SHAKESPEARE
AND HIS LOVE
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
_THE MAN SHAKESPEARE and His
Tragic Life Story. Demy 8vo., 7s. 6d. net._
_THE ELDER CONKLIN and other Stories.
Demy 8vo, 5s. net._
_MONTES THE MATADOR and other
Stories. Demy 8vo, 5s. net._
_THE BOMB: A Novel. Crown 8vo, 6s._
_THE WOMEN OF SHAKESPEARE._
_In the Press._
SHAKESPEARE
AND HIS LOVE
_A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS
AND AN EPILOGUE_
BY
FRANK HARRIS
(_Author of “The Man Shakespeare,”
“The Women of Shakespeare,” etc._).
[Illustration]
LONDON:
FRANK PALMER,
RED LION COURT, E.C.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIRST PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1910.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
_Copyrighted in the United States of America_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTION
THE National Shakespeare Memorial Committee, it is announced, is about
to produce a new play by Mr. Bernard Shaw entitled “The Dark Lady of the
Sonnets.” Fourteen years ago, provoked by the nonsense Mr. Shaw was then
writing about Shakespeare in _The Saturday Review_, I wrote some
articles on Shakespeare in the same paper, in which I showed in especial
that Hamlet was a good portrait of Shakespeare, for the master had
unconsciously pictured Hamlet over again as Macbeth and Jaques, Angelo,
Orsino, Lear, Posthumus, Prospero and other heroes. With admirable
quickness Mr. Bernard Shaw proceeded to annex as much of this theory of
mine as he thought important; in preface after preface to his plays,
notably in the preface to “Man and Superman,” he took my discovery and
used it as if it were his. For instance, he wrote:—
“He (Shakespeare) must be judged by those characters into which
he puts what he knows of himself, his Hamlets and Macbeths and
Lears and Prosperos.”
And again:—
“All Shakespeare’s projections of the deepest humanity he knew
have the same defect”—and so forth and so on.
In the preface to “Three Plays for Puritans” Mr. Shaw gave me a casual
mention, just sufficient to afford him a fig-leaf, so to speak, of
covering if the charge of plagiarism were brought against him: “His
(Shakespeare’s) genuine critics,” he wrote, “from Ben Jonson to Mr.
Frank Harris, have always kept as far on this side idolatry as I.”
Six or seven years ago I wrote a play called “Shakespeare and his Love,”
which was accepted by Mr. Beerbohm Tree. As Mr. Tree did not produce the
play at the time agreed upon, I withdrew it. Some time afterwards, on
the advice of a friend, I sent it to the Vedrenne-Barker management.
They read it; but Mr. Barker, I was told, did not like the part of
Shakespeare. I wrote, therefore, asking for the return of the play. Mr.
Vedrenne, in reply, told me that he admired the play greatly, and still
hoped to induce Mr. Barker to play it. He asked me, therefore, to leave
it with him. A little while later I met Mr. Shaw in the street; he told
me that he, too, had read my play which I had sent to the Court
managers, and added, “you have represented Shakespeare as sadder than he
was, I think; but you have shown his genius, which everyone else has
omitted to do....”
Last year I published a book entitled _The_ _Man Shakespeare_, which was
in essence an amplification of my articles in _The Saturday Review_. A
considerable portion of this book had been in print ten years. The work
had a certain success in England and America. This year I have published
in _The English Review_ a series of articles on _The Women of
Shakespeare_, which one of the first of living writers has declared
marks an epoch in English criticism.
Now Mr. Shaw has written a play on the subject, which I have been
working on for these fifteen years, and from what he has said thereon in
_The Observer_ it looks as if he had annexed my theory bodily so far as
he can understand it, and the characters to boot. After talking about
his play and Shakespeare’s passion, and using words of mine again and
again as if they were his own, he acknowledges his indebtedness to me in
this high-minded and generous way:
“The only English writer who has really grasped this part of
Shakespeare’s story is Frank Harris; but Frank sympathises with
Shakespeare. It is like seeing Semele reduced to ashes and sympathising
with Jupiter.”
This is equivalent to saying that all the other parts of Shakespeare’s
story have been grasped by someone else, presumably by Mr. Shaw himself,
and not by me. It is as if Mr. Cook had said, “the only American who
really knows anything about Polar exploration is Captain Peary, though
he uses his knowledge quite stupidly.” One can imagine that such
testimony from such an authority would have been very grateful to
Captain Peary.
