The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story

_Cressida._ It is no matter.

_Diomedes._ Come, tell me whose it was?

_Cressida_. 'Twas one that loved me better than you will, But, now you have it, take it."

The scene is a splendid dramatic scene, a piece torn from life, so realistic that it convinces, and yet we revolt; we feel that we have not got to the heart of the mystery. There is so much evil in Cressida that we want to see the spark of goodness in her, however fleeting and ineffective the spark may be. But Shakespeare makes her attempt at justification a confession of absolute faithlessness:

"Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee, But with my heart the other eye doth see.

Ah! poor our s.e.x! This fault in us I find, The error of our eye directs our mind."

This is plainly Shakespeare's reflection and not Cressida's apology, and if we contrast this speech with the dialogue given above, it becomes plain, I think, that the terrible scene with Diomedes is taken from life, or is at least Shakespeare's vision of the way Mary Fitton behaved. There's a magic in those devilish words of Cressida that outdoes imagination:

"'Twas one that loved me better than you will, But, now you have it, take it."

And then:

"Sweet, honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly:"

The very power of the characterization makes the traitress hateful. If Mary Fitton ever gave any gift of Shakespeare to Lord Herbert, the dramatist should have known that she no longer loved him, had in reality already forgotten him in her new pa.s.sion; but to paint a woman as remembering a lover, indeed as still loving him, and yet as giving his gift to another, is an offence in art though it may be true to nature.

It is a fault in art because it is impossible to motive it in a few lines. The fact of the gift is bad enough; without explanation it is horrible. For this and other reasons I infer that Shakespeare took the fact from his own experience: he had suffered, it seems to me, from some such traitorism on the part of his mistress, or he ascribed to Mary Fitton some traitorism of his own.

In sonnet 122 he finds weighty excuse for having given away the table-book which his friend had given to him. His own confessed shortcoming might have taught him to exercise more lenient judgment towards his frail love.

But when Shakespeare wrote "Troilus and Cressida" a pa.s.sion of bitterness possessed him; he not only vilified Cressida but all the world, Agamemnon, Nestor, Achilles, Ajax; he seems indeed to have taken more pleasure in the railing of Thersites than in any other part of the work except the scourging of Cressida. He shocks us by the picture of Achilles and his myrmidons murdering Hector when they come upon him unarmed.

One or two incidental difficulties must be settled before we pa.s.s to a greater play.

"Troilus and Cressida" has always been regarded as a sort of enigma.

Professor Dowden asks: "With what intention and in what spirit did Shakespeare write this strange comedy? All the Greek heroes who fought against Troy are pitilessly exposed to ridicule?" And from this fact and the bitterness of "Timon" some German critics have drawn the inference that Shakespeare was incapable of comprehending Greek life, and that indeed he only realized his Romans so perfectly because the Roman was very like the Briton in his mastery of practical affairs, of the details of administration and of government. This is an excellent instance of German prejudice. No one could have been better fitted than Shakespeare to understand Greek civilization and Greek art with its supreme love of plastic beauty, but his master Plutarch gave him far better pictures of Roman life than of Greek life, partly because Plutarch lived in the time of Roman domination and partly because he was in far closer sympathy with the masters of practical affairs than with artists in stone like Phidias or artists in thought like Plato. The true explanation of Shakespeare's caricatures of Greek life, whether Homeric or Athenian, is to be found in the fact that he was not only entirely ignorant of it but prejudiced against it. And this prejudice in him had an obvious root.

Chapman had just translated and published the first books of his Iliad, and Chapman was the poet whom Shakespeare speaks of as his rival in Sonnets 78-86. He cannot help smiling at the "strained touches" of Chapman's rhetoric and his heavy learning. Those who care to remember the first scene of "Love's Labour's Lost" will recall how Shakespeare in that early work mocked at learning and derided study. When he first reached London he was no doubt despised for his ignorance of Greek and Latin; he had had to bear the sneers and flouts of the many who appraised learning, an university training and gentility above genius.

He took the first opportunity of answering his critics:

"Small have continual plodders ever won, Save bare authority from others' books."

But the taunts rankled, and when the bitter days came of disappointment and disillusion he took up that Greek life which his rival had tried to depict in its fairest colours, and showed what he thought was the seamy side of it. But had he known anything of Greek life and Greek art it would have been his pleasure to outdo his rival by giving at once a truer and a fairer presentation of Greece than Chapman could conceive.

It is the rivalry of Chapman that irritates Shakespeare into pouring contempt on Greek life in "Troilus and Cressida." As Chapman was for the Greeks, Shakespeare took sides with the Trojans.

