[1]He says (i. 3):—"I hate the Moor,And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets'Has done my office. I know not if 't be true;But I for mere suspicion in that kindWill do as if for surety."He adds (ii. 7):—"I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb,For fear Cassio with my night-cap too.
[1]He says (i. 3):—
"I hate the Moor,And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets'Has done my office. I know not if 't be true;But I for mere suspicion in that kindWill do as if for surety."
He adds (ii. 7):—
"I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb,For fear Cassio with my night-cap too.
A manuscript preserved in the Record Office, of doubtful date, but probably copied from an authentic document, contains the following entry:—
The plaiers              1605              The Poets wchBy the Kings     Hallamas Day being the    mayd the plaiesMaties plaiers   First of November A playin the Banketing house      Shaxberd.Att withal called theMoore of Venis
ThusOthellowas probably produced in the autumn of 1605. After this we have no proof of its performance till four and a half years later, when we hear of it again in the journal of Prince Ludwig Friedrich of Würtemberg, written by his secretary, Hans Wurmsser. The entry for the 30th of April 1610 runs thus:—
"Lundi, 30. S. E[minence] alla au Globe, lieu ordinaire ou l'on Joue les Commedies, y fut representé l'histoire du More de Venise."
In face of these data it matters nothing that there should appear inOthello, as we have it, a line that must have been written in or after 1611. The tragedy was printed for the first time in a quarto edition in 1622, for the second time in the Folio of 1623. The Folio text contains an additional 160 lines (proving that another manuscript has been made use of), and all oaths and mentions of the name of God are omitted. It is not only possible, but certain, that this line must have been a late interpolation. Its entire discordance with its position in the play shows this clearly enough, and seems to me to render it doubtful whether it is by Shakespeare at all.
In the scene where Othello bids Desdemona give him her hand, and loses himself in reflections upon it (iii. 4), he makes this speech:—
"A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands;But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts."
Here there is an allusion, which could only be understood by contemporaries, to the title of Baronet, created and sold by James, which gave its possessors the right of bearing in their coat-of-arms a bloody hand on a field argent. Most naturally Desdemona replies to this irrelevant remark: "I cannot speak of this."
In Cinthio's Italian collection of tales, where he had found the plot ofMeasure for Measure, Shakespeare at the same time (in Decade 3, Novella 7) came upon the material forOthello. The story in theHecatommithiruns as follows: A young Venetian lady named Disdemona falls in love with a Moor, a military commander—"not from feminine desire," but because of his great qualities—and marries him in spite of the opposition of her relatives. They live in Venice in complete happiness; "no word ever passed between them that was not loving." When the Moor is ordered to Cyprus to take command there, his one anxiety is about his wife; he is equally unwilling to expose her to the dangers of the sea voyage and to leave her alone. She settles the question by declaring that she will rather follow him anywhere, into any danger, than live in safety apart from him; whereupon he rapturously kisses her, with the ejaculation: "May God long preserve you so loving, my dearest wife!" Thus the perfect initial harmony between the pair which Shakespeare depicts is suggested by his original.
The Ensign undermines their happiness. He is described as remarkably handsome, but "as wicked by nature as any man that ever lived in the world." He was dear to the Moor, "who had no idea of his baseness." For although he was an arrant coward, he managed by means of proud and blusterous talk, aided by his fine appearance, so to conceal his cowardice that he passed for a Hector or Achilles. His wife, whom he had taken with him to Cyprus, was a fair and virtuous young woman, much beloved by Disdemona, who spent the greater part of the day in her company. The Lieutenant (il capo di squadra) came much to the Moor's house, and often supped with him and his wife.
The wicked Ensign is passionately in love with Disdemona, but all his attempts to win her love are entirely unsuccessful, as she has not a thought for any one but the Moor. The Ensign, however, imagines that the reason for her rejection of him must be that she is in love with the Lieutenant, and therefore determines to rid himself of this rival, while his love for Disdemona is changed into the bitterest hatred. From this time forward, his object is not only to bring about the death of the Lieutenant, but to prevent the Moor from finding the pleasure in Disdemona's love which is denied to himself. He goes to work as in the drama, though of course with some differences of detail. In the novel, for example, the Ensign steals Disdemona's handkerchief whilst she is visiting his wife, and playing with their little girl.Disdemona's death-scene is more horrible in the tale than in the tragedy. By command of the Moor, the Ensign hides himself in a room adjoining Othello's and Disdemona's bed-chamber. He makes a noise, and Disdemona rises to see what it is; whereupon the Ensign gives her a violent blow on the head with a stocking filled with sand. She calls to her husband for help, but he answers by accusing her of infidelity; she in vain protests her innocence, and dies at the third blow of the stocking. The murder is concealed, but the Moor now begins to hate his Ensign, and dismisses him. The Ensign is so exasperated by this, that he lets the Lieutenant know who is responsible for the night assault that has just been made upon him. The Lieutenant accuses the Moor before the council, and Othello is put to torture. He refuses to confess, and is sent into banishment. The wicked Ensign, who has brought a false accusation of murder against one of his comrades, is himself in turn accused by the innocent man, and subjected to torture until he dies.
