The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story

Miranda is only fifteen years of age. Shakespeare turned Juliet, it will be remembered, from a girl of sixteen into one of fourteen; now, though the sensuality has left him, he makes Miranda only fifteen; clearly he is the same admirer of girlish youth at forty-eight as he was twenty years before. Then Prospero tells Miranda of himself and his brother, the "perfidious" Duke:

"And Prospero, the prime Duke, being so reputed In dignity, and for the liberal arts Without a parallel; those being all my study."

He will not only be a Prince now, but a master "without a parallel" in the liberal arts. He must explain, too, at undue length, how he allowed himself to be supplanted by his false brother, and speaks about himself in Shakespeare's very words:

"I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicate To closeness, and the bettering of my mind With that, which, but by being so retired, O'erprized all popular rate, in my false brother Awaked an evil nature: and my trust, Like a good parent, did beget of him, A falsehood, in its contrary as great As my trust was; which had, indeed, no limit, A confidence sans bound."

Shakespeare, too, "neglecting worldly ends," had dedicated himself to "bettering of his mind," we may be sure. Prospero goes on to tell us explicitly how Shakespeare loved books, which we were only able to infer from his earlier plays:

"Me, poor man, my library Was dukedom large enough."

And again, Gonzalo (another name for Kent and Flavius) having given him some books, he says:

"Of his gentleness, Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me From my own library, with volumes that I prize above my dukedom."

His daughter grieves lest she had been a trouble to him: forthwith Shakespeare-Prospero answers:

"O, a cherubim Thou wast, that did preserve me. Thou didst smile Infused with a fort.i.tude from heaven, When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt Under my burden groan'd; which raised in me An undergoing stomach, to bear up Against what should ensue."

But why should the magician weep or groan under a burden? had he no confidence in his miraculous powers? All this is Shakespeare's confession. Every word is true; his daughter did indeed "preserve"

Shakespeare, and enable him to bear up under the burden of life's betrayals.

No wonder Prospero begins to apologize for this long-winded confession, which indeed is "most impertinent" to the play, as he admits, though most interesting to him and to us, for he is simply Shakespeare telling us his own feelings at the time. The gentle magician then hears from Ariel how the shipwreck has been conducted without harming a hair of anyone.

The whole scene is an extraordinarily faithful and detailed picture of Shakespeare's soul. I find significance even in the fact that Ariel wants his freedom "a full year" before the term Prospero had originally proposed. Shakespeare finished "The Tempest," I believe, and therewith set the seal on his life's work a full year earlier than he had intended; he feared lest death might surprise him before he had put the pinnacle on his work. Ariel's torment, too, is full of meaning for me; for Ariel is Shakespeare's "shaping spirit of imagination," who was once the slave of "a foul witch," and by her "imprisoned painfully" for "a dozen years."

That "dozen years" is to me astonishingly true and interesting: it shows that my reading of the duration of his pa.s.sion-torture was absolutely correct--Shakespeare's "delicate spirit" and best powers bound to Mary Fitton's "earthy" service from 1597 to 1608.

We can perhaps fix this latter date with some a.s.surance. Mistress Fitton married for the second time a Captain or Mr. Polwhele late in 1607, or some short time before March, 1608, when the fact of her recent marriage was recorded in the will of her great uncle. It seems to me probable, or at least possible, that this event marks her complete separation from Shakespeare; she may very likely have left the Court and London on ceasing to be a Maid of Honour.

Shakespeare is so filled with himself in this last play, so certain that he is the most important person in the world, that this scene is more charged with intimate self-revealing than any other in all his works.

And when Ferdinand comes upon the stage Shakespeare lends him, too, his own peculiar qualities. His puppets no longer interest him; he is careless of characterization. Ferdinand says:

"This music crept by me upon the waters Allaying both their fury and my pa.s.sion With its sweet air."

Music, it will be remembered, had precisely the same peculiar effect upon Duke Orsino in "Twelfth Night." Ferdinand, too, is extraordinarily conceited:

"I am the best of them that speak this speech.

.... Myself am Naples."

Shakespeare's natural aristocratic pride as a Prince reinforced by his understanding of his own real importance. Ferdinand then declares he will be content with a prison if he can see Miranda in it:

"s.p.a.ce enough Have I in such a prison."

Which is Hamlet's:

"I could be bounded in a nutsh.e.l.l, and count myself a king of infinite s.p.a.ce."

The second act, with its foiled conspiracy, is wretchedly bad, and the meeting of Caliban and Trinculo with Stephanie does not improve it much, Shakespeare has little interest now in anything outside himself: age and greatness are as self-centred as youth.

In the third act the courtship of Ferdinand and Miranda is pretty, but hardly more. Ferdinand is bloodless, thin, and Miranda swears "by her modesty," as the jewel in her dower, which takes away a little from the charming confession of girl-love:

"I would not wish Any companion in the world but you."

The comic relief which follows is unspeakably dull; but the words of Ariel, warning the King of Naples and the usurping Duke that the wrong they have done Prospero is certain to be avenged unless blotted out by "heart-sorrow and a clear life ensuing," are most characteristic and memorable.

