INDEX OF CHARACTERS

"Stars, stars,And all eyes else dead coals,"

is haunting and heart-breaking. All hislonging of remorse gives to the last great scene, before the supposed statue, an intensity of beauty hardly endurable.

The passion of remorse is a romantic, not a tragic passion. It is the mood which follows the tragic mood. Shakespeare's creative life is like a Shakespearean play. It ends with an easing of the strain and a making of peace.

It is said that an old horse near to death turns towards the pastures where he was foaled. It is true of human beings. Man wanders home to the fields which bred him. A part of the romance of this poem is the turning back of the poet's mind to the Cotswold country, of which he sang so magically, in his first play, sixteen or eighteen years before. There are fine scenes of shepherds at home, among the sheep bells and clean wind. There is a very lovely talk of flowers—

"daffodils,That come before the swallow dares, and takeThe winds of March with beauty; violets dim,But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyesOr Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,That die unmarried, ere they can beholdBright Phœbus in his strength."

To Shakespeare, the magically happy man, the going back to them must have been a time for thanksgiving. But to the supremely happy man all times are times of thanksgiving, deep, tranquil and abundant, for the delight, the majesty and the beauty of the fulness of the rolling world.

The Tempest.

Written.1610-11.Published, in the folio, 1623.Source of the Plot.It is likely that many sources contributed to the making of this plot. If Shakespeare took the fable from a single source, that source is not now known. He may have taken suggestions for it from the following books:—1st. From a little collection of novels by Antonio de Eslava, a Spanish writer, whose book,Noches de Invierno, was published in Barcelona in 1609. Three tales in this collection seem to have given hints for the play. The fourth chapter, about "The Art Magic of King Dardano," helped him more than the others. Whether the title ofthe book suggested the title ofA Winter's Taleis not known.2nd. From a German play,Die schöne Sidea, by a Nuremberg dramatist, named Jacob Ayrer.3rd. From the tracts relating to the discovery of the Bermuda Islands in 1609. Of the known tracts,A Discovery of the Bermuda Islands, by Sylvester Jourdain, gave Shakespeare the most hints.Several other books may have suggested lines and passages.The Fable.Prospero, Duke of Milan, having been driven from his dukedom by Antonio his brother, flies to sea with his daughter Miranda, lands on an island, and there lives, served by two creatures, one an airy spirit, the other a loutish monster.By art magic, he brings to the island his usurping brother and the king and heir of Naples. Miranda falls in love with the heir of Naples. Prospero dismisses his spirits, reconciles himself with his brother, and plans to sail at once for Milan.

Written.1610-11.

Published, in the folio, 1623.

Source of the Plot.It is likely that many sources contributed to the making of this plot. If Shakespeare took the fable from a single source, that source is not now known. He may have taken suggestions for it from the following books:—

1st. From a little collection of novels by Antonio de Eslava, a Spanish writer, whose book,Noches de Invierno, was published in Barcelona in 1609. Three tales in this collection seem to have given hints for the play. The fourth chapter, about "The Art Magic of King Dardano," helped him more than the others. Whether the title ofthe book suggested the title ofA Winter's Taleis not known.

2nd. From a German play,Die schöne Sidea, by a Nuremberg dramatist, named Jacob Ayrer.

3rd. From the tracts relating to the discovery of the Bermuda Islands in 1609. Of the known tracts,A Discovery of the Bermuda Islands, by Sylvester Jourdain, gave Shakespeare the most hints.

Several other books may have suggested lines and passages.

The Fable.Prospero, Duke of Milan, having been driven from his dukedom by Antonio his brother, flies to sea with his daughter Miranda, lands on an island, and there lives, served by two creatures, one an airy spirit, the other a loutish monster.

By art magic, he brings to the island his usurping brother and the king and heir of Naples. Miranda falls in love with the heir of Naples. Prospero dismisses his spirits, reconciles himself with his brother, and plans to sail at once for Milan.

In this play, as in the two other original romantic plays, Shakespeare follows the workings of a treacherous act from its performance to the repentance of the sinner and the granting of the victim's forgiveness. In the great plays the victim dies and the sinner does not repent. Presently the wheel comes full circle, and a justice from outside life smites him dead. In these plays the betrayed live to forgive the traitors—

"Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,Yet, with my nobler reason, 'gainst my furyDo I take part. The rarer action isIn virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,The sole drift of my purpose doth extendNot a frown further."

