of the hunters. ‘Look where he comes,’ etc. In this state of exasperation and violence, after the first paroxysms of his grief and tenderness have had their vent in that passionate apostrophe, ‘I felt not Cassio’s kisses on her lips,’ Iago, by false aspersions, and by presenting the most revolting images to his mind,[65]easily turns the storm of passion from himself against Desdemona, and works him up into a trembling agony of doubt and fear, in which he abandons all his love and hopes in a breath.

‘Now do I see ’tis true. Look here, Iago,All my fond love thus do I blow to Heav’n. ’Tis gone.Arise black vengeance from the hollow hell;Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throneTo tyrannous hate! Swell bosom with thy fraught;For ’tis of aspicks’ tongues.’

‘Now do I see ’tis true. Look here, Iago,

All my fond love thus do I blow to Heav’n. ’Tis gone.

Arise black vengeance from the hollow hell;

Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne

To tyrannous hate! Swell bosom with thy fraught;

For ’tis of aspicks’ tongues.’

From this time, his raging thoughts ‘never look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,’ till his revenge is sure of its object, the painful regrets and involuntary recollections of past circumstances which cross his mind amidst the dim trances of passion, aggravating the sense of his wrongs, but not shaking his purpose. Once indeed, where Iago shows him Cassio with the handkerchief in his hand, and making sport (as he thinks) of his misfortunes, the intolerable bitterness of his feelings, the extreme sense of shame, makes him fall to praising her accomplishments and relapse into a momentary fit of weakness, ‘Yet, oh the pity of it, Iago, the pity of it!’ This returning fondness however only serves, as it is managed by Iago, to whet his revenge, and set his heart more against her. In his conversations with Desdemona, the persuasion of her guilt and the immediate proofs of her duplicity seem to irritate his resentment and aversion to her; but in the scene immediately preceding her death, the recollection of his love returns upon him in all its tenderness and force; and after her death, he all at once forgets his wrongs in the sudden and irreparable sense of his loss.

‘My wife! My wife! What wife? I have no wife.Oh insupportable! Oh heavy hour!’

‘My wife! My wife! What wife? I have no wife.

Oh insupportable! Oh heavy hour!’

This happens before he is assured of her innocence; but afterwards his remorse is as dreadful as his revenge has been, and yields only to fixed and death-like despair. His farewell speech, before he kills himself, in which he conveys his reasons to the senate for the murder of his wife, is equal to the first speech in which he gave them an account of his courtship of her, and ‘his whole course of love.’ Such an ending was alone worthy of such a commencement.

If any thing could add to the force of our sympathy with Othello, or compassion for his fate, it would be the frankness and generosity of his nature, which so little deserve it. When Iago first begins to practise upon his unsuspecting friendship, he answers—

——‘’Tis not to make me jealous,To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;Where virtue is, these are most virtuous.Nor from my own weak merits will I drawThe smallest fear or doubt of her revolt,For she had eyes and chose me.’

——‘’Tis not to make me jealous,

To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,

Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;

Where virtue is, these are most virtuous.

Nor from my own weak merits will I draw

The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt,

For she had eyes and chose me.’

This character is beautifully (and with affecting simplicity) confirmed by what Desdemona herself says of him to Æmilia after she has lost the handkerchief, the first pledge of his love to her.

‘Believe me, I had rather have lost my purseFull of cruzadoes. And but my noble MoorIs true of mind, and made of no such baseness,As jealous creatures are, it were enoughTo put him to ill thinking.Æmilia.Is he not jealous?Desdemona.Who he? I think the sun where he was bornDrew all such humours from him.’

‘Believe me, I had rather have lost my purseFull of cruzadoes. And but my noble MoorIs true of mind, and made of no such baseness,As jealous creatures are, it were enoughTo put him to ill thinking.

‘Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse

Full of cruzadoes. And but my noble Moor

Is true of mind, and made of no such baseness,

As jealous creatures are, it were enough

To put him to ill thinking.

Æmilia.Is he not jealous?

Desdemona.Who he? I think the sun where he was bornDrew all such humours from him.’

Desdemona.Who he? I think the sun where he was born

Drew all such humours from him.’

In a short speech of Æmilia’s, there occurs one of those side-intimations of the fluctuations of passion which we seldom meet with but in Shakespear. After Othello has resolved upon the death of his wife, and bids her dismiss her attendant for the night, she answers,

‘I will, my Lord.Æmilia.How goes it now?He looks gentler than he did.’

‘I will, my Lord.

Æmilia.How goes it now?He looks gentler than he did.’

Shakespear has here put into half a line what some authors would have spun out into ten set speeches.

The character of Desdemona is inimitable both in itself, and as it appears in contrast with Othello’s groundless jealousy, and with the foul conspiracy of which she is the innocent victim. Her beautyand external graces are only indirectly glanced at: we see ‘her visage in her mind’; her character every where predominates over her person.

‘A maiden never bold:Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motionBlush’d at itself.’

‘A maiden never bold:

Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion

Blush’d at itself.’

There is one fine compliment paid to her by Cassio, who exclaims triumphantly when she comes ashore at Cyprus after the storm,

‘Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,As having sense of beauty, do omitTheir mortal natures, letting safe go byThe divine Desdemona.’

‘Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,

As having sense of beauty, do omit

Their mortal natures, letting safe go by

The divine Desdemona.’

