_Clown_. ‘What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild-fowl?
_Malvolio_. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
_Clown_. What thinkest thou of his opinion?
_Malvolio_. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his
opinion.’
Malvolio was a gentleman, but he was more. Shakespeare may go a little
too far with the yellow stockings and cross-gartering, but the liability
to deception by a supposed profession of love is a divine weakness, not
inconsistent with true nobility of intellect and with sagacity. There is
no reason to suppose he was often deceived in worldly matters. Maria is
a bad sort of clever barmaid, and was not unwilling to marry the drunken
Sir Toby. When I last saw _Twelfth Night_ acted, the whole of the latter
part of the fifth act was omitted, for the purpose, apparently, of
strengthening the representation of Malvolio as a comic fool whose silly
brain is turned by conceit. It was shocking, but the manager knew his
audience.
* * * * *
_Julius Cæsar_.—Casca is indignant that Cæsar should be offered the
crown, but he despises the applause of the mob when Cæsar rejected it.
‘The rabblement hooted and clapped their chopped hands and threw up their
sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because
Cæsar refused the crown that it had almost choked Cæsar; for he swounded
and fell down at it; and for mine own part, I durst not laugh, for fear
of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.’
_Brutus_. ‘Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The Genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.’
I cannot think Dr. Johnson, Mason, and Delius are right in supposing the
Genius to be the power which watches over us for our protection, and that
the mortal instruments are the passions which rebel against it, and, as
Johnson says, ‘excite him to a deed of honour and danger.’ The Genius
and the mortal instruments are in council. The Genius is the president
and the mortal instruments are subordinates. The insurrection is their
resistance because they cannot at once be brought to do what the Genius
directs. There is no hint in what goes before of ‘safety.’ The mortal
instruments suggest
‘I know no personal cause to spurn at him.’
Blakeway agrees with this interpretation.
In both Plutarch and Shakespeare, Brutus refuses to kill Antony. Brutus
will go no further than justice demands. But this is not enough for
success. Hence the ruin of the republican cause.
Steevens says that the apparition at Sardis ‘could not be at once the
shade of Cæsar and the evil genius of Brutus.’ But Shakespeare intended
that it should be both. Brutus in the fifth scene of the fifth act thus
replies to Volumnius:
‘The ghost of Cæsar hath appear’d to me
Two several times by night: at Sardis, once;
And, this last night, here in Philippi’s fields.’
It is an instance of Steevens’ prosaic temper that he could not see the
fitness of the combination.
_Brutus_. And whether we shall meet again I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take;
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then, this parting was well made.
_Cassius_. For ever, and for ever, farewell, Brutus!
If we do meet again, we’ll smile indeed;
If not, ’tis true, this parting was well made.
These verses are perhaps the noblest in our language. Nothing ever has
gone or could go beyond them. Shakespeare here justifies the claim on
his behalf to be placed alone and unreachable. Observe the repetition by
Cassius almost word for word. Swift must have had this passage in his
mind when in a letter to Pope, which I quote from memory, as I cannot lay
my hand on it, he tells Pope that he will come over to England and see
him if possible, but, if not, ‘we must part, as all human creatures have
parted.’
‘Why, then, lead on. O! that a man might know
The end of this day’s business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known. Come, ho! away!’
These lines might easily be turned into commonplace, but what could be
more pathetic or solemn?
The true drama of Julius Cæsar is indicated by Plutarch. It is Cæsar’s
triumph over innumerable difficulties, any one of which might have been
fatal, the protection by his genius, the limitation of its power, the
Dictatorship—‘Semideus,’ his death. Shakespeare gives no reason, nor
does Plutarch, why Brutus should have plotted to kill Cæsar, excepting
the fear of what might happen if he were to become absolute. Brutus is
abstract.
‘Such one he was (of him we boldly say),
In whose rich soule all sovereigne powres did sute,
In whom in peace the elements all lay
So mixt, as none could soveraigntie impute;
As all did govern, yet all did obey;
His lively temper was so absolute,
That ’t seem’d, when heaven his modell first began,
In him it show’d perfection in a man.’
This is Drayton’s imitation of what Antony says of Brutus, and it is one
which not only does not spoil the original, but is itself original.
* * * * *
_Antony and Cleopatra_.—It is not Antony’s passion for Cleopatra which
ruins him. He has not the cohesion which obtains success. He is
loose-bonded. Cæsar is his complete foil and contrast. Cæsar exists
dramatically to explain Antony. Antony’s challenge to single combat and
the speeches he makes to his servants are characteristic. The marriage
to Octavia, more than his Egyptian slavery, shows his weakness. There is
a line in Plutarch which I wish Shakespeare had used. ‘But it was in the
nature of Antonius to show his best qualities in difficulties, and in his
misfortune he was as like as may be to a good man.’
Scenes 6 and 7, Act ii., the interview with Pompey, are in Plutarch, but
it is not evident why they are in the drama. They do not advance the
action. Shakespeare preserves also Antony’s message to Octavius that if
he was dissatisfied with the treatment of Thyreus he might hang or
torture Antony’s freedman Hipparchus—a detestable piece of brutality
which might well have been omitted.
Cleopatra is quite apart from Shakespeare’s other women. She is a most
complicated and difficult study. Shakespeare takes over from Plutarch
her wandering disguised through the streets at night with Antony; the
voyage down the Cydnus; the hanging of the salt fish on Antony’s hook;
the flight at Actium; the fact that she was mistress of Julius Cæsar and
Cnæus Pompey; the second betrayal of the fleet; her petition to Octavius
for her son; and her attempt to cheat Octavius in the account of her
treasures. In addition Shakespeare makes her ‘hop forty paces through
the public street.’ What could have induced him to invent this story?
She threatens Charmian with bloody teeth; lets Thyreus kiss her hand,
arousing thereby Antony’s rage. Thyreus tells her that Cæsar knows she
did not embrace Antony from love but from fear, and she replies:
‘He is a god, and knows
What is most right: mine honour was not yielded,
But conquer’d merely.’
This may be mockery, but after she has let Thyreus kiss her she goes on:
‘Your Cæsar’s father oft,
When he hath mus’d of taking kingdoms in,
Bestow’d his lips on that unworthy place,
As it rain’d kisses.’
She reminds herself of this, fresh from Antony, who had just told her of
Octavius’s offer to protect her if she would give up the ‘grizled head’
of her lover.