To the characters in the novel, Shakespeare has added two, Brabantio and Roderigo. Only one of the names he uses is found in the original. Disdemona, which seems made to designate the victim of an evil destiny, Shakespeare has changed into the sweeter-sounding Desdemona. The other names are of Shakespeare's own choosing. Most of them are Italian (Othello itself is a Venetian noble name of the sixteenth century); others, such as Iago and Roderigo, are Spanish.
With his customary adherence to his original, Shakespeare, like Cinthio, calls his protagonist a Moor; but it is quite unreasonable to suppose from this that he thought of him as a negro. It was, of course, inconceivable that a negro should attain the rank of general and admiral in the service of the Venetian Republic; and Iago's mention of Mauritania as the country to which Othello intends to retire, shows plainly enough that the "Moor" ought to be represented as an Arab. It is no argument against this that men who hate and envy him apply to him epithets that would befit a negro. Thus Roderigo in the first scene of the play calls him "thick-lips," and Iago, speaking to Brabantio, calls him "an old black ram." But a little later Iago compares him with "a Barbary horse "—that is to say, an Arab from North Africa. It is always animosity and hate that exaggerate the darkness of his hue, as when Brabantio talks of his "sooty bosom". That Othello calls himselfblackonly means that he is dark. In this very play Iago says of dark women:
"If she beblack, and thereto have a wit,She'll find a white that shall herblacknessfit."
And we have seen how, in the Sonnets and inLove's Labours Lost, "black" is constantly employed in the sense of dark-complexioned. As a Moor, Othello has a complexion sufficientlyswarthy to form a striking contrast to the white and even blonde Desdemona, and there is also a sufficiently marked race-contrast between him, as a Semite, and the Aryan girl. It is quite conceivable, too, that a Christianised Moor should reach a high position in the army and fleet of the Republic.
It ought further to be noted that the whole tradition of the Venetian "Moor" has possibly arisen from a confusion of words. Rawdon Browne, in 1875, suggested the theory that Giraldi had founded his tale on the simple misunderstanding of a name. In the history of Venice we read of an eminent patrician, Christoforo Moro byname, who in 1498 was Podesta of Ravenna, and afterwards held similar office in Faenza, Ferrara, and the Romagna; then became Governor of Cyprus; in 1508 commanded fourteen ships; and later still was Proveditore of the army. When this man was returning from Cyprus to Venice in 1508, his wife (the third), who is said to have belonged to the family of Barbarigo (note the resemblance to Brabantio), died on the voyage, and there seems to have been some mystery connected with her death. In 1515 he took as his fourth wife a young girl, who is said to have been nicknamedDemonio bianco—the white demon. From this the name Desdemona may have been derived, in the same way as Moor from Moro.
The additions which Shakespeare made to the story as he found it in Cinthio—Desdemona's abduction, the hurried and secret marriage, the accusation, to us so strange, but in those days so natural and common, of the girl's heart having been won by witchcraft—these all occur in the history of Venetian families of the period.
Be this as it may, when Shakespeare proceeds to the treatment of the subject, he arranges all the conditions and circumstances, so that they present the most favourable field for Iago's operations, and he so fashions Othello as to render him more susceptible than any other man would be to the poison which Iago (like Lucianus in the play-scene inHamlet) drops into his ear. Then he lets us trace the growth of the passion from its first germ, through every stage of its development, until it blasts and shatters the victim's whole character.
Othello's is an inartificial soul, a simple, straightforward, soldier nature. He has no worldly wisdom, for he has lived his whole life in camps:
"And little of this great world can I speak,More than pertains to feats of broil and battle."
A good and true man himself, he believes in goodness in others, especially in those who make a show of outspokenness, bluffness, undaunted determination to blame where blame is due—like Iago, who characteristically says of himself to Desdemona:
"For I am nothing if not critical."
And Othello not only believes in Iago's honesty, but is inclined to take him for his guide, as being far superior to himself in knowledge of men and of the world.