In this play, as in the other two and inPericles, much is made of the chances and accidents of life, and of the sudden changes of worldly circumstance due to them. In this play, for the first and last time, Shakespeare treats of the power of the resolved imagination to command the brutish, the base, the noble and the spiritual for wise human ends.

It is easy to interpret the play as allegory. Youth in this country has reason to regard allegory as a clumsy man's way of introducing Sunday on a weekday. It is so seldom successful that it may be called the literary method of creative minds below the first rank. Shakespeare's method was never allegorical. TheTempestis perhaps no more allegoricalthan any other good romance. But the thought of it is so clear that the first impression given is that it is thin. It is the study of a man of intellect, who has been forced from power by a treacherous brother. Living alone with his bright, unspoiled daughter, he attains, by intellectual labour, to a power over destiny. Like the wise man of the proverb, he learns to master his stars. He uses this power nobly to put an end to ancient hatred and old injustice.

The minor vision of the play is a study, often very amusing, but deeply earnest, of the coming of the fifth part civilised to the mostly brutal. In Shakespeare's time, men like the quite thoughtless and callous Stephano and Trinculo, the "sea-dogs" who manned our ships, and of whom Raleigh wrote that it was an offence to God to minister oaths to the generality of them, were "spreading civilisation" in various parts of the world. Shakespeare, looking at them gravely, saw them to be, perhaps, more dangerous to the needs of life, to wisdom, and to unlit animalstrength than the base Sebastian and the treacherous Antonio.

The exquisite lyrics, and the masque of the goddesses, show that the taste of the audience of 1610-11 needed to be tickled. Times had changed since the lion-like and ramping days, eighteen years before, when "Jeronimy" was a new word, and Tamora a serious invention. The man who had changed the times was thinking, like Prospero, that he had "got his dukedom," and that now, having "pardoned the deceiver," he might go to Stratford to enjoy it.

King Henry VIII, orAll is True.

Written.1611-13 (?)Produced.(?)Published, in the first folio, 1623.Source of the Plot.Holinshed'sChronicles. Hall'sChronicles. Foxe'sBook of Martyrs.The Fable.Act I. Two of the scenes in this act are by Shakespeare. In the first, Cardinal Wolsey contrives the attainting of his enemy, the Duke of Buckingham. In the other he procures to bring Queen Katharine into disfavour.Act II. In this act, Buckingham is beheaded, the Kingshows favour to Anne Bullen, and Queen Katharine is brought to trial. It is hard to believe that Shakespeare wrote any part of this act. He is often credited with the third scene, apparently on the ground that though it is bad it is still too good to be by Bacon.Act III. In this act, the King shows Wolsey that he has discovered his plottings. About half of the second scene (all the masculine part of it) is by Shakespeare. The rest (very beautiful) is by Fletcher.Act IV. Anne Bullen is crowned. Wolsey dies. Queen Katharine dies. None of this act is by Shakespeare.Act V. Cranmer escapes from his enemies in time to be godfather at the christening of Anne Bullen's daughter Elizabeth. If any of this act be by Shakespeare it can only be the first scene.

Written.1611-13 (?)

Produced.(?)

Published, in the first folio, 1623.

Source of the Plot.Holinshed'sChronicles. Hall'sChronicles. Foxe'sBook of Martyrs.

The Fable.Act I. Two of the scenes in this act are by Shakespeare. In the first, Cardinal Wolsey contrives the attainting of his enemy, the Duke of Buckingham. In the other he procures to bring Queen Katharine into disfavour.

Act II. In this act, Buckingham is beheaded, the Kingshows favour to Anne Bullen, and Queen Katharine is brought to trial. It is hard to believe that Shakespeare wrote any part of this act. He is often credited with the third scene, apparently on the ground that though it is bad it is still too good to be by Bacon.

Act III. In this act, the King shows Wolsey that he has discovered his plottings. About half of the second scene (all the masculine part of it) is by Shakespeare. The rest (very beautiful) is by Fletcher.

Act IV. Anne Bullen is crowned. Wolsey dies. Queen Katharine dies. None of this act is by Shakespeare.