In general, as is the case with most of Shakespear’s females, we lose sight of her personal charms in her attachment and devotedness to her husband. ‘She is subdued even to the very quality of her lord’; and to Othello’s ‘honours and his valiant parts her soul and fortunes consecrates.’ The lady protests so much herself, and she is as good as her word. The truth of conception, with which timidity and boldness are united in the same character, is marvellous. The extravagance of her resolutions, the pertinacity of her affections, may be said to arise out of the gentleness of her nature. They imply an unreserved reliance on the purity of her own intentions, an entire surrender of her fears to her love, a knitting of herself (heart and soul) to the fate of another. Bating the commencement of her passion, which is a little fantastical and headstrong (though even that may perhaps be consistently accounted for from her inability to resist a rising inclination[66]) her whole character consists in having no will of her own, no prompter but her obedience. Her romantic turn is only a consequence of the domestic and practical part of her disposition; and instead of following Othello to the wars, she would gladly have ‘remained at home a moth of peace,’ if her husband could have staid with her. Her resignation and angelic sweetness of temper do not desert her at the last. The scenes in which she laments and tries to account for Othello’s estrangement from her are exquisitely beautiful. After he has struck her, and called her names, she says,

——‘Alas, Iago,What shall I do to win my lord again?Good friend, go to him; for by this light of heaven,I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel;If e’er my will did trespass ‘gainst his love,Either in discourse, or thought, or actual deed,Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any senseDelighted them on any other form;Or that I do not, and ever did,And ever will, though he do shake me offTo beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,Comfort forswear me. Unkindness may do much,And his unkindness may defeat my life,But never taint my love.Iago.I pray you be content: ’tis but his humour.The business of the state does him offence.Desdemona.If ‘twere no other!——

——‘Alas, Iago,

What shall I do to win my lord again?

Good friend, go to him; for by this light of heaven,

I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel;

If e’er my will did trespass ‘gainst his love,

Either in discourse, or thought, or actual deed,

Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense

Delighted them on any other form;

Or that I do not, and ever did,

And ever will, though he do shake me off

To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,

Comfort forswear me. Unkindness may do much,

And his unkindness may defeat my life,

But never taint my love.

Iago.I pray you be content: ’tis but his humour.The business of the state does him offence.

Iago.I pray you be content: ’tis but his humour.

The business of the state does him offence.

Desdemona.If ‘twere no other!——

The scene which follows with Æmilia and the song of the Willow, are equally beautiful, and show the author’s extreme power of varying the expression of passion, in all its moods and in all circumstances.

‘Æmilia.Would you had never seen him.Desdemona.So would not I: my love doth so approve him,That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns,Have grace and favour in them,’ etc.

‘Æmilia.Would you had never seen him.

Desdemona.So would not I: my love doth so approve him,That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns,Have grace and favour in them,’ etc.

Desdemona.So would not I: my love doth so approve him,

That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns,

Have grace and favour in them,’ etc.

Not the unjust suspicions of Othello, not Iago’s unprovoked treachery, place Desdemona in a more amiable or interesting light than the conversation (half earnest, half jest) between her and Æmilia on the common behaviour of women to their husbands. This dialogue takes place just before the last fatal scene. If Othello had overheard it, it would have prevented the whole catastrophe; but then it would have spoiled the play.

The character of Iago is one of the supererogations of Shakespear’s genius. Some persons, more nice than wise, have thought this whole character unnatural, because his villainy iswithout a sufficient motive. Shakespear, who was as good a philosopher as he was a poet, thought otherwise. He knew that the love of power, which is another name for the love of mischief, is natural to man. He would know this as well or better than if it had been demonstrated to him by a logical diagram, merely from seeing children paddle in the dirt or kill flies for sport. Iago in fact belongs to a class of character, common to Shakespear and at the same time peculiar to him; whose heads are as acute and active as their hearts are hard and callous. Iago is to be sure an extreme instance of the kind; that is to say, of diseased intellectual activity, with the most perfect indifference to moral good or evil, or rather with a decided preference of the latter, because itfalls more readily in with his favourite propensity, gives greater zest to his thoughts and scope to his actions. He is quite or nearly as indifferent to his own fate as to that of others; he runs all risks for a trifling and doubtful advantage; and is himself the dupe and victim of his ruling passion—an insatiable craving after action of the most difficult and dangerous kind. ‘Our ancient’ is a philosopher, who fancies that a lie that kills has more point in it than an alliteration or an antithesis; who thinks a fatal experiment on the peace of a family a better thing than watching the palpitations in the heart of a flea in a microscope; who plots the ruin of his friends as an exercise for his ingenuity, and stabs men in the dark to preventennui. His gaiety, such as it is, arises from the success of his treachery; his ease from the torture he has inflicted on others. He is an amateur of tragedy in real life; and instead of employing his invention on imaginary characters, or long-forgotten incidents, he takes the bolder and more desperate course of getting up his plot at home, casts the principal parts among his nearest friends and connections, and rehearses it in downright earnest, with steady nerves and unabated resolution. We will just give an illustration or two.

One of his most characteristic speeches is that immediately after the marriage of Othello.

‘Roderigo.What a full fortune does the thick lips owe,If he can carry her thus!Iago.Call up her father:Rouse him (Othello) make after him, poison his delight,Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,And tho’ he in a fertile climate dwell,Plague him with flies: tho’ that his joy be joy,Yet throw such changes of vexation on it,As it may lose some colour.’

‘Roderigo.What a full fortune does the thick lips owe,If he can carry her thus!

‘Roderigo.What a full fortune does the thick lips owe,

If he can carry her thus!

Iago.Call up her father:Rouse him (Othello) make after him, poison his delight,Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,And tho’ he in a fertile climate dwell,Plague him with flies: tho’ that his joy be joy,Yet throw such changes of vexation on it,As it may lose some colour.’

Iago.Call up her father:

Rouse him (Othello) make after him, poison his delight,

Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,

And tho’ he in a fertile climate dwell,

Plague him with flies: tho’ that his joy be joy,

Yet throw such changes of vexation on it,

As it may lose some colour.’

In the next passage, his imagination runs riot in the mischief he is plotting, and breaks out into the wildness and impetuosity of real enthusiasm.

‘Roderigo.Here is her father’s house: I’ll call aloud.Iago.Do, with like timourous accent and dire yellAs when, by night and negligence, the fireIs spied in populous cities.’