Again, Othello belongs to the noble natures that are never preoccupied with the thought of their own worth. He is devoid of vanity. He has never said to himself that such exploits, such heroic deeds, as have won him his renown, must make a far deeper impression on the fancy of a young girl of Desdemona's disposition than the smooth face and pleasant manners of a Cassio. He is so little impressed with the idea of his greatness that it almost at once appears quite natural to him that he should be scorned.
Othello is the man of despised race, with the fiery African temperament. In comparison with Desdemona he is old—more of an age with her father than with herself. He tells himself that he has neither youth nor good looks to keep her love with, not even affinity of race to build upon. Iago exasperates Brabantio by crying:
"Even now, now, very now, an old black ramIs tupping your white ewe."
Othello's race has a reputation for low sensuality, therefore Roderigo can inflame the rage of Desdemona's father by such expressions as "gross clasps of a lascivious Moor."
That she should feel attracted by him must have seemed to outsiders like madness or the effect of sorcery. For, far from being of an inviting, forward, or coquettish nature Desdemona is represented as more than ordinarily reserved and modest. Her father calls her (i. 3):
"A maiden never bold;Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motionBlush'd at herself."
She has been brought up as a tenderly-nurtured patrician child in rich, happy Venice. The gilded youth of the city have fluttered around her daily, but she has shown favour to none of them, Therefore, her father says (i. 2):
"For I'll refer me to all things of sense,If she in chains of magic were not bound,Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'dThe wealthy curled darlings of our nation,Would ever have, to incur a general mock,Run from her guardage to the sooty bosomOf such a thing as thou."
Shakespeare, who knew everything about Italy, knew that the Venetian youth of that period had their hair curled, and wore a lock down on the forehead.
Othello, on his part, at once feels himself strongly drawn toDesdemona. And it is not merely the fair, delicate girl in her that allures him. Had he not loved her, her only, with burning passion, he would never have married her; for he has the fear of marriage that belongs to his wild, freedom-loving nature, and he in no wise considers himself honoured and exalted by this connection with a patrician family. He is descended from the princes of his country (i. 2):
"I fetch my life and beingFrom men of royal siege;"
And he has shrunk from binding himself:
"But that I love the gentle Desdemona,I would not my unhoused free conditionPut into circumscription and confineFor the sea's worth."
Truly there is magic in it—not the gross and common sorcery which the others believe in and suppose to have been employed— not the "foul charms" and "drugs or minerals that weaken motion," to which her father alludes—but the sweet, alluring magic by which a man and a woman are mysteriously enchained.
Othello's speech of self-vindication in the council chamber, in which he explains to the Duke how he came to win Desdemona's sympathy and tenderness, has been universally admired.
Having gained her father's favour, he was often asked by him to tell the story of his life, of its dangers and adventures. He told of sufferings and hardships, of hairbreadth 'scapes from death, of imprisonment by cruel enemies, of far-off strange countries he had journeyed through. (The fantastic catalogue, it may be noted, is taken from the fabulous books of travel of the day.) Desdemona loved to listen, but was often called away by household cares, always returning when these were despatched to follow his story with a greedy ear. He "found means" to draw from her a request to tell her his history, not in fragments, but entire. He consented, and often her eyes were filled with tears when she heard of the distresses of his youth. With innocent candour she bade him at last, if ever he had a friend that loved her, to teach him how to tell her Othello's story—"and that would woo her."
In other words, she is not won through the eye, though we must take Othello to have been a stately figure, but through the ear—"I saw Othello's visage in his mind." She becomes his through her sympathy with him in all he has suffered and achieved:—
"She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd,And I lov'd her that she did pity them.This only is the witchcraft I have us'd.Duke. I think, this tale would win my daughter too."
Such, then, is the relation in which the poet has decreed that these two shall stand to each other. This is no love between two of the same age and the same race, whom only family enmity keeps apart, as inRomeo and Juliet. Still less is it a union of hearts like that of Brutus and Portia, where the perfect harmony is the result of tenderest friendship in combination with closest kinship, added to the fact that the wife's father is her husband's hero and ideal. No, in direct contrast to this last, it is a union which rests on the attraction of opposites, and which has everything against it—difference of race, difference of age, and the strange, exotic aspect of the man, with the lack of self-confidence which it awakens in him.
Iago expounds to Roderigo how impossible it is that this alliance should last. Desdemona fell in love with the Moor because he bragged to her and told her fantastical lies; does any one believe that love can be kept alive by prating? To inflame the blood anew, "sympathy in years, manners, and beauties" is required, "all which the Moor is defective in."