Act V. Cranmer escapes from his enemies in time to be godfather at the christening of Anne Bullen's daughter Elizabeth. If any of this act be by Shakespeare it can only be the first scene.

Little of this play is by Shakespeare. The greater part of it is by John Fletcher. Some scenes bear the marks of a third hand, like that of Philip Massinger. The play reads as though the two lesser poets had worked from a scenario of Shakespeare's less complete than the draft ofTroilus and Cressida. It is certain that they received no hint of the lines on which Shakespeare meant to proceed after the end of Act III. Not knowing what to do, they patched up a piece without any central tragical idea, and hid their want of thought with much effective theatrical invention,pageants, a trial, a coronation, a christening, etc., and with bright, facile, vinous dialogue, of the kind that will hold an uncritical audience. The play, when done, was mounted with extreme splendour at the Globe Theatre. Wadding from the cannons discharged in the first act set fire to the theatre, and burned it to the ground, June 29, 1613.

Shakespeare's dramatic intention is indicated in the scenes written by him. Knowing his practice, and having before us Holinshed, his authority, it is easy to sketch out the kind of play that he would have written by himself. Wolsey, eaten up by his obsession for worldly power, betraying Buckingham to his fall, breaking the power of the Queen, and ruling England, would have filled the first two acts. The third act would have told (much more subtly than Fletcher has told) of his downfall. Fletcher attributes the downfall to the chance discovery of his attempt to thwart the king's marriage with Anne Bullen. That discovery would have been put to full dramatic use by Shakespeare; but it would have been represented as something working from beyond the grave, the result of many unjust acts that have cried to God for justice till God hears. The last acts would have exposed other sides of Wolsey's character. The play would have been a fuller, nobler work thanRichard II, and of an ampler canvas thanTimon. Shakespeare's share in the play as we have it is all noble work. Wolsey, Katharine and the King are drawn with the great, sharp, ample line of a master. The difference between genius and supreme genius is shown very clearly in the first act, where a great work, greatly begun, with the masterly power of exposition that makes Shakespeare's first acts like daybreaks, is ended by another spirit, without vision, but with a tremendous sense of Vanity Fair.

WORK ATTRIBUTED TO SHAKESPEARE

A play calledCardenno, orCardenna, was acted at Court by Shakespeare's company in 1613. It is thought that this play was theHistory of Cardenio, described as "by Fletcher and Shakespeare," which was licensed for publication in 1653 but never published. The play is now lost. It was attributed to Fletcher and Shakespeare on very poor authority.

Arden of Fevershamis a domestic tragedy founded on a story told by Holinshed. It was published anonymously in 1592. It is held by some to be an early work of Shakespeare's, on the ground that no other known poet, then living, could have written it. It is a strong play, but it is the work of a joyless mind. It bears no single trace of Shakespeare's mind. It could not have been written by him at any stage in his career.

Edward IIIis an historical chronicle play by at least two unknown hands. It was published anonymously in 1596. Some think that part of Act I and the whole of Act II (dealing with the King's obsession of passion for the Countess of Salisbury) were by Shakespeare, on the grounds that the writing istoo good to be by anybody else then living, and that the unknown author makes use of a line and a phrase which occur in the genuine sonnets of Shakespeare. The scenes attributed to Shakespeare contain several beautiful lines in something of the Shakespearean manner. The construction of the scenes, and their relation to the rest of the play is un-Shakespearean. It is unlikely that Shakespeare wrote them.

The Spanish Tragedy, a play by Thomas Kyd, published in 1592 and reprinted with many additions ten years later, contains in the additions several magnificent scenes of the passion of grief raised to madness. Some think that Ben Jonson wrote these scenes; others, that they are too good to be by any one but Shakespeare. They are not like Shakespeare's work.

The Two Noble Kinsmen, a romantic tragedy on the subject of Chaucer'sKnight's Tale, was first published in 1634. It was described on the title-page as the joint work of Fletcher and Shakespeare. Shakespeare'shand is plainly marked upon the play; but it seems likely that most of the scenes usually credited to him are by Massinger. Few can have ears dull enough to credit Shakespeare with all the scenes that are plainly not by Fletcher.

About a dozen other plays and parts of plays have been attributed to Shakespeare, either by lying publishers, anxious to make money, or by foolish critics eager to make a noise. "Evil men understand not judgment: and he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." There is not a glimmer of evidence in any line or scene to show that Shakespeare had a hand in any of them.

