Part 15

After this great moral painting comes the second of Shakspeare's superior beauties, dramatic effect. This is nowhere more complete and more striking than in "Hamlet," for the two conditions of great dramatic effect are found in it, unity in variety--one sole, constant, and dominant impression; and this impression varied according to the character, the turn of mind, and the condition of the different personages in whom it is developed. Death hovers over the whole drama; the spectre of the murdered king represents and personifies it; he is always there, sometimes present himself, sometimes present to the thoughts, and in the language of the other personages. Whether great or small, innocent or guilty, interested or indifferent to his history, they are all constantly concerned about him; some with remorse, others with affection and grief, others again merely with curiosity, and some ever without curiosity, and simply by chance: for example, that rude grave-digger, who says that he entered on his trade on the day on which the late king had gained a great victory over his neighbor, the King of Norway, and who, while digging the grave of the beautiful Ophelia, the mad mistress of the madman Hamlet, turns up the skull of poor Yorick, the jester of the deceased monarch--the skull of the jester of that spectre, who issues at every moment from his tomb to alarm the living and enforce the punishment of his assassin. {183} All these personages, in the midst of all these circumstances, are brought forward, withdrawn, and introduced again by turns, each with his own peculiar physiognomy, language, and impression; and all ceaselessly concur to maintain, diffuse, and strengthen the sole, general impression of death--of death, just or unjust, natural or violent, forgotten or lamented, but always present--which is the supreme law, and should be the permanent thought of all men.

On the stage, before a large and mingled crowd of spectators, the effect of this drama, at once so gloomy and so animated, is irresistible; the soul is stirred to its lowest depths, at the same time that the imagination and senses are occupied and carried away by a continuous and rapid external movement. Herein is displayed the two-fold genius of Shakspeare, equally inexhaustible as a philosopher and as a poet; by turns a moralist and a machinist; as skillful in filling the stage with uproarious movement, as in penetrating and bringing to light the inmost secrets of the human heart. Subjected to the immediate action of such a power, men _en masse_ require nothing beyond that which it gives them; it holds them under its dominion, and carries by assault their sympathy and their admiration. {184} Fastidious and delicate minds, which judge almost at the same moment that they feel, and carry the necessity for perfection even into their liveliest pleasures, have an immense taste and admiration for Shakspeare also; but they are disagreeably disturbed in their admiration and enjoyment, sometimes by the accumulation and confusion of useless personages and interests, sometimes by long and subtle developments of a reflection or an idea which it would be proper for the personage to indicate _en passant_, but in which the poet takes pleasure, and so pauses for his own gratification; but more frequently still by that fantastic mixture of coarseness and refinement of language which sometimes imparts factitious and pedantic forms even to the truest feelings, and a barbarous physiognomy to the noblest inspirations of philosophy or poetry. These defects abound in "Hamlet." I will neither give myself the painful satisfaction of proving this assertion, nor will I omit to state it. In point of genius, Shakspeare has perhaps no rivals; but in the high and pure regions of art, he can not be taken as a model.

{185}

King Lear.

(1605.)

In the year of the world 3105, say the chronicles, "at what time Joas ruled in Judah, Leir the son of Baldud was admitted ruler over the Britons." He was a wise and powerful prince, who maintained his country and subjects in a state of great prosperity, and founded the town of Caerleir, now called Leicester. He had three daughters, Gonerilla, Regan, and Cordelia, "which daughters he greatly loved, but specially Cordelia, the youngest, far above the two elder." Having attained a great age, and becoming enfeebled both in body and mind, "he thought to understand the affections of his daughters toward him, and prefer her whom he best loved to the succession over the kingdom. Whereupon he first asked Gonerilla, the eldest, how well she loved him; who, calling her gods to record, protested that she loved him more than her own life, which by right and reason should be most dear to her. With which answer the father, being well pleased, turned to the second, and demanded of her how well she loved him, who answered (confirming her sayings with great oaths) that she loved him more than tongue could express, and far above all other creatures of the world." When he put the same question to Cordelia, she answered, "Knowing the great love and fatherly zeal that you have always borne toward me (for the which I may not answer you otherwise than I think, and as my conscience leadeth me), I protest unto you that I have loved you ever, and will continually (while I live) love you as my natural father. {186} And if you would more understand of the love that I bear you, ascertain yourself, that so much as you have, so much you are worth, and so much I love you, and no more." Her father, displeased with this answer, married his two eldest daughters, one to Henninus, duke of Cornwall, and the other to Maglanus, duke of Albany, "betwixt whom he willed and ordained that his land should be divided after his death, and the one half thereof immediately should be assigned to them in hand; but for the third daughter, Cordelia, he reserved nothing."