The Moor himself is at first troubled by none of these reflections. And why not? Because Othello is not jealous.
This sounds paradoxical, yet it is the plain truth. Othello not jealous! It is as though one were to say water is not wet or fire does not burn. But Othello's is no jealous nature; jealous men and women think very differently and act very differently. He is unsuspicious, confiding, and in so far stupid—there lies the misfortune; but jealous, in the proper sense of the word, he is not. When Iago is preparing to insinuate his calumnies of Desdemona, he begins hypocritically (iii. 3):
"O beware, my lord, of jealousy;It is the green-eyed monster...."
Othello 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 more virtuous:Nor from mine own weak merits will I drawThe smallest fear, or doubt of her revolt;For she had eyes, and chose me."
Thus not even his exceptional position causes him any uneasiness, so long as things take their natural course. But there is no escaping the steady pursuit of which he, all unwitting, is the object. He becomes as suspicious towards Desdemona as he is credulous towards Iago—"Brave Iago!" "Honest Iago!" Brabantio's malison recurs to his mind—"She has deceived her father, and may thee;" and close on it crowd Iago's reasons:
"Haply, for I am black,And have not those soft parts of conversationThat chamberers have; or, for I am declin'dInto the vale of years;—yet that's not much."
And the torment seizes him of feeling that one human being is a sealed book to the other—that it is impossible to control passion and appetite in a woman, though the law may have given her into one's hand—until at last he feels as if he were stretched on the rack, and Iago can exult in the thought that not all the drowsy syrups of the world can procure him the untroubled sleep of yesterday. Then follows the mournful farewell to all his previous life, and on this sadness once more follows doubt, and despair at the doubt:—
"I think my wife be honest and think she is not;I think that thou art just and think thou art not,"
—until all his thoughts are centred in the craving for revenge and blood.
Not naturally jealous, he has become so through the working of the base but devilishly subtle slander which he is too simple to penetrate and spurn.
In these masterly scenes (the third and fourth of the third act) there are more reminiscences of other poets than we find elsewhere in Shakespeare within such narrow compass; and they are of interest as showing us what he knew, and what his mind was dwelling upon in those days.
In Berni'sOrlando Innamorato(Canto 51, Stanza I), we come upon Iago's declaration:—
"Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;But he that filches from me my good name,Robs me of that which not enriches him,And makes me poor indeed."
The passage in Berni runs thus:—
"Chi ruba un corno, un cavallo, un anello,E simil cose, ha qualche discrezione,E potrebbe chiamarsi ladroncello;Ma quel che ruba la riputazioneE de Paltrui fatiche si fa belloSi può chiamare assassino e ladrone."
A reminiscence also lies hidden in Othello's exquisite farewell to a soldier's life:—
"O now for everFarewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!Farewell the plumed troops, and the big wars,That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,The royal banner, and all quality,Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!"
It is clear that there must have lurked in Shakespeare's mind a reminiscence of an apostrophe contained in the old play,A Pleasant Comedie called Common Conditions, which he must, doubtless, have seen as a youth in Stratford. In it the hero says:—
"But farewell now, my coursers brave, attrapped to the ground.Farewell, adieu, all pleasures eke, with comely hawk and hound!Farewell, ye nobles all! Farewell, each martial knight!Farewell, ye famous ladies all, in whom I did delight!"
The study of Ariosto in Italian has also left its trace. It is where Othello, talking of the handkerchief, says:—
"A sibyl, that had number'd in the worldThe sun to course two hundred compasses,In her prophetic furysew'd the work."
InOrlando Furioso(Canto 46, Stanza 80) we read:—
"Una donzella della terra d'Ilia,Ch'aveail furor profeticocongiuntoCon studio di gran tempo, e con vigiliaLo fece di sua man di tutto punto."
The agreement here cannot possibly be accidental. And what makes it still more certain that Shakespeare had the Italian text before him is that the wordsprophetic fury, which are the same inOthelloas in the Italian, are not to be found in Harington's English translation, the only one then in existence. He must thus, whilst writingOthello, have been interested in Orlando, and had Berni's and Ariosto's poems lying on his table.
Desdemona's innocent simplicity in these scenes rivals the boundless and actually tragic simplicity of Othello. In the first place, she is convinced that the Moor, whom she sees wrought up to the verge of madness, cannot possibly suspect her, and is unassailable by jealousy.
"Emilia.        Is he not jealous?Desdemona. Who? he! I think the sun where he was bornDrew all such humours from him."
