The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story

"Is Antony or we in fault for this?"

and at once En.o.barbus voices the exact truth:

"Antony only, that would make his will Lord of his reason. What though you fled . . . . . .

. . . why should he follow?"

Again and again Antony reproaches Cleopatra, and again and again En.o.barbus is used to keep the truth before us. Some of these reproaches, it seems to me, are so extravagant and so ill-founded that they discover the personal pa.s.sion of the poet. For example, Antony insults Cleopatra:

"You have been a boggler ever."

And the proof forsooth is:

"I found you as a morsel cold upon Dead Caesar's trencher."

But to have been Caesar's mistress was Cleopatra's chief t.i.tle to fame.

Shakespeare is here probably reviling Mary Fitton for being deserted by some early lover. Curiously enough, this weakness of Antony increases the complexity of his character, while the naturalistic pa.s.sion of his words adds enormously to the effect of the play. Again and again in this drama Shakespeare's personal vindictiveness serves an artistic purpose.

The story of "Troilus and Cressida" is in itself low and vile, and when loaded with Shakespeare's bitterness outrages probability; but the love of Antony and Cleopatra is so overwhelming that it goes to ruin and suicide and beyond, and when intensified by Shakespeare's personal feeling becomes a world's masterpiece.

We have already seen that the feminine railing Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Antony increases the realistic effect, and just in the same way the low cunning, temper, and mean greed which he attributes to Cleopatra, transform her from a somewhat incomprehensible historical marionette into the most splendid specimen of the courtesan in the world's literature. Heine speaks of her contemptuously as a "kept woman," but the epithet only shows how Heine in default of knowledge fell back on his racial gift of feminine denigration. Even before she enters we see that Shakespeare has not forgiven his dark scornful mistress; Cleopatra is the finest picture he ever painted of Mary Fitton; but Antony's friends tell us, at the outset, she is a "l.u.s.tful gipsy," a "strumpet," and at first she merely plays on Antony's manliness; she sends for him, and when he comes, departs. A little later she sends again, telling her messenger:

"I did not send you: if you find him sad, Say, I am dancing; if in mirth, report That I am sudden sick: quick, and return."

And when Charmian, her woman, declares that the way to keep a man is to "cross him in nothing," she replies scornfully:

"Thou teachest, like a fool, the way to lose him."

She uses a dozen taunts to prevent her lover from leaving her; but when she sees him resolved, she wishes him victory and success. And so through a myriad changes of mood and of cunning wiles we discover that love for Antony which is the anchor to her unstable nature.

The scene with the eunuch Mardian is a little gem. She asks:

"Hast thou affections?

_Mar_. Yes, gracious madam.

_Cleo_. Indeed?

_Mar_. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing.

But what indeed is honest to be done; Yet have I fierce affections, and think What Venus did with Mars.

_Cleo_. O, Charmian!

Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?"

She is with her lover again, and recalls his phrase for her, "my serpent of old Nile," and feeds herself with love's "delicious poison."

No sooner does she win our sympathy by her pa.s.sion for Antony than Shakespeare chills our admiration by showing her as the courtesan:

"_Cleo_. Did I, Charmian, Ever love Caesar so?

_Char_. O, that brave Caesar!

_Cleo_. Be choked with such another emphasis!

Say, the brave Antony.

_Char_. The valiant Caesar!

_Cleo_. By Isis, I will give thee b.l.o.o.d.y teeth If thou with Caesar paragon again My man of men.

_Char_. By your most gracious pardon, I sing but after you.

_Cleo_. My salad days, When I was green in judgement: cold in blood, To say as I said then!"

Already we see and know her, her wiles, her pa.s.sion, her quick temper, her chameleon-like changes, her subtle charms of person and of word, and yet we have not reached the end of the first act. Next to Falstaff and to Hamlet, Cleopatra is the most astonishing piece of portraiture in all Shakespeare. En.o.barbus gives the soul of her:

"_Ant_. She is cunning past man's thought.

_Eno_. Alack, sir, no; her pa.s.sions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love....

_Ant_. Would I had never seen her!

_Eno_. O, sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work; which not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel."

Here Shakespeare gives his true opinion of Mary Fitton: then comes the miraculous expression:

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appet.i.tes they feed; but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies."

Act by act Shakespeare makes the portrait more complex and more perfect.

In the second act she calls for music like the dark lady of the Sonnets:

"Music--moody food of us that trade in love,"

and then she'll have no music, but will play billiards, and not billiards either, but will fish and think every fish caught an Antony.

And again she flies to memory:

"That time--O times!-- I laughed him out of patience; and that night I laughed him into patience; and next morn, Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed; Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst I wore his sword Philippan."

The charm of it all, the deathless charm and the astounding veracity!

The messenger enters, and she promises him for good news "gold and her bluest veins to kiss." When she hears that Antony is well she pours more gold on him, but when he pauses in his recital she has a mind to strike him. When he tells that Caesar and Antony are friends, it is a fortune she'll give; but when she learns that Antony is betrothed to Octavia she turns to her women with "I am pale, Charmian," and when she hears that Antony is married she flies into a fury, strikes the messenger down and hales him up and down the room by his hair. When he runs from her knife she sends for him:

"I will not hurt him.

These hands do lack n.o.bility, that they strike A meaner than myself."

She has the fascination of great pride and the magic of manners. When the messenger returns she is a queen again, most courteous-wise:

"Come hither, sir.

Though it be honest, it is never good To bring bad news."

She wants to know the features of Octavia, her years, her inclination, the colour of her hair, her height--everything.

A most veracious full-length portrait, with the minute finish of a miniature; it shows how Shakespeare had studied every fold and foible of Mary Fitton's soul. In the third act Cleopatra takes up again the theme of Octavia's appearance, only to run down her rival, and so salve her wounded vanity and cheat her heart to hope. The messenger, too, who lends himself to her humour now becomes a proper man. Shakespeare seizes every opportunity to add another touch to the wonderful picture.

Cleopatra appears next in Antony's camp at Actium talking with En.o.barbus:

"_Cleo_. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.