‘Roderigo.Here is her father’s house: I’ll call aloud.

Iago.Do, with like timourous accent and dire yellAs when, by night and negligence, the fireIs spied in populous cities.’

Iago.Do, with like timourous accent and dire yell

As when, by night and negligence, the fire

Is spied in populous cities.’

One of his most favourite topics, on which he is rich indeed, and in descanting on which his spleen serves him for a Muse, is the disproportionate match between Desdemona and the Moor. This is a clue to the character of the lady which he is by no means ready to part with. It is brought forward in the first scene, and he recurs toit, when in answer to his insinuations against Desdemona, Roderigo says,

‘I cannot believe that in her—she’s full of most blest conditions.

Iago.Bless’d fig’s end. The wine she drinks is made of grapes. If she had been blest, she would never have married the Moor.’

And again with still more spirit and fatal effect afterwards, when he turns this very suggestion arising in Othello’s own breast to her prejudice.

‘Othello.And yet how nature erring from itself—Iago.Ay, there’s the point;—as to be bold with you,Not to affect many proposed matchesOf her own clime, complexion, and degree,’ etc.

‘Othello.And yet how nature erring from itself—

Iago.Ay, there’s the point;—as to be bold with you,Not to affect many proposed matchesOf her own clime, complexion, and degree,’ etc.

Iago.Ay, there’s the point;—as to be bold with you,

Not to affect many proposed matches

Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,’ etc.

This is probing to the quick. Iago here turns the character of poor Desdemona, as it were, inside out. It is certain that nothing but the genius of Shakespear could have preserved the entire interest and delicacy of the part, and have even drawn an additional elegance and dignity from the peculiar circumstances in which she is placed.—The habitual licentiousness of Iago’s conversation is not to be traced to the pleasure he takes in gross or lascivious images, but to his desire of finding out the worst side of everything, and of proving himself an over-match for appearances. He has none of ‘the milk of human kindness’ in his composition. His imagination rejects every thing that has not a strong infusion of the most unpalatable ingredients; his mind digests only poisons. Virtue or goodness or whatever has the least ‘relish of salvation in it,’ is, to his depraved appetite, sickly and insipid: and he even resents the good opinion entertained of his own integrity, as if it were an affront cast on the masculine sense and spirit of his character. Thus at the meeting between Othello and Desdemona, he exclaims—‘Oh, you are well tuned now: but I’ll set down the pegs that make this music,as honest as I am‘—his character ofbonhommenot sitting at all easy upon him. In the scenes, where he tries to work Othello to his purpose, he is proportionably guarded, insidious, dark, and deliberate. We believe nothing ever came up to the profound dissimulation and dextrous artifice of the well-known dialogue in the third act, where he first enters upon the execution of his design.

‘Iago.My noble lord.Othello.What dost thou say, Iago?Iago.Did Michael Cassio,When you woo’d my lady, know of your love?Othello.He did from first to last.Why dost thou ask?Iago.But for a satisfaction of my thought,No further harm.Othello.Why of thy thought, Iago?Iago.I did not think he had been acquainted with it.Othello.O yes, and went between us very oft—Iago.Indeed!Othello.Indeed? Ay, indeed. Discern’st thou aught of that?Is he not honest?Iago.Honest, my lord?Othello.Honest? Ay, honest.Iago.My lord, for aught I know.Othello.What do’st thou think?Iago.Think, my lord!Othello.Think, my lord! Alas, thou echo’st me,As if there was some monster in thy thoughtToo hideous to be shewn.’—

‘Iago.My noble lord.

Othello.What dost thou say, Iago?

Iago.Did Michael Cassio,When you woo’d my lady, know of your love?

Iago.Did Michael Cassio,

When you woo’d my lady, know of your love?

Othello.He did from first to last.Why dost thou ask?

Othello.He did from first to last.

Why dost thou ask?

Iago.But for a satisfaction of my thought,No further harm.

Iago.But for a satisfaction of my thought,

No further harm.

Othello.Why of thy thought, Iago?

Iago.I did not think he had been acquainted with it.

Othello.O yes, and went between us very oft—

Iago.Indeed!

Othello.Indeed? Ay, indeed. Discern’st thou aught of that?Is he not honest?

Othello.Indeed? Ay, indeed. Discern’st thou aught of that?

Is he not honest?

Iago.Honest, my lord?

Othello.Honest? Ay, honest.

Iago.My lord, for aught I know.

Othello.What do’st thou think?

Iago.Think, my lord!

Othello.Think, my lord! Alas, thou echo’st me,As if there was some monster in thy thoughtToo hideous to be shewn.’—

Othello.Think, my lord! Alas, thou echo’st me,

As if there was some monster in thy thought

Too hideous to be shewn.’—

The stops and breaks, the deep workings of treachery under the mask of love and honesty, the anxious watchfulness, the cool earnestness, and if we may so say, thepassionof hypocrisy, marked in every line, receive their last finishing in that inconceivable burst of pretended indignation at Othello’s doubts of his sincerity.

‘O grace! O Heaven forgive me!Are you a man? Have you a soul or sense?God be wi’ you; take mine office. O wretched fool,That lov’st to make thine honesty a vice!Oh monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world!To be direct and honest, is not safe.I thank you for this profit, and from henceI’ll love no friend, since love breeds such offence.’

‘O grace! O Heaven forgive me!

Are you a man? Have you a soul or sense?

God be wi’ you; take mine office. O wretched fool,

That lov’st to make thine honesty a vice!

Oh monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world!

To be direct and honest, is not safe.

I thank you for this profit, and from hence

I’ll love no friend, since love breeds such offence.’

If Iago is detestable enough when he has business on his hands and all his engines at work, he is still worse when he has nothing to do, and we only see into the hollowness of his heart. His indifference when Othello falls into a swoon, is perfectly diabolical.