So she acts with foolish indiscretion, continuing to tease Othello about Cassio's reinstatement, although she ought to feel that it is her harping on this topic that enrages him.
Then follow Iago's still more monstrous lies: the confession he pretends to have heard Cassio make in his sleep; the story that she has presented the precious handkerchief to Cassio; and the pretence that Desdemona is the subject of the words which Othello, from his hiding-place, hears Cassio let fall as to hisrelations with the courtesan, Bianca. To hear his wife, his beloved, thus derided, stings the Moor to frenzy.
It is such a consistently sustained imposture that there is, perhaps, only one at all comparable to it in history—the intrigue of the diamond necklace, in which Cardinal de Rohan was as utterly duped and ruined as Othello is here.
And now Othello has reached the stage at which he can no longer think coherently, or speak except in ejaculations (iv. I):—
"Iago. Lie with her."Othello. With her?"Iago. With her, on her, what you will."Othello. Lie with her! lie on her!—We say, lie on her when they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome.—Handkerchief,—confessions, —handkerchief.—To confess, and be hanged for his labour.—First, to be hanged, and then to confess. ... It is not words, that shakes me thus.—Pish!—Noses, ears, and lips.—Is it possible?—Confess!— Handkerchief!—O devil!"
"Iago. Lie with her.
"Othello. With her?
"Iago. With her, on her, what you will.
"Othello. Lie with her! lie on her!—We say, lie on her when they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome.—Handkerchief,—confessions, —handkerchief.—To confess, and be hanged for his labour.—First, to be hanged, and then to confess. ... It is not words, that shakes me thus.—Pish!—Noses, ears, and lips.—Is it possible?—Confess!— Handkerchief!—O devil!"
With the mind's eye he sees them in each other's arms.[1]He is seized with an epileptic fit and falls.
This is not a representation of spontaneous but of artificially induced jealousy; in other words, of credulity poisoned by malignity. Hence the moral which Shakespeare, through the mouth of Iago, bids the audience take home with them:
"Thus credulous fools are caught;And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,All guiltless, meet reproach."
It is not Othello's jealousy, but his credulity that is the prime cause of the disaster; and even so must Desdemona's noble simplicity bear its share in the blame. Between them they render possible the complete success of a man like Iago.
When Othello bursts into tears before Desdemona's eyes, without her suspecting the reason (iv. 2), he says most touchingly that he could have borne affliction and shame, poverty and captivity—could even have endured to be made the butt of mockery and scorn—but that he cannot bear to see her whom he worshipped the object of his own contempt. He does not suffer most from jealousy, but from seeing "the fountain from the which hiscurrent runs" a dried-up swamp, or "a cistern for foul toads to knot and gender in." This is pure, deep sorrow at seeing his idol sullied, not mean frenzy at the idol's preferring another worshipper.
And with that grace which is an attribute of perfect strength, Shakespeare has introduced as a contrast, directly before the terrible catastrophe, Desdemona's delicate little ditty of the willowtree—of the maiden who weeps because her lover is untrue to her, but who loves him none the less. Desdemona is deeply touching when she pleads with her cruel lord for but a few moments' respite, but she is great in the instant of death, when she expires with the sublime lie, the one lie of her life, upon her lips, designed to shield her murderer from his punishment.
Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia—what a trefoil! Each has her characteristic features, but they resemble one another like sisters they all present the type which Shakespeare at this point loves and most affects. Had they a model? Had they perhaps one and the same model? Had he about this time encountered a young and charming woman, living, as it were, under a cloud of sorrow, injustice, misunderstanding, who was all heart and tenderness, without any claims to intellect or wit? We may suspect this, but we know nothing of it.
The figure of Desdemona is one of the most charming Shakespeare has drawn. She is more womanly than other women, as the noble Othello is more manly than other men. So that after all there is a very good reason for the attraction between them; the most womanly of women feels herself drawn to the manliest of men.
The subordinate figures are worked out with hardly less skill than the principal characters of the tragedy. Emilia especially is inimitable—good-hearted, honest, and not exactly light, but still sufficiently the daughter of Eve to be unable to understand Desdemona's naïve and innocent chastity.
At the end of Act iv. (in the bedroom scene) Desdemona asks Emilia if she believes that there really are women who do what Othello accuses her of. Emilia answers in the affirmative. Then her mistress asks again: "Would'st thou do such a deed for all the world?" and receives the jesting answer, "The world is a huge thing; 'tis a great price for a small vice:
"Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty exhibition; but, for the whole world! ... Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and, having the world for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it right."
"Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty exhibition; but, for the whole world! ... Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and, having the world for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it right."
