protested against the abusive comments on the men-actors of 'the common
stages' or public theatres which were put into the children's mouths.
Rosencrantz declared that the children 'so berattle [_i.e._ assail] the
common stages--so they call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of
goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither [_i.e._ to the public
theatres].' Hamlet in pursuit of the theme pointed out that the writers
who encouraged the vogue of the 'child-actors' did them a poor service,
because when the boys should reach men's estate they would run the risk,
if they continued on the stage, of the same insults and neglect which now
threatened their seniors.
HAMLET. What are they children? Who maintains 'em? how are they
escoted [_i.e._ paid]? Will they pursue the quality [_i.e._ the
actor's profession] no longer than they can sing? Will they not say
afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players--as it
is most like, if their means are no better--their writers do them
wrong to make them exclaim against their own succession?
ROSENCRANTZ. Faith, there has been much to do on both sides, and the
nation holds it no sin to tarre [_i.e._ incite] them to controversy:
there was for a while no money bid for argument, unless the poet and
the player went to cuffs in the question.
HAMLET. Is it possible?
GUILDENSTERN. O, there has been much throwing about of brains!
Shakespeare clearly favoured the adult actors in their rivalry with the
boys, but he wrote more like a disinterested spectator than an active
partisan when he made specific reference to the strife between the poet
Ben Jonson and the players. In the prologue to 'Troilus and Cressida'
which he penned in 1603, he warned his hearers, with obvious allusion to
Ben Jonson's battles, that he hesitated to identify himself with either
actor or poet. {217} Passages in Ben Jonson's 'Poetaster,' moreover,
pointedly suggest that Shakespeare cultivated so assiduously an attitude
of neutrality that Jonson acknowledged him to be qualified for the role
of peacemaker. The gentleness of disposition with which Shakespeare was
invariably credited by his friends would have well fitted him for such an
office.
Jonson's 'Poetaster.'
Jonson figures personally in the 'Poetaster' under the name of Horace.
Episodically Horace and his friends, Tibullus and Gallus, eulogise the
work and genius of another character, Virgil, in terms so closely
resembling those which Jonson is known to have applied to Shakespeare
that they may be regarded as intended to apply to him (act v. sc. i.)
Jonson points out that Virgil, by his penetrating intuition, achieved the
great effects which others laboriously sought to reach through rules of
art.
His learning labours not the school-like gloss
That most consists of echoing words and terms . . .
Nor any long or far-fetched circumstance--
Wrapt in the curious generalities of arts--
But a direct and analytic sum
Of all the worth and first effects of arts.
And for his poesy, 'tis so rammed with life
That it shall gather strength of life with being,
And live hereafter, more admired than now.
Tibullus gives Virgil equal credit for having in his writings touched
with telling truth upon every vicissitude of human existence.
That which he hath writ
Is with such judgment laboured and distilled
Through all the needful uses of our lives
That, could a man remember but his lines,
He should not touch at any serious point
But he might breathe his spirit out of him.
Finally, Virgil in the play is nominated by Caesar to act as judge
between Horace and his libellers, and he advises the administration of
purging pills to the offenders. That course of treatment is adopted with
satisfactory results. {218}
Shakespeare's alleged partisanship.
As against this interpretation, one contemporary witness has been held to
testify that Shakespeare stemmed the tide of Jonson's embittered activity
by no peace-making interposition, but by joining his foes, and by
administering to him, with their aid, the identical course of medicine
which in the 'Poetaster' is meted out to his enemies. In the same year
(1601) as the 'Poetaster' was produced, 'The Return from Parnassus'--a
third piece in a trilogy of plays--was 'acted by the students in St.
John's College, Cambridge.' In this piece, as in its two predecessors,
Shakespeare received, both as a playwright and a poet, high commendation,
although his poems were judged to reflect somewhat too largely 'love's
lazy foolish languishment.' The actor Burbage was introduced in his own
name instructing an aspirant to the actor's profession in the part of
Richard the Third, and the familiar lines from Shakespeare's play--
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York--
are recited by the pupil as part of his lesson. Subsequently in a prose
dialogue between Shakespeare's fellow-actors Burbage and Kempe, Kempe
remarks of university dramatists, 'Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare
puts them all down; aye, and Ben Jonson, too. O! that Ben Jonson is a
pestilent fellow. He brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill; but our
fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his
credit.' Burbage adds: 'He is a shrewd fellow indeed.' This perplexing
passage has been held to mean that Shakespeare took a decisive part
against Jonson in the controversy with Dekker and Dekker's actor friends.