THE POEMS

Venus and Adonis.—This poem was published in 1593 with a dedication to the Earl of Southampton, then a youth. In the dedication Shakespeare speaks of the poem as "the first heire of my invention," fromwhich some conclude that it was the first poem ever made public by him.

Though it may be his earliest poem, the thought expressed by it is the thought expressed in the greatest of the plays, that evil comes of obsession.

Venus, a lustful woman, pursuing her opposite, a chaste youth, comes to misery. Adonis, a chaste youth, fleeing from her, comes to death.

The poem is beautiful and wild blooded. It is fierce with the excelling animal zest of something young and untainted.

"The sun ariseth in his majestyWho doth the world so gloriously behold,That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold."

It is full of the images of delicate quick-blooded things going swiftly and lustily from the boiling of the April in them.

The Rape of Lucrece.—This poem was published in 1594, with a dedication to theEarl of Southampton. Like so many of the works of Shakespeare, it describes at length the prompting, acting, and results of a treachery inspired by an obsession. Tarquin, hearing of Lucrece's chastity, longs to attempt her. Coming stealthily to her home, in her lord's absence, he foully ravishes her. She kills herself and he is banished from Rome. The subject is not unlike that ofVenus and Adonis, with the sexes reversed. In both poems the subject is sexual obsession and its results.

Lucreceis a wiser and a finer poem thanVenus and Adonis. It is constructed with the art of a man familiar with the theatre. The delaying of the great moments so as to heighten the expectation, is contrived with rapturous energy. The poem is heaped and overflowing with the abundance of imaginative power. The wealth of the young man's mind is poured out like life in June.

It is strange that both Lucrece and Hamlet, in their moments of distraction, turn to theimage of Troy blazing with the punishment of treachery.

The Passionate Pilgrim.—This little collection of poems was published in 1599, under Shakespeare's name, by William Jaggard, a dishonest bookseller. It contains poems by Richard Barnfield, Bartholomew Griffin, Christopher Marlowe, and one or more unknown hands. It also contains two genuine Shakespearean sonnets, three more from the text ofLove's Labour's Lost, and three (less certainly his) on the subject ofVenus and Adonis, which have the ring of his freshest youthful manner. Whether any others in the collection be by Shakespeare can only be a matter of opinion. The nineteenth poem has a smack of his mind about it. If it be by him it must be his earliest extant work.

The Sonnets.—Writtenbetween 1592 and 1609.Published(piratically) 1609.

These personal poems have puzzled many readers. Many writers have tried to interpretthem. Although their first editor tells us that they are "serene, cleare, and elegantlie plaine (with) no intricate and cloudie stuffe to trouble and perplex the intellect," much good and bad brain work has been spent on them. Some have held that they are poetical exercises. Others find that they are confessions. Others wrest from dark lines dark meanings, till they have laid bare a story from them. Others interpret spiritually. Others find evidence in them that Shakespeare was guilty of an abnormal form of passion. The facts about them may be stated—

1. They are personal poems. Some of them are of great beauty; others are unsuccessful.2. They were written in many moods. Some were written in a mood of the intensest tranquil ecstasy, others in a fit of earthly passion, others in a trivial mood.3. They were written to more than one person. Many were written to an attractive,handsome, young, unmarried man, Shakespeare's dear friend. Men with imagination enjoy sweeter and closer friendships than the many know. The many, mulish as ever, therefore imagine evil.4. Some of the sonnets were written to a woman, of the kind described in two or three of the plays, viz. a black-haired, black-eyed, white-faced, witty wanton, false to her marriage vows and the cause of similar falseness in Shakespeare himself, and in his friend.5. Many of them show that Shakespeare, loving this woman, against his better nature, was wilfully betrayed by her to all the devils of jealousy, craving and self-loathing, which follow the banner of lechery. Among the objects of the jealousy another poet figured.

1. They are personal poems. Some of them are of great beauty; others are unsuccessful.

2. They were written in many moods. Some were written in a mood of the intensest tranquil ecstasy, others in a fit of earthly passion, others in a trivial mood.

