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are brought forward, withdrawn, and introduced again by turns,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."