But such a conclusion is nowhere corroborated, and seems to be confuted
by the eulogies of Virgil in the 'Poetaster' and by the general handling
of the theme in 'Hamlet.' The words quoted from 'The Return from
Parnassus' hardly admit of a literal interpretation. Probably the
'purge' that Shakespeare was alleged by the author of 'The Return from
Parnassus' to have given Jonson meant no more than that Shakespeare had
signally outstripped Jonson in popular esteem. As the author of 'Julius
Caesar,' he had just proved his command of topics that were peculiarly
suited to Jonson's vein, {220} and had in fact outrun his churlish
comrade on his own ground.
'Hamlet,' 1602.
At any rate, in the tragedy that Shakespeare brought out in the year
following the production of 'Julius Caesar,' he finally left Jonson and
all friends and foes lagging far behind both in achievement and
reputation. This new exhibition of the force of his genius
re-established, too, the ascendency of the adult actors who interpreted
his work, and the boys' supremacy was quickly brought to an end. In 1602
Shakespeare produced 'Hamlet,' 'that piece of his which most kindled
English hearts.' The story of the Prince of Denmark had been popular on
the stage as early as 1589 in a lost dramatic version by another
writer--doubtless Thomas Kyd, whose tragedies of blood, 'The Spanish
Tragedy' and 'Jeronimo,' long held the Elizabethan stage. To that lost
version of 'Hamlet' Shakespeare's tragedy certainly owed much. {221} The
story was also accessible in the 'Histoires Tragiques' of Belleforest,
who adapted it from the 'Historia Danica' of Saxo Grammaticus. {222} No
English translation of Belleforest's 'Hystorie of Hamblet' appeared
before 1608; Shakespeare doubtless read it in the French. But his
authorities give little hint of what was to emerge from his study of
them.
The problem of its publication.
The First Quarto, 1603.
Burbage created the title-part in Shakespeare's tragedy, and its success
on the stage led to the play's publication immediately afterwards. The
bibliography of 'Hamlet' offers a puzzling problem. On July 26, 1602, 'A
Book called the Revenge of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, as it was lately
acted by the Lord Chamberlain his Servants,' was entered on the
Stationers' Company's Registers, and it was published in quarto next year
by N[icholas] L[ing] and John Trundell. The title-page stated that the
piece had been 'acted divers times in the city of London, as also in the
two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and elsewhere.' The text here
appeared in a rough and imperfect state. In all probability it was a
piratical and carelessly transcribed copy of Shakespeare's first draft of
the play, in which he drew largely on the older piece.
The Second Quarto, 1604.
A revised version, printed from a more complete and accurate manuscript,
was published in 1604 as 'The Tragical History of Hamlet Prince of
Denmark, by William Shakespeare, newly imprinted and enlarged to almost
as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy.' This
was printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for the publisher N[icholas] L[ing].
The concluding words--'according to the true and perfect copy'--of the
title-page of the second quarto were intended to stamp its predecessor as
surreptitious and unauthentic. But it is clear that the Second Quarto
was not a perfect version of the play. It was itself printed from a copy
which had been curtailed for acting purposes.
The Folio Version.
A third version (long the _textus receptus_) figured in the Folio of
1623. Here many passages, not to be found in the quartos, appear for the
first time, but a few others that appear in the quartos are omitted. The
Folio text probably came nearest to the original manuscript; but it, too,
followed an acting copy which had been abbreviated somewhat less
drastically than the Second Quarto and in a different fashion. {224}
Theobald in his 'Shakespeare Restored' (1726) made the first scholarly
attempt to form a text from a collation of the First Folio with the
Second Quarto, and Theobald's text with further embellishments by Sir
Thomas Hanmer, Edward Capell, and the Cambridge editors of 1866, is now
generally adopted.