3. They were written to more than one person. Many were written to an attractive,handsome, young, unmarried man, Shakespeare's dear friend. Men with imagination enjoy sweeter and closer friendships than the many know. The many, mulish as ever, therefore imagine evil.

4. Some of the sonnets were written to a woman, of the kind described in two or three of the plays, viz. a black-haired, black-eyed, white-faced, witty wanton, false to her marriage vows and the cause of similar falseness in Shakespeare himself, and in his friend.

5. Many of them show that Shakespeare, loving this woman, against his better nature, was wilfully betrayed by her to all the devils of jealousy, craving and self-loathing, which follow the banner of lechery. Among the objects of the jealousy another poet figured.

No one knows who the friend, the lady and the rival poet were. The discovery of letters and manuscripts may some day remove the mystery. "Against that time,if ever that time come," men of intellect would do well to accept the sonnets as beautiful poems, and try to write as good ones to their wives.

Beautiful as many of the sonnets are, they are less wonderful achievements and less important to the soul of man than the plays. Few people thought much of them until the degradation of the English theatre had hidden from English minds the greater glory of the creative system. That they are now widely read while the plays are seldom acted, is another proof that this age cares more for what was perishing and personal in Shakespeare than for that which went winging on, in the great light, surveying the eternal in man.

What Shakespeare thought of his perishing self is expressed in the noblest of the sonnets. Two syllables are missing from the second line.

"Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,( ) these rebel powers that thee array,Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?Why so large cost, having so short a lease,Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,And let that pine to aggravate thy store;Buy terms divine with selling hours of dross;Within be fed, without be rich no more:So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,And Death once dead, there's no more dying then."

The sonnets were piratically published in a quarto volume in 1609. At the end of the volume a narrative poem was printed, under the nameA Lover's Complaint. It tells in the first person the story of a girl who has been seduced by a plausible villain. It is a work of Shakespeare's youth, fresh andfelicitous as youth's work often is, and very nearly as empty.

The Phœnix and The Turtle.—This strange, very beautiful poem was published in 1601 in an appendix to Robert Chester'sLove's Martyr, or Rosalin's Complaint, to which several famous poets contributed. In dark and noble verse it describes a spiritual marriage, suddenly ended by death. It is too strange to be the fruit of a human sorrow. It is the work of a great mind trying to express in unusual symbols a thought too subtle and too intense to be expressed in any other way. Spiritual ecstasy is the only key to work of this kind. To the reader without that key it can only be so many strange words set in a noble rhythm for no apparent cause.

Poetry moves in many ways. It may glorify and make spiritual some action of man, or it may give to thoughts such life as thoughts can have, an intenser and stranger life than man knows, with forms that arenot human and a speech unintelligible to normal human moods. This poem gives to a flock of thoughts about the passing of truth and beauty the mystery and vitality of birds, who come from a far country, to fill the mind with their crying.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Shakespeare's plays were printed carelessly, often from imperfect, torn, ill-written or stolen copies. When printed, they were seldom corrected. When reprinted, the original errors were often made much worse. Thus, "he met the night-mare," or "a met the night-mare," in the original manuscript, was printed "a nellthu night more," and reprinted "anelthu night Moore." Those who lightly read the modern editions seldom know that years of mental toil went to the preparation of the texts so easily read to-day.

Many English minds have paid tribute to Shakespeare. Few of them deserve morepraise than the Cambridge Editors, whose six years of labour cleared the text of countless errors and corruptions. The correction of a corrupt text by collation and conjecture, is one of the most difficult and least amusing tasks that a fine mind can have. The CambridgeShakespeare, the work of William George Clark and Dr. William Aldis Wright, gives a text not likely to be improved until the poet's corrected manuscripts are found.

TheLife of William Shakespearehas been ably written by Dr. Sidney Lee, whose judgment equals his learning.

Some of the dramatic methods of Shakespeare have been nobly studied by Dr. A. C. Bradley in hisShakespearean Tragedy.

To these books and to the Shakespearean Essays in Mr. W. B. Yeats'sIdeas of Good and Evil, I am deeply indebted, as all modern students of Shakespeare must be.

Our knowledge of Shakespeare is imperfect. It can only be increased by minute and patient study, by the rejection of surmiseabout him, and by the constant public playing of his plays, in the Shakespearean manner, by actors who will neither mutilate nor distort what the great mind strove to make just.

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