In passages like this a mildly playful note is struck in the very midst of the horror. And according to his habit and the custom of the times, Shakespeare also introduces, by means ofthe Clown, one or two deliberately comic passages; but the Clown's merriment is subdued, as Shakespeare's merriment at this period always is.
The composition ofOthellois closely akin to that ofMacbeth. In these two tragedies alone there are no episodes; the action moves onward uninterrupted and undissipated. But the beautiful proportion of all its parts and articulations givesOthellothe advantage over the mutilatedMacbethwhich we possess. Here the crescendo of the tragedy is executed with absolutemaestria; the passion rises with a positively musical effect; Iago's devilish plan is realised step by step with consummate certainty; all details are knit together into one firm and well-nigh inextricable knot; and the carelessness with which Shakespeare has treated the necessary lapse of time between the different stages of the action, has, by compressing the events of months and years into a few days, heightened the effect of strict and firm cohesion which the play produces.
There are some inaccuracies in the text as we have it. At the close of the play there is a passage, to account for which we must almost assume that part of a vitiated text, adapted to some special performance, has been interpolated. In the full rush of the catastrophe, when only Othello's last speeches are wanting, Lodovico volunteers some information as to what has happened, which is not only superfluous for the spectator, but quite out of the general style and tone of the play:
"Lodovico. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter,Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo;And here another: the one of them importsThe death of Cassio to be undertookBy Roderigo.Othello. O villain!Cassio. Most heathenish and most gross!Lod. Now, here's another discontented paper,Found in his pocket too," &c., &c.
These speeches, and yet a third, are all aimed at making Othello understand how shamefully he has been deceived; but they are nerveless and feeble and detract from the effect of the scene. This passage ought to be expunged; it is not Shakespeare's, and it forms a little stain on his flawless work of art.
For flawless it is. I not only find several of Shakespeare's greatest qualities united in this work, but I see hardly a fault in it.
It is the only one of Shakespeare's tragedies which does not treat of national events, but is a family tragedy,—what was later known astragédie domestique or bourgeoise. But the treatment is anything but bourgeois; the style is of the very grandest. Onegets the best idea of the distance between it and thetragédie bourgeoiseof later times on comparing with it Schiller'sKabale und Liebe, which is in many ways an imitation ofOthello.
We see here a great man who is at the same time a great child; a noble though impetuous nature, as unsuspicious as it is unworldly. We see a young woman, all gentleness and nobility of heart, who lives only for him she has chosen, and who dies with solicitude for her murderer on her lips. And we see these two elect natures ruined by the simplicity which makes them an easy prey to wickedness.
A great workOthelloundoubtedly is, but it is a monograph. It lacks the breadth which Shakespeare's plays as a rule possess. It is a sharply limited study of a single and very special form of passion, the growth of suspicion in the mind of a lover with African blood and temperament—a great example of the power of wickedness over unsuspecting nobility. Taken all in all, this is a restricted subject, which becomes monumental only by the grandeur of its treatment.
No other drama of Shakespeare's had been so much of a monograph. He assuredly felt this, and with the impulse of the great artist to make his new work a complement and contrast to the immediately preceding one, he now sought and found the subject for that one of his tragedies which is least of all a monograph, which grew into nothing less than the universal tragedy—all the great woes of human life concentrated in one mighty symbol.
He turned fromOthellotoLear.
[1]The development of this passage exactly corresponds to Spinoza's classic definition of jealousy, written seventy years later. SeeEthices, Pars III., Propositio XXXV., Scholium: "Præterea hoc odium erga rem amatam majus erit pro ratione Lætitiæ, qua Zelotypus ex reciproco rei amatæ. Amore solebat affici, et etiam pro ratione affectus, quo erga illum, quem sibi rem amatam jungere imaginatur, affectus erat. Nam si eum oderat, eo ipso rem amatam odio habebit, quia ipsam id, quod ipse odio habet, Lætitia afficere imaginatur; et etiam ex eo, quod rei amatæ imaginem imagini ejus, quem odit, jungere cogitur, quæ ratio plerumque locum habet in Amore erga fœminam; qui enim imaginatur mulierem, quam amat, alteri sese prostituere, non solum ex eo, quod ipsius appetitus coercetur, contristabitur, sed etiam quia rei amatæ maginem pudendis et excrementis alterius jungere cogitur, eandem aversatur."