But why do I a.s.sume that "Troilus and Cressida" is earlier than "Antony and Cleopatra?" Some critics, and among them Dr. Brandes, place it later, and they have some reason for their belief. The bitterness in "Troilus and Cressida," they say rightly, is more intense; and as Shakespeare's disappointment with men and things appears to have increased from "Hamlet" to "Timon," or from 1602 to 1607-8, they put the bitterer play later. Cogent as is this reasoning, I cannot believe that Shakespeare could have painted Cressida after having painted Cleopatra.

The same model has evidently served for both women; but while Cleopatra is perhaps the most superb portrait of a courtesan in all literature, Cressida is a crude and harsh sketch such as a Dumas or a Pinero might have conceived.

It is more than probable, I think, that "Troilus and Cressida" was planned and the love-story at least written about 1603, while Shakespeare's memory of one of his mistress's betrayals was still vivid and sharp. The play was taken up again four or five years later and the character of Ulysses deepened and strengthened. In this later revision the outlook is so piercing-sad, the phrases of such pregnancy, that the work must belong to Shakespeare's ripest maturity. Moreover, he has grown comparatively careless of characterization as in all his later work; he gives his wise sayings almost as freely to Achilles as to Ulysses.

"Troilus and Cressida" is interesting because it establishes the opinion that Chapman was indeed the rival poet whom Shakespeare referred to in the sonnets, and especially because it shows us the poet's mistress painted in a rage of erotic pa.s.sion so violent that it defeats itself, and the portrait becomes an incredible caricature--that way madness lies. "Troilus and Cressida" points to "Lear" and "Timon."

CHAPTER X. DRAMAS OF l.u.s.t: PART II. _Antony and Cleopatra_

We now come to the finest work of Shakespeare's maturity, to the drama in which his pa.s.sion for Mary Fitton finds supreme expression.

"Antony and Cleopatra" is an astonishing production not yet fairly appreciated even in England, and perhaps not likely to be appreciated anywhere at its full worth for many a year to come. But when we English have finally left that dark prison of Puritanism and lived for some time in the sun-light where the wayside crosses are hidden under climbing roses, we shall probably couple "Antony and Cleopatra" with "Hamlet" in our love as Shakespeare's supremest works. It was fitting that the same man who wrote "Romeo and Juliet," the incomparable symphony of first love, should also write "Antony and Cleopatra," the far more wonderful and more terrible tragedy of mature pa.s.sion.

Let us begin with the least interesting part of the play, and we shall see that all the difficulties in it resolve themselves as soon as we think of it as Shakespeare's own confession. Wherever he leaves Plutarch, it is to tell his own story.

Some critics have reproached Shakespeare with the sensualism of "Romeo and Juliet"; no one, so far as I can remember, has blamed the Sapphic intensity of "Antony and Cleopatra," where the l.u.s.t of the flesh and desire of the eye reign triumphant. Professor Dowden indeed says: "The spirit of the play, though superficially it appear voluptuous, is essentially severe. That is to say, Shakespeare is faithful to the fact." Antony and Cleopatra kill themselves, forsooth, and thus conventional virtue is justified by self-murder. So superficial and false a judgement is a quaint example of mid-Victorian taste: it reminds me of the horsehair sofa and the antimaca.s.sar. Would Professor Dowden have had Shakespeare alter the historical facts, making Antony conquer Caesar and Cleopatra triumph over death? Would this have been sufficient to prove to the professor that Shakespeare's morals are not his, and that the play is certainly the most voluptuous in modern literature?

Well, this is just what Shakespeare has done. Throughout the play Caesar is a subordinate figure while Antony is the protagonist and engages all our sympathies; whenever they meet Antony shows as the larger, richer, more generous nature. In every act he conquers Caesar; leaving on us the gorgeous ineffaceable impression of a great personality whose superb temperament moves everyone to admiration and love; Caesar, on the other hand, affects one as a calculating machine.

But Shakespeare's fidelity to the fact is so extraordinary that he gives Caesar one speech which shows his moral superiority to Antony. When his sister weeps on hearing that Antony has gone back to Cleopatra, Caesar bids her dry her tears,

But let determined things to destiny Hold unbewailed their way ..."

This line alone suffices to show why Antony was defeated; the force of imperial Rome is in the great phrase; but Shakespeare will not admit his favourite's inferiority, and in order to explain Antony's defeat Shakespeare represents luck as being against him, luck or fate, and this is not the only or even the chief proof of the poet's partiality.