‘Iago.How is it, General? Have you not hurt your head?Othello.Do’st thou mock me?Iago.I mock you not, by Heaven,’ etc.

‘Iago.How is it, General? Have you not hurt your head?

Othello.Do’st thou mock me?

Iago.I mock you not, by Heaven,’ etc.

The part indeed would hardly be tolerated, even as a foil to the virtue and generosity of the other characters in the play, but for its indefatigable industry and inexhaustible resources, which divert the attention of the spectator (as well as his own) from the end he has in view to the means by which it must be accomplished.—Edmund the Bastard inLearis something of the same character, placed in less prominent circumstances. Zanga is a vulgar caricature of it.

TIMON OF ATHENS

Timon of Athensalways appeared to us to be written with as intense a feeling of his subject as any one play of Shakespear. It is one of the few in which he seems to be in earnest throughout, never to trifle nor go out of his way. He does not relax in his efforts, nor lose sight of the unity of his design. It is the only play of our author in which spleen is the predominant feeling of the mind. It is as much a satire as a play: and contains some of the finest pieces of invective possible to be conceived, both in the snarling, captious answers of the cynic Apemantus, and in the impassioned and more terrible imprecations of Timon. The latter remind the classical reader of the force and swelling impetuosity of the moral declamations inJuvenal, while the former have all the keenness and caustic severity of the old Stoic philosophers. The soul of Diogenes appears to have been seated on the lips of Apemantus. The churlish profession of misanthropy in the cynic is contrasted with the profound feeling of it in Timon, and also with the soldier-like and determined resentment of Alcibiades against his countrymen, who have banished him, though this forms only an incidental episode in the tragedy.

The fable consists of a single event;—of the transition from the highest pomp and profusion of artificial refinement to the most abject state of savage life, and privation of all social intercourse. The change is as rapid as it is complete; nor is the description of the rich and generous Timon, banqueting in gilded palaces, pampered by every luxury, prodigal of his hospitality, courted by crowds of flatterers, poets, painters, lords, ladies, who—

‘Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear;And through him drink the free air’—

‘Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,

Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear;

And through him drink the free air’—

more striking than that of the sudden falling off of his friends and fortune, and his naked exposure in a wild forest digging roots from the earth for his sustenance, with a lofty spirit of self-denial, and bitter scorn of the world, which raise him higher in our esteem than the dazzling gloss of prosperity could do. He grudges himself the means of life, and is only busy in preparing his grave. How forcibly is the difference between what he was, and what he is, described in Apemantus’s taunting questions, when he comes to reproach him with the change in his way of life!

——‘What, think’st thou,That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,Will put thy shirt on warm? will these moist treesThat have outlived the eagle, page thy heels,And skip when thou point’st out? will the cold brook,Candied with ice, caudle thy morning tasteTo cure thy o’er-night’s surfeit? Call the creatures,Whose naked natures live in all the spightOf wreakful heav’n, whose bare unhoused trunks,To the conflicting elements expos’d,Answer mere nature, bid them flatter thee.’

——‘What, think’st thou,

That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,

Will put thy shirt on warm? will these moist trees

That have outlived the eagle, page thy heels,

And skip when thou point’st out? will the cold brook,

Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste

To cure thy o’er-night’s surfeit? Call the creatures,

Whose naked natures live in all the spight

Of wreakful heav’n, whose bare unhoused trunks,

To the conflicting elements expos’d,

Answer mere nature, bid them flatter thee.’

The manners are every where preserved with distinct truth. The poet and painter are very skilfully played off against one another, both affecting great attention to the other, and each taken up with his own vanity, and the superiority of his own art. Shakespear has put into the mouth of the former a very lively description of the genius of poetry and of his own in particular.

——‘A thing slipt idly from me.Our poesy is as a gum, which issuesFrom whence ’tis nourish’d. The fire i’ th’ flintShews not till it be struck: our gentle flameProvokes itself—and like the current fliesEach bound it chafes.’

——‘A thing slipt idly from me.

Our poesy is as a gum, which issues

From whence ’tis nourish’d. The fire i’ th’ flint

Shews not till it be struck: our gentle flame

Provokes itself—and like the current flies

Each bound it chafes.’

The hollow friendship and shuffling evasions of the Athenian lords, their smooth professions and pitiful ingratitude, are very satisfactorily exposed, as well as the different disguises to which the meanness of self-love resorts in such cases to hide a want of generosity and good faith. The lurking selfishness of Apemantus does not pass undetected amidst the grossness of his sarcasms and his contempt for the pretensions of others. Even the two courtezans who accompany Alcibiades to the cave of Timon are very characteristically sketched; and the thieves who come to visit him are also ‘true men’ in their way.—An exception to this general picture of selfish depravity is found in the old and honest steward Flavius, to whom Timon pays a full tribute of tenderness. Shakespear was unwilling to draw a picture ‘ugly all over with hypocrisy.’ He owed this character to the good-natured solicitations of his Muse. His mind might well have been said to be the ‘sphere of humanity.’

The moral sententiousness of this play equals that of Lord Bacon’s Treatise on the Wisdom of the Ancients, and is indeed seasoned with greater variety. Every topic of contempt or indignation is here exhausted; but while the sordid licentiousness of Apemantus, which turns every thing to gall and bitterness, shews only the natural virulenceof his temper and antipathy to good or evil alike, Timon does not utter an imprecation without betraying the extravagant workings of disappointed passion, of love altered to hate. Apemantus sees nothing good in any object, and exaggerates whatever is disgusting: Timon is tormented with the perpetual contrast between things and appearances, between the fresh, tempting outside and the rottenness within, and invokes mischiefs on the heads of mankind proportioned to the sense of his wrongs and of their treacheries. He impatiently cries out, when he finds the gold,

‘This yellow slaveWill knit and break religions; bless the accurs’d;Make the hoar leprosy ador’d; place thieves,And give them title, knee, and approbation,With senators on the bench; this is it,That makes the wappen’d widow wed again;She, whom the spital-houseWould cast the gorge at,this embalms and spicesTo th’ April day again.’