In the fourth act Prospero preaches, as we have seen, self-restraint to Ferdinand in words which, in their very extravagance, show how deeply he regretted his own fault with his wife before marriage. I shall consider the whole pa.s.sage when treating of Shakespeare's marriage as an incident in his life. Afterwards comes the masque, and the marvellous speech of Prospero, which touches the highest height of poetry:

"These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inhabit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made of; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd; Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled: Be not disturb'd with my infirmity: If you be pleased, retire into my cell, And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk, To still my beating mind."

I have given the verses to the very end, for I find the insistence on his age and weakness (which are not in keeping with the character of a magician), a confession of Shakespeare himself: the words "beating mind"

are extraordinarily characteristic, proving as they do that his thoughts and emotions were too strong for his frail body.

In the fifth act Shakespeare-Prospero shows himself to us at his n.o.blest: he will forgive his enemies:

"Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, Yet with my n.o.bler reason 'gainst my fury Do I take part: the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further."

In "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" we saw how Shakespeare-Valentine forgave his faithless friend as soon as he repented: here is the same creed touched to n.o.bler expression.

And then, with all his wishes satisfied, his heart's desire accomplished, Prospero is ready to set out for Milan again and home. We all expect some expression of joy from him, but this is what we get:

"And thence retire me to my Milan, where Every third thought shall be my grave."

The despair is wholly unexpected and out of place, as was the story of his weakness and infirmity, his "beating mind." It is evidently Shakespeare's own confession. After writing "The Tempest" he intends to retire to Stratford, where "every third thought shall be my grave."

I have purposely drawn special attention to Shakespeare's weakness and despair at this time, because the sad, rhymed Epilogue which has to be spoken by Prospero has been attributed to another hand by a good many scholars. It is manifestly Shakespeare's, out of Shakespeare's very heart indeed; though Mr. Israel Gollancz follows his leaders in saying that the "Epilogue to the play is evidently by some other hand than Shakespeare's": "evidently" is good. Here it is:

"Now my charms are all o'erthrown, And what strength I have's mine own, Which is most faint: now, 'tis true, I must be here confined by you, Or sent to Naples. Let me not Since I have my dukedom got, And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell In this bare island by your spell; But release me from my bands With the help of your good hands: Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please. Now I want, Spirits to enforce, art to enchant; And my ending is despair, Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it a.s.saults Mercy itself, and frees all faults As you from crimes would pardon'd be Let your indulgence set me free."

From youth to age Shakespeare occupied himself with the deepest problems of human existence; again and again we find him trying to pierce the darkness that enshrouds life. Is there indeed nothing beyond the grave--nothing? Is the n.o.ble fabric of human thought, achievement and endeavour to fade into nothingness and pa.s.s away like the pageant of a dream? He will not cheat himself with unfounded hopes, nor delude himself into belief; he resigns himself with a sigh--it is the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns. But Shakespeare always believed in repentance and forgiveness, and now, world-weary, old and weak, he turns to prayer, [Footnote: Hamlet, too, after speaking with his father's ghost, cries: "I'll go pray."] prayer that--

"a.s.saults Mercy itself and frees all faults."

Poor, broken Shakespeare! "My ending is despair": the sadness of it, and the pity, lie deeper than tears.

What a man! to produce a masterpiece in spite of such weakness. What a play is this "Tempest"! At length Shakespeare sees himself as he is, a monarch without a country; but master of a very "potent art," a great magician, with imagination as an attendant spirit, that can conjure up shipwrecks, or enslave enemies, or create lovers at will; and all his powers are used in gentle kindness. Ariel is a higher creation, more spiritual and charming than any other poet has ever attempted; and Caliban, the earth-born, half-beast, half-man--these are the poles of Shakespeare's genius.

CHAPTER XIV. SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE

Our long travail is almost at an end. We have watched Shakespeare painting himself at various periods of his life, and at full length in twenty dramas, as the gentle, sensuous poet-thinker. We have studied him when given over to wild pa.s.sion in the sonnets and elsewhere, and to insane jealousy in "Oth.e.l.lo"; we have seen him as Hamlet brooding on revenge and self-murder, and in "Lear," and "Timon" raging on the verge of madness, and in these ecstasies, when the soul is incapable of feigning, we have discovered his true nature as it differed from the ideal presentments which his vanity shaped and coloured. We have corrected his personal estimate by that "story of faults conceal'd"

which Shakespeare himself referred to in sonnet 88. It only remains for me now to give a brief account of his life and the incidents of it to show that my reading of his character is borne out by the known facts, and thus put the man in his proper setting, so to speak.

On the other hand, our knowledge of Shakespeare's character will help us to reconstruct his life-story. What is known positively of his life could be given in a couple of pages; but there are traditions of him, tales about him, innumerable sc.r.a.ps of fact and fiction concerning him which are more or less interesting and authentic; and now that we know the man, we shall be able to accept or reject these reports with some degree of confidence, and so arrive at a credible picture of his life's journey, and the changes which Time wrought in him. In all I may say about him I shall keep close to the facts as given in his works. When tradition seems consonant with what Shakespeare has told us about himself, or with what Ben Jonson said of him, I shall use it with confidence.