This precious utterance of Mr. Shaw shows further that in his version of
the story he is going to take the side of Mary Fitton against
Shakespeare; he will therefore defend or at least explain her various
marriages and her illegitimate children by different fathers, none of
whom happened to be married to her.
Mr. Shaw’s sole contribution to our knowledge of Shakespeare is the
coupling of him with Dickens, which is very much the same thing as if
one tried to explain Titian by coupling him with Hogarth. This, in my
opinion, is Mr. Shaw’s only original observation on the subject, and its
perfect originality I should be the last to deny.
I have not yet read or seen Mr. Shaw’s play: I only wish here to draw
attention to the fact that he has already annexed a good deal of my work
and put it forth as his own, giving me only the most casual and grudging
mention. From the larger acknowledgment in _The Observer_, I naturally
infer that in this new play he has taken from me even more than he could
hope to pass off as his own.
All this in the England of to-day is looked upon as honourable and
customary. If Mr. Shaw can annex my work it only shows that he is
stronger than I am or abler, and this fact in itself would be generally
held to absolve and justify him: _vae victis_ is the noble English motto
in such cases. But if it turns out in the long struggle that Mr. Shaw is
only more successful for the moment than I am, if my books and writings
on Shakespeare have come to stay, then I can safely leave the task of
judging Mr. Shaw to the future.
In any case I can console myself. It amused me years ago to see Mr. Shaw
using scraps of my garments to cover his nakedness; he now struts about
wearing my livery unashamed. I am delighted that so little of it makes
him a complete suit. My wardrobe is still growing in spite of his
predatory instincts, and he is welcome to as much of it as I have cast
off and he can cut to fit.
But is this the best that Mr. Shaw can do with his astonishing quickness
and his admirable gift of lucid, vigorous speech? Will he, who is not
poor, always be under our tables for the crumbs? Why should he not share
the feast, or, better still, make a feast of his own? Why does he not
take himself in hand, and crush the virtue out of himself and distil it
into some noble draught? The quintessence of Shaw would be worth having.
I can afford on this matter to be wholly frank and ingenuous, and admit
that I am gratified by the ability of my first disciples. Any writer
might be proud of having convinced men of original minds like Mr. Arnold
Bennett, Mr. Richard Middleton, and Mr. Bernard Shaw of the truth of a
theory so contrary to tradition as mine is and so contemptuous of
authority: Shakespeare himself would have been proud of such admirers.
And if Mr. Bernard Shaw has done his best to share in the honour of the
discovery, one must attribute his excess of zeal to the intensity of his
admiration, and to the fact that he was perhaps even a little quicker
than the others to appreciate the new view, or perhaps a little vainer
even than most able men. In any case, Mr. Shaw’s method of dealing with
a new master must be contrasted with that of the professor who also
annexed as much as he could of my early articles, and coolly asserted
that he had had my ideas ten years before, leaving it to be inferred
that he had concealed them carefully.
After all, the chief thing is, here is my play, and Mr. Shaw’s will
shortly make its appearance, and in time a true deliverance and judgment
on the respective merits of them will be forthcoming.
A few words about this play of mine may be allowed me. It suffers from
an extraordinary, and perhaps extravagant, piety: I did not set out to
write a great play on the subject. I wanted to give a dramatic picture
of Shakespeare and his time; but above all a true picture. It seemed to
me that no one had the right to treat the life-story, the soul-tragedy
of a Shakespeare as the mere stuff of a play. Within the limits of the
truth, however, I did my best. The play, therefore, as a play is full of
faults: it is as loosely put together as one of Shakespeare’s own
history plays, and the worst fault of it is not poverty of plot and
weakness of construction; it is also academic and literary in tone. Much
of this is due to my love of the master. I have hardly put a word in
Shakespeare’s mouth which I could not justify out of his plays or
sonnets. My excessive love of the man has been a hindrance to me as a
playwright.
I daresay—in fact, I am sure—that it would be possible to write a great
play on the subject, and tell even more of the truth than I have here
told; but that could only be done if one knew that the play would be
played and had leisure and encouragement to do one’s best. The evil of
our present civilisation, from the artist’s point of view, is that he is
compelled by the conditions to give of his second best, and be thankful
if even this is lucky enough to earn him a living wage.