Popularity of 'Hamlet.'
'Hamlet' was the only drama by Shakespeare that was acted in his lifetime
at the two Universities. It has since attracted more attention from
actors, playgoers, and readers of all capacities than any other of
Shakespeare's plays. Its world-wide popularity from its author's day to
our own, when it is as warmly welcomed in the theatres of France and
Germany as in those of England and America, is the most striking of the
many testimonies to the eminence of Shakespeare's dramatic instinct. At
a first glance there seems little in the play to attract the uneducated
or the unreflecting. 'Hamlet' is mainly a psychological effort, a study
of the reflective temperament in excess. The action develops slowly; at
times there is no movement at all. The piece is the longest of
Shakespeare's plays, reaching a total of over 3,900 lines. It is thus
some nine hundred lines longer than 'Antony and Cleopatra'--the play by
Shakespeare that approaches 'Hamlet' more closely in numerical strength
of lines. At the same time the total length of Hamlet's speeches far
exceeds that of those allotted by Shakespeare to any other of his
characters. Humorous relief is, it is true, effectively supplied to the
tragic theme by Polonius and the grave-diggers, and if the topical
references to contemporary theatrical history (II. ii. 350-89) could only
count on an appreciative reception from an Elizabethan audience, the
pungent censure of actors' perennial defects is calculated to catch the
ear of the average playgoer of all ages. But it is not to these
subsidiary features that the universality of the play's vogue can be
attributed. It is the intensity of interest which Shakespeare contrives
to excite in the character of the hero that explains the position of the
play in popular esteem. The play's unrivalled power of attraction lies
in the pathetic fascination exerted on minds of almost every calibre by
the central figure--a high-born youth of chivalric instincts and finely
developed intellect, who, when stirred to avenge in action a desperate
private wrong, is foiled by introspective workings of the brain that
paralyse the will.
'Troilus and Cressida.'
Although the difficulties of determining the date of 'Troilus and
Cressida' are very great, there are many grounds for assigning its
composition to the early days of 1603. In 1599 Dekker and Chettle were
engaged by Henslowe to prepare for the Earl of Nottingham's company--a
rival of Shakespeare's company--a play of 'Troilus and Cressida,' of
which no trace survives. It doubtless suggested the topic to
Shakespeare. On February 7, 1602-3, James Roberts obtained a license for
'the booke of Troilus and Cresseda as yt is acted by my Lord Chamberlens
men,' _i.e._ Shakespeare's company. {226a} Roberts printed the Second
Quarto of 'Hamlet' and others of Shakespeare's plays; but his effort to
publish 'Troilus' proved abortive owing to the interposition of the
players. Roberts's 'book' was probably Shakespeare's play. The metrical
characteristics of Shakespeare's 'Troilus and Cressida'--the regularity
of the blank verse--powerfully confirm the date of composition which
Roberts's license suggests. Six years later, however, on January 28,
1608-9, a new license for the issue of 'a booke called the history of
Troylus and Cressida' was granted to other publishers, Richard Bonian and
Henry Walley, {226b} and these publishers, more fortunate than Roberts
soon printed a quarto with Shakespeare's full name as author. The text
seems fairly authentic, but exceptional obscurity attaches to the
circumstances of the publication. Some copies of the book bear an
ordinary type of title-page stating that the piece was printed 'as it was
acted by the King's majesties servants at the Globe.' But in other
copies, which differ in no way in regard to the text of the play, there
was substituted for this title-page a more pretentious announcement
running: 'The famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid, excellently
expressing the beginning of their loues with the conceited wooing of
Pandarus, prince of Lacia.' After this pompous title-page there was
inserted, for the first and only time in the case of a play by
Shakespeare that was published in his lifetime, an advertisement or
preface. In this interpolated page an anonymous scribe, writing in the
name of the publishers, paid bombastic and high-flown compliments to
Shakespeare as a writer of 'comedies,' and defiantly boasted that the
'grand possessers'--_i.e._ the owners--of the manuscript deprecated its
publication. By way of enhancing the value of what were obviously stolen
wares, it was falsely added that the piece was new and unacted. This
address was possibly the brazen reply of the publishers to a more than
usually emphatic protest on the part of players or dramatist against the
printing of the piece. The editors of the Folio evinced distrust of the
Quarto edition by printing their text from a different copy showing many
deviations, which were not always for the better.