[1]The development of this passage exactly corresponds to Spinoza's classic definition of jealousy, written seventy years later. SeeEthices, Pars III., Propositio XXXV., Scholium: "Præterea hoc odium erga rem amatam majus erit pro ratione Lætitiæ, qua Zelotypus ex reciproco rei amatæ. Amore solebat affici, et etiam pro ratione affectus, quo erga illum, quem sibi rem amatam jungere imaginatur, affectus erat. Nam si eum oderat, eo ipso rem amatam odio habebit, quia ipsam id, quod ipse odio habet, Lætitia afficere imaginatur; et etiam ex eo, quod rei amatæ imaginem imagini ejus, quem odit, jungere cogitur, quæ ratio plerumque locum habet in Amore erga fœminam; qui enim imaginatur mulierem, quam amat, alteri sese prostituere, non solum ex eo, quod ipsius appetitus coercetur, contristabitur, sed etiam quia rei amatæ maginem pudendis et excrementis alterius jungere cogitur, eandem aversatur."
InKing Lear, Shakespeare's vision sounded the abyss of horror to its very depths, and his spirit showed neither fear, nor giddiness, nor faintness at the sight.
On the threshold of this work, a feeling of awe comes over one, as on the threshold of the Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling-frescoes by Michael Angelo—only that the suffering here is far more intense, the wail wilder, the harmonies of beauty more definitely shattered by the discords of despair.
Othellowas a noble piece of chamber-music—simple and easily apprehended, powerfully affecting though it be. This work, on the other hand, is the symphony of an enormous orchestra—all earth's instruments sound in it, and every instrument has many stops.
King Learis the greatest task Shakespeare ever set himself, the most extensive and the most imposing;—all the suffering and horror that can arise from the relation between a father and his children expressed in five acts of moderate length.
No modern mind has dared to face such a subject; nor could any one have grappled with it. Shakespeare did so without even a trace of effort, by virtue of the overpowering mastery which he now, in the meridian of his genius, had attained over the whole of human life. He handles his theme with the easy vigour that belongs to spiritual health, though we have here scene upon scene of such intense pathos that we seem to hear the sobs of suffering humanity accompanying the action, much as one hears by the sea-shore the steady plash and sob of the waves.
Under what conditions did Shakespeare take hold of this subject? The drama tells plainly enough. He stood at the turning-point of human life; he had lived about forty-two years; ten years of life still lay before him, but of these certainly not more than seven were intellectually productive. He now brought that which makes life worse than death face to face with that which makes life worth living—the very breath of our lungs and Cordelia-likesolace of our suffering—and swept them both forward to a catastrophe that appals us like the ruin of a world.
In what frame of mind did Shakespeare set himself to this work? What was seething in his brain, what was moaning in his breast, at the time he chanced upon this subject? The drama tells plainly enough. Of all the different forms of cruelty, coarseness, and baseness with which life had brought him into contact, of all the vices and infamies that embitter the existence of the nobler sort of men, one vice now seemed to him the worst—stood out before him as the most abominable and revolting of all—one of which he himself, no doubt, had again and again been the victim—to wit, ingratitude. He saw no baseness more widespread or more indulgently regarded.
Who can doubt that he, immoderately enriched by nature, he whose very existence was, like that of Shelley's cloud, a constant giving, an eternal beneficence, a perpetual bringing of "fresh showers to the thirsting flowers"—who can doubt that such a giver on the grandest scale must again and again have been rewarded with the blackest ingratitude? We see, for instance, howHamlet, so far his greatest work, was received with instant attack, with what Swinburne has aptly called "the jeers, howls, hoots and hisses of which a careful ear may catch some far, faint echo even yet—the fearful and furtive yelp from beneath of the masked and writhing poeticule."[1]His life passed in the theatre. We can very well guess, where we do not know, how comrades to whom he gave example and assistance; stage poets, who envied while they admired him; actors whom he trained and who found in him a spiritual father; the older men whom he aided, the young men whom he befriended—how all these would now fall away from him, now fall upon him; and each new instance of ingratitude was a shock to his spiritual life. For years he kept silence, suppressed his indignation, locked it up in his own breast. But he hated and despised ingratitude above all vices, because it at once impoverished and belittled his soul.
His was certainly not one of those artist natures that are free-handed with money when they have it, and confer benefits with good-natured carelessness. He was a competent, energetic business man, who spared and saved in order to gain an independence and restore the fallen fortunes of his family. But none the less he was evidently a good comrade in practical, a benefactor in intellectual, life. And he felt that ingratitude impoverished and degraded him, by making it hard for him to be helpful again, and to give forth with both hands out of the royal treasure of his nature, when he had been disappointed and deceived so often, even by those for whom he had done most and in whom he believed most. He felt that if there wereany baseness which could drive its victim to despair, to madness, it was the vice of black ingratitude.