‘This yellow slave

Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs’d;

Make the hoar leprosy ador’d; place thieves,

And give them title, knee, and approbation,

With senators on the bench; this is it,

That makes the wappen’d widow wed again;

She, whom the spital-house

Would cast the gorge at,this embalms and spices

To th’ April day again.’

One of his most dreadful imprecations is that which occurs immediately on his leaving Athens.

‘Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall,That girdlest in those wolves! Dive in the earth,And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent;Obedience fail in children; slaves and foolsPluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench,And minister in their steads. To general filthsConvert o’ th’ instant green virginity!Do ‘t in your parents’ eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast;Rather than render back, out with your knives,And cut your trusters’ throats! Bound servants, steal:Large-handed robbers your grave masters areAnd pill by law. Maid, to thy master’s bed:Thy mistress is o’ th’ brothel. Son of sixteen,Pluck the lin’d crutch from thy old limping sire,And with it beat his brains out! Fear and piety,Religion to the Gods, peace, justice, truth,Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,Instructions, manners, mysteries and trades,Degrees, observances, customs and laws,Decline to your confounding contraries;And let confusion live!—Plagues, incident to men,Your potent and infectious fevers heapOn Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold sciatica,Cripple our senators, that their limbs may haltAs lamely as their manners! Lust and libertyCreep in the minds and marrows of our youth,That ‘gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,Sow all th’ Athenian bosoms; and their cropBe general leprosy: breath infect breath,That their society (as their friendship) mayBe merely poison!’

‘Let me look back upon thee, O thou wall,

That girdlest in those wolves! Dive in the earth,

And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent;

Obedience fail in children; slaves and fools

Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench,

And minister in their steads. To general filths

Convert o’ th’ instant green virginity!

Do ‘t in your parents’ eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast;

Rather than render back, out with your knives,

And cut your trusters’ throats! Bound servants, steal:

Large-handed robbers your grave masters are

And pill by law. Maid, to thy master’s bed:

Thy mistress is o’ th’ brothel. Son of sixteen,

Pluck the lin’d crutch from thy old limping sire,

And with it beat his brains out! Fear and piety,

Religion to the Gods, peace, justice, truth,

Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,

Instructions, manners, mysteries and trades,

Degrees, observances, customs and laws,

Decline to your confounding contraries;

And let confusion live!—Plagues, incident to men,

Your potent and infectious fevers heap

On Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold sciatica,

Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt

As lamely as their manners! Lust and liberty

Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,

That ‘gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,

And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,

Sow all th’ Athenian bosoms; and their crop

Be general leprosy: breath infect breath,

That their society (as their friendship) may

Be merely poison!’

Timon is here just as ideal in his passion for ill as he had been before in his belief of good, Apemantus was satisfied with the mischief existing in the world, and with his own ill-nature. One of the most decisive intimations of Timon’s morbid jealousy of appearances is in his answer to Apemantus, who asks him,

‘What things in the world can’st thou nearest compare with thy flatterers?Timon.Women nearest: but men, men are the things themselves.’

‘What things in the world can’st thou nearest compare with thy flatterers?

Timon.Women nearest: but men, men are the things themselves.’

Apemantus, it is said, ‘loved few things better than to abhor himself.’ This is not the case with Timon, who neither loves to abhor himself nor others. All his vehement misanthropy is forced, up-hill work. From the slippery turns of fortune, from the turmoils of passion and adversity, he wishes to sink into the quiet of the grave. On that subject his thoughts are intent, on that he finds time and place to grow romantic. He digs his own grave by the sea-shore; contrives his funeral ceremonies amidst the pomp of desolation, and builds his mausoleum of the elements.

‘Come not to me again; but say to Athens,Timon hath made his everlasting mansionUpon the beached verge of the salt flood;Which once a-day with his embossed frothThe turbulent surge shall cover.—Thither come,And let my grave-stone be your oracle.’

‘Come not to me again; but say to Athens,

Timon hath made his everlasting mansion

Upon the beached verge of the salt flood;

Which once a-day with his embossed froth

The turbulent surge shall cover.—Thither come,

And let my grave-stone be your oracle.’

And again, Alcibiades, after reading his epitaph, says of him,

‘These well express in thee thy latter spirits:Though thou abhorred’st in us our human griefs,Scorn’d’st our brain’s flow, and those our droplets, whichFrom niggard nature fall; yet rich conceitTaught thee to make vast Neptune weep for ayeOn thy low grave’——

‘These well express in thee thy latter spirits:

Though thou abhorred’st in us our human griefs,

Scorn’d’st our brain’s flow, and those our droplets, which

From niggard nature fall; yet rich conceit

Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye

On thy low grave’——

thus making the winds his funeral dirge, his mourner the murmuring ocean; and seeking in the everlasting solemnities of nature oblivion of the transitory splendour of his life-time.