Treatment of the theme.
The work, which in point of construction shows signs of haste, and in
style is exceptionally unequal, is the least attractive of the efforts of
Shakespeare's middle life. The story is based on a romantic legend of
the Trojan war, which is of mediaeval origin. Shakespeare had possibly
read Chapman's translation of Homer's 'Iliad,' but he owed his plot to
Chaucer's 'Troilus and Cresseid' and Lydgate's 'Troy Book.' In defiance
of his authorities he presented Cressida as a heartless coquette; the
poets who had previously treated her story--Boccaccio, Chaucer, Lydgate,
and Robert Henryson--had imagined her as a tender-hearted, if frail,
beauty, with claims on their pity rather than on their scorn. But
Shakespeare's innovation is dramatically effective, and accords with
strictly moral canons. The charge frequently brought against the
dramatist that in 'Troilus and Cressida' he cynically invested the Greek
heroes of classical antiquity with contemptible characteristics is ill
supported by the text of the play. Ulysses, Nestor, and Agamemnon figure
in Shakespeare's play as brave generals and sagacious statesmen, and in
their speeches Shakespeare concentrated a marvellous wealth of pithily
expressed philosophy, much of which has fortunately obtained proverbial
currency. Shakespeare's conception of the Greeks followed traditional
lines except in the case of Achilles, whom he transforms into a brutal
coward. And that portrait quite legitimately interpreted the selfish,
unreasoning, and exorbitant pride with which the warrior was credited by
Homer, and his imitators.
Shakespeare's treatment of his theme cannot therefore be fairly
construed, as some critics construe it, into a petty-minded protest
against the honour paid to the ancient Greeks and to the form and
sentiment of their literature by more learned dramatists of the day, like
Ben Jonson and Chapman. Although Shakespeare knew the Homeric version of
the Trojan war, he worked in 'Troilus and Cressida' upon a mediaeval
romance, which was practically uninfluenced either for good or evil by
the classical spirit. {228}
Queen Elizabeth's death, March 26, 1603.
Despite the association of Shakespeare's company with the rebellion of
1601, and its difficulties with the children of the Chapel Royal, he and
his fellow actors retained their hold on Court favour till the close of
Elizabeth's reign. As late as February 2, 1603, the company entertained
the dying Queen at Richmond. Her death on March 26, 1603, drew from
Shakespeare's early eulogist, Chettle, a vain appeal to him under the
fanciful name of Melicert, to
Drop from his honied muse one sable teare,
To mourne her death that graced his desert,
And to his laies opened her royal eare. {230}
But, except on sentimental grounds, the Queen's death justified no
lamentation on the part of Shakespeare. On the withdrawal of one royal
patron he and his friends at once found another, who proved far more
liberal and appreciative.
James I's patronage.
On May 19, 1603, James I, very soon after his accession, extended to
Shakespeare and other members of the Lord Chamberlain's company a very
marked and valuable recognition. To them he granted under royal letters
patent a license 'freely to use and exercise the arte and facultie of
playing comedies, tragedies, histories, enterludes, moralls, pastoralles,
stage-plaies, and such other like as they have already studied, or
hereafter shall use or studie as well for the recreation of our loving
subjectes as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall thinke good to
see them during our pleasure.' The Globe Theatre was noted as the
customary scene of their labours, but permission was granted to them to
perform in the town-hall or moot-hall of any country town. Nine actors
are named. Lawrence Fletcher stands first on the list; he had already
performed before James in Scotland in 1599 and 1601. Shakespeare comes
second and Burbage third. The company to which they belonged was
thenceforth styled the King's company; its members became 'the King's
Servants' and they took rank with the Grooms of the Chamber. {231}
Shakespeare's plays were thenceforth repeatedly performed in James's
presence, and Oldys related that James wrote Shakespeare a letter in his
own hand, which was at one time in the possession of Sir William
D'Avenant, and afterwards, according to Lintot, in that of John
Sheffield, first duke of Buckingham.
