Chapter 5

"O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day"--

and the pretty speech of Julia in Act II, sc. vii--

"I'll be as patient as a gentle stream, And make a pastime of each weary step, Till the last step have brought me to my love; And there I'll rest, as, after much turmoil, A blessed soul doth in Elysium"--

are memorable.

Man is so eager to know about Shakespeare that he is tempted to find personal confession in the plays. It is true that the art of a young man is too immature to be impersonal. In an achieved style we see the man; in all striving for style we see what hurts him. But in poetry, human experience is wrought to symbol, and symbol is many virtued, according to the imaginative energy that broods upon it. It is said that Shakespeare holds a mirror up to life. He who looks into a mirror closely generally sees nothing but himself.

_The Comedy of Errors._

_Written._ Before 1594.

_Published_, in the first folio, 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ The plot was taken from the _Menaechmi_ of Plautus. Whether Shakespeare read the play in Latin, or in a translation, or heard it from a friend, or saw it acted, is not known. All four are possible.

The sub-plot, in this case a duplication of the plot, was suggested by a part of the _Amphitruo_ of Plautus.

The play is brought on to the plane of human feeling by the character of AEgeon. This character was suggested by a story in _Gli Suppositi_ (The Supposes) of Ariosto.

_The Fable._ Like all comedies of mistake, the _Comedy of Errors_ has an extremely complicated plot. The play consists of a number of ingeniously contrived situations in which either the Antipholus and the Dromio of Ephesus are mistaken for the Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse, or those of Syracuse are mistaken for those of Ephesus. The comedy of mistake is touched with beauty by the romantic addition of the restoration of old AEgeon to his long-lost wife.

Poets are great or little according to the nobleness of their endeavour to build a mansion for the soul. Shakespeare, like other poets, grew by continual, very difficult mental labour, by the deliberate and prolonged exercise of every mental weapon, and by the resolve to do not "the nearest thing," precious to human sheep, but the difficult, new and noble thing, glimmering beyond his mind, and brought to glow there by toil. We do not know when the play was written, nor why it was written. If it were not written by special request, for reward, it must have been chosen either for the rest given by a subject external to the mind, or as a self-set exercise in the difficult mental labour of comic dramatic construction. Every playwright sees the comic opportunity of the _Menaechmi_ fable. A playwright not yet sure of his art sees and admires behind the comedy the firm, intricate mental outline that has kept the play alive for more than two thousand years.

The _Menaechmi_ of Plautus is a piece of very skilful theatrical craft. It is almost heartless. In bringing it out of the Satanic kingdom of comedy into the charities of a larger system Shakespeare shows for the first time a real largeness of dramatic instinct. In his handling of the tricky ingenious plot he achieves (what, perhaps, he wrote the play to get) a dexterous, certain play of mind. He strikes the ringing note, time after time. It cannot be said that the verse, or the sense of character, or the invention is better than in the other early plays. It is not. The play is on a lower plane than any of his other works. It is the only Shakespearean play without a deep philosophical idea. If it be not a special commission, or an exercise in art, it is perhaps another instance of the price great men pay for being happy. It is certainly the fruit of a happier mood than that which bore the other early plays. It is also the first play that shows a fine, sustained power of dramatic construction.

It is so well constructed (for the simple Elizabethan theatre and the bustle of the Elizabethan speech) that any unspoiled mind is held by it, when it is acted as Shakespeare meant it to be acted. The closeness and firmness of the dramatic texture is the work of an acutely clear mind driven at white heat and mercilessly judged at each step. Those who do not understand the nature of dramatic art should read the ninety odd verses in which AEgeon tells his story (in Act I, sc. i). They would do well to consider the power of mind that has told so much in so few words. They will find an instance of Shakespeare's happy use of stage trick, in the final scene, where, after the general recognition, Dromio of Syracuse again mistakes Antipholus of Ephesus for his master.

Rare poetical power is shown in the making of the play. Little beauty adorns the action. The speech of Adriana (in Act II, sc. ii) against the obsession of passion that leads to treachery in marriage, is passionate and profound. It is the most deeply felt speech in the early plays. Adriana's husband is frequenting another woman who, having the charm that so often goes with worthlessness, has a power of attracting that is sometimes refused to the noble. Adriana beseeches him not to break the tie that binds them. Two souls that have been each other's are not to be torn apart without death to one of them. With that sympathy for the suffering mind which gives Shakespeare all his power--

("My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits")

he gives to her speech an unendurable reality. Reality, however obtained, is the only cure for an obsession. As far as words can teach in such a case Adriana's words teach the reality of her husband's sin.

"How dearly it would touch thee to the quick, Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious, And that this body, consecrate to thee, By ruffian lust should be contaminate! Wouldst them not spit at me and spurn at me, And hurl the name of husband in my face, And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot brow, And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring...? My blood is mingled with the crime of lust: For, if we two be one, and thou play false, I do digest the poison of thy flesh."

There is no other poetry of this intensity in the play.

It is interesting to compare Shakespeare's mind with Plautus's in the description of Epidamnum. Plautus says--

"This is the home of the greatest lechers and drunkards.

"Very many tricksters and cheaters live in this city.

"Nowhere are wheedling whores more cunning at bilking people."

Shakespeare gives the horror a spiritual turn that adds much to the intensity of the farce.

"They say, this town is full of cozenage: As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind, Soul-killing witches that deform the body, Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, And many such like liberties of sin."

The play is amusing. The plot is intricate. The interest of the piece is in the plot. When a plot engrosses the vitality of a dramatist's mind, his character-drawing dies; so here. It is sufficient to say that the character of AEgeon is the best in the play

_Titus Andronicus._

_Written._ (?)