It happened, however, that Aganippus, one of the twelve kings who then governed Gaul, heard of the beauty and merit of this princess, and desired to have her in marriage. He was told that she had no dowry, as every thing had been bestowed on her two sisters; but Aganippus persisted in his request, obtained Cordelia's hand, and carried her in triumph to his kingdom.

Meanwhile, Leir's two sons-in-law, beginning to think he was reigning too long, seized violently upon the land which he had reserved for himself, and assigned him only a sufficient income to live and maintain his rank. Even this allowance was gradually diminished; but what caused Leir most pain was the extreme unkindness of his daughters, who "seemed to think that all was too much which their father had, the same being never so little; insomuch that, going from one to the other, he was brought to that misery that scarcely they would allow him one servant to wait upon him." The old king, in despair,' fled from the country, and took refuge in Gaul, where Cordelia and her husband received him with great honors, and raised an army and equipped a fleet to restore him to his possessions the succession of which he promised to bequeath to Cordelia, who accompanied her father and husband on this expedition. {187} The two dukes having been slain, and their armies defeated, in a battle fought with Aganippus, Leir reascended his throne, and died two years afterward, forty years after his first accession. Cordelia succeeded him, and reigned five years; but in the mean while, her husband having died, her nephews, Margan and Cunedag, rebelled against her, conquered her, and cast her into prison, where, "being a woman of a manly courage, and despairing to recover liberty," she committed suicide. [Footnote 24]

[Footnote 24: Holinshed's Chronicle, History of England, book ii., chaps. 5, 6.]

This story is borrowed by Holinshed from Geoffrey of Monmouth, who probably constructed the history of Leir from an anecdote of Ina, king of the Saxons, and the answer of the "youngest and wisest of the daughters" of that king, who, under circumstances similar to those in which Cordelia was placed, gave a similar answer to her father, that, although she loved, honored, and revered him in the highest degree that nature and filial duty could require, yet she thought it might one day happen that she would more ardently love her husband, with whom, by the command of God, she was to constitute one flesh, and for whom she might leave father and mother. It does not appear that Ina disapproved of the "wise speech" of his daughter; and the sequel of Cordelia's history is probably a development added by the imagination of the chroniclers to this primary fact. However this may be, the anger and misfortunes of King Lear had, before Shakspeare's time, found a place in several poems, as well as formed the subject of one drama and several ballads. {188} In one of these ballads, mentioned by Johnson, under the title of "A lamentable Song of the Death of King Leir and his three Daughters," Lear, as in the tragedy, goes mad, and Cordelia, having been killed in the battle gained by the troops of the King of France, her father dies of grief upon her body, and her sisters are condemned to death by the judgment of the "lords and nobles of the kingdom." Whether the ballad preceded Shakspeare's tragedy or not, it is very probable that the author of the ballad and the dramatic poet derived their facts from the same source, and that it was not without some authority that Shakspeare, in his _denouement_, departed from the chronicles, which give the victory to Cordelia. This _dénouement_ was changed by Tate, and Cordelia restored to her rights. The play remained on the stage in this second form, to the great satisfaction of Johnson, and, says Mr. Steevens, of "the upper gallery." Addison, however, pronounced against this change.

As to the episode of the Earl of Gloster, Shakspeare has imitated it from the adventure of a king of Paphlagonia, related in Sidney's "Arcadia;" only, in the original narrative, the bastard himself deprives his father of sight, and reduces him to a condition similar to that of Lear. Leonatus, the legitimate son, who, having been condemned to death, had been obliged to seek service in a foreign army, on learning the misfortunes of his father, leaves all at the moment when his merits were about to gain him a high rank, in order to hasten, at the risk of his life, to share and succor the misery of the old king. The latter, restored to his throne by the aid of his friends, dies of joy on crowning his son Leonatus; and the bastard Plexirtus, by a feigned repentance, succeeds in disarming the anger of his brother.

{189}

It is evident that the situation of King Lear and of the King of Paphlagonia, both persecuted by the children whom they preferred, and succored by the one whom they rejected, struck Shakspeare as fitted to enter into the same subject, because they belonged to the same idea. Those who have blamed him for having thus injured the simplicity of his action have given their opinion according to their own system, without taking the trouble to examine that of the author whom they criticised. Starting even from the rules which they are desirous to impose, we might answer that the love of the two women for Edmund, which serves to effect their punishment, and the intervention of Edgar at this part of the _dénouement_, are sufficient to acquit the play of the charge of duplicity of action; for, provided that all the threads at last unite in one knot which it is easy to seize, the simplicity of the progress of an action depends much less upon the number of the interests and personages concerned in it than upon the natural and clearly visible play of the springs which set it in motion. But further, we must never forget that unity, in Shakspeare's view, consists in one dominant idea, which, reproducing itself under various forms, incessantly produces, continues, and redoubles the same impression. Thus as, in "Macbeth," the poet displays man in conflict with the passions of crime, so in "King Lear" he depicts him in conflict with misfortune, the action of which is modified according to the different characters of the individuals who experience it. The first spectacle which he brings under our notice is the misfortune of virtue, or of persecuted innocence, as exemplified in Cordelia, Kent, and Edgar. Then comes the misfortune of those who, by their passion or blindness, have rendered themselves the tools of injustice, namely, Lear and Gloster; and upon these the effort of compassion is directed. {190} As for the wicked personages, we do not witness their sufferings; the sight of their misfortune would be disturbed by the remembrance of their criminality; they can have no punishment but death?