CORIOLANUS

Shakespear has in this play shewn himself well versed in history and state-affairs.Coriolanusis a storehouse of political common-places. Any one who studies it may save himself the trouble of reading Burke’s Reflections, or Paine’s Rights of Man, or the Debates in both Houses of Parliament since the French Revolution or our own. The arguments for and against aristocracy or democracy, on the privileges of the few and the claims of the many, on liberty and slavery, power and the abuse of it, peace and war, are here very ably handled, with the spirit of a poet and the acuteness of a philosopher. Shakespear himself seems to have had a leaning to the arbitrary side of the question, perhaps from some feeling of contempt for his own origin; and to have spared no occasion of baiting the rabble. What he says of them is very true: what he says of their betters is also very true, though he dwells less upon it.—The cause of the people is indeed but little calculated as a subject for poetry: it admits of rhetoric, which goes into argument and explanation, but it presents no immediate or distinct images to the mind, ‘no jutting frieze, buttress, or coigne of vantage’ for poetry ‘to make its pendant bed and procreant cradle in.’ The language of poetry naturally falls in with the language of power. The imagination is an exaggerating and exclusive faculty: it takes from one thing to add to another: it accumulates circumstances together to give the greatest possible effect to a favourite object. The understanding is a dividing and measuring faculty: it judges of things not according to their immediate impression on the mind, but according to their relations to one another. The one is a monopolising faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of present excitement by inequality and disproportion; the other is a distributive faculty, which seeks the greatest quantity of ultimate good, by justice and proportion. The one is an aristocratical, the other a republican faculty. The principle of poetry is a very anti-levelling principle. It aims at effect, it exists by contrast. It admits of no medium. It is every thing by excess. It rises above the ordinary standard of sufferings and crimes. It presents a dazzling appearance. It shows its head turreted, crowned, and crested. Its front is gilt and blood-stained. Before it ‘it carries noise, and behind it leaves tears.’ It has its altars and its victims, sacrifices, human sacrifices. Kings, priests, nobles, are its train-bearers, tyrants and slaves its executioners.—‘Carnage is its daughter.’—Poetry is right-royal. It puts the individual for the species, the one above theinfinite many, might before right. A lion hunting a flock of sheep or a herd of wild asses is a more poetical object than they; and we even take part with the lordly beast, because our vanity or some other feeling makes us disposed to place ourselves in the situation of the strongest party. So we feel some concern for the poor citizens of Rome when they meet together to compare their wants and grievances, till Coriolanus comes in and with blows and big words drives this set of ‘poor rats,’ this rascal scum, to their homes and beggary before him. There is nothing heroical in a multitude of miserable rogues not wishing to be starved, or complaining that they are like to be so: but when a single man comes forward to brave their cries and to make them submit to the last indignities, from mere pride and self-will, our admiration of his prowess is immediately converted into contempt for their pusillanimity. The insolence of power is stronger than the plea of necessity. The tame submission to usurped authority or even the natural resistance to it has nothing to excite or flatter the imagination: it is the assumption of a right to insult or oppress others that carries an imposing air of superiority with it. We had rather be the oppressor than the oppressed. The love of power in ourselves and the admiration of it in others are both natural to man: the one makes him a tyrant, the other a slave. Wrong dressed out in pride, pomp, and circumstance, has more attraction than abstract right.—Coriolanus complains of the fickleness of the people: yet, the instant he cannot gratify his pride and obstinacy at their expense, he turns his arms against his country. If his country was not worth defending, why did he build his pride on its defence? He is a conqueror and a hero; he conquers other countries, and makes this a plea for enslaving his own; and when he is prevented from doing so, he leagues with its enemies to destroy his country. He rates the people ‘as if he were a God to punish, and not a man of their infirmity.’ He scoffs at one of their tribunes for maintaining their rights and franchises: ‘Mark you his absoluteshall?’ not marking his own absolutewillto take every thing from them, his impatience of the slightest opposition to his own pretensions being in proportion to their arrogance and absurdity. If the great and powerful had the beneficence and wisdom of Gods, then all this would have been well: if with a greater knowledge of what is good for the people, they had as great a care for their interest as they have themselves, if they were seated above the world, sympathising with the welfare, but not feeling the passions of men, receiving neither good nor hurt from them, but bestowing their benefits as free gifts on them, they might then rule over them like another Providence. But this is not the case. Coriolanus is unwilling that the senate should shew their ‘cares’for the people, lest their ‘cares’ should be construed into ‘fears,’ to the subversion of all due authority; and he is no sooner disappointed in his schemes to deprive the people not only of the cares of the state, but of all power to redress themselves, than Volumnia is made madly to exclaim,

‘Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,And occupations perish.’

‘Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,

And occupations perish.’

This is but natural: it is but natural for a mother to have more regard for her son than for a whole city; but then the city should be left to take some care of itself. The care of the state cannot, we here see, be safely entrusted to maternal affection, or to the domestic charities of high life. The great have private feelings of their own, to which the interests of humanity and justice must courtesy. Their interests are so far from being the same as those of the community, that they are in direct and necessary opposition to them; their power is at the expense ofourweakness; their riches ofourpoverty; their pride ofourdegradation; their splendour ofourwretchedness; their tyranny ofourservitude. If they had the superior knowledge ascribed to them (which they have not) it would only render them so much more formidable; and from Gods would convert them into Devils. The whole dramatic moral ofCoriolanusis that those who have little shall have less, and that those who have much shall take all that others have left. The people are poor; therefore they ought to be starved. They are slaves; therefore they ought to be beaten. They work hard; therefore they ought to be treated like beasts of burden. They are ignorant; therefore they ought not to be allowed to feel that they want food, or clothing, or rest, that they are enslaved, oppressed, and miserable. This is the logic of the imagination and the passions; which seek to aggrandize what excites admiration and to heap contempt on misery, to raise power into tyranny, and to make tyranny absolute; to thrust down that which is low still lower, and to make wretches desperate: to exalt magistrates into kings, kings into gods; to degrade subjects to the rank of slaves, and slaves to the condition of brutes. The history of mankind is a romance, a mask, a tragedy, constructed upon the principles ofpoetical justice; it is a noble or royal hunt, in which what is sport to the few is death to the many, and in which the spectators halloo and encourage the strong to set upon the weak, and cry havoc in the chase though they do not share in the spoil. We may depend upon it that what men delight to read in books, they will put in practice in reality.

One of the most natural traits in this play is the difference of theinterest taken in the success of Coriolanus by his wife and mother. The one is only anxious for his honour; the other is fearful for his life.