My book on Shakespeare was many years in type before it found a
publisher; my Shakespeare play was printed six years ago and has not yet
been acted.
FRANK HARRIS.
_London, 15th November, 1910._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
ROBERT CECIL, LORD BURGHLEY
THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON
LORD WILLIAM HERBERT (afterwards Earl of Pembroke).
KINGSTON LACY, EARL OF LINCOLN, an Euphuist
SIR JOHN STANLEY
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
“ FRANCIS BACON
“ BEN JONSON
“ FLETCHER
“ RICHARD BURBAGE
“ MARSTON
“ CHETTLE, the prototype of Falstaff.
“ DEKKER
“ WILLIE HUGHES
“ SELDEN
DR. HALL, Shakespeare’s son-in-law
MASTER FRY, the Host of the “Mitre”
QUEEN ELIZABETH
LADY RUTLAND, Sidney’s sister
LADY JANE WROTH
LADY CYNTHIA DARREL
LADY JOAN NEVIL
MISTRESS MARY FITTON, Shakespeare’s Love
“ VIOLET VERNON
“ QUINEY }
“ HALL, } Shakespeare’s daughters
COURTIERS AND SERVANTS
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SHAKESPEARE AND HIS LOVE
ACT I
SCENES I-VII _The Stage of the Globe
Theatre._
“ VIII-X _The Antechamber at Court_
ACT II
SCENES I-II _In the “Mermaid”_
“ III-VI _In the Gardens of St. James’s
Palace by moonlight_
ACT
III
SCENES I-IV _In the “Mitre” Tavern_
“ V-VI _A Room in Lord William
Herbert’s Lodgings_
ACT IV
SCENES I-IV _In the “Mitre” Tavern_
“ V-VI _The Throne Room at Court_
THE
EPILOGUE
SCENES I-II _A Bedchamber in_
SHAKESPEARE’S _House at
Stratford_
_Time_
_Acts I, II, III and IV take
place in the summer of 1598
The Epilogue in April, 1616_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACT I
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCENE I.
_The tiring-room behind the stage of the Globe theatre after a
performance of “The Merchant of Venice.”_
[_As the curtain goes up an attendant is discovered listening at door_
L. _There is a noise to be heard as of persons leaving the theatre: as
the door is thrown open the attendant moves aside. The Earl of
Southampton, Lord Lacy, Sir John Stanley, Chapman, Dekker, Marston,
Fletcher, John Selden and Burbage enter._]
SIR JOHN STANLEY:
[_Flinging in._] What a foolish play! And what a spendthrift merchant!
CHAPMAN:
Trivial, I found it. Trivial and silly.
LACY:
[_With graceful gesture._] Most excellent in invention, liberal in
conceit. The Jew a gem, a gem, I say—a balass ruby of rich Orient blood!
DEKKER:
Pretty, perhaps, but tedious! Tedious—as a rival’s praise, eh, Chapman?
SOUTHAMPTON:
Ah, Master Burbage, you outdid yourself as Shylock. When you sharpened
the knife, we all shivered.
BURBAGE:
I’m much beholden to your lordship.
FLETCHER:
[_To Lord Lacy_] The scene between the lovers in the moonlight was not
ill-conceived. That Lorenzo had something of Shakespeare in him.
LACY:
And Jessica! The name’s a perfume. A flower, Jessica, of most rare
depicture, dear to fancy, responsive to a breath!
DEKKER:
[_Aside to Fletcher._] Has the gull any meaning?
SELDEN:
His words, Dekker, are like his dress: too choice for ease, too rich for
service: but he’s of great place, and friend to Essex.
FLETCHER:
[_To Southampton._] The end’s weak, and the merchant too much the saint.
DEKKER:
Saints are always tiresome unless they’re martyred.
SOUTHAMPTON:
And detractors, unless they’re witty.
LACY:
[_Reproachfully._] A cannon-ball as a retort! Fie, fie, my lord
Southampton. A little salve of soft disdain obliterates the sting, and
no one shoots at midges.
[_Enter Shakespeare, who takes a seat apart._]
SOUTHAMPTON:
[_Moving aside, with Lacy, waves his hand to Shakespeare._] Good! good!
SIR JOHN STANLEY:
Give me an English play. Why can’t we have a play where we thrash the
Spaniards? Curse Venice! What’s Venice to me! [_Exit, accompanied by
Marston and Dekker; Fletcher and Chapman follow._]