In the autumn and winter of 1603 the prevalence of the plague led to the
closing of the theatres in London. The King's players were compelled to
make a prolonged tour in the provinces, which entailed some loss of
income. For two months from the third week in October, the Court was
temporarily installed at Wilton, the residence of William Herbert, third
earl of Pembroke, and late in November the company was summoned by the
royal officers to perform in the royal presence. The actors travelled
from Mortlake to Salisbury 'unto the Courte aforesaide,' and their
performance took place at Wilton House on December 2. They received next
day 'upon the Councells warrant' the large sum of 30 pounds 'by way of
his majesties reward.' {232a} Many other gracious marks of royal favour
followed. On March 15, 1604, Shakespeare and eight other actors of the
company walked from the Tower of London to Westminster in the procession
which accompanied the King on his formal entry into London. Each actor
received four and a half yards of scarlet cloth to wear as a cloak on the
occasion, and in the document authorising the grant Shakespeare's name
stands first on the list. {232b} The dramatist Dekker was author of a
somewhat bombastic account of the elaborate ceremonial, which rapidly ran
through three editions. On April 9, 1604, the King gave further proof of
his friendly interest in the fortunes of his actors by causing an
official letter to be sent to the Lord Mayor of London and the Justices
of the Peace for Middlesex and Surrey, bidding them 'permit and suffer'
the King's players to 'exercise their playes' at their 'usual house,' the
Globe. {233a} Four months later--in August--every member of the company
was summoned by the King's order to attend at Somerset House during the
fortnight's sojourn there of the Spanish ambassador extraordinary, Juan
Fernandez de Velasco, duke de Frias, and Constable of Castile, who came
to London to ratify the treaty of peace between England and Spain, and
was magnificently entertained by the English Court. {233b} Between All
Saints' Day [November 1] and the ensuing Shrove Tuesday, which fell early
in February 1605, Shakespeare's company gave no fewer than eleven
performances at Whitehall in the royal presence.
XIV--THE HIGHEST THEMES OF TRAGEDY
'Othello' and 'Measure for Measure.'
Under the incentive of such exalted patronage, Shakespeare's activity
redoubled, but his work shows none of the conventional marks of
literature that is produced in the blaze of Court favour. The first six
years of the new reign saw him absorbed in the highest themes of tragedy,
and an unparalleled intensity and energy, which bore few traces of the
trammels of a Court, thenceforth illumined every scene that he contrived.
To 1604 the composition of two plays can be confidently assigned, one of
which--'Othello'--ranks with Shakespeare's greatest achievements; while
the other--'Measure for Measure'--although as a whole far inferior to
'Othello,' contains one of the finest scenes (between Angelo and
Isabella, II. ii. 43 sq.) and one of the greatest speeches (Claudio on
the fear of death, III. i. 116-30) in the range of Shakespearean drama.
'Othello' was doubtless the first new piece by Shakespeare that was acted
before James. It was produced at Whitehall on November 1. 'Measure for
Measure' followed on December 26. {235} Neither was printed in
Shakespeare's lifetime. The plots of both ultimately come from the same
Italian collection of novels--Giraldi Cinthio's 'Hecatommithi,' which was
first published in 1565.
Cinthio's painful story of 'Othello' (decad. iii. nov. 3) is not known to
have been translated into English before Shakespeare dramatised it. He
followed its main drift with fidelity, but he introduced the new
characters of Roderigo and Emilia, and he invested the catastrophe with
new and fearful intensity by making Iago's cruel treachery known to
Othello at the last, after Iago's perfidy has impelled the noble-hearted
Moor in his groundless jealousy to murder his gentle and innocent wife
Desdemona. Iago became in Shakespeare's hands the subtlest of all
studies of intellectual villainy and hypocrisy. The whole tragedy
displays to magnificent advantage the dramatist's fully matured powers.
An unfaltering equilibrium is maintained in the treatment of plot and
characters alike.