Of the five personages subjected to the action of misfortune, Cordelia, a heavenly figure, hovers almost invisible and half-vailed over the composition, which she fills with her presence, although she is almost always absent from it. She suffers, but never complains, never defends herself: she acts, but her action is manifested only by its results; serene regarding her own fate, reserved and restrained even in her most legitimate feelings, she passes and disappears like a denizen of a better world, who has traversed this world of ours without experiencing any mere earthly emotion.

Kent and Edgar each have a very decided physiognomy; the first of them is, like Cordelia, a victim to his duty; the second interests us at first only by his innocence. Having entered upon misfortune at the same time, so to speak, that he entered into life, and equally new to both conditions, Edgar gradually develops his faculties, learns their character at once, and discovers within himself, as need requires, the qualities with which he is gifted; in proportion as he advances, his duties, and his difficulties, and his importance increase; he grows up and becomes a man, but, at the same time, he learns how costly is this growth; and he finally discovers, when bearing it with nobleness and courage, the whole weight of that burden which he had hitherto borne almost with gayety. Kent, on the contrary, a wise and firm old man, has known all and foreseen all from the very outset; as soon as he enters upon action, his march is determined and his object defined. He is not, like Edgar, urged by necessity or met by chance; his will determines his conduct; nothing can change or disturb it; and the aspect of the misfortune to which he devotes himself, scarcely wrings from him an exclamation of grief or pain.

{191}

Lear and Gloster, in an analogous situation, receive from it an impression which corresponds to their different characters. Lear, impetuous and irritable, spoiled by power and by the habit and need of admiration, rebels both against his position and against his own conviction; he can not believe in what he knows; his reason offers no resistance; and he becomes mad. Gloster, naturally weak, yields to his misery, and is equally incapable of resistance to his joy; he dies on recognizing Edgar. If Cordelia were alive, Lear would still find strength to live; but he breaks down by the effort of his grief.

Amid all this confusion of incidents and coarseness of manners, interest and pathos have never, perhaps, been carried further than in this tragedy. The time in which Shakspeare laid his action seems to have emancipated him from all conventional forms; and just as he felt no difficulty in placing a King of France, a Duke of Albany, and a Duke of Cornwall, eight hundred years before the Christian era, so he felt no necessity for connecting the language and the characters of his drama with any determinate period. The only trace of intention which can be remarked in the general color of the style of the drama is the vagueness and uncertainty of the grammatical constructions, which seem to belong to a language still quite in its infancy; at the same time, a considerable number of expressions which bear a close resemblance to the French language, indicate an epoch, if not correspondent with that in which King Lear is supposed to have lived, at least far anterior to that at which Shakspeare wrote.

{192}

Macbeth.

(1606.)

In the year 1034, Duncan succeeded his grandfather, Malcolm, on the throne of Scotland. He held his right of his mother, Beatrice, the eldest daughter of Malcolm; the younger daughter, Doada, was the mother of Macbeth, who was thus cousin-german to Duncan. The father of Macbeth was Finleg, thane of Glamis, mentioned under the name of Sinel in the tragedy, and in the chronicle of Holinshed, on the authority of Hector Boëtius, from whom the narrative of the events concerning Duncan and Macbeth is borrowed. As Shakspeare has followed Holinshed's chronicle with the utmost exactness, it becomes necessary to give the facts as therein related; and they are, moreover, in themselves replete with interest.

Macbeth had rendered himself celebrated by his bravery, and "if he had not been somewhat cruel of nature," says the chronicle, "he might have been thought most worthy of the government of a realm." Duncan, on the other hand, was an unwarlike prince, and carried his gentleness and kindness to excess; so that if it had been possible to fuse the characters of the two cousins together, and to temper the one by the other, the people would have had, says the chronicle, "an excellent captain, and a worthy king."