In such a frame of mind he finds, one day, when he is as usual turning over the leaves of his Holinshed, the story of King Lear, the great giver. In the same temper he reads the old play on the subject, dating from 1593-4, and entitledChronicle History of King Leir. Here he found what he needed, the half-worked clay out of which he could model figures and groups. Here, in this superficially dramatised chronicle of appalling ingratitude, was the very theme for him to develop. So he took it to his heart and brooded over it till it quickened and came to life.
We can determine without difficulty the period during which Shakespeare was working atKing Lear. Were it not clear from other reasons that the play cannot have been written before 1603, we should know it from the fact that in this year was published Harsnet'sDeclaration of Popish Impostures, from which he took the names of some of the fiends mentioned by Edgar (iii. 4). And it cannot have been produced later than 1606, for on the 26th December of that year it was acted before King James. This we know from its being entered in the Stationers' Register on the 26th of November 1607, with the addition "as yt was played before the kinges maiestie at Whitehall vppon Sainct Stephens night at Christmas last." But we can get still nearer than this to the time of its composition. When Gloucester (i. 2) speaks of "these late eclipses," he is doubtless alluding to the eclipse of the sun in October 1605. And the immediately following remarks about "machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders" prevailing at the time, refer in all probability to the great Gunpowder Plot of November 1605.
Thus it was towards the end of 1605 that Shakespeare began to work atKing Lear.
The story was old and well known. It was told for the first time in Latin by Geoffrey of Monmouth in hisHistoria Britonum,for the first time in English by Layamon in hisBrutabout 1205. It came originally from Wales and bears a distinctly Celtic impress, which Shakespeare, with his fine feeling for all national peculiarities, has succeeded in retaining and intensifying.
He found all the main features of the story in Holinshed. According to this authority, Leir, son of Baldud, rules in Britain "at what time Joash reigned as yet in Juda." His three daughters are named Gonorilla, Regan, and Cordeilla. He asks them how great is their love for him, and they answer as in the tragedy. Cordeilla, repudiated and disinherited, marries one of the princes of Gaul. When the two elder daughters have shamefully ill-treated Leir, he flees to Cordeilla. She and her husband raise an army, sail to England, defeat the armies of the two sisters, and reinstate Leir on his throne. He reigns for two more years;then Cordeilla succeeds to the throne—and this happens "in the yeere of the world 3155, before the bylding of Rome 54, Uzia then reigning in Juda and Jeroboam over Israell." She rules the kingdom for five years. Then her husband dies, and her sisters' sons rise in rebellion against her, lay waste a great part of the country, take her prisoner, and keep her strictly guarded. This so enrages Cordeilla, who is of a masculine spirit, that she takes her own life.
The material Shakespeare found in this tradition did not suffice him. The thoughts and imaginings which the story set astir within him led him to seek for a supplement to the action in the tale of Gloucester and his sons, which he took from Sir Philip Sidney'sArcadia, a book not yet twenty years old. With the story of the great giver, who is recompensed with ingratitude by his wicked daughters after he has banished his good daughter, he entwined the story of the righteous duke, who, deceived by slander, repudiates his good son, and is hurled by the bad one into the depths of misery, until at last his eyes are torn out of his head.
According to Sidney, some princes are overtaken by a storm in the kingdom of Galacia. They take refuge in a cave, where they find an old blind man and a youth, whom the old man in vain entreats to lead him to the top of a rock, from which he may throw himself down, and thus put an end to his life. The old man had formerly been Prince of Paphlagonia, but the "hard-hearted ungratefulness" of his illegitimate son had deprived him not only of his kingdom but of his eyesight. This bastard had previously had a fatal influence over his father. By his permission the Prince had given orders to his servants to take his legitimate son out into a wood and there kill him. The young man, however, escaped, went into foreign military service, and distinguished himself; but when he heard of the evils that had befallen his father, he hastened back to be a support to his hapless age, and is now heaping coals of fire upon his head. The old man begs the foreign princes to make his story known, that it may bring honour to the pious son,—the only reward he can expect.
The old drama ofKing Leirhad kept strictly to Holinshed's chronicle. It is instructive reading for any one who is trying to mete out the compass of Shakespeare's genius. A childish work, in which the rough outlines of the principal action, as we know them from Shakespeare, are superficially reproduced, it compares with Shakespeare's tragedy as the melody of Schiller's "An die Freude," played with one finger, compares with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And even this comparison does rather too much honour to the old drama, in which the melody is barely suggested.