‘Volumnia.Methinks I hither hear your husband’s drum:I see him pluck Aufidius down by th’ hair:Methinks I see him stamp thus—and call thus—Come on, ye cowards; ye were got in fearThough you were born in Rome; his bloody browWith his mail’d hand then wiping, forth he goesLike to a harvest man, that’s task’d to mowOr all, or lose his hire.Virgilia.His bloody brow! Oh Jupiter, no blood.Volumnia.Away, you fool; it more becomes a manThan gilt his trophy. The breast of Hecuba,When she did suckle Hector, look’d not lovelierThan Hector’s forehead, when it spit forth bloodAt Grecian swords contending.’

‘Volumnia.Methinks I hither hear your husband’s drum:

I see him pluck Aufidius down by th’ hair:

Methinks I see him stamp thus—and call thus—

Come on, ye cowards; ye were got in fear

Though you were born in Rome; his bloody brow

With his mail’d hand then wiping, forth he goes

Like to a harvest man, that’s task’d to mow

Or all, or lose his hire.

Virgilia.His bloody brow! Oh Jupiter, no blood.

Volumnia.Away, you fool; it more becomes a manThan gilt his trophy. The breast of Hecuba,When she did suckle Hector, look’d not lovelierThan Hector’s forehead, when it spit forth bloodAt Grecian swords contending.’

Volumnia.Away, you fool; it more becomes a man

Than gilt his trophy. The breast of Hecuba,

When she did suckle Hector, look’d not lovelier

Than Hector’s forehead, when it spit forth blood

At Grecian swords contending.’

When she hears the trumpets that proclaim her son’s return, she says in the true spirit of a Roman matron,

‘These are the ushers of Martius: before himHe carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.Death, that dark spirit, in ‘s nervy arm doth lie,Which being advanc’d, declines, and then men die.’

‘These are the ushers of Martius: before him

He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears.

Death, that dark spirit, in ‘s nervy arm doth lie,

Which being advanc’d, declines, and then men die.’

Coriolanus himself is a complete character: his love of reputation, his contempt of popular opinion, his pride and modesty, are consequences of each other. His pride consists in the inflexible sternness of his will; his love of glory is a determined desire to bear down all opposition, and to extort the admiration both of friends and foes. His contempt for popular favour, his unwillingness to hear his own praises, spring from the same source. He cannot contradict the praises that are bestowed upon him; therefore he is impatient at hearing them. He would enforce the good opinion of others by his actions, but does not want their acknowledgments in words.

‘Pray now, no more: my mother,Who has a charter to extol her blood,When she does praise me, grieves me.’

‘Pray now, no more: my mother,

Who has a charter to extol her blood,

When she does praise me, grieves me.’

His magnanimity is of the same kind. He admires in an enemy that courage which he honours in himself; he places himself on the hearth of Aufidius with the same confidence that he would have met him in the field, and feels that by putting himself in his power, he takes from him all temptation for using it against him.

In the title-page ofCoriolanus, it is said at the bottom of theDramatis Personæ, ‘The whole history exactly followed, and many of the principal speeches copied from the life of Coriolanus in Plutarch.’ It will be interesting to our readers to see how far this is the case. Two of the principal scenes, those between Coriolanus and Aufidius and between Coriolanus and his mother, are thus given in Sir Thomas North’s Translation of Plutarch, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, 1579. The first is as follows:—

‘It was even twilight when he entered the city of Antium, and many people met him in the streets, but no man knew him. So he went directly to Tullus Aufidius’ house, and when he came thither, he got him up straight to the chimney-hearth, and sat him down, and spake not a word to any man, his face all muffled over. They of the house spying him, wondered what he should be, and yet they durst not bid him rise. For ill-favouredly muffled and disguised as he was, yet there appeared a certain majesty in his countenance and in his silence: whereupon they went to Tullus, who was at supper, to tell him of the strange disguising of this man. Tullus rose presently from the board, and coming towards him, asked him what he was, and wherefore he came. Then Martius unmuffled himself, and after he had paused awhile, making no answer, he said unto himself, If thou knowest me not yet, Tullus, and seeing me, dost not perhaps believe me to be the man I am indeed, I must of necessity discover myself to be that I am. “I am Caius Martius, who hath done to thyself particularly, and to all the Volces generally, great hurt and mischief, which I cannot deny for my surname of Coriolanus that I bear. For I never had other benefit nor recompence of the true and painful service I have done, and the extreme dangers I have been in, but this only surname: a good memory and witness of the malice and displeasure thou shouldest bear me. Indeed the name only remaineth with me; for the rest, the envy and cruelty of the people of Rome have taken from me, by the sufferance of the dastardly nobility and magistrates, who have forsaken me, and let me be banished by the people. This extremity hath now driven me to come as a poor suitor, to take thy chimney-hearth, not of any hope I have to save my life thereby. For if I had feared death, I would not have come hither to put myself in hazard; but pricked forward with desire to be revenged of them that thus have banished me, which now I do begin, in putting my person into the hands of their enemies. Wherefore if thou hast any heart to be wrecked of the injuries thy enemies have done thee, speed thee now, and let my misery serve thy turn, and so use it as my service may be a benefit to the Volces: promising thee, that I will fight with better good will for all you, than I did when I was against you, knowing that they fight more valiantly who know the force of the enemy, than such as have never proved it. And if it be so that thou dare not, and that thou art weary to prove fortune any more, then am I also weary to live any longer. And it were no wisdom in thee to save the life of him who hath been heretofore thy mortal enemy, and whose service now can nothing help, nor pleasure thee.” Tullus hearing what he said, was amarvellous glad man, and taking him by the hand, he said unto him: “Stand up, O Martius, and be of good cheer, for in proffering thyself unto us, thou doest us great honour: and by this means thou mayest hope also of greater things at all the Volces’ hands.” So he feasted him for that time, and entertained him in the honourablest manner he could, talking with him of no other matter at that present: but within few days after, they fell to consultation together in what sort they should begin their wars.’