{193}

After some years of peaceful dominion, the weakness of Duncan having encouraged malefactors, Banquo, the thane of Lochaber, "as he gathered the finances due to the king," found himself compelled to punish "somewhat sharply" several notorious offenders, which occasioned a revolt. Banquo was robbed of all the money he had collected, and "had much ado to get away with life, after he had received sundry grievous wounds." As soon as he had recovered of his hurts, he proceeded to court to lay his complaints before Duncan, and at last persuaded the king to summon the rebels to appear before him; but they slew the sergeant-at-arms, who had been sent with the royal mandate, and prepared for defense, at the instigation of Macdowald, one of their most important chieftains, who, collecting his clansmen and friends around him, represented Duncan to them as a "faint-hearted milksop, more meet to govern a set of idle monks in some cloister, than to have the rule of such valiant and hardy men of war as the Scots were." The revolt spread particularly throughout the Western Isles, from whence a host of warriors came to join Macdowald at Lochaber; and the hope of plunder attracted from Ireland a large number of Kernes and Galloglasses, [Footnote 25] ready to follow Macdowald whithersoever it should please him to lead them. By means of these re-enforcements, Macdowald defeated the troops which the king had sent to oppose him, took prisoner their leader, Malcolm, and beheaded him after the battle.

[Footnote 25: The Kernes were a species of light infantry, and the Galloglasses heavy-armed foot-soldiers.]

{194}

Duncan, in consternation at this news, assembled his council, at which Macbeth, after having blamed the king severely for his lenity and slackness in punishing the offenders, which had given them time to collect an army, offered to undertake the conduct of the war in concert with Banquo. His offer was gladly accepted, and the mere report of his approach with fresh troops struck such terror into the rebels, that a great number of them secretly deserted; and Macdowald, having tried to make head against Macbeth with the remainder, was utterly routed, and forced to fly to a castle in which he had placed his wife and children; but, despairing of being able to hold out, and fearing the cruelties of his opponents, he killed himself, after having first put his wife and children to death. Macbeth entered without obstacle into the castle, the gates of which had been left open. He found only the body of Macdowald in the midst of his murdered family; and the barbarism of that rude age was revolted by the fact that, unmoved by this tragic spectacle, Macbeth cut off Macdowald's head, and sent it to the king, and hanged the body upon a gallows. He made the inhabitants of the isles purchase the pardon of their revolt at a very high price, which did not, however, prevent him from putting to execution all those whom he could find in Lochaber. The inhabitants exclaimed loudly against this violation of his pledge, and the reproaches which they heaped upon him irritated Macbeth to such a degree that he was on the point of crossing over to the isles with an army to take vengeance upon them; but he was dissuaded from this project by the counsels of his friends, and more particularly by the presents with which the islanders a second time purchased their pardon.

{195}

A short time afterward, Sweno, king of Norway, having made a descent upon Scotland, Duncan, to resist him, placed himself at the head of the largest portion of his army, and intrusted the rest to the command of Macbeth and Banqno. Duncan was defeated and put to flight; and he took refuge in the castle of Perth, in which he was besieged by Sweno. Duncan, having secretly informed Macbeth of his intentions, feigned a desire to surrender, and protracted the negotiation, until at last, having learned that Macbeth had collected a sufficient force, he appointed a day for giving up the fortress; and, meanwhile, he offered to send the Norwegians a supply of provisions, which they accepted all the more eagerly because they had suffered greatly from famine for several days. The bread and ale with which he furnished them had been adulterated with the juice of an extremely narcotic berry, so that, having eaten and drank greedily, they fell into "a fast dead sleep, that in manner it was impossible to awake them." Then Duncan sent word to Macbeth, who arriving in all haste, and entering without opposition into the camp, massacred almost all the Norwegians, most of whom never stirred, while the others were rendered so dizzy by the effects of the narcotic that they could make no defense. A large number of sailors from the Norwegian fleet, who had come to share in the abundance which prevailed in the camp, shared also in the fate of their fellow-countrymen; and Sweno, who escaped with ten others from this butchery, could scarcely find enough mariners to man the ship in which he fled to Norway. Those vessels which he left behind were, three days afterward, so tossed by an east wind, "that, beating and rushing one against another, they sank there," at a place called Drownelow Sands, where they lie "even unto these days (1574), to the great danger of other such ships as come on that coast; for, being covered with the flood when the tide cometh, at the ebbing again of the same some parts of them appear above water."

{196}

This disaster caused such consternation in Norway, that, for many years afterward, no knights were made until they had sworn to avenge their countrymen who had thus been slaughtered in Scotland. Duncan, in celebration of his deliverance, ordered solemn processions to be made throughout the realm; but while these thanksgivings were in progress, he was informed of the disembarkation of an army of Danes, under the command of Canute, king of England, who had come to avenge the defeat of his brother Sweno. Macbeth and Banquo hastened to meet them, defeated them in a pitched battle, and forced them to re-embark, and to pay a considerable sum for permission to bury their dead at St. Colm's Inch, where, says the chronicle, "many old sepulchres are yet to be seen graven with the arms of the Danes."