_Published._ (?)

_Source of the Plot._ (?)

_The Fable._ Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose firstborn son is sacrificed by Titus Andronicus, determines to be revenged. She succeeds in her determination. Titus and his daughter are mutilated. Two of the Andronici, his sons, are beheaded.

Titus determines to be revenged. He bakes the heads of two of Tamora's sons in a pasty, and serves them up for her to eat. He then stabs her, after stabbing his daughter. He is himself stabbed on the instant; but his surviving son stabs his murderer. Tamora's paramour is then sentenced to be buried alive, and the survivors (about half the original cast) move off (as they say) "to order well the State."

This play shows an instinct for the stage and a knowledge of the theatre. It seems to have been a popular piece. A knowledge of the theatre will often make something foolish theatrically effective. So here.

The piece is nearly worthless. The turning of the tide of revenge, from Tamora against Andronicus, and then from Andronicus against Tamora, is the theme. It is a simple theme. Man cannot have simplicity without hard thought, and hard thought is never worthless, though it may be applied unworthily.

There can be no doubt that Shakespeare wrote a little of this tragedy; it is not known when; nor why. Poets do not sin against their art unless they are in desperate want. Shakespeare certainly never touched this job for love. There is only one brief trace of his great, rejoicing triumphant manner. It is possible that the play was brought to him by his theatre-manager, with some such words as these: "This piece is very bad, but it will succeed, and I mean to produce it, if I can start rehearsals at once. Will you revise it for me? Please do what you can with it, and write in lines and passages where you think it is wanting. And whatever happens please let me have it by Monday."

The only poetry in the play comes in the three lines--

"You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome, By uproar sever'd, like a flight of fowl Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts."

_King Henry VI, Part I._

_Written._ 1589-91.

_Produced._ 1591.

_Published_, in the first folio, 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ Raphael Holinshed's _Chronicles_.

_The Fable._ The play begins shortly after the death of King Henry V. Henry VI is too young to rule. There is a feud between Gloucester, the Lord Protector, and Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester. In France, where Talbot is besieging Orleans, the English have had many losses. Joan of Arc begins her conquering progress by causing Talbot to raise the siege.

A feud between the Duke of York (the white rose faction) and the Earl of Somerset (the red rose faction) becomes acute, in spite of King Henry's personal intercession. It intensifies the feud between the Lord Protector and the Cardinal. In France, Talbot is killed in battle. The English are beaten from their possessions. Joan of Arc is taken, tried, and burned.

The menace of civil trouble hangs over King Henry's court. The feud between the factions of the roses threatens to break into war. The Earl of Suffolk (one of the red rose faction) schemes to marry King Henry to Margaret of Anjou. It is made plain that he means to become Margaret's lover so that he may rule England through her. A disgraceful peace is concluded with France. The play ends with Suffolk's departure to arrange the King's marriage with Margaret.

It is plain that this play is not the work of one mind. Part of it is the work of a man who saw a big tragic purpose in events. The rest is the work of at least two mechanical (sometimes muddy) minds, who neither criticised nor understood, but had some sense of the pageant. There are bright marks in the play where Shakespeare's mind touched it.

"Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till, by broad spreading, it disperse to nought."

"If underneath the standard of the French She carry armour."

"Now thou art come unto a feast of death."

"Thus, while the vulture of sedition Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders, Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss The conquest of our scarce-cold conqueror, That ever-living man of memory, Henry the Fifth."

The work as a whole is one of the old formless chronicle plays, which inspired the remark that if an English dramatist were to make a play of St. George he would begin with the birth of the Dragon. In Act II Shakespeare's mind both directs and explains the welter. The scene in the Temple Gardens, where the men of the two factions pluck the red and white roses, is like music after discord. The play is lifted into poetry. The big tragic purpose broods; something fateful quickens. The next scene, where Mortimer dies in prison, is another instance of the power of great intellect to give life. The dying Mortimer is carried in, to show how the imminent tragedy has been for long years preparing, in countless passionate men, each of whom has shaped it, little by little, out of lust and hate, till the spiritual measure tips towards justice.

The only other scenes that bear marks of Shakespeare's mind are those in Act IV, in which Talbot meets his death. The verse of these scenes is often careless, but it has a bright variety, pleasant to the mind after the strutting verse (wearily reiterating one prosodic effect, like choppy water) of the other authors. Some people claim that Shakespeare wrote the whole of this play. The intellect changes much in life; but never in kind, only in degree. Shakespeare's mind could play with dirt and relish dirt, but it was never base and never blunt. The base mind is betrayed by its conceptions, not by its amusements. Shakespeare's mind could never, at any stage of his career, have sunk to conceive the disgusting scene in which Joan of Arc pleads. Nor could he at any time have planned a play in which the moral idea is a trapping to physical action.

_King Henry VI, Part II._

_Written._ 1591-2.

_Produced._ 1592.

_Published_, in the crude original form, 1593. When first published, the play was called "The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous houses of Yorke and Lancaster." This version seems to have been written by Greene and Peele. It contains passages (improving additions) that resemble Shakespeare's work; but the work is very crude. The version as a whole reads like a long scenario.

After the first production of this version, Shakespeare and some other writer, possibly Marlowe, revised, improved and enlarged it. This revised version, the _Second Part of King Henry VI_, as we now have it, was first published in the first folio in 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ Edward Hall's _Chronicle_.

_The Fable._ The play begins with the arrival of Margaret of Anjou at the Court of King Henry VI. An altercation among the Lords in