The meeting between Coriolanus and his mother is also nearly the same as in the play.

‘Now was Martius set then in the chair of state, with all the honours of a general, and when he had spied the women coming afar off, he marvelled what the matter meant: but afterwards knowing his wife which came foremost, he determined at the first to persist in his obstinate and inflexible rancour. But overcome in the end with natural affection, and being altogether altered to see them, his heart would not serve him to tarry their coming to his chair, but coming down in haste, he went to meet them, and first he kissed his mother, and embraced her a pretty while, then his wife and little children. And nature so wrought with him, that the tears fell from his eyes, and he could not keep himself from making much of them, but yielded to the affection of his blood, as if he had been violently carried with the fury of a most swift-running stream. After he had thus lovingly received them, and perceiving that his mother Volumnia would begin to speak to him, he called the chiefest of the council of the Volces to hear what she would say. Then she spake in this sort: “If we held our peace, my son, and determined not to speak, the state of our poor bodies, and present sight of our raiment, would easily betray to thee what life we have led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad; but think now with thyself, how much more unfortunate than all the women living, we are come hither, considering that the sight which should be most pleasant to all others to behold, spiteful fortune had made most fearful to us: making myself to see my son, and my daughter here her husband, besieging the walls of his native country: so as that which is the only comfort to all others in their adversity and misery, to pray unto the Gods, and to call to them for aid, is the only thing which plungeth us into most deep perplexity. For we cannot, alas, together pray, both for victory to our country, and for safety of thy life also: but a world of grievous curses, yea more than any mortal enemy can heap upon us, are forcibly wrapped up in our prayers. For the bitter sop of most hard choice is offered thy wife and children, to forego one of the two: either to lose the person of thyself, or the nurse of their native country. For myself, my son, I am determined not to tarry till fortune in my lifetime do make an end of this war. For if I cannot persuade thee rather to do good unto both parties, than to overthrow and destroy the one, preferring love and nature before the malice and calamity of wars, thou shalt see, my son, and trust unto it, thou shalt no sooner march forward to assault thy country, but thy foot shall tread upon thy mother’s womb, that brought thee first intothis world. And I may not defer to see the day, either that my son be led prisoner in triumph by his natural countrymen, or that he himself do triumph of them, and of his natural country. For if it were so, that my request tended to save thy country, in destroying the Volces, I must confess, thou wouldest hardly and doubtfully resolve on that. For as to destroy thy natural country, it is altogether unmeet and unlawful, so were it not just and less honourable to betray those that put their trust in thee. But my only demand consisteth, to make a goal delivery of all evils, which delivereth equal benefit and safety, both to the one and the other, but most honourable for the Volces. For it shall appear, that having victory in their hands, they have of special favour granted us singular graces, peace and amity, albeit themselves have no less part of both than we. Of which good, if so it came to pass, thyself is the only author, and so hast thou the only honour. But if it fail, and fall out contrary, thyself alone deservedly shalt carry the shameful reproach and burthen of either party. So, though the end of war be uncertain, yet this notwithstanding is most certain, that if it be thy chance to conquer, this benefit shalt thou reap of thy goodly conquest, to be chronicled the plague and destroyer of thy country. And if fortune overthrow thee, then the world will say, that through desire to revenge thy private injuries, thou hast for ever undone thy good friends, who did most lovingly and courteously receive thee.” Martius gave good ear unto his mother’s words, without interrupting her speech at all, and after she had said what she would, he held his peace a pretty while, and answered not a word. Hereupon she began again to speak unto him, and said: “My son, why dost thou not answer me? Dost thou think it good altogether to give place unto thy choler and desire of revenge, and thinkest thou it not honesty for thee to grant thy mother’s request in so weighty a cause? Dost thou take it honourable for a nobleman to remember the wrongs and injuries done him, and dost not in like case think it an honest nobleman’s part to be thankful for the goodness that parents do shew to their children, acknowledging the duty and reverence they ought to bear unto them? No man living is more bound to shew himself thankful in all parts and respects than thyself; who so universally shewest all ingratitude. Moreover, my son, thou hast sorely taken of thy country, exacting grievous payments upon them, in revenge of the injuries offered thee; besides, thou hast not hitherto shewed thy poor mother any courtesy. And therefore, it is not only honest but due unto me, that without compulsion I should obtain my so just and reasonable request of thee. But since by reason I cannot persuade thee to it, to what purpose do I defer my last hope.” And with these words, herself, his wife and children, fell down upon their knees before him: Martius seeing that, could refrain no longer, but went straight and lifted her up, crying out, “Oh mother, what have you done to me?” And holding her hard by the hand, “Oh mother,” said he, “you have won a happy victory for your country, but mortal and unhappy for your son: for I see myself vanquished by you alone.” These words being spoken openly, he spake a little apart with his mother and wife, and then let them return again to Rome, for so they did request him; and so remaining in the camp that night, the next morning he dislodged, and marched homeward unto the Volces’ country again.’

Shakespear has, in giving a dramatic form to this passage, adhered very closely and properly to the text. He did not think it necessary to improve upon the truth of nature. Several of the scenes inJulius Cæsar, particularly Portia’s appeal to the confidence of her husband by shewing him the wound she had given herself, and the appearance of the ghost of Cæsar to Brutus, are in like manner, taken from the history.

This is one of the most loose and desultory of our author’s plays: it rambles on just as it happens, but it overtakes, together with some indifferent matter, a prodigious number of fine things in its way. Troilus himself is no character: he is merely a common lover: but Cressida and her uncle Pandarus are hit off with proverbial truth. By the speeches given to the leaders of the Grecian host, Nestor, Ulysses, Agamemnon, Achilles, Shakespear seems to have known them as well as if he had been a spy sent by the Trojans into the enemy’s camp—to say nothing of their affording very lofty examples of didactic eloquence. The following is a very stately and spirited declamation:

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