Pompey, who scarcely notices Caesar when Antony is by, says of Antony:

"his soldiership Is twice the other twain."

And, indeed, Antony in the play appears to be able to beat Caesar whenever he chooses or whenever he is not betrayed.

All the personages of the play praise Antony, and when he dies the most magnificent eulogy of him is p.r.o.nounced by Agrippa, Caesar's friend:

"A rarer spirit never Did steer humanity; but you, G.o.ds, will give us Some faults to make us men."

Antony is even permitted at the last to console himself; he declares exultantly that in the other world the ghosts shall come to gaze at him and Cleopatra, and:

"Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops."

Shakespeare makes conquering Caesar admit the truth of this boast:

"No grave upon the earth shall clip in it A pair so famous."

To win in life universal admiration and love, and in death imperishable renown, is to succeed in spite of failure and suicide, and this is the lesson which Shakespeare read into Plutarch's story. Even En.o.barbus is conquered at the last by Antony's n.o.ble magnanimity. But why does Shakespeare show this extraordinary, this extravagant liking for him who was "the bellows and the fan to cool a gipsy's l.u.s.t," for that Marc Antony who might have been the master of the world, and who threw away empire, life, and honour to be "a strumpet's fool?" There is only one possible explanation: Shakespeare felt the most intense, the most intimate sympathy with Antony because he, too, was pa.s.sion's slave, and had himself experienced with his dark mistress, Mary Fitton, the ultimate degradation of l.u.s.t. For this reason he took Plutarch's portrait of Antony, and, by emphasizing the kingly traits, transformed it. In the play, as Dr. Brandes sees, Antony takes on something of the "artist-nature." It is Antony's greatness and weakness; the spectacle of a high intellect struggling with an overpowering sensuality; of a n.o.ble nature at odds with pa.s.sionate human frailty, that endeared him to Shakespeare. The pomp of Antony's position, too, and his kingly personality pleased our poet. As soon as Shakespeare reached maturity, he began to depict himself as a monarch; from "Twelfth Night" on he a.s.sumed royal state in his plays, and surely in this figure of Antony he must for the moment have satisfied his longing for regal magnificence and domination. From the first scene to the last Antony is a king of men by right divine of nature.

It is, however, plain that Antony's pride, his superb mastery of life, the touch of imperious brutality in him, are all traits taken from Plutarch, and are indeed wholly inconsistent with Shakespeare's own character. Had Shakespeare possessed these qualities his portraits of men of action would have been infinitely better than they are, while his portraits of the gentle thinker and lover of the arts, his Hamlets and his Dukes, would have been to seek.

The personal note of every one of his great tragedies is that Shakespeare feels he has failed in life, failed lamentably. His Brutus, we feel, failed of necessity because of his aloofness from practical life; his Coriola.n.u.s, too, had to fail, and almost forgoes sympathy by his faults; but this Antony ought not to have failed: we cannot understand why the man leaves the sea-battle to follow Cleopatra's flight, who but an act or two before, with lesser reason, realized his danger and was able to break off from his enchantress. Yet the pa.s.sion of desire that sways Antony is so splendidly portrayed; is, too, so dominant in all of us, that we accept it at once as explaining the inexplicable.

In measure as Shakespeare enn.o.bled Antony, the historical fact of ultimate defeat and failure allowed him to degrade Cleopatra. And this he did willingly enough, for from the moment he took up the subject he identified the Queen of Egypt with his own faithless mistress, Mary Fitton, whom he had already tried to depict as "false Cressid." This identification of himself and his own experience of pa.s.sion with the persons and pa.s.sions of the story explains some of the faults of the drama; while being the source, also, of its singular splendour.

In this play we have the finest possible example of the strife between Shakespeare's yielding poetic temperament and the severity of his intellect. He heaps praises on Antony, as we have seen, from all sides; he loved the man as a sort of superb _alter ego_, and yet his intellectual fairness is so extraordinary that it compelled him to create a character who should uphold the truth even against his heart's favourite. Dr. Brandes speaks of En.o.barbus as a "sort of chorus"; he is far more than that; he is the intellectual conscience of the play, a weight, so to speak, to redress the balance which Shakespeare used this once and never again. What a confession this is of personal partiality!

A single instance will suffice to prove my point: Shakespeare makes Antony cast the blame for the flight at Actium on Cleopatra, and manages almost to hide the unmanly weakness of the plaint by its infinitely pathetic wording:

"Whither hast them led me, Egypt?

A little later Cleopatra asks: