Shakespeare's Roman plays and their background

by Sir Mungo William MacCallum

CHAPTER I

POSITION OF THE PLAY BETWEEN THE HISTORIES AND THE TRAGEDIES. ATTRACTION OF THE SUBJECT FOR SHAKESPEARE AND HIS GENERATION. INDEBTEDNESS TO PLUTARCH

Although Julius Caesar was first published in the Folio of 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, there is not much doubt about its approximate date of composition, which is now placed by almost all scholars near the beginning of the seventeenth century. Some of the evidence for this is partly external in character.

(1) In a miscellany of poems on the death of Elizabeth, printed in 1603, and entitled Sorrowes Joy, the lines occur:

They say a comet woonteth to appeare

When Princes baleful destinie is neare:

So Julius starre was seene with fiery crest,

Before his fall to blaze among the rest.

It looks as though the suggestion for the idea and many of the words had come from Calpurnia’s remonstrance,

When beggars die there are no comets seen:

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.[138]

(II. ii. 30.)

Another apparent loan belongs to the same year. In 1603 Drayton rewrote his poem of Mortimeriados under the title of The Barons’ Wars, altering and adding many passages. One of the insertions runs:

Such one he was, of him we boldely say,

In whose riche soule all soueraigne powres did sute,

In whome in peace th(e) elements all lay

So mixt as none could soueraignty impute;

As all did gouerne, yet all did obey.

His liuely temper was so absolute,

That ’t seemde when heauen his modell first began,

In him it shewd perfection in a man.

Compare Antony’s verdict on Brutus:

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mix’d in him, that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world, “This was a man.”

(V. v. 73.)

Some critics have endeavoured to minimise this coincidence on the ground that it was a common idea that man was compounded of the four elements. But that would not account for such close identity of phrase. There must be some connection; and that Drayton, not Shakespeare, was the copyist, is rendered probable by the circumstance that Drayton, in 1619, i.e. after Shakespeare’s death, makes a still closer approach to Shakespeare’s language.

He was a man, then, boldly dare to say,

In whose rich soul the virtues well did suit;

In whom, so mix’d the elements all lay,

That none to one could sovereignty impute;

As all did govern, yet all did obey:

He of a temper was so absolute

As that it seem’d, when Nature him began,

She meant to show all that might be in man.[139]

(2) Apart, however, from these apparent adaptations in 1603, there is reason to conjecture that the play had been performed by May in the previous year. At that date, as we know from Henslowe’s Diary, Drayton, Webster and others were engaged on a tragedy on the same subject called Caesar’s Fall. Now it is a well ascertained fact that when a drama was a success at one theatre, something on a similar theme commonly followed at another. The entry therefore, that in the early summer of 1602 Henslowe had several playwrights working at this material, apparently in a hurry, since so many are sharing in the task, is in so far presumptive evidence that Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar had been produced in the same year or shortly before.

(3) But these things are chiefly important as confirming the probability of another allusion, which would throw the date a little further back still. In Weever’s Mirror of Martyrs there is the quatrain:

The many headed multitude were drawne

By Brutus speech, that Caesar was ambitious,

When eloquent Mark Antony had showne

His vertues, who but Brutus then was vicious.[140]

Now this has a much more specific reference to the famous scene in the Play than to anything in Plutarch, who, for instance, even in the Life of Brutus, which gives the fullest account of Brutus’ dealings with the citizens, does not mention the substance of his argument and still less any insistence on Caesar’s ambition, but only says that he “made an oration unto them to winne the favor of the people, and to justifie what they had done”; and this passage, which contains the fullest notice of Brutus’ speeches, like the corresponding one in the Life of Caesar, attributes only moderate success to his appeal in the market place, while it goes on to describe the popular disapproval as exploding before the intervention of Antony. [141] Thus it seems fairly certain that a knowledge of Shakespeare’s play is presupposed by the Mirror of Martyrs, which was printed in 1601.

On the other hand, it cannot have been much earlier. The absence of such a typical “tragedy” from Meres’ list in 1598 is nearly proof positive that it was not then in existence.

After that the data are less definite. A Warning for Fair Women, printed in 1599, contains the lines:

I have given him fifteen wounds,

Which will be fifteen mouths that do accuse me:

In every mouth there is a bloody tongue

Which will speak, although he holds his peace.

It is difficult not to bring these into connection with Antony’s words:

Over thy wounds now do I prophesy——

Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips

To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue.

(III. i. 259.)

And again:

I tell you that which you yourselves do know,

Show you sweet Caesar’s wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths,

And bid them speak for me: but were I Brutus

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony

Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue

In every wound.

(III. ii. 228.)

But in this Shakespeare may have been the debtor not the creditor: and other coincidences like the “Et tu, Brute,” in Acolastus his Afterwit[142] (1600) may be due to the use of common or current authorities. One little detail has been used as an argument that the play was later than 1600. Cassius says:

There was a Brutus once that would have brook’d

The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome

As easily as a king.

(I. ii. 159·)

Here obviously the word we should have expected is infernal not eternal. It has been conjectured[143] that the milder expression was substituted in deference to the increasing disapproval of profane language on the stage; and since three plays published in 1600 use infernal, the inference is that Julius Caesar is subsequent to them. One fails to see, however, why Shakespeare should admit the substantive and be squeamish about the adjective: in point of fact, much uglier words than either find free entry into his later plays. And one has likewise to remember that the Julius Caesar we possess was published only in 1623, and that such a change might very well have been made in any of the intervening years, even though it were written before 1600. The most then that can be established by this set of inferences, is that it was produced after Meres’ Palladis Tamia in 1598 and before Weever’s Mirror of Martyrs in 1601.

The narrowness of the range is fairly satisfactory, and it may be further reduced. It has been surmised that perhaps Essex’ treason turned Shakespeare’s thoughts to the story of another conspiracy by another high-minded man, and that Caesar’s reproach, “Et tu, Brute,” derived not from the Parallel Lives but from floating literary tradition, would suggest to an audience of those days the feeling of Elizabeth in regard to one whom Shakespeare had but recently celebrated as “the general of our gracious Empress.” At any rate the time seems suitable. Among Shakespeare’s serious plays Julius Caesar most resembles in style Henry V., written between March and September 1599, as the above allusion to Essex’ expedition shows,[144] and Hamlet, entered at Stationers’ Hall in 1602, as “latelie acted.” But the connection is a good deal closer with the latter than with the former, and extends to the parallelism and contrast between the chief persons, both of them philosophic students called upon to make a decision for which their temperament and powers do not fit them, and therefore the one of them deciding wrong and the other hardly deciding at all. Both pieces contain references to the story of Caesar, but those in Hamlet accord better with the tone of the tragedy. Thus the chorus says of Henry’s triumph:

The mayor and all his brethren in best sort,

Like to the senators of the antique Rome,

With the plebeians swarming at their heels,

Go forth to fetch their conquering Caesar in.

(V. prologue 25.)

Would this passage have been penned if Shakespeare had already described how the acclamations of the plebs were interrupted by the tribunes, and how among the senators there were some eager to make away with the Victor?

But the two chief references in Hamlet merely abridge what is told more at large in the Play. Polonius says: “I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i’ the Capitol. Brutus killed me” (III. ii. 108), which is only a bald summary of the central situation. Hamlet says:

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:

As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun; and the moist star

Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.

(I. i. 113.)

This reads like a condensed anthology from the descriptions of Casca, Cassius and Calpurnia, eked out with a few hints from another passage in Plutarch that had not hitherto been utilised.[145]

Even the quatrain:

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

O, that that earth which kept the world in awe,

Should patch a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!

(V. i. 236.)

is in some sort the ironical development of Antony’s thought:

O mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low?

Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,

Shrunk to this little measure?

(III. i. 148.)

But yesterday the word of Caesar might

Have stood against the world: now lies he there,

And none so poor to do him reverence.

(III. ii. 123.)

Owing to Weever’s reference we cannot put Julius Caesar after Hamlet, but it seems to have closer relations with Hamlet than with Henry V. It is not rash to place it between the two, in 1600 or 1601. This does not however mean that we necessarily have it quite in its original form. On the contrary, there are indications that it may have been revised some time after the date of composition.

Thus Ben Jonson in his Discoveries writes of Shakespeare: “His wit was in his own power: would the rule of it had been so too! Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, ‘Caesar, thou dost me wrong,’ he replied, ‘Caesar did never wrong but with just cause,’ and such like; which were ridiculous.” Most people would see in this a very ordinary example of the figure called Paradox, and some would explain wrong in such a way that even the paradox disappears: but the alleged bêtise tickled Ben’s fancy, for he recurs to it to make a point in the Introduction to the Staple of News. One of the persons says: “I can do that too, if I have cause”; to which the reply is made: “Cry you mercy; you never did wrong but with just cause.”

Now in the present play there is no such expression. The nearest analogue occurs in the conclusion of the speech, in which Caesar refuses the petition for Publius Cimber’s recall,

Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause

Will he be satisfied.

(III. i. 47.)

It has been suggested[146] that Jonson simply misquoted the passage. But it is not likely that Ben would consciously or unconsciously pervert the authentic text by introducing an absurdity, still less by introducing an absurdity that few people find absurd. In his criticisms on Shakespeare he does not manufacture the things to which he objects, but regards them from an unsympathetic point of view. It seems probable, therefore, that he has preserved an original reading, that was altered out of deference for strictures like his: and this in so far supports the theory that the play was corrected after its first appearance.

So, too, with the versification. The consideration of certain technicalities, such as the weak ending, would place Julius Caesar comparatively early, but there are others that yield a more ambiguous result. It may have been revived and revised about 1607 when the subject was again popular.

And perhaps it has survived only in an acting edition. It is unusually short: and, that Shakespeare’s plays were probably abridged for the stage, we know from comparison of the Quarto with the Folio Hamlets. The same argument has been used in regard to Macbeth.

Still granting the plausibility up to a certain point of this conjecture, its importance must not be exaggerated. It does not affect the fact that Julius Caesar belongs essentially to the very beginning of the century, and that it is an organic whole as it stands. If abridged, it is still full, compact and unattenuated. If revised, its style, metre and treatment are still all characteristic of Shakespeare’s early prime. The easy flow of the verse, the luminous and pregnant diction, the skilful presentation of the story in a few suggestive incidents, all point to a time when Shakespeare had attained complete mastery of his methods and material, and before he was driven by his daemon to tasks insuperable by another and almost insuperable by him,

Reaching that heaven might so replenish him

Above and through his art.

It is perhaps another aspect of the perfect and harmonious beauty, which fulfils the whole play and every part of it, that while there is none of the speeches “that is in the bad sense declamatory, none that does not gain by its context nor can be spared from it without some loss to the dramatic situation,” there are many “which are eminently adapted for declamation”;[147] that is, for delivery by themselves. In the later plays, on the other hand, it is far more difficult to extract any particular jewel from its setting.

It is pretty certain then that Julius Caesar is the first not only of the Roman Plays, but of the great series of Tragedies. The flame-tipped welter of Titus Andronicus, the poignant radiance of Romeo and Juliet belong to Shakespeare’s pupilage and youth. Their place is apart from each other and the rest in the vestibule and forecourt of his art. The nearest approach to real Tragedy he had otherwise made was in the English History of Richard III. And now when that period of his career begins in which he is chiefly occupied with the treatment of tragic themes, it is again to historical material that he has recourse, and he chooses from it the episode which was probably of supreme interest to the Europe of his day. Since Muretus first showed the way, the fate of Caesar had again and again been dramatised in Latin and in the vernacular, in French and in English. It was a subject that to a genius of the second rank might have seemed hackneyed, but a genius of the highest rank knows that the common is not hackneyed but catholic, and contains richer possibilities than the recondite. Shakespeare had already been drawn to it himself. The frequent references in his earlier dramas show how he too was fascinated by the glamour of Caesar. In the plays adapted by him, he inserts or retains tributes to Caesar’s greatness, to the irony or injustice of his fate. Bedford in his enthusiasm for the spirit of Henry V., as ordained to prosper the realm and thwart adverse planets, can prefer him to only one rival,

A far more glorious star thy soul will make

Than Julius Caesar.

(H. VI. A. I. i. 155.)

Suffolk, in his self-conceit and self-pity, seeks for examples of other celebrities who have perished by ignoble hands, and compared with his victim, even Brutus seems on the level of the meanest and most unscrupulous.

A Roman sworder and banditto slave

Murder’d sweet Tully: Brutus’ bastard hand

Stabb’d Julius Caesar: savage islanders

Pompey the Great: and Suffolk dies by pirates.

(H. VI. B. IV. i. 134.)

Margaret, when her boy is slaughtered at Tewkesbury, thinks of Caesar’s murder as the one deed which can be placed beside it, and which it even transcends in horror.

They that stabb’d Caesar shed no blood at all,

Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,

If this foul deed were by to equal it.

(H. VI. C. V. v. 53.)

It is the same if we turn to Shakespeare’s indisputably spontaneous utterances. He sees Caesar’s double merit with pen and sword. Says the little Prince Edward:

That Julius Caesar was a famous man:

With what his valour did enrich his wit,

His wit set down to make his valour live.

Death makes no conquest of this conquerer:

For now he lives in fame, though not in life.

(R. III. III. i. 84.)

Rosalind laughs at the self-consciousness of his prowess as she laughs at the extravagance of love in Troilus and Leander, but evidently Shakespeare, just as he was impressed by their stories in Chaucer and Marlowe, was impressed in Plutarch with what she calls the “thrasonical brag of ‘I came, saw, and overcame.’” Don Armado is made to quote it in his role of invincible gallant (L.L.L. iv. i. 68); and Falstaff parodies it by applying to himself the boast of “the hooked-nosed fellow of Rome” when Sir John Coleville surrenders (H. IV. B. iv. iii. 45). For to Shakespeare there are no victories like Caesar’s. The false announcement of Hotspur’s success appeals to them for precedent:

O, such a day

So fought, so follow’d and so fairly won,

Came not till now to dignify the times

Since Caesar’s fortunes.

(H. IV. B. I. i. 20.)

We have already noticed the references to his triumphs, his fate, the ironical contrast between the was and the is in Henry V. and Hamlet, the History and the Tragedy that respectively precede and succeed the play of which he is titular hero. But Shakespeare keeps recurring to the theme almost to the end. When in Measure for Measure the disreputable Pompey is conveyed to prison, it suggests a ridiculous parallel with that final triumph of Caesar’s when the tribunes saw far other

tributaries follow him to Rome

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels.

“How now, noble Pompey,” says Lucio as the go-between passes by behind Elbow and the officers, “what, at the wheels of Caesar? art thou led in triumph?” (iii. ii. 46). In Antony and Cleopatra, of course the incumbent presence of “broad-fronted Caesar” is always felt. But in Cymbeline, too, it haunts us. Now his difficulties in the island, since there were difficulties even for him, are used as by Posthumus, to exalt the prowess of the Britons,

When Julius Caesar

Smiled at their lack of skill, but found their courage

Worthy his frowning at:

(II. iv. 21.)

or by the Queen:

A kind of conquest

Caesar made here; but made not here his brag

Of “came” and “saw” and “overcame.”

(III. i. 22.)

But the dominant note is rather of admiration for

Julius Caesar, whose remembrance yet

Lives in men’s eyes, and will to ears and tongues

Be theme and hearing ever.

(III. i. 2.)

Or if the fault that Brutus enforced is brought to view, the very fault becomes a grandiose and superhuman thing:

Caesar’s ambition,

Which swell’d so much, that it did almost stretch

The sides o’ the world.

(III. i. 49.)

The subject then was one of widespread interest and had an abiding fascination for Shakespeare himself. After leaving national history in Henry V. he seems to have turned to the history of Rome for the first Tragedy of his prime in a spirit much like that in which he had gone to the English Chronicles. And he goes to it much in the same way. It has been said that in most of the earlier series “Holinshed is hardly ever out of the poet’s hands.”[148] Substituting Plutarch for Holinshed the expression is true in this case too. An occasional phrase like the Et tu, Brute, he obtained elsewhere, most probably from familiar literary usage, but conceivably from the lost Latin play of Dr. Eedes or Geddes. Stray hints he may have derived from other authorities; for instance, though this is not certain, a suggestion or two from Appian’s Civil Wars for Mark Antony’s Oration.[149] It is even possible that he may have been directed to the conception and treatment of a few longer passages by his general reading: thus, as we have seen, it has been maintained not without plausibility that the first conversation between Brutus and Cassius can be traced to the corresponding scene in the Cornélie.[150] But in Plutarch he found practically all the stuff and substance for his play, except what was contributed by his own genius; and any other ingredients are nearly imperceptible and altogether negligible. Plutarch, however, has given much. All the persons except Lucius come from him, and Shakespeare owes to him a number of their characteristics down to the minutest traits. Cassius’ leanness and Antony’s sleekness, Brutus’ fondness for his books and cultivation of an artificial style, Caesar’s liability to the falling sickness and vein of arrogance in his later years, are all touches that are taken over from the Biographer. So too with the events and circumstances, and in the main, the sequence in which they are presented. Plutarch tells of the disapproval with which the triumph over Pompey’s sons was regarded; of the prophecy of danger on the Ides of March; of the offer of the crown on the Lupercal; of the punishment of the Tribunes; of Cassius’ conference with Brutus; of the anonymous solicitations that are sent to the latter; of the respect in which he was held; of his relations with his wife, and her demand to share his confidence; of the enthusiasm of the conspirators, their contempt for an oath, their rejection of Cicero as confederate, their exemption of Antony at Brutus’ request; of Ligarius’ disregard of his illness; of the prodigies and portents that preceded Caesar’s death; of Calpurnia’s dream, her efforts to stay her husband at home and the counter arguments of Decius Brutus; of Artemidorus’ intervention, the second meeting with the soothsayer; of Portia’s paroxysm of anxiety; of all the details of the assassination scene; of the speeches to the people by Brutus and Antony; of the effects of Caesar’s funeral; of the murder of the poet Cinna; of the proscription of the Triumvirate; of the disagreement of Brutus and Cassius on other matters and with reference to Pella, and the interruption of the intruder; of the apparition of the spirit, and the death of Portia; of Brutus’ discussion with Cassius on suicide; of his imprudence at Philippi; of the double issue and repetition of the battle; of the death of Cassius and Brutus on their own swords; of the surrender of Lucilius; of Antony’s eulogy of Brutus. There is thus hardly a link in the action that was not forged on Plutarch’s anvil.

And even the words of North have in many cases been almost literally transcribed. Says Lucilius when brought before Antony:

I dare assure thee, that no enemie hath taken, nor shall take Marcus Brutus alive; and I beseech God keepe him from that fortune. For wheresoever he be found, alive or dead; he will be found like him selfe.

(Brutus.)

Compare:

I dare assure thee that no enemy

Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus:

The gods defend him from so great a shame!

When you do find him, or alive or dead,

He will be found like Brutus, like himself.

(V. iv. 21.)

Or take the passage—considering its length, the exactest reproduction of all—in which Portia claims full share in her husband’s secrets. The sentiment is what we are accustomed to regard as modern; but Plutarch, who himself viewed marriage as a relation in which there was no Mine nor Thine,[151] has painted the situation with heartfelt sympathy. After describing the wound she gives herself to make trial of her firmness, he proceeds:

Then perceiving her husband was marvelously out of quiet, and that he coulde take no rest: even in her greatest payne of all, she spake in this sorte unto him: “I being, O Brutus (sayed she), the daughter of Cato, was maried unto thee, not to be thy bedde fellowe and companion at bedde and at borde onelie, like a harlot; but to be partaker also with thee, of thy good and evill fortune. Nowe for thy selfe, I can finde no cause of faulte in thee as touchinge our matche: but for my parte, howe may I showe my duetie towardes thee, and howe muche I woulde doe for thy sake, if I cannot constantlie beare a secret mischaunce or griefe with thee, which requireth secrecy and fidelity? I confesse, that a woman’s wit commonly is too weake to keepe a secret safely: but yet, Brutus, good educacion, and the companie of vertuous men, have some power to reforme the defect of nature. And for my selfe, I have this benefit moreover: that I am the daughter of Cato, and wife of Brutus. This notwithstanding, I did not trust to any of these things before; untill that now I have found by experience, that no paine nor griefe whatsoever can overcome me.’ With those wordes she shewed him her wounde on her thigh, and told him what she had done to prove her selfe. Brutus was amazed to heare what she sayd unto him, and lifting up his handes to heaven, he besought the goddes to give him grace he might bring his enterprise to so good passe, that he might be founde a husband, worthie of so noble a wife as Porcia.”

(Marcus Brutus.)

It is hardly necessary to point out how closely Shakespeare follows up the trail.

Portia. Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,

Is it excepted I should know no secrets

That appertain to you? Am I yourself

But, as it were, in sort or limitation;

To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,

And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs

of your good pleasure? If it be no more,

Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.

Brutus. You are my true and honourable wife,

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops

That visit my sad heart.

Portia. If this were true, then should I know this secret.

I grant I am a woman; but withal,

A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife;

I grant I am a woman; but, withal,

A woman well-reputed, Cato’s daughter.

Think you I am no stronger than my sex,

Being so father’d and so husbanded?

Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose ’em:

I have made strong proof of my constancy,

Giving myself a voluntary wound,

Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience,

And not my husband’s secrets?

Brutus.O ye gods,

Render me worthy of this noble wife.

(II. i, 280.)

Here we have “the marriage of true souls”; and though the prelude to this nuptial hymn, a prelude that heralds and enhances its sweetness, is veriest Shakespeare, when the main theme begins and the climax is reached, he is content to resign himself to the ancient melody, and re-echo, even while he varies, the notes.

North’s actual slips or blunders are received into the play. Thus the account of the assassination runs: “Caesar was driven ... against the base whereupon Pompey’s image stood, which ranne all of a goare blood.” The last clause, probably by accident, adds picturesqueness to Amyot’s simple description, “qui en fust toute ensanglantee,” and is immortalised in Antony’s bravura:

Even at the base of Pompey’s statua

Which all the while ran blood.

(III. ii. 192.)

More noticeable is the instance of Brutus’ reply to Cassius’ question, what he will do if he lose the battle at Philippi. Amyot’s translation is straightforward enough.

Brutus luy respondit: “Estant encore jeune et non assez experimenté es affaires de ce monde, je feis ne sçay comment un discours de philosophie, par lequel je reprenois et blasmois fort Caton d’estre desfait soymesme” etc.

That is:

Brutus answered him: “When I was yet young and not much experienced in the affairs of this world, I composed, somehow or other, a philosophic discourse in which I greatly rebuked and censured Cato for having made away with himself!”

North did not notice where the quotation began; connected feis with fier in place of faire, probably taking it as present not as past; and interpreted discours as principle, which it never meant and never can mean, instead of dissertation. So he translates:

Brutus answered him, being yet but a young man, and not over-greatly experienced in the world: I trust (I know not how) a certaine rule of Philosophie, by the which I did greatly blame and reprove Cato for killing of him selfe; as being no godly or lawful acte, touching the goddes; nor concerning men, valliant; not to give place and yeld to divine providence, and not constantly and paciently to take whatsoever it pleaseth him to send us, but to drawe backe, and flie: but being nowe in the middest of the daunger, I am of a contrary mind. For if it be not the will of God, that this battell fall out fortunate for us: I will looke no more for hope, neither seeke to make any new supply for warre againe, but will rid me of this miserable world, and content me with my fortune. For, I gave up my life for my country in the Ides of Marche, for the which I shall live in another more glorious worlde.

(Marcus Brutus.)

It is possible that North used trust in the first sentence as a preterite equal to trusted, just as he uses lift for lifted. But Shakespeare at least took it for a present: so he was struck by the contradiction which the passage seems to contain. He got over it, and produced a new effect and one very true to human nature, by making Brutus’ latter sentiment the sudden response of his heart, in defiance of his philosophy, to Cassius’ anticipation of what they must expect if defeated.

Brutus. Even by the rule of that philosophy

By which I did blame Cato for the death

Which he did give himself, I know not how,

But I do find it cowardly and vile,

For fear of what might fall, so to prevent

The time of life: arming myself with patience

To stay the providence of some higher powers

That govern us below.

Cassius.Then if we lose this battle.

You are contented to be led in triumph

Thorough the streets of Rome?

Brutus. No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman,

That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;

He bears too great a mind. But this same day

Must end that work the ides of March begun;

And whether we shall meet again I know not.

Therefore our everlasting farewell take.

(V. i. 101.)

This last illustration may show us, however, that Shakespeare, even when he seems to copy most literally, always introduces something that comes from himself. Despite his wholesale appropriation of territory that does not in the first instance belong to him, the produce is emphatically his own. It is like the white man’s occupation of America and Australasia, and can be justified only on similar grounds. The lands remain the same under their new as under their old masters, but they yield undreamed-of wealth to satisfy the needs of man. Never did any one borrow more, yet borrow less, than Shakespeare. He finds the clay ready to his hand, but he shapes it and breathes into it the breath of life, and it becomes a living soul.

CHAPTER II
SHAKESPEARE’S TRANSMUTATION OF HIS MATERIAL

The examples given in the previous chapter may serve to show that from one point of view it is impossible to exaggerate Shakespeare’s dependence on Plutarch. But this is not the only or the most important aspect of the case. He alters and adds quite as much as he gets. No slight modification of the story is implied by its mere reduction to dramatic shape, at least when the dramatiser is so consummate a playwright as Shakespeare. And it is very interesting to observe the instinctive skill with which he throws narrated episodes, like that of the death of Cassius, into the form of dialogues and scenes. But the dramatisation involves a great deal more than this. Shakespeare has to fix on what he regards as the critical points in the continuous story, to rearrange round them what else he considers of grand importance, and to bridge in some way the gaps between. These were prime essentials in all his English historical pieces. The pregnant moments have to be selected; and become so many ganglia, in which a number of filaments chronologically distinct are gathered up; yet they have to be exhibited not in isolation, but as connected with each other, and all belonging to one system. And in Julius Caesar this is the more noticeable, as it makes use of more sources than one. The main authority is the Life of Brutus, but the Life of Caesar also is employed very freely, and the Life of Antony to some extent. The scope and need for insight in this portion of the task are therefore proportionately great.

Thus the opening scene refers to Caesar’s defeat of the sons of Pompey in Spain, for which he celebrated his triumph in October, 45 b.c. But Shakespeare dates it on the 15th February, 44 b.c., at the Lupercalian Festival.[152] Then, in the account of Caesar’s chagrin at his reception, he mixes up, as Plutarch himself to some extent does, two quite distinct episodes, one of which does not belong to the Lupercalia at all.[153] Lastly, it was only later that the Tribunes were silenced and deprived of their offices for stripping the images, not of Caesar’s “trophies,” but of “diadems,”[154] or, more specifically, of the “laurel crown”[155] Antony had offered him.

The next group of events is clustered round the assassination, and they begin on the eve of the Ides, the 14th March. But at first we are not allowed to feel that a month has passed. By various artifices the flight of time is kept from obtruding itself. The position of the scene with the storm, which ushers in this part of the story, as the last of the first act instead of the first of the second, of itself associates it in our minds with what has gone before. Then there are several little hints that we involuntarily expand in the same sense. Thus Cassius has just said:

I will this night,

In several hands, in at his windows throw,

As if they came from several citizens,

Writings all tending to the great opinion

That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely

Caesar’s ambition shall be glanced at.

(I. ii. 319.)

And now we hear him say:

Good Cinna, take this paper,

And look you lay it in the praetor’s chair,

Where Brutus may but find it: and throw this

In at his window; set this up with wax

Upon old Brutus’ statue.

(I. iii. 142.)

We seem to see him carrying out the programme that he has announced for the night of the Lupercalia. Yet there are other hints,—the frequency with which Brutus has received these instigations (ii. i. 49), his protracted uncertainty since Cassius first sounded him (ii. i. 61), the fact that he himself has had time to approach Ligarius,—which presently make us realise that the opening scenes of the drama are left a long way behind.

And in this section, too, Shakespeare has crowded his incidents. The decisive arrangements of the conspirators, with their rejection of the oath, are dated the night before the assassination; Plutarch puts them earlier. Then, according to Plutarch, there was a senate meeting the morning after Caesar’s murder; and Antony, having escaped in slave’s apparel, proposed an amnesty for the perpetrators, offered his son as hostage, and persuaded them to leave the Capitol. On the following day dignities were distributed among the ringleaders and a public funeral was decreed to Caesar. Only then did the reading of the will, the speech of Antony, and the émeute of the people follow, and the reading of the will preceded the speech. After a while Octavius comes from Apollonia to see about his inheritance.

In the play, on the other hand, Antony’s seeming agreement with the assassins is patched up a few minutes after the assassination. Octavius, summoned by the dead Caesar, is already within seven leagues of Rome. Antony at once proceeds with the corpse to the market place. He has hardly made his speech and then read the will, when, as the citizens rush off in fury, he learns that Octavius has arrived.

A lengthy interval elapses between the end of Act iii. and the beginning of Act iv., occupied, so far as Rome and Italy were concerned, with the rivalry and intrigues of Antony and Octavius, and the discomfiture of the former (partly through Cicero’s exertions), till he wins the army of Lepidus and Octavius finds it expedient to join forces with him and establish the Triumvirate. But of all this not a word in Shakespeare. He dismisses it as irrelevant, and creates an illusion of speed and continuity, where there is none. The servant who announces the arrival of Octavius, tells Antony:

He and Lepidus are at Caesar’s house.

(III. xi. 269.)

“Bring me to Octavius,” says Antony. And the fourth act opens “at a house in Rome,” “Antony, Octavius and Lepidus seated at a table,” just finishing the lists of the proscription. The impression produced is that their conference is direct sequel to the popular outbreak and the conspirators’ flight. Yet it is November, 43 b.c., and nineteen or twenty months have gone by since the Ides of March. And the progress of time is indicated as well as concealed. Antony announces as a new and alarming piece of news

And now, Octavius,

Listen great things:—Brutus and Cassius

Are levying powers.

(IV. i. 40.)

This too covers a gap in the history and hurries on the connection. The suggestion is that they are beginning operations at last, and that hitherto they have been inactive. Their various intermediate adventures and wanderings are passed over. We are carried forward to their grand effort, and are reintroduced to them only when they meet again at Sardis in the beginning of 42 b.c., just before the final movement to Philippi, where the battle was fought in October of the same year.

And this scene also is “compounded of many simples.” The dispute which the poet[156] interrupts, the difference of opinion about Pella, the appearance of the Spirit, are all located at Sardis by Plutarch, but he separates them from each other; the news of Portia’s death is undated, the quarrel about money matters took place at Smyrna, and other traits are derived from various quarters. Here they are all made

To join like likes, and kiss like native things.

Then at Philippi itself, not only are some of the speeches transferred from the eve to the day of the engagement; but a whole series of operations, and two pitched battles, twenty days apart, after the first of which Cassius, and after the second of which Brutus, committed suicide, are pressed into a few hours.

It will thus be seen that though the action is spread over a period of three years, from the triumphal entry of Caesar in October, 45 b.c., till the victory of his avengers in October, 42 b.c., Shakespeare concentrates it into the story of five eventful days, which however do not correspond to the five separate acts, but by “overlapping” and other contrivances produce the effect of close sequence, while in point of fact, historically, they are not consecutive at all.

In the first day there is the exposition, enforcing the predominance of Caesar and the revulsion against it (Act i. i. and ii.); assigned to the 15th February, 44 b.c.

In the second day there is the assassination with its immediate preliminaries and sequels (Act i. iii., Act ii., Act iii.) all compressed within the twenty-four hours allowed to a French tragedy, viz. within the interval between the night before the Ides of March and the next afternoon or evening.[157]

In the third day there is the account of the Proscription in November, 43 b.c. (Act iv. i.). In the fourth day the meeting of Brutus and Cassius, which took place early in 42 b.c., and the apparition of the boding spirit, are described (Act iv. ii. and iii.). Both these days are included in one act.

The fifth day is devoted to the final battle and its accessories, and must be placed in October, 42 b.c. (Act v.).

But the selection, assortment and filiation of the data are not more conspicuous in the construction of the plot than in the execution of the details. There will be frequent occasion to touch incidentally on these and similar processes in the discussion of other matters, but here it may be well to illustrate them separately, so far as that is possible when nearly every particular instance shows the influence of more than one of them.

Thus while Shakespeare’s picture of the very perfect union of Brutus and Portia is taken almost in its entirety from Plutarch, who was himself so keenly alive to the beauty of such a wedlock, the charm of the traits he adopts is heightened by the absence of those he rejects. Probably indeed he did not know, for Plutarch does not mention it, that Brutus had been married before, and had got rid of his first wife by the simple and regular expedient of sending her home to her father. But he did know that Portia, too, had a first husband, Bibulus, “by whom she had also a young sonne.” The ideal beauty of their relation is unbrushed by any hint of their previous alliances.

So, too, he attributes the coolness between Brutus and Cassius at the beginning of the story merely to Brutus’ inward conflicts, and to Cassius’ misconstruction of his preoccupation. In point of fact, it had a more definite and less creditable cause. According to Plutarch, they had both been strenuous rivals for the position of City Praetor, Brutus recommended by his “vertue and good name,” Cassius by his “many noble exploytes” against the Parthians. Caesar, saying “Cassius cause is juster, but Brutus must be first preferred,” had given Brutus the chief dignity and Cassius the second: therefore “they grew straunge together for the sute they had for the praetorshippe.” But it would not answer Shakespeare’s purpose to show Brutus as moved by personal ambitions, or either of them as aspiring for honours that Caesar could grant.

There are few better examples of the way in which Shakespeare rearranges his material than the employment he makes of Plutarch’s enumeration of the portents that preceded the assassination. It is given as immediate preface to the catastrophe of the Ides.

Certainly, destenie may easier be foreseene then avoyded; considering the straunge and wonderfull signes that were sayd to be seene before Caesars death. For touching the fires in the element, and spirites running up and downe in the night, and also these solitarie birdes to be seene at noone dayes sittinge in the great market place: are not all these signes perhappes worth the noting in such a wonderfull chaunce as happened? But Strabo the Philosopher wryteth, that divers men were seene going up and downe in fire: and furthermore, that there was a slave of the souldiers, that did cast a marvelous burning flame out of his hande, insomuch as they that saw it, thought he had been burnt, but when the fire was out, it was found he had no hurt. Caesar selfe also doing sacrifice unto the Goddes, found that one of the beastes which was sacrificed had no hart: and that was a straunge thing in nature, how a beast could live without a hart. Furthermore, there was a certain soothsayer that had geven Caesar warning long time affore, to take heede of the day of the Ides of Marche (which is the fifteenth of the moneth), for on that day he should be in great daunger. That day being come, Caesar going into the Senate house, and speaking merily to the Soothsayer, tolde him, ‘The Ides of Marche be come’: ‘So be they’, softly aunswered the Soothsayer, ‘but yet are they not past.’ And the very day before, Caesar supping with Marcus Lepidus, sealed certaine letters as he was wont to do at the bord: so talke falling out amongest them, reasoning what death was best: he preventing their opinions, cried out alowde, ‘Death unlooked for.’ Then going to bedde the same night as his manner was, and lying with his wife Calpurnia, all the windowes and dores of his chamber flying open, the noyse awooke him, and made him affrayed when he saw such light: but more when he heard his wife Calpurnia, being fast a sleepe weepe and sigh, and put forth many fumbling and lamentable speaches. For she dreamed that Caesar was slaine, and that she had him in her armes.[158]

It is interesting to note how Shakespeare takes this passage to pieces and assigns those of them for which he has a place to their fitting and effective position. Plutarch’s reflections on destiny and Caesar’s opinions on death he leaves aside. The first warning of the soothsayer he refers back to the Lupercalia, and the second he shifts forward to its natural place. Calpurnia’s outcries in her sleep and her prophetic dream, the apparition of the ghosts mentioned by her among the other prodigies, the lack of the heart in the sacrificial beast, are reserved for the scene of her expostulation with Caesar, and are dramatically distributed between the various speakers, Caesar, the servant, Calpurnia herself. Shakespeare relies on the fiery heavens and the fire-girt shapes, the flaming hand and the boding bird for his grand effect, and puts them in a setting where they gain unspeakably in supernatural awe. Of course Shakespeare individualises Plutarch’s hints and adds new touches. But the main terror is due to something else. We are made to view these portents in the reflex light of Casca’s panic. He has just witnessed them, or believes that he has done so, and now breathless, staring, his naked sword in his hand, the storm raging around, he gasps out his amazement at Cicero’s composure:

Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth

Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds

Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen

The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,

To be exalted with the threatening clouds:

But never till to-night, never till now,

Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.

Either there is a civil strife in heaven,

Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,

Incenses them to send destruction.

Cicero. Why, saw you anything more wonderful?

Casca. A common slave—you know him well by sight—

Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn

Like twenty torches join’d, and yet his hand,

Not sensible of fire, remain’d unscorch’d.

Besides,—I ha’ not since put up my sword—

Against the Capitol I met a lion,

Who glared upon me, and went surly by,

Without annoying me: and there were drawn

Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,

Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw

Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.

And yesterday the bird of night did sit

Even at noon-day upon the market place

Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies

Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,

‘These are their reasons: they are natural’:

For, I believe, they are portentous things

Unto the climate that they point upon.

(I. iii. 3.)

Here the superstitious thrill rises to a paroxysm of dread; but the effect of dispersing the subsidiary presages through so many scenes is to steep the whole play in an atmosphere of weird presentiment, till Caesar passes up to the very doors of the Capitol.

But besides selecting and rearranging the separate details, Shakespeare establishes an inner connection between them even when in Plutarch they are quite isolated from each other. This is well exemplified by the manner in which the biography and the drama treat the circumstance that the conspirators were not sworn to secrecy. Plutarch says:

The onlie name and great calling of Brutus did bring on the most of them to geve consent to this conspiracie. Who having never taken othes together, nor taken or geven any caution or assurance, nor binding them selves one to an other by any religious othes, they all kept the matter so secret to them selves, and could so cunninglie handle it, that notwithstanding the goddes did reveal it by manifeste signes and tokens from above, and by predictions of sacrifices, yet all this would not be believed.

(Marcus Brutus.)

The drama puts it thus:

Brutus. Give me your hands all over, one by one.

Cassius. And let us swear our resolution.

Brutus. No, not an oath: if not the face of men

The suffrance of our souls, the time’s abuse,

If these be motives weak, break off betimes:

(II. i. 112.)

and so on through the rest of his magnificent speech that breathes the pure spirit of virtue and conviction. The nobility of Brutus that is reverenced by all, the conspiracy of Romans that is safe-guarded by no vows, move Plutarch’s admiration, but he does not associate them. Shakespeare traces the one to the other and views them as cause and effect.

Shakespeare thus greatly alters the character of Plutarch’s narrative by his ceaseless activity in sifting it, ordering it afresh, and reading into it an internal nexus that was often lacking in his authority. But this last proceeding implies that he also makes additions, and these are not only numerous and manifold, but frequently quite explicit and very far-reaching. It is important to note that Plutarch has furnished nothing more than stray hints, and often not even so much, for all the longer passages that have impressed themselves on the popular imagination. Cassius’ description of the swimming match and of Caesar’s fever, Brutus’ soliloquy, his speech on the oath, his oration and that of Mark Antony, even, when regarded closely, his dispute with Cassius, are all virtually the inventions of Shakespeare. The only exception is the conversation with Portia, and even in it, though the climax, as we have seen, closely reproduces both Plutarch’s matter and North’s expression, the fine introduction is altogether Shakespearian.

But it is not the purple patches alone of which this is true. The more carefully one examines the finished fabric, the more clearly one sees that the dramatist has not merely woven and fashioned and embroidered it, but has provided most of the stuff.

Sometimes the new matter is a possible or plausible inference from the premises he found in his author.

Thus Plutarch represents the populace as on the whole favourable to Caesar, but the tribunes as antagonistic. He also records, concerning the celebration of Caesar’s victory over Pompey’s sons in Spain:

The triumph he made into Rome for the same did as much offend the Romanes, and more, then anything he had ever done before; bicause he had not overcome Captaines that were straungers, nor barbarous kinges, but had destroyed the sonnes of the noblest man in Rome, whom fortune had overthrowen. And bicause he had plucked up his race by the rootes men did not thinke it meete for him to triumphe so for the calamaties of his contrie.

(Julius Caesar.)

This is all, but it is enough to give the foundation for the opening scene, which otherwise, both in dialogue and declamation, is an entirely free creation.

Sometimes again Shakespeare has realised the situation so vividly that he puts in some trait from the occurrences as in spirit he has witnessed them, something of the kind that may very well have happened, though there is no trace of it in the records. Thus he well knows what an unreasonable monster a street mob can be, how cruel in its gambols, how savage in its fun. So in the account of the poet Cinna’s end, though the gist of the incident, the mistake in identity, the disregard of the explanation, are all given in Plutarch, Shakespeare’s rioters wrest their victim’s innocent avowal of celibacy to a flout at marriage, and meet his unanswerable defence, “I am Cinna the poet,” with the equally unanswerable retort, “Tear him for his bad verses.” (iii. iii. 23.)

Some of these new touches do more than lend reality to the scene. Though not incompatible with Plutarch’s account, they give it a turn that he might disclaim and certainly does not warrant, but that belongs to Shakespeare’s conception of the case. Thus after describing the “holy course” of the Lupercal, and the superstition connected with it, Plutarch mentions that Caesar sat in state to witness the sport, and that Antony was one of the runners. There is nothing more; and Calpurnia is not even named. Shakespeare’s introduction of her is therefore very curious. Whatever else it means, it shows that he imagined Caesar as desirous, certainly, of having an heir, and, inferentially, of founding a dynasty.[159]

Occasionally, however, the dramatist’s insertions directly contradict the text of the Lives, if a more striking or more significant effect is to be attained, and if no essential fact is falsified. Thus Plutarch tells of Ligarius:

[Brutus] went to see him being sicke in his bedde, and sayed unto him: “O Ligarius, in what a time art thou sicke!” Ligarius risinge uppe in his bedde and taking him by the right hande, sayed unto him: “Brutus,” sayed he, “if thou hast any great enterprise in hande worthie of thy selfe, I am whole.”

(Marcus Brutus.)

Shakespeare, keeping the phrases quoted almost literally, emphasises the effort that Ligarius makes, emphasises too the magnetic influence of Brutus, by representing the sick man as coming to his friend’s house, as well as by amplifying his words:

Lucius. Here is a sick man that would speak with you....

Brutus. O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius,

To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick!

Ligarius. I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand

Any exploit worthy the name of honour....

By all the gods that Romans bow before

I here discard my sickness! Soul of Rome!

Brave son, derived from honourable loins!

Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjured up

My mortified spirit. Now bid me run,

And I will strive with things impossible;

Yea, get the better of them....

... With a heart new-fired I follow you,

To do I know not what: but it sufficeth

That Brutus leads me on.

(II. i. 310.)

So too Plutarch describes the collapse of Portia in her suspense as more complete than does the play, and makes Brutus hear of it just after the critical moment when the conspirators fear that Lena has discovered their plot:

Nowe in the meane time, there came one of Brutus men post hast unto him, and tolde him his wife was a dying.... When Brutus heard these newes, it grieved him, as is to be presupposed: yet he left not of the care of his contrie and common wealth, neither went home to his house for any newes he heard.

In Shakespeare not only is this very effective dramatic touch omitted, but Portia sends Brutus an encouraging message. As her weakness increases upon her, she collects herself for a final effort and manages to give the command:

Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord:

Say, I am merry: come to me again

And bring me word what he doth say to thee.

(II. iv. 44.)

Shakespeare may perhaps have been unwilling to introduce anything into the assassination scene that might distract attention from the decisive business on hand, but the alteration is chiefly due to another cause. These, the last words we hear Portia utter, were no doubt intended to bring out her forgetfulness of herself and her thought of Brutus even in the climax of her physical distress.

This, of course, does not affect our general estimate of Portia; but Shakespeare has no scruple about creating an entirely new character for a minor personage, and, in the process, disregarding the hints that he found and asserting quite the reverse. Thus Plutarch has not much to say about Casca, so Shakespeare feels free to sketch him after his own fancy as rude, blunt, uncultured, with so little education that, when Cicero speaks Greek, it is Greek to him. This is a libel on his up-bringing. Plutarch in one of the few details he spares to him, mentions that, when he stabbed Caesar, “they both cried out, Caesar in Latin, ‘O vile traitor, Casca, what doest thou?’ and Casca in Greek to his brother: ‘Brother, helpe me.’”

But some of Shakespeare’s interpolations are, probably unawares to himself, of a vital and radical kind, and affect the conception of the chief characters and the whole idea of the story. Take, for example, Brutus’ soliloquy, as he rids himself of his hesitations and scruples. This, from beginning to end, is the handiwork of Shakespeare:

It must be by his death: and, for my part

I know no personal cause to spurn at him,

But for the general. He would be crown’d:

How that might change his nature, that’s the question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,

And that craves wary walking. Crown him?—that:—

And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,

That at his will he may do danger with.

The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins

Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of Caesar,

I have not known when his affections sway’d

More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof

That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,

Whereto the climber upward turns his face:

But when he once attains the topmost round,

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend. So Caesar may;

Then lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel

Will bear no colour for the thing he is,

Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,

Would run to these and these extremities:

And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg,

Which, hatch’d, would as his kind, grow mischievous,

And kill him in the shell.

(II. i. 10.)

These words are so unlike, or, rather, so opposite to all that we should have expected, that Coleridge cannot repress his amazement. He comments:

This speech is singular:—at least, I do not at present see into Shakespeare’s motive, his rationale, or in what point of view he meant Brutus’ character to appear. For surely ... nothing can seem more discordant with our historical preconceptions of Brutus, or more lowering to the intellect of the Stoico-Platonic tyrannicide, than the tenets here attributed to him—to him, the stern Roman republican; namely,—that he would have no objection to a king, or to Caesar, a monarch in Rome, would Caesar but be as good a monarch as he now seems disposed to be.

(Lectures and Notes of 1818.)

And this in a way is the crucial statement of Brutus’ case. Here he has tried to get rid of the assumptions that move himself and the rest, and seeks to find something that will satisfy his reason. It is thus a more intimate revelation of his deliberate principles, though not necessarily of his subconscious instincts or his untested opinions, than other utterances in which he lets feeling or circumstance have sway. Of these there are two that do not quite coincide with it. One of them is not very important, and in any case would not bring him nearer to the antique conception. In his plea for a pure administration of affairs, he asks Cassius:

What, shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world

But for supporting robbers, shall we now

Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?

(IV. iii. 21.)

But this, one feels, is merely an argumentum ad hominem, brought forward very much in afterthought for a particular purpose. At the time, neither in Brutus’ speeches to himself or others, nor in the discussions of the conspirators, is Caesar accused of countenancing peculation, or is this made a handle against him. And if it were, it would not be incompatible with acquiescence in a royal government.[160]

The other is the exclamation with which he “pieces out” the anonymous letter that Cassius had left unfinished:

Shall Rome stand under one man’s awe? What, Rome?

(II. i. 52.)

This certainly has somewhat of the republican ring. It breathes the same spirit as Cassius’ own avowal:

I had as lief not be, as live to be

In awe of such a thing as I myself;

(I. ii. 95.)

except that Cassius feels Caesar’s predominance to be a personal affront, while Brutus characteristically extends his view to the whole community. But here Brutus is speaking under the excitement of Cassius’ “instigation,” and making himself Cassius’ mouthpiece to fill in the blanks. Assuredly the declaration is not on that account the less personal to himself; nevertheless in it Brutus, no longer attempting to square his action with his theory, falls back on the blind impulses of blood that he shares with the other aristocrats of Rome. And in this, the most republican and the only republican sentiment that falls from his lips, which for the rest is so little republican that it might be echoed by the loyal subject of a limited monarchy, it is only the negative aspect of the matter and the public amour propre that are considered. Of the positive essence of republicanism, of enthusiasm for a state in which all the lawful authority is derived from the whole body of fully qualified citizens, there is, despite Brutus’ talk of freemen and slaves and Caesar’s ambition, no trace whatever in any of his utterances from first to last. It has been said that Plutarch’s Brutus could live nowhere but in a self-governing commonwealth; Shakespeare’s Brutus would be quite at home under a constitutional king and need not have found life intolerable even in Tudor England. This indeed is an exaggeration. True, in his soliloquy he bases his whole case on the deterioration of Caesar’s nature that kingship might bring about; and if it were proved, as it easily could be from instances like that of Numa, which Shakespeare and therefore Shakespeare’s Brutus knew, that no such result need follow, his entire sorites would seem to snap. But though the form of his reflection is hypothetical and the hypothesis will not hold, the substance is categorical enough. Brutus has such inbred detestation of the royal power that practically he assumes it must beyond question be mischievous in its moral effects. This, however, is no reasoned conviction, though it is the starting point for what he means to be a dispassionate argument, but a dogma of traditional passion. And even were it granted it would not make Brutus a true representative of classic republicanism. Shakespeare has so little comprehension of the antique point of view that to him a thoughtful and public-spirited citizen can find a rational apology for violent measures only by looking at Caesar’s future and not at all by looking at Caesar’s past. This Elizabethan Brutus sees nothing to blame in Caesar’s previous career. He has not known “when his affections (i.e. passions) sway’d more than his reason,” and implies that he has not hitherto disjoined “remorse (i.e. scrupulousness) from power.” Yet as Coleridge pertinently asks, was there nothing “in Caesar’s past conduct as a man” to call for Brutus’ censure? “Had he not passed the Rubicon,” and the like? But such incidents receive no attention. Perhaps Shakespeare thought no more of Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon to suppress Pompey and put an end to the disorders of Rome, than of Richmond’s crossing the Channel to suppress Richard III., and put end to the Wars of the Roses. At any rate he makes no mention of these and similar grounds of offence, though all or most of them were set down in his authority.[161]

Shakespeare’s position may be thus described. He read in Plutarch that Brutus, the virtuous Roman, killed Caesar, the master-spirit of his own and perhaps of any age, from a disinterested sense of duty. That was easy to understand, for Shakespeare would know, and if he did not know it from his own experience his well-conned translation of Montaigne would teach him, that the best of men are determined in their feeling of right by the preconceptions of race, class, education and the like. But he also read that Brutus was a philosophic student who would not accept or obey the current code without scrutinising it and fitting it into his theory. Of the political theory, however, which such an one would have, Shakespeare had no knowledge or appreciation. So whenever Brutus tries to harmonise his purpose with his idealist doctrine, he has to be furnished with new reasons instead of the old and obvious ones. And these are neither very clear nor very antique. They make one inclined to quote concerning him the words of Caesar spoken to Cicero in regard to the historical Brutus:

I knowe not what this young man woulde, but what he woulde he willeth it vehemently.

(Marcus Brutus.)

For what is it that he would? The one argument with which he can excuse to his own heart the projected murder, is that the aspirant to royal power, though hitherto irreproachable, may or must become corrupted and misuse his high position. This is as different from the attitude of the ancient Roman as it well could be. It would never have occurred to the genuine republican of olden time that any justification was needed for despatching a man who sought to usurp the sovereign place; and if it had, this is certainly the last justification that would have entered his head.

But the introspection, the self-examination, the craving for an inward moral sanction that will satisfy the conscience, and the choice of the particular sanction that does so, are as typical of the modern as they are alien to the classical mind. It is clear that an addition of this kind is not merely mechanical or superficial. It affects the elements already given, and produces, as it were, a new chemical combination. And this particular instance shows how Shakespeare transforms the whole story. He reanimates Brutus by infusing into his veins a strain of present feeling that in some ways transmutes his character; and, transmuting the character in which the chief interest centres, he cannot leave the other data as they were. He can resuscitate the past in its persons, its conflicts, its palpitating vitality just because he endows it with his own life. It was an ancient belief that the shades of the departed were inarticulate or dumb till they had lapped a libation of warm blood; then they would speak forth their secrets. In like manner it is the life-blood of Shakespeare’s own passion and thought that throbs in the pulses of these unsubstantial dead and gives them human utterance once more. This, however, has two aspects. It is the dead who speak; but they speak through the life that Shakespeare has lent them. The past is resuscitated; but it is a resuscitation, not the literal existence it had before. Nor in any other way can the phantoms of history win bodily shape and perceptible motion for the world of breathing men.

This may be illustrated by comparing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with the Julius Caesar of Sir William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling, which seems to have been written a few years later than its more illustrious namesake. Alexander was an able man and a considerable poet, from whom Shakespeare himself did not disdain to borrow hints for Prospero’s famous reflections on the transitoriness of things. He used virtually the same sources as Shakespeare, like him making Plutarch his chief authority, and to supplement Plutarch, betaking himself, as Shakespeare may also have done, to the tradition set in France by Muretus, Grévin, and Garnier. So they build on much the same sites and with much the same timber. But their methods are as different as can well be imagined. Alexander is by far the more scrupulous in his reproduction of the old-world record. He adopts the Senecan type of tragedy, exaggerating its indifference to movement and fondness for lengthy harangues; and this enables him to preserve much of the narrative in its original form without thorough reduction to the category of action. This also in large measure exempts him from the need of reorganising his material: practically a single situation is given, and whatever else of the story is required, has to be conveyed in the words of the persons, who can repeat things just as they have been reported. And proceeding in this way Alexander can include as much as he pleases of Plutarch’s abundance, a privilege of which he avails himself to the utmost. Few are the details that he must absolutely reject, for they can always be put in somebody’s mouth; he is slow to tamper with Plutarch’s location of them; and he never connects them more closely than Plutarch has authorised. He does not extract from his document inferences that have not already been drawn, nor falsify it with picturesque touches that have not been already supplied, and he would not dream of contradicting it in small things or great. Even Brutus’ republicanism is sacred to the author of this “Monarchic Tragedy,” though he was to be Secretary of State to Charles I. and noted for his advocacy of Divine Right. He has a convenient theory to justify Brutus as much as is necessary from his point of view. He makes him explain:

If Caesar had been born or chused our prince

Then those, who durst attempt to take his life,

The world of treason justly might convince.

Let still the states, which flourish for the time,

By subjects be inviolable thought:

And those (no doubt) commit a monstrous crime,

Who lawfull soveraignty prophane in ought:

And we must think (though now thus brought to bow)

The senate, king; a subject Caesar is:

The soveraignty whom violating now

The world must damne, as having done amisse.

Brutus’ motives, which Shakespeare sophisticates, can thus be left him. But does this bit of reasoning, which reads like a passage from the Leviathan, and explains why King James called Alexander “My philosophical poet,” really come nearer the historic truth than the heart-searching of Shakespeare’s Brutus? And does Alexander, taking Brutus’ convictions at second hand and manufacturing an apology for them, do much more to revive the real Brutus, than Shakespeare, whose fervid imagination drives him to realise Brutus’ inmost heart, and who just for that reason

seeks into him

For that which is not in him?

Here and generally Alexander gives the exacter, if not the more faithful transcript, but the main truth, the truth of life, escapes him; and therefore, too, despite all his painstaking fidelity, he is apt to miss even the vital touches that Plutarch gives. We have seen with what reverent accuracy Shakespeare reproduces the conversation between Brutus and Portia. In a certain way Alexander is more accurate still. Portia pleads:

I was not (Brutus) match’d with thee to be

A partner onely of thy boord and bed;

Each servile whore in those might equall me,

Who but for pleasure or for wealth did wed.

No, Portia spoused thee minding to remaine

Thy fortunes partner, whether good or ill: ...

If thus thou seek thy sorrows to conceale

Through a distrust, or a mistrust of me,

Then to the world what way can I reveale,

How great a matter I would do for thee?

And though our sexe too talkative be deem’d,

As those whose tongues import our greatest pow’rs,

For secrets still bad treasurers esteem’d,

Of others greedy, prodigall of ours:

“Good education may reforme defects,”

And this may leade me to a vertuous life,

(Whil’st such rare patterns generous worth respects)

I Cato’s daughter am, and Brutus wife.

Yet would I not repose my trust in ought,

Still thinking that thy crosse was great to beare,

Till I my courage to a tryall brought,

Which suffering for thy cause can nothing feare:

For first to try how that I could comport

With sterne afflictions sprit-enfeebling blows,

Ere I would seek to vex thee in this sort,

(To whom my soule a dutious reverence owes);

Loe, here a wound which makes me not to smart,

No, I rejoyce that thus my strength is knowne;

Since thy distresse strikes deeper in my heart,

Thy griefe (lifes joy!) makes me neglect mine owne.

And Brutus answers:

Thou must (deare love!) that which thou sought’st, receive;

Thy heart so high a saile in stormes still beares,

That thy great courage does deserve to have

Our enterprise entrusted to thine eares.

Here, with the rhetorical amplification which was the chief and almost sole liberty that Alexander allowed himself, Plutarch’s train of thought is more closely followed than by Shakespeare himself. King James’s “philosophical poet” does not even suppress the tribute to education, but rather calls attention to the edifying “sentence” by the expedient less common west of the Channel than among his French masters, of placing it within inverted commas. But, besides lowering the temperature of the whole, he characteristically omits the most important passage, at least in so far as Brutus is concerned, his prayer that “he might be founde a husband, worthie of so noble a wife as Porcia.”

Suppose that a conscientious draughtsman and a painter of genius were moved to reproduce the impression that a group of antique statuary had made on them, using the level surface which alone is at their disposal. The one might choose his station, and set down with all possible precision in his black and white as much as was given him to see. The other taking into account the different conditions of the pictorial and the plastic art, might visualise what seemed to him the inmost meaning to his own mind in his own way, and represent it, the same yet not the same, in all the glory of colour. The former would deliver a version more useful to the historian of sculpture were the original to be lost, but one in which we should miss many beauties of detail, and from which the indwelling spirit would have fled. The latter would not give much help to an antiquarian knowledge of the archetype, but he might transmit its inspiration, and rouse kindred feelings in an even greater degree just because they were mingled with others that came from his own heart.

The analogy is, of course, an imperfect one, for the problem of rendering the solid on the flat is not on all fours with the problem of converting Plutarch’s Lives to modern plays. But it applies to this extent, that in both cases the task is to interpret a subject, that has received one kind of treatment, by a treatment that is quite dissimilar. And the difference between William Alexander and William Shakespeare is very much the difference between the conscientious draughtsman and the inspired artist.

CHAPTER III
THE TITULAR HERO OF THE PLAY

The modification of Brutus’ character typifies and involves the modification of the whole story, because the tragic interest is focussed in his career. This must be remembered, if we would avoid misconception. It has sometimes been said that the play suffers from lack of unity, that the titular hero is disposed of when it is half through, and that thereafter attention is diverted to the murderer. But this criticism is beside the point. Really, from beginning to end, Brutus is the prominent figure, and if the prominent figure should supply the name, then, as Voltaire pointed out, the drama ought properly to be called Marcus Brutus. If we look at it in this way, there is no lack of unity, though possibly there is a misnomer. Throughout the piece it is the personality of Brutus that attracts our chief sympathy and concern. If he is dismissed to a subordinate place, the result is as absurd as it would be were Hamlet thus treated in the companion tragedy; while, his position, once recognised, everything becomes coherent and clear.

But when this is the case, why should Shakespeare not say so? Why, above all, should he use a false designation to mix the trail?

It has been answered that he was wholly indifferent to labels and nomenclature, that he gives his plays somewhat irrelevant titles, such as Twelfth Night, or lets people christen them at their fancy, What You Will, or As You Like It. Just in the same way, as a shrewd theatrical manager with his eye on the audience, he may have turned to account the prevalent curiosity about Caesar, without inquiring too curiously whether placard and performance tallied in every respect.

And doubtless such considerations were not unknown to him. Shakespeare, as is shown by the topical allusions in which his works abound, by no means disdained the maxim that the playwright must appeal to the current interests of his public, even to those that are adventitious and superficial. At the same time, it is only his comedies, in which his whole method is less severe, that have insignificant or arbitrary titles. There is no instance of a tragedy being misnamed. On the contrary, the chief person or persons are always indicated, and in this way Shakespeare has protested in advance against the mistake of viewing King Lear as a whole with reference to Cordelia, or Macbeth as a whole with reference to Lady Macbeth.

But in the second place, Julius Caesar, both in its chronological position and in its essential character, comes as near to the Histories as to the Tragedies; and the Histories are all named after the sovereign in whose reign most of the events occurred. He may not have the chief role, which, for example, belongs in King John to the Bastard, and in Henry IV. to Prince Hal. He may even drop out in the course of the story, which, for example, in the latter play is continued for an entire act after the King’s death: but he serves, as it were, for a landmark, to date and localise the action. It is not improbable that this was the light in which Shakespeare regarded Caesar. In those days people did not make fine distinctions. He was generally viewed as first in the regular succession of Emperors, and in so far could be considered to have held the same sort of position in Rome, as any of those who had sat on the throne of England.

But this is not all. Though it is manifest that Brutus is the principal character, the protagonist, the chief representative of the action, the central figure among the living agents, the interest of his career lies in its mistaken and futile opposition to Julius, to the idea of Caesarism, to what again and again, in the course of the play, is called “the spirit of Caesar.” The expression is often repeated. Brutus declares the purpose of the conspirators:

We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar;

And in the spirit of men there is no blood:

O, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit,

And not dismember Caesar.

(II. i. 167.)

Antony, above the corpse, sees in prophetic anticipation,

Caesar’s spirit ranging for revenge.

(III. i. 273.)

The ghost of Caesar proclaims what he is,

Thy evil spirit, Brutus.

(IV. iii. 282.)

And at the close Brutus apostrophises his dead victim:

Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords

In our own proper entrails.

(V. iii. 95.)

It is really Caesar’s presence, his genius, his conception that dominates the story. Brutus is first among the struggling mortals who obey even while resisting their fate, but the fate itself is the imperialist inspiration which makes up the significance of Caesar, and the play therefore is fitly named after him.[162]

This is brought home to us in a variety of ways.

In the first place, Shakespeare makes it abundantly clear that the rule of the single master-mind is the only admissible solution for the problem of the time.

Caesar, with his transcendent gifts, was chosen by Providence to preserve the Roman State from shipwreck, and steer it on its triumphant course; and even if the helmsman perished, the course was set. Shakespeare was guided to this view by Plutarch. The celebrant of the life of ancient Greece was indeed very far from idealising the man who consolidated the supremacy of Rome. He records impartially and with appreciation, some of his noble traits, and without extenuation many that were not admirable. But he “honours his memory” very much “on this side idolatry,” reserves his chief enthusiasm for Brutus, and never seems to take a full view of Caesar’s unique greatness in the mass. None the less, he is now and again forced to admit that he was the man, and his were the methods that the emergency required. Thus talking of the bribery and violence that then prevailed in Rome he remarks:

Men of deepe judgement and discression seeing such furie and madnes of the people, thought them selves happy if the common wealth were no worse troubled, then with the absolut state of a Monarchy and soveraine Lord to governe them. Furthermore, there were many that were not affraid to speake it openly, that there was no other help to remedy the troubles of the common wealth, but by the authority of one man only that should commaund them all.[163]

Again, commenting on the accident by which Brutus did not learn of the victory that might have averted his final defeat, he has the weighty reflection;

Howbeit the state of Rome (in my opinion) being now brought to that passe, that it could no more abide to be governed by many Lordes, but required one only absolute Governor: God, to prevent Brutus that it shoulde not come to his government, kept this victorie from his knowledge.[164]

And in one of those comparisons that Montaigne loved, he is more emphatic still:

Howbeit Caesars power and government when it came to be established, did in deede much hurte at his first entrie and beginning unto those that did resist him: but afterwardes unto them that being overcome had received his government, it seemed he had rather the name and opinion[165] onely of a tyranne, then otherwise that he was so in deed. For there never followed any tyrannicall nor cruell act, but contrarilie, it seemed that he was a mercifull Phisition, whom God had ordeyned of speciall grace to be Governor of the Empire of Rome, and to set all thinges againe at quiet stay, the which required the counsell and authoritie of an absolute Prince.... But the fame of Julius Caesar did set up his friends againe after his death, and was of such force, that it raised a young stripling, Octavius Caesar, (that had no meanes nor power of him selfe) to be one of the greatest men of Rome.[166]

On these isolated hints Shakespeare seizes. He amplifies them and works them out in his conception of the situation.

The vast territory that is subject to Rome, of which we have glimpses as it stretches north and west to Gaul and Spain, of which we visit the Macedonian and Asiatic provinces in the east and south, has need of wise and steady government. But is that to be got from the Romans? The plebeians are represented as fickle and violent, greedy and irrational, the dupes of dead tradition, parasites in the living present. They have shouted for Pompey, they strew flowers for Caesar: they can be tickled with talk of their ancient liberties, they can be cajoled by the tricks of shifty rhetoric: they cheer when their favourite refuses the crown, they wish to crown his “better parts” in his murderer: they will not hear a word against Brutus, they rush off to fire his house: they tear a man to pieces on account of his name, and hold Caesar beyond parallel on account of his bequest.

Nor are things better with the aristocrats. Cassius, the moving spirit of the opposition, is, at his noblest, actuated by jealousy of greatness. And he is not always at his noblest. He confesses that had he been in Caesar’s good graces, he would have been on Caesar’s side. This strain of servility is more apparent in the flatteries and officiousness of Decius and Casca. And what is its motive? Cassius seeks to win Antony by promising him an equal voice in disposing of the dignities: and he presently uses his position for extortion and the patronage of corruption. Envy, ambition, cupidity are the governing principles of the governing classes: and their enthusiasm for freedom means nothing more than an enthusiasm for prestige and influence, for the privilege of parcelling out the authority and dividing the spoils. What case have these against the Man of Destiny, whose genius has given compass, peace, and security to the Roman world? But their plea of liberty misleads the unpractical student, the worshipper of dreams, memories, and ideals, behind whose virtue they shelter their selfish aims, and whose countenance alone can make their conspiracy respectable. With his help they achieve a momentary triumph. But of course it leads not to a renovation of the republic, but to domestic confusion and to a multiplication of oppressors. So far as the populace is concerned, the removal of the master means submission to the unprincipled orator, who, with his fellow triumvirs, cheats it of its inheritance and sets about a wholesale proscription. So far as the Empire is concerned, the civil war is renewed, and the provincials are pillaged by the champions of freedom. Brutus sees too late that it is vain to strive against the “spirit of Caesar,” which is bound to prevail, and which, though it may be impeded, cannot be defeated. He is ruined with the cause he espoused, and confesses fairly vanquished:

O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet.[167]

(v. iii. 94.)

Again, though it may seem paradoxical to say so, the all-compelling power of Caesar’s ideal is indicated in the presentation of his own character. This at first sight is something of a riddle and a surprise. Shakespeare, as is shown by his many tributes elsewhere, had ample perception and appreciation of Caesar’s greatness. Yet in the play called after him it almost seems as though he had a sharper eye for any of the weaknesses and foibles that Plutarch records of him, and even went about to exaggerate them and add to them.

Thus great stress is laid on his physical disabilities. When the crown is offered him, he swoons, as Casca narrates, for, as Brutus remarks, he is subject to the falling sickness. There is authority for these statements. But Cassius describes how his strength failed him in the Tiber and how he shook with fever in Spain, and both these touches are added by Shakespeare. Nor is it the malcontents alone who signalise such defects. Caesar himself admits that he is deaf, though of his deafness history knows nothing.

And not only does Shakespeare accentuate these bodily infirmities; he introduces them in such a way and in such a connection that they convey an ironical suggestion and almost make the Emperor ridiculous. At the great moment when he is putting by the coronet tendered him by Antony that he may take with the more security and dignity the crown which the Senate will vote him, precisely then he falls down in a fit. This indeed is quasi-historical, but the other and more striking instances are forged in Shakespeare’s smithy. It is just after his overweening challenge to the swimming-match that he must cry for aid: “Help me, Cassius, or I sink” (i. ii. 3). In his fever, as Cassius maliciously notes,

That tongue of his that bade the Romans

Mark him and write his speeches in their books,

Alas, it cried ‘Give me some drink, Titinius,’

As a sick girl.

(I. ii. 125.)

A pretty saying to chronicle. He says superbly to Mark Antony, “Always I am Caesar”; and in the very next line follows the anticlimax:

Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf.

(I. ii. 213.)

But if his physical defects, which after all have little to do with the real greatness of the man save in the eyes of spiteful detractors, are thus brought into satirical relief, much more is this the case with his mental and moral failings, which of course concern the heart of his character.

Already on his first appearance, we see this lord of the world the credulous believer in magic rites. At the Lupercal he enjoins Calpurnia to “stand directly in Antonius’ way” and Antony to touch her in his “holy chase” (i. ii. 3 and 8), and he impresses on Antony the observance of all the ritual: “Leave no ceremony out” (i. ii. 11). It was not ever thus. The time has been when he held these things at their true value, and it is only recently, as watchful eyes take note, that his attitude has changed.

He is superstitious grown of late,

Quite from the main opinion he held once

Of fantasy, of dreams and ceremonies.

(II. i. 195.)

And this is no mere invention of the enemy. He does have recourse to sacrifice, he does inquire of the priests “their opinions of success” (ii. ii. 5); though afterwards, on the news of the portent, he tries to put his own interpretation on it:

The gods do this in shame of cowardice:

Caesar should be a beast without a heart,

If he should stay at home to-day for fear.

(II. ii. 41.)

He is really impressed by his wife’s cries in her sleep, as appears from his words to himself, when he has not to keep up appearances before others, but enters, perturbed, in his nightgown, and seems urged by his anxiety to consult the oracles. He affects to dismiss the signs and omens:

These predictions

Are to the world in general as to Caesar;

(II. ii. 28.)

But it is clear that he attaches importance to them, for, when Decius gives Calpurnia’s dream an auspicious interpretation, he accepts it, and once again changing his mind, presently resolves to set out:

How foolish do your fears seem now, Calpurnia!

I am ashamed I did yield to them.

Give me my robe, for I will go.

(II. ii. 105.)

Thus we see a touch of self-deception as well as of superstition in Caesar, and this self-deception reappears in other more important matters. He affects an absolute fearlessness:

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear.

(II. ii. 33.)

His courage, of course, is beyond question; but is there not a hint of the theatrical in this overstrained amazement, in this statement that fear is the most unaccountable thing in all his experience? One recalls the story of the young soldier who said that he knew not what it was to be afraid, and received his commander’s answer: “Then you have never snuffed a candle with your fingers.” That was the reproof of bravado by bravery in the mouth of a man so fearless that he could afford to acknowledge his acquaintance with fear. And surely Caesar could have afforded to do so too. We see and know that he is the bravest of the brave, but if anything could make us suspicious, it would be his constant harping on his flawless valour. So, too, he says of Cassius:

I fear him not:

Yet if my name were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid

So soon as that spare Cassius ...

I rather tell thee what is to be fear’d

Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.

(I. ii. 198, 211.)

Why should he labour the point? If he has not fears, he has at least misgivings in regard to Cassius, that come very much to the same thing. His anxiety is obvious, as he calls Antony to his side to catechise him on his opinions of the danger.

In the same way he prides himself on his inaccessibility to adulation and blandishments.

These couchings and these lowly courtesies

Might fire the blood of ordinary men,

And turn pre-ordinance and first decree

Into the law of children. Be not fond

To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood,

That will be thaw’d from the true quality

With that which melteth fools; I mean, sweet words,

Low crooked court’sies and base spaniel fawning.

(III. i. 36.)

We may believe that he does indeed stand secure against the grosser kinds of parasites and their more obvious devices; but that does not mean that he cannot be hood-winked by meaner men who know how to play on his self-love. Decius says:

I can o’ersway him: for he loves to hear

That unicorns may be betray’d with trees,

And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,

Lions with toils, and men with flatterers;

But when I tell him he hates flatterers,

He says he does, being then most flattered.

Let me work.

(II. i. 203.)

And Decius makes his words good.

In like manner he fancies that he possesses an insight that reads men’s souls at a glance. When he hears the cry: “Beware the Ides of March,” he gives the command, “Set him before me; let me see his face.” A moment’s inspection is enough: “He is a dreamer: let us leave him: pass” (i. ii. 24). Yet he fails to read the treachery of the conspirators, though they are daily about him, consults with Decius whom he “loves,” and bids Trebonius be near him.

And then he elects to pose as no less immovable in resolution than infallible in judgment. When we have been witnesses of all his vacillation and shilly-shally about attending the senate meeting—now he would, now he would not, and again he would—it is hard to suppress the jeer at the high-sounding words:

I could be well moved, if I were as you:

If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:

But I am constant as the northern star,

Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality

There is no fellow in the firmament.

The skies are painted with unnumber’d sparks,

They are all fire, and every one doth shine,

But there’s but one in all doth hold his place:

So in the world: ’tis furnish’d well with men,

And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;

Yet in the number I do know but one

That unassailable holds on his rank,

Unshaked of motion: and that I am he,

Let me a little show it, even in this.

(III. i. 58.)

Now, all these things are wholly or mainly the fabrications of Shakespeare. In Plutarch Caesar does not direct Calpurnia to put herself in Antony’s way, nor is there any indication that he attached importance to the rite. It is in the wife and not in the husband that Plutarch notes an unexpected strain of credulity, remarking with reference to her dream: “Capurnia untill that time was never geven to any feare or supersticion.”[168] Plutarch cites noble sayings of Caesar’s in regard to fear, for instance that “it was better to dye once, than alwayes to be affrayed of death:”[169] but he never attributes to him any pretence of immunity from human frailty, and makes him explicitly avow the feeling in the very passage where in Shakespeare he disclaims it. “‘As for those fatte men, with smooth comed heades,’ quoth he, ‘I never reckon of them: but these pale visaged and carian leane people, I feare them most.’” The dismissal of the soothsayer after a contemptuous glance is unwarranted by Plutarch. There is no authority for his defencelessness among flatterers, or for his illusion that he is superior to their arts. Yielding in quite a natural way and without any hesitation to the solicitations of Calpurnia and the reports of the bad omens, Caesar in Plutarch resolves to stay at home, but afterwards is induced to change his mind by Decius’ very plausible arguments. There is no hint of unsteadiness in his conduct, as there described; nor in the final scene is there any of the ostentation but only the reality of firmness in his rejection of Metellus Cimber’s petition.

Considering all this it is not difficult to understand the indignation of the critics who complain that Shakespeare has here given a libel rather than a portrait of Caesar, and has substituted impertinent cavil for sympathetic interpretation. And some of Shakespeare’s apologists have accepted this statement of the case, but have sought to defend the supposed travesty on the ground that it is prescribed by the subject and the treatment. Thus Dr. Hudson suggests[170] that “the policy of the drama may have been to represent Caesar, not as he was indeed, but as he must have appeared to the conspirators; to make us see him as they saw him; in order that they might have fair and equal justice at our hands.” With a slight variation this is also the opinion of Gervinus:[171] “The poet, if he intended to make the attempt of the conspirators his main theme, could not have ventured to create too great an interest in Caesar: it was necessary to keep him in the background, and to present that view of him which gave reason for the conspiracy.” And alleging, what would be hard to prove, that in Plutarch, Caesar’s character “altered much for the worse, shortly before his death,” he continues, in reference to his arrogance: “It is intended with few words to show him at that point when his behaviour would excite those free spirits against him.” But this explanation will hardly bear scrutiny. In the first place: if Shakespeare’s object had been to provide a relative justification for the assassins, he could have done so much more naturally and effectively by adhering to the data of the Life. Among them he could have found graver causes of resentment against Caesar than any of those he invents, which at the worst are peccadillos and affectations rather than real delinquencies. And Plutarch does not slur them over: on the contrary the shadows in his picture are strongly marked, and he lays a long list of offences to Caesar’s score; culminating in what he calls the “shamefullest part” that he played, to wit, his support of Clodius. Here was matter enough for the dramatic Advocatus Diaboli. It would have been as easy to weave some of these damaging stories into the reminiscences of Cassius, as to concoct harmless fictions about Caesar’s having a temperature and being thirsty, or his failing to swim a river in flood. All these bygone scandals, whether domestic or political, would have immensely strengthened the conspirators’ case, especially with a precisian like Brutus. But Shakespeare is silent concerning them, and Brutus, as we have seen, gives Caesar in regard to his antecedents a clean bill of health. Of course almost all Caesar’s previous history is taken for granted and left to the imagination, but the dubious passages are far more persistently kept out of sight than such as tend to his glory. And that is the bewildering thing, if Shakespeare’s delineation was meant to explain the attitude of the faction. It is surely an odd way of winning our good will for a man’s murderers to keep back notorious charges against him of cruelty, treason and unscrupulousness, to certify that he has never abused his powers or let his passion overmaster his reason, and then to trump up stories that he gives himself airs and is deaf in one ear. It reminds one of Swift’s description of Arbuthnot: “Our doctor has every quality and virtue that can make a man amiable or useful; but, alas, he hath a sort of slouch in his walk.” Swift, however, was not explaining how people might come to think that Dr. Arbuthnot should be got rid of.

Again his tendency to parade by no means alters the fact, that he does possess in an extraordinary degree the intellectual and moral virtues that he would exaggerate in his own eyes and the eyes of others. Independence, resolution, courage, insight must have been his in amplest store or he would never have been able to

Get the start of the majestic world

And bear the palm alone;

(I. ii. 130.)

and there is evidence of them in the play. He is not moved by the deferential prayers of the senators: he does persist in the banishment of Publius Cimber; he has in very truth read the heart and taken the measure of Cassius:

Such men as he be never at heart’s ease,

Whiles they behold a greater than themselves;

(I. ii. 208.)

he neither shrinks nor complains when the fatal moment comes. The impression he makes on the unsophisticated mind, on average audiences and the elder school of critics, is undoubtedly an heroic one. It is only minute analysis that discovers his defects, and though the defects are certainly present and should be noted, they are far from sufficing to make the general effect absurd or contemptible. If they do so, we give them undue importance. It was not so that Shakespeare meant them to be taken. For he has invented for his Caesar not only these trivial blemishes, but several conspicuous exhibitions of nobility, which Plutarch nowhere suggests; and this should give pause to such as find in Shakespeare’s portrait merely a wilful or wanton caricature. Thus in regard to the interposition of Artemidorus, Shakespeare read in North:

He marking howe Caesar received all the supplications that were offered him, and that he gave them straight to his men that were about him, pressed neerer to him and sayed: “Caesar, reade this memoriall to your selfe, and that quickely, for they be matters of great waight and touch you neerely.” Caesar tooke it of him, but coulde never reade it, though he many times attempted it, for the multitude of people that did salute him: but holding it still in his hande, keeping it to him selfe, went on withall into the Senate house.[172]

Compare this with the scene in the play:

Artemidorus. Hail, Caesar! read this schedule.

Decius. Trebonius doth desire you to o’er-read,

At your best leisure, this his humble suit.

Artemidorus. O Caesar, read mine first, for mine’s a suit

That touches Caesar nearer: read it, great Caesar.

Caesar. What touches us ourself shall be last served.

(III. i. 3.)

Can one say that Shakespeare has defrauded Caesar of his magnanimity?

Or again observe, in the imaginary conclusion to the unrecorded remonstrances of Calpurnia, how loftily he refuses to avail himself of the little white untruths that after all pass current as quite excusable in society. They are beneath his dignity. He turns to Decius:

Caesar. You are come in very happy time,

To bear my greeting to the senators

And tell them that I will not come to-day;

Cannot, is false, and that I dare not falser:

I will not come to-day: tell them so, Decius.

Calpurnia. Say he is sick.

Caesar. Shall Caesar send a lie?

Have I in conquest stretch’d mine arm so far,

To be afeard to tell graybeards the truth?

Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come ...

The cause is in my will: I will not come.

(II. ii. 60.)

But this last instance is not merely an example of Shakespeare’s homage to Caesar’s grandeur and his eagerness to enhance it with accessories of his own contrivance. It gives us a clue to the secret of his additions both favourable and the reverse, and points the way to his conception of the man. For observe that this refusal of Caesar’s to make use of a falsehood is an afterthought. A minute before he has, also in words that Shakespeare puts in his mouth, fully consented to the proposal that he should feign illness. He pacifies Calpurnia:

Mark Antony shall say I am not well;

And, for thy humour, I will stay at home.

(II. ii. 55.)

This compliance he makes to his wife, but in presence of Decius Brutus he recovers himself and adopts the stricter standard. What does this imply? Does it not mean that in a certain sense he is playing a part and aping the Immortal to be seen of men?

Let us consider the situation. Caesar, a man with the human frailties, mental and physical, which are incident to men, is nevertheless endowed by the Higher Powers with genius that has raised him far above his fellows. By his genius he has conceived and grasped and done much to realise the sublime idea of the Roman Empire. By his genius he has raised himself to the headship of that great Empire which his own thought was creating. Private ambitions may have urged and doubtful shifts may have helped his career. He himself feels that within his drapery of grand exploits there is something that will not bear scrutiny; and hence his mistrust of Cassius:

He is a great observer and he looks

Quite through the deeds of men.

(I. ii. 201.)

But these things are behind him and a luminous veil is drawn over them, beyond which we discern him only as “the foremost man of all this world,” “the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of times,” devoted to the cause of Rome, fighting and conquering for her; filling her public treasuries, her general coffers, with gold; sympathising with her poor to whom it will be found only after his death that he has left his wealth. The only hints of unrighteous dealing on his part are given in Artemidorus’ statement to himself: “Thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius,” and in Brutus’ statement about him that he was slain “but for supporting robbers.” But it is never suggested that he himself was guilty of robbery: and the wrong to Ligarius, who was accused “for taking parte with Pompey,” and “thanked not Caesar so muche for his discharge, as he was offended with him for that he was brought in daunger by his tyrannicall power,”[173] hardly deserves the name, at least in the common acceptation. Besides Shakespeare has a large tolerance for the practical statesman when dowered with patriotism, insight, and resolution; and will not lightly condemn him because he must use sorry tools, and takes some soil from the world, and is not unmoved by personal interests. Provided that his more selfish aims coincide with the good of the whole, and that he has veracity of intellect to understand, with steadiness of will to satisfy the needs of the time, Shakespeare will vindicate for him his share of prosperity, honour, and desert. And this seems to be, in glorified version, his view of Caesar. The only serious charge he brings against him in the play, the only charge to which he recurs elsewhere, is that he was ambitious. But ambition is not wholly of sin, and brings forth good as well as evil fruit. Indeed when a man’s desire for the first place merges in the desire for the fullest opportunity, and that again in the desire for the task he feels he can do best, it is distinguishable from a virtue, if at all, only by the demand that he shall be the agent. So is it, to compare celebrities of local and of universal history, with the ambitious strain in the character of Henry IV.; it is not incompatible with sterling worth that commands solid success; it spurs him to worthy deeds that redeem the offences it exacts; and these offences themselves in some sort “tend the profit of the state.” No doubt with both men their ambition brings its own Nemesis, the ceaseless care of the one, the premature death of the other. But that need not prevent recognition of their high qualities, or their just claims, or their providential mandate. Such men are ministers of the Divine Purposes, as Plutarch said in regard to Caesar; and in setting forth the essential meaning of his career, Shakespeare can scorn the base degrees by which he did ascend. Partly his less creditable doings were necessary if he was to mount at all; partly they may have seemed venial to the subject of the Tudor monarchy; at worst, when compared with the splendour of his achievement, they were spots in the sun. In any case they were not worth consideration. With them Shakespeare is not concerned, but with the plenary inspiration of Caesar’s life, the inspiration that made him an instrument of Heaven and that was to bring peace and order to the world. So he passes over the years of effort and preparation, showing their glories but slightly and their trespasses not at all. He confines himself to the time when the summit is reached and the dream is fulfilled. Then to his mind begins the tragedy and the transfiguration.

He represents Caesar, like every truly great man, as carried away by his own conception and made a slave to it. What a thing was this idea of Empire, this “spirit of Caesar,” of which he as one of earth’s mortal millions was but the vehicle and the organ! He himself as a human person cannot withhold homage from himself as the incarnate Imperium. Observe how he speaks of himself habitually in the third person. Not “I do this,” but “Caesar does this,” “Caesar does that,” alike when talking to the soothsayer, to his wife and to the senate.[174] It is almost as though he anticipated its later use as a common noun equivalent to Emperor: for in all these passages he describes, as it were, what the Emperor’s action and attitude should be. And that is the secret of the strange impression that he makes. It is a case, an exaggerated case, of noblesse oblige. The Caesar, the first of those Caesars who were to receive their apotheosis and be hailed as Divi Augusti, must in literal truth answer Hobbes’ description of the State, and be a mortal god. He must be fearless, omniscient, infallible, without changeableness or shadow of turning: does he not represent the empire? He has to live up to an impossible standard, and so he must affect to be what he is not. He is the martyr of the idea that has made his fortune. He must not listen to his instincts or his misgivings; there is no room in the Caesar for timidity or mistake or fickleness. But, alas! he is only a man, and as a man he constantly gives the lie to the majesty which the spirit of Caesar enjoins. We feel all the more strongly, since we are forced to the comparison, the contrast between the shortcomings of the individual and the splendour of the ideal role he undertakes. And not only that. In this assumption of the Divine, involving as it does a touch of unreality and falsehood, he has lost his old surety of vision and efficiency in act. He tries to rise above himself, and pays the penalty by falling below himself, and rushing on the ruin which a little vulgar shrewdness would have avoided. But his mistake is due to his very greatness, and his greatness encompasses him to the last, when with no futile and undignified struggle, he wraps his face in his mantle and accepts the end. Antony does not exaggerate when he says:

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!

Then I, and you, and all of us fell down;

(III. ii. 194.)

for it was the Empire that fell. But to rise again! For the idea of Caesarism, rid of the defects and limitations of its originator, becomes only the more invincible, and the spirit of Caesar begins its free untrammelled course.

The greatness of his genius cannot be fully realised unless the story is carried on to the final triumph at Philippi, instead of breaking off immediately after his bodily death. It is in part Shakespeare’s perception of this and not merely his general superiority of power, that makes his Caesar so much more impressive than the Caesar of contemporary dramatists that seem to keep closer to their theme.

Not only then is Julius Caesar the right name for the play, in so far as his imperialist idea dominates the whole, but a very subtle interpretation of his character is given when, as this implies, he is viewed as the exponent of Imperialism. None the less Brutus is the leading personage, if we grant precedence in accordance with the interest aroused.

CHAPTER IV
THE EXCELLENCES AND ILLUSIONS OF BRUTUS

Thus Shakespeare has his Act of Oblivion for all that might give an unfavourable impression of Caesar’s past, and presents him very much as the incarnate principle of Empire, with the splendours but also with the disabilities that must attend the individual man who feels himself the vehicle for such an inspiration.

He somewhat similarly screens from view whatever in the career of Brutus might prejudice his claims to affection and respect: and carries much further a process of idealization that Plutarch had already begun. For to Plutarch Brutus is, so to speak, the model republican, the paragon of private and civic virtue. The promise to the soldiers before the second battle at Philippi of two cities to sack, calls forth the comment: “In all Brutus’ life there is but this only fault to be found”: and even this, as the marginal note remarks, is “wisely excused”; on the plea, namely, that after Cassius’ death the difficulties were very great and the best had to be made of a bad state of things. But no other misconduct is laid to his charge: his extortionate usury and his abrupt divorce are passed over in silence. All his doings receive indulgent construction, and the narrative is often pointed with a formal éloge. In the Comparison, where of course such estimates are expected, attention is drawn to his rectitude, “only referring his frendschippe and enmitie unto the consideracion of justice and equitie”; to “the marvelous noble minde of him, that for fear never fainted nor let falle any part of his corage”; to his influence over his associates so that “by his choyce of them he made them good men”; to the honour in which he was held by his “verie enemies.” But already the keynote is struck in the opening page:

This Marcus Brutus ... whose life we presently wryte, having framed his manners of life by the rules of vertue and studie of philosophie, and having employed his wit, which was gentle and constant, in attempting of great things: me thinkes he was rightly made and framed unto vertue.

And the story often deviates from its course into little backwaters of commendation, as when after some censure of Cassius, we are told:

Brutus in contrary manner, for his vertue and valliantnes, was well-beloved of the people and his owne, esteemed of noble men, and hated of no man, not so much as of his enemies: bicause he was a marvelous lowly and gentle person, noble minded, and would never be in any rage, nor caried away with pleasure and covetousness, but had ever an upright mind with him, and would never yeeld to any wronge or injustice, the which was the chiefest cause of his fame, of his rising, and of the good will that every man bare him: for they were all perswaded that his intent was good.

This conception Shakespeare adopts and purifies. He leaves out the shadow of that one fault that Plutarch wisely excused: he leaves out too the unpleasant circumstance, which Plutarch apparently thought needed no excuse, that Brutus was applicant for and recipient of offices at the disposal of the all-powerful dictator. There must be nothing to mar the graciousness and dignity of the picture. Shakespeare wishes to portray a patriotic gentleman of the best Roman or the best English type, such “a gentleman or noble person” as it was the aim of Spenser’s Faerie Queene “to fashion in vertuous and gentle discipline,” such a gentleman or noble person as Shakespeare’s generation had seen in Spenser’s friend, Sir Philip Sidney. So Plutarch’s summaries are expanded and filled in partly with touches that his narrative supplies, partly with others that the summaries themselves suggest.

To the latter class belongs the winning courtesy with which Brutus at his first appearance excuses himself to Cassius for his preoccupation. His inward trouble might well have stirred him to irritability and abruptness; but he only feels that it has made him remiss, and that an explanation is due from him:

Vexed I am

Of late with passions of some difference,

Conceptions only proper to myself,

Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviours:

But let not therefore my good friends be grieved—

Among which number, Cassius, be you one—

Nor construe any further my neglect,

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,

Forgets the shows of love to other men.

(I. ii. 39.)

So with his friends. Shakespeare invents the character of Lucius to show how attentive and considerate Brutus is as master. He apologises for having blamed his servant without cause.

Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful.

(IV. iii. 255.)

He notes compassionately that the lad is drowsy and overwatched (iv. iii. 241). At one time he dispenses with his services because he is sleeping sound (ii. i. 229). At another he asks a song from him not as a right but as a favour (iv. iii. 256). And immediately thereafter the master waits, as it were, on the nodding slave, and removes his harp lest it should be broken.

But it is to his wife that he shows the full wealth of his affectionate nature. He would fain keep from her the anxieties that are distracting his own mind: but when she claims to share them as the privilege and pledge of wifehood, with his quick sympathy he sees it at once:

You are my true and honourable wife,

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops

That visit my sad heart.

(II. i. 288.)

And yielding to her claim as a right, he recognises that it is a claim that comes from an ideally noble and loving soul, and prays to be made worthy of her. What insight Shakespeare shows even in his omissions! This is the prayer of Plutarch’s Brutus too, but he lifts up his hands and beseeches the gods that he may “bring his enterprise to so goode passe that he mighte be founde a husband worthie of so noble a wife as Porcia.” Shakespeare’s Brutus does not view his worthiness as connected with any material success.

And these words are also an evidence of his humble-mindedness. However aggressive and overbearing he may appear in certain relations, we never fail to see his essential modesty. If he interferes, as often enough he does, to bow others to his will, it is not because he is self-conceited, but because he is convinced that a particular course is right; and where right is concerned, a man must come forward to enforce it. But for himself he has no idea of the high estimation in which his character and parts are held. When Cassius insinuates that everyone thinks him the man for the emergency, if he would only realise it, his reply is a disclaimer: he has never supposed, and shrinks from imagining, that he is fit for such a role. Yet such is his personality that, as all of the faction feel, his help is absolutely necessary if the conspiracy is to have a chance of approval. Cinna exhorts Cassius to win him to the party, Casca bears witness to his popular credit and to the value of his sanction in recommending the enterprise, Ligarius is willing to follow any course if Brutus leads, the cynical Cassius admits his worth and their great need of him.

For his amiable and attractive virtues are saved from all taint of weakness by an heroic strain, both high-spirited and public-spirited, both stoical and chivalrous. Challenged by the solicitations of Cassius he for once breaks through his reticence, and discloses his inward temper. We may be sure that even then he speaks less than he feels.

If it be aught toward the general good,

Set honour in one eye, and death i’ the other,

And I will look on both indifferently:

For let the gods so speed me, as I love

The name of honour more than I fear death.

(I. ii. 85.)

This elevated way of thinking has been fostered and confirmed by study, just as in the case of Sidney, and by study of much the same kind. Plutarch says:

Now touching the Greecian Philosophers, there was no sect nor Philosopher of them, but he heard and liked it: but above all the rest, he loved Platoes sect best, and did not much give himself to the new or meane Academy as they call it, but altogether to the old Academy.

He has striven to direct his life by right reason, and has pondered its problems under the guidance of his chosen masters. His utterance, which Plutarch quotes, on suicide, shows how he has sought Plato’s aid for a standard by which to judge others and himself.[175] His utterance, which Shakespeare invents, on the death of Portia, shows how he has schooled himself to fortitude, and suggests the influence of a different school.

We must die, Messala:

With meditating that she must die once,

I have the patience to endure it now.

(IV. iii. 190.)

He is essentially a thinker, a reader, a student. Plutarch had told how on the eve of Pharsalia, when his companions were resting, or forecasting the morrow, Brutus “fell to his booke and wrote all day long till night, wryting a breviarie of Polybius.” And in his last campaign:

His heade ever busily occupied to thinke of his affayres, ... after he had slumbered a little after supper, he spent all the rest of the night in dispatching of his waightiest causes, and after he had taken order for them, if he had any leysure left him, he would read some booke till the third watch of the night, at what tyme the Captaines, pety Captaines and Colonells, did use to come unto him.

Shakespeare only visualises this description when he makes him find the book, that in his troubles and griefs he has been “seeking for so,” in the pocket of his gown, with the leaf turned down where he stopped reading.

Does then Shakespeare take over Plutarch’s favourite, merely removing the single stain and accenting all the attractions, to confront him as the embodiment of republican virtue, with Caesar, against whom too no evil is remembered, as the embodiment of imperial majesty? Will he show the inevitable collision between two political principles each worthily represented in its respective champion?

This has been said, and there are not wanting arguments to support it. It is clear that the contrast is not perplexed by side issues. Brutus has no quarrel with Caesar as a man, and no justification is given for the conspiracy in what Caesar has done. On the contrary, his murderer stands sponsor for his character, acknowledges his supreme greatness, and loves him as a dear friend. But neither on the other hand is anything introduced that might divert our sympathies from Brutus by representing him as bound by other than the voluntary ties of affection and respect. And this is the more remarkable that in Plutarch there are two particulars full of personal pathos which Shakespeare cannot have failed to note, and which lend themselves to dramatic purposes, as other dramatists have proved. One of them, employed by Voltaire, would darken the assassination to parricide. In explanation of the indulgence with which Caesar treated Brutus, Plutarch says:

When he was a young man, he had been acquainted with Servilia, who was extreamelie in love with him. And bicause Brutus was borne in that time when their love was hottest, he perswaded him selfe that he begat him.[176]

And then follows what can be alleged in proof. “What of anguish,” says Mr. Wyndham, “does this not add to the sweep of the gesture wherewith the hero covered his face from the pedant’s sword!”

This is a mere casual hint; but the other point finds repeated mention in the Life, and is dwelt upon though explained away in the Comparison. It is the circumstance that Brutus had fought on Pompey’s side, and that thereafter Caesar had spared him, amnestied his friends, and loaded him with favours.

The greatest reproache they could make against Brutus was: that Julius Caesar having saved his life, and pardoned all the prisoners also taken in battell, as many as he made request for, taking him for his frende, and honoring him above all his other frends, Brutus notwithstanding had imbrued his hands in his blood.[177]

Plutarch indeed instances this as the grand proof of Brutus’ superiority to personal considerations; but it looks bad, and certainly introduces a new element into the moral problem. At all events, though it involves in a specially acute form that conflict of duties which the drama loves, and was so used by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, as early as Muretus and as late as Alexander, Shakespeare dismisses it.

Attention is concentrated on the single fact that Brutus felt it his duty to take the life of Caesar, and no obligations of kinship or gratitude are allowed to complicate the one simple case of conscience.

The victim and the sacrificer are thus set before us, each with an unstained record, and in only those personal relations that arise from warm and reverent friendship.

Of their mutual attachment we are left in no doubt, nor are we ever suffered to forget it. Cassius in talk to himself, bears witness that Caesar “loves Brutus” (i. ii. 317). Antony, in his speech to the people, appeals to this as a notorious fact:

Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel:

Judge, O you Gods, how dearly Caesar loved him.

(III. ii. 185.)

But the strongest testimony is Caesar’s own cry, the cry of astonishment and consternation, whether from the betrayed when the beloved is the traitor, or from the condemned when the beloved is the judge:

Et tu Brute! Then fall, Caesar!

(III. i. 77.)

Nor is less stress laid on Brutus’ feeling. He avows it in the Forum, as before he had assured Antony that “he did love Caesar when he struck him” (iii. i. 182). Cassius tells him:

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better

Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

(IV. iii. 106.)

But here again the most pathetic evidence is to be found in the assassination scene itself. When Brutus stoops in the guise of petitioner, we cannot suppose it is merely with treacherous adroitness:

I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar.

(III. i. 52.)

Knowing the man, do we not feel that this is the last tender farewell?

But though all this is true it cannot be maintained, in view of the soliloquy before the conspirators’ meeting, that Shakespeare makes Brutus the mouthpiece of republicanism, as he makes Caesar the mouthpiece of imperialism. The opposition of principles is present, but it is of principles on a different plane.

Caesar, the spirit of Caesar, is indeed the spirit of Empire, the spirit of practical greatness in the domains of war, policy, organisation: of this he is the exponent, to this he is the martyr. Brutus’ spirit is rather the spirit of loyalty to duty, which finds in him its exponent and martyr too.

He is lavishly endowed by nature with all the inward qualities that go to make the virtuous man, and these he has improved and disciplined by every means in his power. His standard is high, but he is so strenuous and sincere in living up to it, that he is recognised as no less pre-eminent in the sphere of ethics, than Caesar in the sphere of politics. Indeed their different ideals dominate and impel both men in an almost equal degree. And in each case this leads to a kind of pose. It appears even in their speech. The balanced precision of the one tells its own tale as clearly as the overstrained loftiness of the other, and is as closely matched with the part that he needs must play. Obviously Brutus does not like to confess that he has been in the wrong. No more in the σώφρων than in the Emperor is there room for any weakness. After his dispute with Cassius he assumes rather unjustifiably that he has on the whole been in the right, that he has been the provoked party, and that at worst he has shown momentary heat. But even this slight admission, coming from him, fills Cassius with surprise.

Brutus. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper’d too.

Cassius. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

(IV. iii. 116.)

The Ideal Wise Man must not yield to anger any more than to other passions, and it costs Brutus something to own that he has done so. But he minimises his confession by accepting Cassius’ apology for his rash humour and promising to overlook any future offences, as though none could be laid to his own door. We like him none the worse for this, his cult of perfection is so genuine: but sometimes the cult of perfection becomes the assumption and obtrusion of it. Read the passage where Messala tells him of Portia’s death.

Messala. Had you letters from your wife, my lord?

Brutus. No, Messala.

Messala. Nor nothing in your letters writ of her?

Brutus. Nothing, Messala.

Messala.That, methinks, is strange.

Brutus. Why ask you? hear you aught of her in yours?

Messala. No. my lord.

Brutus. Now, as you are a Roman, tell me true.

Messala. Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell:

For certain she is dead, and by strange manner.

Brutus. Why, farewell, Portia.

(IV. iii. 181.)

Now Brutus had received earlier tidings. He may profess ignorance to save himself the pain of explanation, though surely it would have been simpler to say, “I know all.” But the effect is undoubtedly to bring his self-control into fuller relief in presence of Messala and Titinius even than in the presence of Cassius a few minutes before; for then he was announcing what he already knew, here he would seem in the eyes of his informants to be encountering the first shock. Too much must not be made of this, for Cassius who is aware of the circumstances, is no less impressed than the others, and Cassius would have detected any hollow ring. But at the least it savours of a willingness to give a demonstration, so to speak, in Clinical Ethics.

A man like this whose desires are set on building up a virtuous character, but who is not free from the self-consciousness and self-confidence of the specialist in virtue, is exposed to peculiar dangers. His interests and equipment are in the first place for the inward life, and his chief concern is the well-being of his soul. But precisely such an one knows that he cannot save his own soul alone. It is not open to him to disregard the claims of his fellows or the needs of the world, so he is driven to take in hand matters for which he has no inclination or aptitude. He may be quite aware of his unfitness for the work and shrink from investing himself with qualities which he knows he does not possess. All the same, if the call comes, the logic of his nature will force him to essay the ungrateful and impossible task; and he will be apt to imagine a call when there is none. So it is with Brutus. It is true that many of the best respect do look up to him and designate him as their leader: it is none the less true that the unsigned instigations which he takes for the voice of Rome, are the fabrications of a single schemer. He would not be Brutus if he suspected or shirked the summons. This votary of duty cannot acknowledge a merely fugitive and cloistered virtue; this platonic theorist can easily be hood-winked by the practised politician. So Brutus, who is so at home in his study with his book, who is so exemplary in all the private relations of friend, master and husband; predestined, one would say, for the serene labours of philosophic thought and the gracious offices of domestic affection, sweeps from his quiet anchorage to face the storms of political strife, which such as he are not born to master but which they think they must not avoid.

It is a common case; and many have by their very conscientiousness been hurried into a false position where they could not escape from committing blunders and incurring guilt. But generally the blunders are corrigible and the guilt is venial. It is Brutus’ misfortune, that his very greatness, his moral ascendancy with the prestige it bestows, gives him the foremost place, and shifts on his shoulders the main responsibility for all the folly and crime.

For it is inevitable that he should proceed as he does. Yet it is not easy for him. There is a conflict in this sensitive and finely tuned spirit, which, with all his acquired fortitude, bewrays itself in his bearing to Cassius before any foreign suggestion has entered his mind, which afterwards makes him unlike himself in his behaviour to his wife, which drives sleep from his eyes for nights together, which so jars the rare harmony of his nature, in Antony’s view his chief perfection, that he seems to suffer from an insurrection within himself. And it is not hard to understand why this should be. Morality is the guiding principle of Brutus’ character, but what if it should be at variance with itself? Now two sets of moral forces are at strife in his heart. There are the more personal sentiments of love and reverence for Caesar and of detestation for the crime he contemplates. Even after his decision he feels the full horror of conspiracy with its “monstrous visage”; how much more must he feel the horror of assassinating a friend! On the other side are the more traditional ethical obligations to state, class, and house. It is almost as fatal to this visionary to be called Brutus, as it is to the poet to be called Cinna. For a great historic name spares its bearer a narrow margin of liberty. It should be impossible for a Bourbon to be other than a legitimist; it would be impossible for a Romanoff to abandon the Orthodox Church; it is impossible for a Brutus to accept the merest show of royal power. The memory of his stock is about him. Now Cassius reminds him of his namesake who would brook the eternal devil in Rome as easily as a king; now the admonition is affixed with wax upon Old Brutus’ statue; now he himself recalls the share his ancestors had in expelling the Tarquin. If such an one acquiesced in the coronation of Caesar, he must be the basest renegade, or more detached from his antecedents than it is given a mortal man to be. And in Brutus there is no hint of such detachment. The temper that makes him so attentive and loyal to the pieties of life, is the very temper that vibrates to all that is best in the past, and clings to the spirit of use-and-wont. Let it again be repeated that Brutus reveals himself to Shakespeare very much in the form of a cultured and high-souled English nobleman, the heir of great traditions and their responsibilities, which he fulfils to the smallest jot and tittle; the heir also of inevitable preconceptions.

But in Brutus there is more than individual morality and inherited ethos: there is superimposed on these the conscious philosophic theory with which his actions must be squared. He has to determine his conduct not by instinct or usage, but by impersonal, unprejudiced reason. It is to this tribunal that in the last resort he must appeal; and in that strange soliloquy of his he puts aside all private preferences on the one hand, all local considerations on the other, and discusses his difficulty quite as an abstract problem of right and wrong. He sees that if the personal rule of Caesar is to be averted, half measures will not suffice. There are no safeguards or impediments that can prevent the supremacy of so great a man if he is allowed to live. This is his starting point: “It must be by his death.” But then the question arises: is the death of such an one permissible? And in answering it Brutus seems at the first glance to show admirable intellectual candour. He acquits Caesar of all blame; the quarrel “will bear no colour for the thing he is.” What could be more dispassionate and impartial, what more becoming the philosopher? There is no sophistication of the facts in the interest of his party. But immediately there follow the incriminating words:

Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented,

Would run to these and these extremities.

(II. i. 30.)

There is a sophistication of the inference. Surely this line of argument is invented to support a foregone conclusion. Already that hint to his conscience, “Fashion it thus,” betrays the resolve to make out a case. And does the mere future contingency justify the present infliction of death? Brutus is appealing to his philosophy: by his philosophy he is judged: for just about this date he was condemning the suicide of Cato because he found it

Cowardly and vile,

For fear of what might fall, so to prevent

The time of life.

(V. i. 104.)

But the argument is the same in both cases, and if it does not excuse self-murder, still less does it excuse the murder of others.

The truth is that Brutus, though he personates the philosopher, is less of one than he thinks. It is not his philosophy but his character that gives him strength to bear the grief of Portia’s death; as Cassius says:

I have as much of this in art as you,

But yet my nature could not bear it so.

(IV. iii. 194.)

At the end he casts his philosophy to the winds rather than go bound to Rome: he “bears too great a mind” (v. i. 113). And just as on these occasions he is independent or regardless of it, so here he tampers with it to get the verdict that is required. For even in his own eyes he has to play the part of the ideally wise and virtuous man; and though the obligations of descent and position, the consideration in which he is held, the urgings of a malcontent, and (as he believes not altogether without reason) the expectations formed of him by his fellow citizens, supply his real motives for the murder, he needs to give it the form of ideal virtue and wisdom before he can proceed to it.

Now, however, he persuades himself that he has the sanction of reason and conscience, and he acts on the persuasion. His hesitations are gone. He can face without wincing the horror of conspiracy. With an impassioned eloquence, which he nowhere else displays, he can lift the others to the level of his own views. No doubts or scruples becloud his enthusiasm now.

If not the face of men,

The sufferance of our souls, the time’s abuse—

If these be motives weak, break off betimes,

And every man hence to his idle bed;

So let high-sighted tyranny range on

Till each man drop by lottery.

(II. i. 114.)

His certainty has advanced by leaps and bounds. A few minutes ago there was no complaint against Caesar as he was or had been, but it could be alleged that he might or would change: now his tyranny, lighting by caprice on men, is announced as a positive fact of the future or even of the present. But by this time Brutus is assured that the plot is just and that the confederates are the pick of men, both plot and confederates so noble that for them an ordinary pledge would be an insult:

Unto bad causes swear

Such creatures as men doubt: but do not stain

The even virtue of our enterprise,

Nor the insuppressive metal of our spirits,

To think that or our cause or our performance

Did need an oath.

(II. i. 132.)

He carries them away with him. They abandon the oath; they accept all his suggestions; we feel that their thoughts are ennobled by his intervention, that, as Plutarch noted to be the effect of his fellowship, he has made them better men, at least for the time.

Meanwhile it is a devout imagination, an unconscious sophistry that lends him his power; and this brings its own Nemesis at its heels. In the future Brutus will be disillusioned of the merit of the exploit. In the present, persuading his associates of its unparalleled glory, he makes them take their measures to suit. He will not hear of the murder of Antony, for that would be bloody and unnecessary. And his clemency is based on disparagement of Antony’s abilities and contempt for his moral character. Of this “limb of Caesar,” as he calls him, “who can do no more than Caesar’s arm when Caesar’s head is off,” he cries:

Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:

If he love Caesar, all that he can do

Is to himself, take thought and die for Caesar:

And that were much he should; for he is given

To sports, to wildness and much company.

(II. i. 185.)

It is not so in Plutarch:

Brutus would not agree to it. First for that he sayd it was not honest: secondly, bicause he told them there was hope of chaunge in him. For he did not mistrust, but that Antonius being a noble minded and coragious man (when he should knowe that Caesar was dead) would willingly helpe his contrie to recover her libertie, having them an example unto him to follow their corage and vertue.

In this hope of converting a rusé libertine like Antony, there is no doubt a hint of idealism, but it is not so marked as in the high-pitched magnanimity of Shakespeare’s Brutus, who denies a man’s powers of mischief because his life is loose.

Yet though Antony would always be a source of danger, the conspirators might find compensation in the reputation for leniency they would gain, and the danger might be reduced were effective steps taken to render him innocuous. But this is only the beginning of Brutus’ mistakes. If indeed they had not begun before. With his masterful influence he has dissuaded his friends from applying to Cicero, on the ground that Cicero will not share in any scheme of which he is not the author. It may be so, but one would think it was at least an experiment well worth the trying. Apart from the authority of his years and position, there would have been the spell of his oratory; and of that they were soon to be sorely in need, again through Brutus’ crotchet that their course evinced its own virtue, and that virtue was a sufficient defence.

“The first fault that he did,” says Plutarch, “was, when he would not consent to his fellow conspirators, that Antony should be slayne: and therefore he was justly accused, that thereby he had saved a stronge and grievous enemy of their conspiracy. The second fault was when he agreed that Caesars funeralls should be as Antony would have them: the which in deede marred all.”

This hint Shakespeare works out. He sees clearly that this further blunder marred all, and heightens the folly of it in various ways. For in Plutarch the question is debated in the Senate, after it has been determined that the assassins shall be not only pardoned but honoured and after provinces have been assigned to them, Crete to Brutus, Africa to Cassius, and the like. Only then, when their victory seems complete and assured, do they discuss the obsequies.

Antonius thinking good his testament should be red openly, and also that his body should be honorably buried, and not in hugger mugger, least the people might thereby take occasion to be worse offended if they did otherwise: Cassius stowtly spake against it. But Brutus went with the motion and agreed unto it.

That is the amount of his error: that when all seemed to be going well with the faction, Antony, who had shown himself in seeming and for the time their most influential friend, commended the proposal on opportunist grounds, and Cassius opposed it, but Brutus supported it and voted with the majority. In the Play his responsibility is undivided, and all the explanatory circumstances have disappeared. He is not one member of an approving Senate, who, when the assassination seems once for all a chose jugée, accepts a suggestion, made apparently in the interests of peace and quiet, by the man to whom, more than to anyone else, the settlement of the affair is due. While the position is still critical, without any evidence of Antony’s good will, without any pressure of public opinion or any plea of political expediency, he endows the helpless suppliant with means to undo what has been done and destroy those who have done it. No wonder that Cassius when he hears Brutus giving Antony permission to speak in the market place, interrupts: “Brutus, a word with you,” and continues in the alarmed aside:

You know not what you do: do not consent

That Antony speak in his funeral:

Know you how much the people may be moved

By that which he will utter?

(III. i. 232.)

But Brutus waves his remonstrance aside. He is now so besotted by his own sophisms that he will listen to no warning. He thinks all risk will be averted by his going into the pulpit first to show the “reason” of Caesar’s death. He has quite forgotten that the one reason that he could allege to himself was merely a hazardous conclusion from doubtful premises; and this forsooth is to satisfy the citizens of Rome. But meanwhile since their deed is so irreproachable and disinterested, the conspirators must act in accordance, and show their freedom from any personal motive by giving Caesar all due rites:

It shall advantage more than do us wrong.

The infatuation is almost incredible, and it springs not only from generosity to Antony and Caesar, but from the fatal assumption of the justice of his cause, and the Quixotic exaltation the assumption brings with it.

For were it ever so just, could this be brought home to the Roman populace? Brutus, who is never an expert in facts, has been misled by the inventions of Cassius, which he mistakes for the general voice of Rome. Here, too, Shakespeare departs from his authority to make the duping of his hero more conspicuous. For in Plutarch these communications are the quite spontaneous incitements of the public, not the contrivances of one dissatisfied aristocrat.

But for Brutus, his frendes and contrie men, both by divers procurementes, and sundrie rumors of the citie, and by many bills also, did openlie call and procure him to doe that he did. For, under the image of his auncestor Junius Brutus, that drave the kinges out of Rome, they wrote: “O, that it had pleased the goddes that thou wert now alive, Brutus: and againe that thou wert with us nowe.” His tribunall (or chaire) where he gave audience during the time he was praetor, was full of such billes: “Brutus, thou art a sleepe, and art not Brutus in deede.”

All these in Plutarch are worth their face value, but in Shakespeare they are not: and it is one of the ironies of Brutus’ career that he takes them as appeals from the people when they are only the juggleries of Cassius. So far from objecting to Imperialism, the citizens when most favourable to Brutus call out, “Let him be Caesar!” “Caesar’s better parts shall be crowned in Brutus” (iii. ii. 56). This is the acme of his success and the prologue to his disillusionment.

But even if the case of the conspirators could be commended to the populace, Brutus is not the man to do it. It is comic and pathetic to hear him reassuring Cassius with the promise to speak first as though he could neutralise in advance the arts of Antony. Compare his oration with that of his rival. First, in the matter of it, there is no appeal to the imagination or passions, but an unvarnished series of arguments addressed exclusively to the logical reason. Such a speech would make little impression on an assembly of those who are called educated men, and to convince an audience like the artisans of Rome (for such was Shakespeare’s conception of the People), it is ridiculously inadequate. But the style is no less out of place. The diction is as different as possible from the free and fluent rhetoric of Antony. Shakespeare had read in Plutarch:

They do note in some of his Epistells, that he counterfeated that briefe compendious maner of speach of the Lacedaemonians. As when the warre was begonne, he wrote unto the Pergamenians in this sorte: “I understand you have geven Dolabella money; if you have done it willingly, you confesse you have offended me: if against your wills, shewe it then by geving me willinglie.” An other time againe unto the Samians: “Your counsels be long, your doinges be slowe, consider the ende.” And in an other Epistell he wrote unto[178] the Patareians: “The Xanthians despising my good wil, have made their contrie a grave of dispaire: and the Patareians that put them selves into my protection, have lost no jot of their libertie. And therefore whilest you have libertie, either choose the judgement of the Patareians, or the fortune of the Xanthians.”

Thus prompted Shakespeare makes Brutus affect the balanced structure of Euphuism. Not only in his oration. Read his words to Cassius at their first interview:

That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;

What you would work me to, I have some aim;

How I have thought of this and of these times,

I shall recount hereafter; for this present,

I would not, so with love I might entreat you,

Be any further moved. What you have said

I will consider: what you have to say

I will with patience hear, and find a time

Both meet to hear and answer such high things.

(I. ii. 161.)

Nothing could be more neat, accurate and artificial than this Euphuistic arrangement of phrases. It at once suggests the academic studious quality of Brutus’ expression whenever he gives thought to it. But it is a style unsuitable to, one might almost say incompatible with, genuine passion. So it is noteworthy that when he lets himself go in answer to Cassius and introduces the personal accent, he abandons his mannerisms. And could the symmetrical clauses of his oration move the popular heart? It has a noble ring about it, because it is sincere, with the reticence and sobriety which the sincere man is careful to observe when he is advocating his own case. But that is not the sort of thing that the Saviour of his Country, as Brutus thought himself to be, will find fit to sway a mob. Nevertheless his eloquence was notorious. Plutarch states that when his mind “was moved to followe any matter, he used a kind of forcible and vehement perswasion that calmed not till he had obteyned his desire.” There is a rush of emotion in his words when he is denouncing the conventional pledge or wanton bloodshed, but if any personal interest is involved, the springs are dry. In the Forum it is characteristic that he speaks with far more warmth—a transition indicated not only by the change of style, but, after Shakespeare’s wont, by the substitution of verse for prose—when he no longer pleads for himself but tries to get a hearing for Mark Antony.

And this is the man with his formal dialectic and professorial oratory, impassioned only on behalf of his enemy, who thinks that by a temperate statement of the course which he has seduced his reason to approve, he can prevent the perils of a speech by Caesar’s friend. He does not even wait to hear it: but if he did, what could he effect against the sophistries and rhetorical tricks, the fervour and regret, the gesticulation and tears of Antony’s headlong improvisation?

CHAPTER V
THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF BRUTUS.
PORTIA

Brutus had been doubly duped, by his own subtlety and his own simplicity in league with his conscientiousness; for in this way he was led to idealise his deed as enjoined both by the inward moral code and the demands of his country, and such self-deception avenges itself as surely as any intentional crime. He is soon disabused in regard to the wishes of Rome and its view of the alleged wrongs it has suffered from Caesar. His imagination had dwelt on the time when his ancestors drove out the Tarquin; now he himself must ride “like a madman” through the gates. It is not only the first of his reverses but a step towards his enlightenment, for it helps to show that he has been mistaken in the people. Still, the momentary mood of the populace may not always recognise its best interests and real needs, and may not coincide with the true volonté générale. There is harder than this in store for Brutus. By the time we meet him again at Sardis a worse punishment has overtaken him, and his education in disappointment has advanced, though he does his utmost to treat the punishment as fate and not to learn the lessons it enforces.

This scene has won the applause of the most dissimilar minds and generations. We have seen how Leonard Digges singles it out as the grand attraction of the play, by which, above all others, it transcends the laboured excellences of Catiline or Sejanus. It excited the admiration and rivalry of the greatest genius of the Restoration period. Scott says of the dispute between Antony and Ventidius in All for Love: “Dryden when writing this scene had unquestionably in his recollection the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, which was so justly a favourite in his time, and to which he had referred as inimitable in his prologue to Aureng-Zebe.

But spite of all his pride, a secret shame

Invades his breast at Shakespeare’s sacred name:

Awed, when he hears his godlike Romans rage,

He in a just despair would quit the stage;

And to an age less polished, more unskilled,

Does with disdain the foremost honours yield.”

In the eighteenth century Dr. Johnson, though he finds Julius Caesar as a whole “somewhat cold and unaffecting,” perhaps because Shakespeare’s “adherence to the real story and to Roman manners” has “impeded the natural vigour of his genius,” excepts particular passages and cites “the contention and reconciliation of Brutus and Cassius” as universally celebrated. And Coleridge goes beyond himself in his praise: “I know no part of Shakespeare that more impresses on me the belief of his being superhuman, than this scene between Brutus and Cassius. In the Gnostic heresy it might have been credited with less absurdity than most of their dogmas, that the Supreme had employed him to create, previously to his function of representing characters.” Yet it is not merely in the revelation of character that the scene is unique. More than any other single episode, more than all the rest together, it lays bare the significance of the story in its tragic pathos and its tragic irony. And the wonder of it is increased rather than lessened when we take note that it is a creation not out of nothing but out of chaos. For there is hardly a suggestion, hardly a detail, that Shakespeare did not find in Plutarch, but here in confused mixture, there in inert isolation, and nowhere with more than the possibilities of being organised. It is Shakespeare, who, to borrow from Milton’s description of the beginning of his Universe, “founded and conglobed like things to like, and vital virtue infused and vital warmth.”

The nucleus of this passage is found just after the account of Brutus’ exploits in Lycia.

About that tyme, Brutus sent to pray Cassius to come to the citye of Sardis, and so he did. Brutus understanding of his comming, went out to meete him with all his frendes. There both their armies being armed, they called them both Emperors. Nowe, as it commonly hapneth in great affayres betwene two persons, both of them having many friends, and so many Captaines under them; there ranne tales and complaints betwixt them. Therefore, before they fell in hand with any other matter, they went into a little chamber together, and bad every man avoyde, and did shut the dores to them. Then they beganne to powre out their complaints one to the other, and grew hot and lowde, earnestly accusing one another, and at length fell both a weeping. Their friends that were without the chamber hearing them lowde within, and angry betwene them selves, they were both amased and affrayd also lest it would grow to further matter: but yet they were commaunded that no man should come to them. Notwithstanding, one Marcus Phaonius, that had bene a friend and follower of Cato while he lived, and tooke upon him to counterfeate a Philosopher, not with wisedom and discretion, but with a certaine bedlem and frantick motion: he would needes come into the chamber, though the men offered to keepe him out. But it was no boote to let Phaonius, when a mad moode or toy tooke him in the head: for he was a hot hasty man, and sodaine in all his doings, and cared for never a Senator of them all. Now, though he used this bold manner of speeche after the profession of the Cynick Philosophers (as who would say, doggs), yet this boldnes did no hurt many times, bicause they did but laugh at him to see him so mad. This Phaonius at that time, in despite of the doore keepers, came into the chamber, and with a certain scoffing and mocking gesture which he counterfeated of purpose, he rehearsed the verses which old Nestor sayd in Homer:

My lords, I pray you harken both to mee,

For I have seene moe yeares than suchye three.

Cassius fell a-laughing at him: but Brutus thrust him out of the chamber, and called him dogge, and counterfeate Cynick. Howbeit his comming in brake their strife at that time, and so they left eche other.

Here there seems little enough to tempt the dramatist; the two generals quarrel, Phaonius bursts in, Cassius laughs at him, Brutus turns him out, but the interruption temporarily patches up a truce between them. And this petty incident is made the most pregnant in Shakespeare’s whole play; and that by apparently such simple means. To get the meaning out of it, or to read the meaning into it, he does little more, so far as the mechanical aspects of his treatment are concerned, than collect a few other notices scattered up and down the pages of his authority. He had found in an earlier digression Cassius described as

a hot cholerick and cruell man, that would often tymes be caried away from justice for gayne: it was certainly thought that he made warre, and put him selfe into sundry daungers, more to have absolute power and authoritie, than to defend the liberty of his contrie.

Again after describing Brutus’ success with the Patareians, Plutarch proceeds:

Cassius, about the selfe same tyme, after he had compelled the Rhodians every man to deliver all the ready money they had in gold and silver in their houses, the which being brought together, amounted to the summe of eyght thousande talents: yet he condemned the citie besides, to paye the summe of five hundred talents more. When Brutus in contrary manner, after he had leavyed of all the contrye of Lycia but a hundred and fiftye talents onely: he departed thence into the contrye of Ionia, and did them no more hurt.

Previously with reference to the first meeting of the fugitives after they collected their armies and before they came to Sardis at all, Plutarch narrates:

Whilst Brutus and Cassius were together in the citie of Smyrna: Brutus prayed Cassius to let him have some part of his money whereof he had great store, bicause all that he could rappe and rend of his side, he had bestowed it in making so great a number of shippes, that by meanes of them they should keepe all the sea at their commaundement. Cassius’ friendes hindered this request, and earnestly disswaded him from it: perswading him, that it was no reason that Brutus should have the money which Cassius had gotten together by sparing, and leavied with great evil will of the people their subjects, for him to bestowe liberally uppon his souldiers, and by this meanes to winne their good willes, by Cassius charge. This notwithstanding, Cassius gave him the third part of his totall summe.

Then at Sardis, but not on occasion of the dispute interrupted by Phaonius, mention is made of the affair with Pella:

The next daye after, Brutus, upon complaynt of the Sardians did condemne and noted Lucius Pella for a defamed person, that had been a Praetor of the Romanes, and whome Brutus had given charge unto: for that he was accused and convicted of robberie, and pilferie in his office. This judgement much misliked Cassius; bicause he him selfe had secretly (not many dayes before) warned two of his friends, attainted and convicted of the like offences, and openly had cleered them: but yet he did not therefore leave to employ them in any manner of service as he did before. And therefore he greatly reproved Brutus, for that he would shew him selfe so straight and seveare in such a tyme, as was meeter to beare a little, then to take thinges at the worst. Brutus in contrary manner aunswered, that he should remember the Ides of Marche, at which tyme they slue Julius Caesar: who nether pilled nor polled the contrye, but onely was a favorer and suborner of all them that did robbe and spoyle, by his countenaunce and authoritie. And if there were any occasion whereby they might honestly sette aside justice and equitie: they should have had more reason to have suffered Caesar’s friendes, to have robbed and done what wronge and injurie they had would, then to beare with their owne men. For then, sayde he, they could but have sayde they had bene cowards: “and now they may accuse us of injustice, beside the paynes we take, and the daunger we put our selves into.”

Lastly at the end of the Life of Brutus, Shakespeare would find a short notice of the death of Portia. No indication is given of the date at which this took place, except that Plutarch seems on the whole to discredit the idea that she survived her husband.

And for Porcia, Brutus’ wife: Nicolaus the Philosopher, and Valerius Maximus doe wryte, that she determining to kill her selfe (her parents and frendes carefullie looking to her to kepe her from it) tooke hot burning coles, and cast them into her mouth, and kept her mouth so close, that she choked her selfe. There was a letter of Brutus found wrytten to his frendes, complayning of their negligence, that his wife being sicke, they would not helpe her, but suffered her to kill her selfe, choosing to dye rather than to languish in paine. Thus it appeareth, that Nicolaus knewe not well that time, sith the letter (at the least if it were Brutus letter) doth plainly declare the disease and love of this Lady, as also the maner of her death.

Now in Shakespeare’s scene all these detached jottings find their predestined place, and together have an accumulated import of which Plutarch has only the remotest guess. They are so combined as to bring out at once the ideal aspect of Brutus’ deed, and its folly and disastrousness in view of the facts. He maintains his manhood under the most terrible ordeal, which is well; he clings to his illusion in the face of the clearest proof, which is not so well. He is gathering evil fruit where he looked for good, but he refuses to admit that the tree was corrupt; and of the prestige that his clear conscience confers, he still makes baneful use. He is raised to the heroic by his persistence in regarding the murder as an act of pure and disinterested justice, but for that very reason he makes his blunders, and puts himself and others in the wrong.

Perhaps indeed his loss of temper is to be ascribed to another cause. He is in a tense, over-wrought state, when the slightest thing will provoke an outbreak. In Cassius’ view his private and personal sorrow, the only one Cassius could understand, might quite well, apart from all the rest, have driven him to greater violence:

How ’scaped I killing when I cross’d you so?

(IV. iii. 150.)

No wonder he uses stinging words to his friend, taxes him most unfairly with the boast of being a better soldier, and flings aside Cassius’ temperate correction of “elder,” with the contemptuous, “If you did, I care not.” No wonder he drives out the poet, while Cassius merely laughs at him. Yet even here, though he is undoubtedly the angrier and more unreasonable in the quarrel, his moral dignity just before has saved him from an indiscretion into which Cassius falls. When the other begins to complain before the soldiers, Brutus checks him:

Cassius, be content;

Speak your griefs softly; I do know you well.

Before the eyes of both our armies here,

Which should perceive nothing but love from us,

Let us not wrangle: Bid them move away;

Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs,

And I will give you audience.

(IV. ii. 41.)

In the onset of misfortune Brutus does not forget his weightier responsibilities, though the strain of resisting it may impair his suavity. The fine balance of his nature that was overthrown by suspense, may well be shaken by his afflictions. For they are more numerous than Cassius knew and more poignant than he could understand.

Portia’s suicide with all its terrible accessories Brutus brings into relation with himself. It is absence from him, and, as his love tells him, distress at the growing power of his enemies that caused her madness. The ruin of that home life which was his native element, the agony and death of the wife he worshipped, are the direct consequences of his own act.

And with this private there has come also the public news. The proscription has already swept away seventy senators; Cicero, despite his “silver hairs,” his “judgment,” and his “gravity” being one; and the number given, according to Messala, is an understatement. Brutus had talked of each man’s dropping by lottery under Caesar’s rule, but however much Caesar had degenerated, would he have decreed a more wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter than this? Was there anything in his career as described by Brutus himself, that foreshadowed a callousness like that of the Triumvirs in pricking down and damning their victims, among them the most illustrious members of Brutus’ own class? And the perpetrators, far from injuring their cause by these atrocities, are in a position to take the field with a “mighty power.” So the civil war with all its horrors and miseries will run its full course.

But even that is not the worst. Brutus has to realise that his associates were not the men he supposed them. Their hands are not clean, their hearts are not pure, even his brother Cassius connives at corruption and has “an itching palm” himself. Even when the soi disant deliverers wield the power, what are things better than they would have been under Caesar who was at least personally free from such reproach and whose greatness entitled him to his place in front? Surely there are few more pathetic passages even in Shakespeare than the confession of disillusionment wrung from Brutus by the force of events, a confession none the less significant that he admits disillusion only as to the results and still clings to his estimate of the deed itself.

Remember March, the ides of March remember:

Did not great Julius bleed for justice’ sake?

What villain touch’d his body, that did stab,

And not for justice? What, shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world

But for supporting robbers, shall we now

Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,

And sell the mighty space of our large honours

For so much trash as may be grasped thus?

I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,

Than such a Roman.

(IV. iii. 18.)

It has come to this. In anticipating the effects of Caesar’s rule, he had said he “had rather be a villager than to repute himself a son of Rome” in the probable conditions. But his attempt at remedy has resulted in a situation even more intolerable. He would rather be a dog than such Romans as the confederates whom he sought to put in Caesar’s place are disclosing themselves to be.

It says much for his intrinsic force, that when all these things rise up in judgment against him, he can still maintain to himself and others the essential nobility of the deed that has brought about all the woe and wrong; and without any faint-hearted penitence, continue to insist that their doings must conform to his conception of what has been done: that if that conception conflicts with the facts, it is the facts that must give way. Yet on that very account he is quite impracticable and perverse, as every enthusiast for abstract justice must be, who lets himself be seduced into crime on the plea of duty, and yet shapes his course as though he were not a criminal.

Brutus has brought about an upturn of society by assassinating the one man who could organize that society. His own motives were honourable, though not so unimpeachable as he assumed, but they could not change wrong into right and they could not be taken for granted in others than himself. Now in the confusions that ensue he finds, to his horror, that revolutions are not made with rose water, that even champions of virtue have to reckon with base and dirty tools. So he condemns Pella for bribery. Cassius judges the case better. He sees that Pella is an efficient and useful officer of whose services he does not wish to be deprived. He sees that in domestic broils the leaders must not be too particular about their instruments, that, according to the old proverb, you must go into the water to catch fish. But Brutus will not go into the water. He thinks that an assassin should only have Galahads in his troops. And sometimes his offended virtue becomes even a little absurd. He is angry with Cassius for not giving him money, but listen to his speech:

I did send to you

For certain sums of gold, which you denied me:

For I can raise no money by vile means:

By heaven, I had rather coin my heart,

And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring

From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash

By any indirection: I did send

To you for gold to pay my legions,

Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius?

Should I have answer’d Caius Cassius so?

When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous

To lock such rascal counters from his friends,

Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts;

Dash him to pieces!

(IV. iii. 69.)

What does all this come to? That the superfine Brutus will not be guilty of extortion, but that Cassius may: and then Brutus will demand to share in the proceeds. All this distress and oppression are his doing, or at least the consequences of his deed, and he would wash his hands of these inevitable accompaniments. He would do this by using Cassius as his âme damnée while yet interfering in Cassius’ necessary measures with his moral rebukes.[179]

This of course is between Cassius and himself, and if Cassius chooses to submit, it is his own concern. But Brutus plays the Infallible to such purpose, that, what with his loftiness of view, his earnestness, and his marvellous fortitude, he obtains an authority over Cassius’ mind that has disastrous results. Though Cassius is both the better and the elder soldier, he must needs intermeddle with Cassius’ plan of campaign. Here, as so often, Shakespeare has no warrant for his most significant touch. Plutarch had said that Cassius, against his will, was overruled by Brutus to hazard their fortunes in a single battle. But that was afterwards, at Philippi. There is no hint that Cassius was opposed to the movement from Sardis to Philippi, and it is on this invented circumstance that Shakespeare lays most stress. In the play Brutus, in the teeth of his fellow generals’ disapproval, insists on their leaving their vantage ground on the hills, chiefly as it appears because he dislikes the impositions they are compelled to lay on the people round about:

They have grudged us contribution;

(IV. iii. 206.)

and because he has a vague belief that this is the nick of time;

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their lives

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

(IV. ii. 218.)

These are the arguments which he opposes to Cassius’ skilled strategy. He will not even listen to Cassius’ rejoinder:

Cassius.Hear me, good brother—

Brutus. Under your pardon:

(IV. iii. 212.)

and he runs on. The spiritual dictator carries his point, as he always does, and as here especially he is bound to do, when their recent trial of strength has ratified his powers afresh. Cassius is hypnotised into compliance, “Then, with your will, go on.” But Brutus is wrong. He is doing the very thing that the Triumvirs would have him do and dare not hope he will do. Octavius, when he hears of the movement, exclaims:

Now, Antony, our hopes are answered:

You said the enemy would not come down,

But keep the hills and upper regions:

It proves not so.

(V. i. 1.)

The adoption of Brutus’ plan, which he secured in part through the advantage he had gained in the quarrel, leads directly to the final catastrophe.

Here then we have the gist of the whole story. The tribulations of Brutus that ensue on his grand mistake, the wreck of his dearest affections, the butchery at Rome, the oppression of the provinces, the appalling discovery that his party is animated by selfish greed and not by righteous zeal, and that Caesar bore away the palm in character as well as ability; the dauntless resolution with which despite his vibrant sensibility he bears up against the rudest blows; the sustaining consciousness that he himself acted for the best, and the pathetic imagination even now that the rest must live up to his standard; the warrant this gives him to complete the outward ruin of the cause that already is rotten within—all this is brought home to us in a passage of little more than two hundred lines. It is not merely a masterpiece in characterisation; it at once garners the harvest of the past and sows the seeds of the future. Nor is the execution inferior to the conception; the passion of the verse, the fluctuation of the dialogue, provide the fit medium for the pregnancy and wealth of the matter.[180]

But the scene is not yet at an end. Even now we are not for a moment allowed to forget Brutus, the considerate gentleman and cultured student, in Brutus, the political pedant and the incompetent commander. We have a momentary glimpse of him with Lucius, unassuming and gentle, claiming the indulgence, consulting the comfort, tending the needs of his slave. This moving little passage is, as we have seen, entirely due to Shakespeare, and it seems to be introduced for the sake partly of the dramatic contrast with the prevailing trouble and gloom, partly of the indication it gives that Brutus is still unchanged at heart. In the stress of his suffering he may be irritable and overbearing with Cassius, but he has more than a woman’s tenderness for the boy.

His habit of reading at night is mentioned by Plutarch, but when we consider the circumstances, has it not a deeper meaning here? His love for Portia we know, but after his brief references to her death, he seems to banish her from his mind, and never, not even in his dying words, does her name cross his lips again. Is this an inadvertence on Shakespeare’s part, or an omission due to the kinship of Julius Caesar with the Chronicle History? Is it not rather that he conceives Brutus as one of those who are so bound up in their affections that they fear to face a thought of their bereavement lest they should utterly collapse? Is it fanciful to interpret that search for his book with the leaf turned down, in the light of Macaulay’s confession on the death of his sister: “Literature has saved my life and my reason; even now I dare not in the intervals of business remain alone a minute without a book”?

But this little interlude, which sets Brutus before us with all his winsome and pathetic charm, leads back to the leading motif, the destruction he has brought on himself by his own error, though he may face it like a man and keep the beauty of his soul unsoiled. Here, too, Plutarch points the way, but Shakespeare advances further in it. What he found was the following bit of hearsay:

One night very late (when all the campe tooke quiet rest) as he was in his tent with a little light, thinking of waighty matters, he thought he heard one come in to him, and casting his eye towards the doore of his tent, that he saw a wonderfull straunge and monstruous shape of a body comming towards him, and sayd never a word. So Brutus boldly asked what he was, a god, or a man, and what cause brought him thither. The spirit aunswered him, “I am thy evill spirit, Brutus, and thou shalt see me by the citie of Philippes.” Brutus beeing no otherwise affrayd, replyed again unto it: “Well, then, I shall see thee agayne.” The spirit presently vanished away: and Brutus called his men unto him, who tolde him that they heard no noyse, nor sawe any thinge at all.

Shakespeare’s Brutus is not at the outset so unconcerned as Plutarch’s. Instead of “being no otherwise affrayd,” his blood runs cold and his hair “stares.” On the other hand, he is free from the perturbation that seizes Plutarch’s Brutus when he reflects, and that drives him to tell his experience to Cassius, who “did somewhat comfort and quiet him.” The Brutus of the play breathes no word of the visitation, though it is repeated at Philippi, till a few minutes before his death, and then in all composure as a proof that the end is near, not as a horror from which he seeks deliverance. He needs not the support of another, and even in the moment of physical panic he has moral courage enough: he summons up his resolution, and when he has “taken heart” the spectre vanishes. This means, too, that it has a closer connection with his nerves, with his subjective fears and misgivings, than the “monstruous shape” in Plutarch, and similarly, though he alleges that Lucius and his attendants have cried out in their sleep, they are unaware of any feeling or cause of fright. And the significance of this is marked by the greatest change of all. Shakespeare gives a personality to Plutarch’s nameless phantom: it is individualised as the ghost of Caesar, and thus Caesar’s spirit has become Brutus’ evil genius, as Brutus had been Caesar’s angel. The symbolism explains itself, but is saved from the tameness of allegory by the superstitious dread with which it is enwrapped. The regrets and forebodings of Brutus appear before him in outward form. All day the mischievousness of his intervention has been present to his mind: now his accusing thoughts take shape in the vision of his murdered friend, and his vague presentiments of retribution at Philippi leap to consciousness in its prophetic words. But all this does not abash his soul or shake his purpose. He only hastens the morning march.

Thus he moves to his doom, and never was he so great. He is stripped of all adventitious aids. His private affections are wrecked, and the thought of his wife has become a torture. Facts have given the lie to his belief that his country has chosen him as her champion. He can no longer cherish the dream that his course has been of benefit to the Roman world. He even seems at last to recognise his own guilt, for not only does he admit the might of Caesar’s spirit in the suicide of Cassius, but when his own turn comes, his dying words sound like a proffer of expiation:

Caesar, now be still;

I kill’d not thee with half so good a will.

(V. v. 50.)

The philosophic harness in which he felt so secure, he has already found useless in the hour of need, and fit only to be cast aside. So he stands naked to the blows of fate, bereft of his love, his illusions, his self-confidence, his creed. He has to rely solely on himself, on his own nature and his own character. Moreover his nature, in so far as it means temperament, is too delicate and fine for the rough practical demands on it. Suspense is intolerable to his sensitive and eager soul. Ere the battle begins, he can hardly endure the uncertainty:

O that a man might know

The end of this day’s business ere it come!

But it sufficeth that the day will end,

And then the end is known.

(V. i. 123.)

The patience in which he tries to school himself cannot protect him from a last blunder. He gives the word too soon and his impetuosity ruins all. No doubt he is not so unsuccessful as Titinius thinks, but he has committed the unpardonable fault of fighting for his own hand without considering his partner. Thus his imprudence gives the final blow to the cause that all through he has thwarted and ennobled.

But in inward and essential matters his character victoriously stands the test, and meets all the calls that are made upon it. Even when his life-failure stares him in the face, he does not allow it a wider scope than its due, or let it disturb his faith in the purity of his motives.

I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I:

Brutus, my country’s friend.

(V. iv. 7.)

Even now he can see himself aright, and be sure of the truth of his patriotism. Even now he can prefer the glory of this “losing day” to the “vile conquest” of such men as the authors of the proscription. And he is not without more personal consolations. When none of his friends will consent to kill him, their very refusal, since it springs from love, fills his soul with triumph. It is characteristic that this satisfaction to his private affections ranks with him as supreme at the end of all.

Countrymen,

My heart doth joy that yet in all my life

I found no man but he was true to me.

(V. v. 33.)

We need not bemoan his fate: he is happy in it: indeed there is nothing that he could live for in the world of the Triumvirs, and this is what he himself desires:

My bones would rest,

That have but labour’d to attain this hour.

(V. v. 41.)

At the side of this rare and lofty nature, we see the kindred figure of his wife, similar in her noble traits, similar in her experiences, the true mate of his soul. Their relations are sketched in the merest outline, or, to be more correct, are implied rather than sketched. Only in some eighty lines of one scene do we see them together and hear them exchange words. In only one other scene does Portia appear, when we witness her tremors on the morning of the assassination. And in a third we hear of her death in detached notices, which, with the comments they call forth, barely amount to twenty lines. Yet the impression made is indelible and overpowering, not only of the lady’s own character, but of the perfect union in which she and Brutus lived. There is no obtrusion of their love: it does not exhale in direct professions. On her part, the claim to share his troubles, the solicitude for his success, the distraction because of his absence and danger; on his, the acceptance of her claim, two brief outbursts of adoration—and his reticence at her death. For he is not the man to wear his heart on his sleeve; and the more his feelings are stirred the less inclined is he to prate of them. Just as after slaying Caesar though “he loved him well,” he never alludes to the anguish he must have endured, so after his “Farewell, Portia,” he turns to the claims of life (“Well, to our work alive!”), and never even in soliloquy refers to her again. Even in the first pang of bereavement, the one hint of grief it can extort from him is the curt retort, “No man bears sorrow better.” We might fail to recognise all that it meant for him if we did not see his misery reflected in the sympathy and consternation of other men; in the hesitating reluctance of Messala, to break, as he thinks, the news; in the dismay of Cassius and his wonder at Brutus’ self-control. Cassius indeed cannot but recur to it despite the prohibition, “Speak no more of her.” When they have sat down to business his thoughts hark back to the great loss: “Portia, art thou gone?” “No more, I pray you,” repeats Brutus, who cannot brook the mention of her, and he plunges into the business of the hour.

And this woman, of whom Brutus felt that he was unworthy, and prayed to be made worthy, noble and devoted as himself, is involved too in his misfortunes. On her also a greater load is laid than she can bear. He is drawn by his political, and she by her domestic ideal into a position that overstrains the strength of each. She demands, as in Plutarch, though perhaps with father less of the dignity of the Roman matron and rather more of the yearning of the affectionate wife, to share in her husband’s secrets. She does this from no curiosity, intrusiveness or jealousy, but from her unbounded love and her exalted conception of the marriage tie. And she is confident that she can bear her part in her husband’s cares.

She has a great spirit, but it is lodged in a fragile and nervous frame. Does she make her words good? She gains her point, but her success is almost too much for her. She can endure pain but not suspense: like Brutus she is martyr to her sense of what is right. We presently find her all but ruining the conspiracy by her uncontrollable agitation. The scene where she waits in the street serves the function in the main story of heightening our excitement by means of hers, in expectation of what will presently be enacted at the Capitol; but it is even more important for the light it throws on her character. She may well confess: “I have a man’s heart, but a woman’s might.” Her feverish anxiety quite overmasters her throughout, and makes her do and say things which do not disclose the plot only because the bystanders are faithful or unobservant. She sends the boy to the senate house without telling him his errand. She meaningly bids him

take good note

What Caesar doth, what suitors press about him.

(II. iv. 15.)

She interrupts herself with the fancy that the revolt has begun. She plies the soothsayer with suspicious questions that culminate in the most indiscreet one on his wish to help Caesar:

Why, know’st thou any harm’s intended towards him?

(II. iv. 31.)

Then she almost commits herself, and has to extemporise a subterfuge, before, unable to hold out any longer, she retires on the point of fainting, though even now her love gives her strength to send a cheering message to her lord.

For her as for Brutus the burden of a duty, which she assumes by her own choice, but which one of her nature must assume, is too heavy. And in the after consequences, for which she is not directly responsible, but which none the less flow from the deed that she has encouraged and approved, it is the same inability to bear suspense, along with her craving for her husband’s presence and success, that drives her through madness to death.

CHAPTER VI
THE REMAINING CHARACTERS

Far beneath this pair are the other conspirators who rise up against the supremacy of Caesar.

Among these lower natures, Cassius is undoubtedly the most imposing and most interesting.

The main lines of his character are given in Caesar’s masterly delineation, which follows Plutarch in regard to his spareness, but in the other particulars freely elaborates the impression that Plutarch’s whole narrative produces.

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look:

He thinks too much: such men are dangerous....

He reads much;

He is a great observer, and he looks

Quite through the deeds of men; he loves no plays,

As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music;

Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort

As if he mock’d himself and scorn’d his spirit

That could be moved to smile at anything.

Such men as he be never at heart’s ease

Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,

And therefore are they very dangerous.

(I. ii. 194 and 201.)

Lean, gaunt, hungry, disinclined to sports and revelry, spending his time in reading, observation, and reflection—these are the first traits that we notice in him. He too, like Brutus, has learned the lessons of philosophy, and he finds in it the rule of life. He chides his friend for seeming to fail in the practice of it:

Of your philosophy you make no use,

If you give place to accidental evils.

(IV. iii. 145.)

And even when he admits and admires Brutus’ self-mastery, he attributes it to nature, and claims as good a philosophic discipline for himself. There is, however, a difference between them even in this point. Brutus is a Platonist with a Stoic tinge; Cassius is an Epicurean. That strikes us at first as strange, that the theory which identified pleasure with virtue should be the creed of this splenetic solitary: but it is quite in character. Epicureanism appealed to some of the noblest minds of Rome, not as a cult of enjoyment, but as a doctrine that freed them from the bonds of superstition and the degrading fear of death. This was the spirit of Lucretius, the poet of the sect:

Artis

Religionum animum nodis exsolvere pergo:

and one grand motif of his poem is the thought that this death, the dread of which makes the meanness of life, is the end of all consciousness, a refuge rather than an evil: “What ails thee so, O mortal, to let thyself loose in too feeble grievings? Why weep and wail at death?... Why not rather make an end of life and labour?” And these are the reasons that Cassius is an Epicurean. At the end, when his philosophy breaks down, he says:

You know that I held Epicurus strong

And his opinion: now I change my mind,

And partly credit things that do presage.

(V. i. 77.)

He has hitherto discredited them. And we seem to hear Lucretius in his noble utterance:

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,

Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,

Can be retentive to the strength of spirit:

But life, being weary of these worldly bars,

Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

(I. iii. 93.)

Free from all superstitious scruples and all thought of superhuman interference in the affairs of men, he stands out bold and self-reliant, confiding in his own powers, his own will, his own management:

Men at some time are masters of their fates:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

(I. ii. 139.)

And the same attitude of mind implies that he is rid of all illusions. He is not deceived by shows. He looks quite through the deeds of men. He is not taken in by Casca’s affectation of rudeness. He is not misled by Antony’s apparent frivolity. He is not even dazzled by the glamour of Brutus’ virtue, but notes its weak side and does not hesitate to play on it. Still less does Caesar’s prestige subdue his criticism. On the contrary, with malicious contempt he recalls his want of endurance in swimming and the complaints of his sick-bed, and he keenly notes his superstitious lapses. He seldom smiles and when he does it is in scorn. We only once hear of his laughing. It is at the interposition of the poet, which rouses Brutus to indignation; but the presumptuous absurdity of it tickles Cassius’ sardonic humour.

For there is no doubt that he takes pleasure in detecting the weaknesses of his fellows. He has obvious relish in the thought that if he were Brutus he would not be thus cajoled, and he finds food for satisfaction in Caesar’s merely physical defects. Yet there is as little of self-complacency as of hero-worship in the man. He turns his remorseless scrutiny on his own nature and his own cause, and neither maintains that the one is noble or the other honourable, nor denies the personal alloy in his motives. This is the purport of that strange soliloquy that at first sight seems to place Cassius in the ranks of Shakespeare’s villains along with his Iagos and Richards, rather than of the mixed characters, compact of good and evil, to whom nevertheless we feel that he is akin.

Well, Brutus, thou art noble: yet, I see,

Thy honourable metal may be wrought

From that it is disposed: therefore it is meet

That noble minds keep ever with their likes:

For who so firm that cannot be seduced?

Caesar doth bear me hard: but he loves Brutus:

If I were Brutus now and he were Cassius,

He should not humour me.

(I. ii. 312.)

It frequently happens that cynics view themselves as well as others in their meaner aspects. Probably Cassius is making the worst of his own case and is indulging that vein of self-mockery and scorn that Caesar observed in him.[181] But at any rate the lurking sense of unworthiness in himself and his purpose will be apt to increase in such a man his natural impatience of alleged superiority in his fellows. He is jealous of excellence, seeks to minimise it and will not tolerate it. It is on this characteristic that Shakespeare lays stress. Plutarch reports the saying “that Brutus could evill away with the tyrannie and that Cassius hated the tyranne, making many complayntes for the injuries he had done him”; and instances Caesar’s appropriation of some lions that Cassius had intended for the sports, as well as the affair of the city praetorship. But in the play these specific grievances are almost effaced in the vague statement, “Caesar doth bear me hard”; which implies little more than general ill-will. It is now resentment of pre-eminence that makes Cassius a malcontent. Caesar finds him “very dangerous” just because of his grudge at greatness; and his own avowal that he “would as lief not be as live to be in awe” of a thing like himself, merely puts a fairer colour on the same unamiable trait. He may represent republican liberty and equality, at least in the aristocratic acceptation, but it is on their less admirable side. His disposition is to level down, by repudiating the leader, not to level up, by learning from him. In the final results this would mean the triumph of the second best, a dull and uniform mediocrity in art, thought and politics, unbroken by the predominance of the man of genius and king of men. And it may be feared that this ideal, translated into the terms of democracy, is too frequent in our modern communities. But true freedom is not incompatible with the most loyal acknowledgment of the master-mind; witness the utterance of Browning’s Pisan republican:

The mass remains—

Keep but the model safe, new men will rise

To take its mould.

Yet notwithstanding this taint of enviousness and spite, Cassius is far from being a despicable or even an unattractive character. He may play the Devil’s Advocate in regard to individuals, but he is capable of a high enthusiasm for his cause, such as it is. We must share his calenture of excitement, as he strides about the streets in the tempest that fills Casca with superstitious dread and Cicero with discomfort at the nasty weather. His republicanism may be a narrow creed, but at least he is willing to be a martyr to it; when he hears that Caesar is to wear the crown, his resolution is prompt and Roman-like:

I know where I will wear this dagger then:

Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius.

(I. iii. 89.)

And surely at the moment of achievement, whatever was mean and sordid in the man is consumed in his prophetic rapture that fires the soul of Brutus and prolongs itself in his response.

Cassius.How many ages hence

Shall this our lofty scene be acted over

In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

Brutus. How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport

That now on Pompey’s basis lies along

No worthier than the dust![182]

(III. i. 111.)

And even to individuals if they stand the test of his mordant criticism, he can pay homage and admiration. The perception that Brutus may be worked upon is the toll he pays to his self-love, but, that settled, he can feel deep reverence and affection for Brutus’ more ideal virtue. Perhaps the best instance of it is the scene of their dispute. Brutus, as we have seen, is practically, if not theoretically, in the wrong, and certainly he is much the more violent and bitter; but Cassius submits to receive his forgiveness and to welcome his assurance that he will bear with him in future. This implies no little deference and magnanimity in one who so ill brooks a secondary role. But he does give the lead to Brutus, and in all things, even against his better judgment, yields him the primacy.

And then it is impossible not to respect his thorough efficiency. In whatsoever concerns the management of affairs and of men, he knows the right thing to do, and, when left to himself, he does it. He sees how needful Brutus is to the cause and gains him—gains him, in part by a trickery, which Shakespeare without historical warrant ascribes to him; but the trickery succeeds because he has gauged Brutus’ nature aright. He takes the correct measure of the danger from Antony, of his love for Caesar and his talents, which Brutus so contemptuously underrates. So, too, after the assassination, when Brutus says,

I know that we shall have him well to friend;

he answers,

I wish we may: but yet I have a mind

That fears him much; and my misgiving still

Falls shrewdly to the purpose.

(III. i. 144.)

Brutus seeks to win Antony with general considerations of right and justice, Cassius employs a more effective argument:

Your voice shall be as strong as any man’s

In the disposing of new dignities.

(III. i. 177.)

He altogether disapproves of the permission granted to Antony to pronounce the funeral oration. He grasps the situation when the civil war breaks out much better than Brutus:

In such a time as this it is not meet

That every nice offence should bear his comment.

(IV. iii. 7.)

His plans of the campaign are better, and he has a much better notion of conducting the battle.

All such shrewd sagacity is entitled to our respect. Yet even in this department Cassius is outdone by the unpractical Brutus, so soon as higher moral qualities are required, and the wisdom of the fox yields to the wisdom of the man. We have seen that however passionate and wrong-headed Brutus may be in their contention, he has too much sense of the becoming to wrangle in public, as Cassius begins to do. Another more conspicuous example is furnished by the way in which they bear anxiety. Shakespeare found an illustration of this in Plutarch, which he has merely dramatised.

When Caesar came out of his litter: Popilius Laena, that had talked before with Brutus and Cassius, and had prayed the goddes they might bring this enterprise to passe, went into Caesar and kept him a long time with a talke. Caesar gave good eare unto him. Wherefore the conspirators (if so they should be called) not hearing what he sayd to Caesar, but conjecturing by that he had told them a little before, that his talke was none other but the verie discoverie of their conspiracie: they were affrayed everie man of them, and one looking in an others face, it was easie to see that they all were of a minde, that it was no tarying for them till they were apprehended, but rather that they should kill them selves with their owne handes. And when Cassius and certaine other clapped their handes on their swordes under their gownes to draw them: Brutus marking the countenaunce and gesture of Laena, and considering that he did use him selfe rather like an humble and earnest suter, then like an accuser: he sayd nothing to his companions (bicause there were amongest them that were not of the conspiracie) but with a pleasaunt countenaunce encouraged Cassius. And immediatlie after, Laena went from Caesar, and kissed his hande; which shewed plainlie that it was for some matter concerning him selfe, that he had held him so long in talke.

Shakespeare, by rejecting the reason for the dumb show, is able to present this scene in dialogue, and thus bring out the contrast more vividly. Cassius believes the worst, loses his head, now hurries on Casca, now prepares for suicide. But Brutus, the disinterested man, is less swayed by personal hopes and fears, keeps his composure, urges his friend to be constant, and can calmly judge of the situation. It is the same defect of endurance that brings about Cassius’ death. Really things are shaping well for them, but he misconstrues the signs just as he has misconstrued the words of Lena, and kills himself owing to a mistake; as Messala points out:

Mistrust of good success hath done this deed.

(V. iii. 66.)

This want of inward strength explains the ascendancy which Brutus with his more dutiful and therefore more steadfast nature exercises over him, though Cassius is in many ways the more capable man of the two. They both have schooled themselves in the discipline of fortitude, Brutus in Stoic renunciation, Cassius in Epicurean independence; but in the great crises where nature asserts herself, Brutus is strong and Cassius is weak. And as often happens with men, in the supreme trial their professed creeds no longer satisfy them, and they consciously abandon them. But while Cassius in his evil fortune falls back on the superstitions[183] which he had ridiculed Caesar for adopting on his good fortune, Brutus falls back on his feeling of moral dignity, and gives himself the death which theoretically he disapproves.

Yet, when all is said and done, what a fine figure Cassius is, and how much both of love and respect he can inspire. Plutarch’s story of his death already bears witness to this, but Shakespeare with a few deeper strokes marks his own esteem.

Cassius thinking in deede that Titinius was taken of the enemies, he then spake these wordes: “Desiring too much to live, I have lived to see one of my best frendes taken, for my sake, before my face.” After that, he gote into a tent where no bodie was, and tooke Pyndarus with him, one of his freed bondmen, whom he reserved ever for suche a pinche, since the cursed battell of the Parthians, when Crassus was slaine, though he notwithstanding scaped from that overthrow; but then casting his cloke over his head, and holding out his bare neck unto Pindarus, he gave him his head to be striken of. So the head was found severed from the bodie: but after that time Pindarus was never seene more. Whereupon some tooke occasion to say that he had slaine his master without his commaundement. By and by they knew the horsemen that came towards them, and might see Titinius crowned with a garland of triumphe, who came before with great speede unto Cassius. But when he perceived by the cries and teares of his frends which tormented them selves the misfortune that had chaunced to his Captaine Cassius by mistaking; he drew out his sword, cursing him selfe a thousand times that he had taried so long, and so slue him selfe presentlie in the fielde. Brutus in the meane time came forward still, and understoode also that Cassius had bene over throwen: but he knew nothing of his death, till he came verie neere to his campe. So when he was come thither, after he had lamented the death of Cassius, calling him the last of all the Romanes, being impossible that Rome should ever breede againe so noble and valliant man as he: he caused his bodie to be buried, and sent it to the citie of Thassos, fearing least his funerals within the campe should cause great disorder.

In the play Pindarus is not yet enfranchised, and though he gains his freedom by the fatal stroke, would rather remain a slave than return to his native wilds at such a price. Titinius places his garland on the dead man’s brow, and in fond regret slays himself, not with his own but with Cassius’ sword. Brutus, with hardly a verbal change, repeats the eulogy that Plutarch puts in his mouth,

The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!

It is impossible that ever Rome

Should breed thy fellow.

But he does not stop here. Flushed with his initial success, he expects to triumph and to live, and the years to come seem darkened with grief for his “brother”:

Friends, I owe more tears

To this dead man than you shall see me pay.

I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.

(V. iii. 99.)

The minor conspirators, with the adherents of the cause and the humbler dependents, are of course sketched very slightly, as proportion requires, but they have all something to individualise them in gait or pose. Even in the crowded final act, where, as in the chronicle histories which Shakespeare was leaving behind him, a number of persons are introduced with whom we are almost or entirely unacquainted, there is no monotony in the subordinate figures. They are distinguished from or contrasted with each other in their circumstances, sentiments or fate. Thus Pindarus and Strato are both described as servants, they are both attached to their masters, they are both reluctantly compelled to assist in their masters’ death. Should we have thought it possible to differentiate them in the compass of the score or so of lines at the dramatist’s disposal? But Cassius’ slave, who, since his capture, has been kept like a dog to do whatever his owner might bid him, will not abide the issue and uses his new liberty to flee beyond the Roman world. Strato, to whom Brutus characteristically turns because he is “a fellow of a good respect” with “some snatch of honour” in his life, claims Brutus’ hand like an equal before he will hold the sword, confronts the victors with praise of the dead, hints to Messala that Brutus’ course is the one to follow, and has too much self-respect to accept employment with Octavius till Messala “prefers,” that is, recommends him.

So too with the three captains, all on the losing side, all devoted to their leaders. Titinius, who seems to feel that his love for Cassius exceeds that of Brutus

(Brutus, come apace,

And see how I regarded Caius Cassius)

will not outlive him. Lucilius is quite ready to die for his general, but spared by the generosity of Antony, survives to exult that Brutus has fulfilled his prophecy and been “like himself.” Messala, who brought word of Portia’s death, must now tell the same tale of Cassius with the same keen sympathy for Brutus’ grief; and though Strato seems to censure him for consenting to live “in bondage,” he shows no bondman’s mind when he grounds his preferment of Strato to Octavius on the fact of Strato’s having done “the latest service to my master.”

More prominent, but still in the background, are the subaltern members of the faction in Rome. Ligarius, the best of them, with his fiery enthusiasm and personal fealty to Brutus, is an excellent counterpart to the ingratiating and plausible Decius, the least erected spirit of the group. Between them comes Casca, the only one who may claim a word or two of comment, partly because he is sketched in some detail, partly because he is practically an original creation. Plutarch has only two particulars about him, the one that he was the first to strike Caesar and struck him from behind; the other that when Caesar cried out and gripped his hand, he shouted to his brother in Greek. Shakespeare, as we have seen, summarily rejects his acquaintance with Greek, but the stab in the back sets his fancy to work, and he constructs for him a character and life-history to match.

Casca is a man who shares with Cassius the jealousy of greatness—“the envious Casca,” Antony described him—but is vastly inferior to Cassius in consistency and manhood. He seems to be one of those alert, precocious natures, clever at the uptake in their youth and full of a promise that is not always fulfilled: Brutus recalls that “he was quick mettle when we went to school” (i. ii. 300). Such sprightly youngsters, when they fail, often do so from a certain lack of moral fibre. And so with Casca. He appears before us at first as the most obsequious henchman of Caesar. When Caesar calls for Calpurnia, Casca is at his elbow: “Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.” When Caesar, hearing the soothsayer’s shout, cries, “Ha! who calls?” Casca is again ready: “Bid every noise be still: peace yet again!” Cassius would never have condescended to that. For Casca resents the supremacy of Caesar as much as the proudest aristocrat of them all: he is only waiting an opportunity to throw off the mask. But meanwhile in his angry bitterness with himself and others he affects a cross-grained bluntness of speech, “puts on a tardy form,” as Cassius says, plays the satirist and misanthrope, as many others conscious of double dealing have done, and treats friend and foe with caustic brutality. But it is characteristic that he is panic-stricken with the terrors of the tempestuous night, which he ekes out with superstitious fancies. It illustrates his want both of inward robustness and of enlightened culture. We remember that Cicero’s remark in Greek was Greek to him, and that Greek was as much the language of rationalists then, as was French of the eighteenth century Philosophes. Nor is it less characteristic that even at the assassination he apparently does not dare to face his victim. Antony describes his procedure

Damned Casca, like a cur, behind

Struck Caesar on the neck.

(V. i. 43.)

Yet even Casca is not without redeeming qualities. His humour, in the account he gives of the coronation fiasco, has an undeniable flavour: its very tartness, as Cassius says, is a “sauce to his good wit.” And there is a touch of nobility in his avowal:

You speak to Casca, and to such a man

That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand:

Be factious for redress of all these griefs,

And I will set this foot of mine as far

As who goes farthest.

(I. iii. 116.)

But among those little vignettes, that of Cicero is decidedly the masterpiece. For this Shakespeare got no assistance from any of the three Lives on which he drew for the rest of the play. Indeed the one little hint they contained he did not see fit to adopt. In the Marcus Brutus Plutarch says of the conspirators:

For this cause they durst not acquaint Cicero with their conspiracie, although he was a man whome they loved dearlie and trusted best: for they were affrayed that he being a coward by nature, and age also having increased his feare, he would quite turne and alter all their purpose.

In the play their reason for leaving him out is very different:

He will never follow anything

That other men begin.

(II. i. 151.)

It seems to me, however, highly probable that Shakespeare had read the Life of Cicero and obtained his general impression from it, though he invents the particular traits. The irritable vanity and self-consciousness of the man, which Brutus’ objection implies, are, for example, prominent features in Plutarch’s portrait. So too is his aversion for Caesar and Caesarism, which makes him view the offer of the crown, abortive though it has been, as a personal offence: Brutus observes that he

Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes

As we have seen him in the Capitol

Being cross’d in conference with some senators.

(I. ii. 186.)

But he is very cautious, and even when venting his vexation in one of those biting gibes to which, by Plutarch’s statement, he was too prone, he takes care to veil it in the safe obscurity of a foreign language. “He spoke Greek ... but those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads” (i. ii. 282). This has sometimes been misinterpreted. Shakespeare has been taxed with the absurdity of making Cicero deliver a Greek speech in a popular assemblage. Surely he does nothing of the kind. It is a sally that he intends for his friends, and he takes the fit means for keeping it to them; much as St. John might talk French, if he wished to be intelligible only to those who had made the Grand Tour and so were in a manner of his own set. Plutarch lays stress on his familiarity with Greek, as also on his study of the Greek Philosophers. This may have left some trace in the description of his bearing in contrast to Casca’s, when they meet in the storm. Cool and sceptical, he cannot guess the cause of Casca’s alarm. Even when the horrors of earthquake, wind and lightning, are described in detail, he asks unmoved:

Why, saw you anything more wonderful?

(I. iii. 14.)

And after the enumeration of the portents, he critically replies:

Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:

But men may construe things after their fashion,

Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

(I. iii. 32.)

And then after a passing reference[184] to current affairs, he bids Casca good night. To him the moral of the whole tempest is: “This disturbed sky is not to walk in.” Opinions may differ as to this being the real Cicero; none will deny that it is a living type.

Apart from the main group of personages, more or less antagonistic to Caesar, stands the brilliant figure of his friend and avenger, the eloquent Mark Antony. Shakespeare conceives him as a man of genius and feeling but not of principle, resourceful and daring, ambitious of honour and power, but unscrupulous in his methods and a voluptuary in his life. Caesar tells him that he is “fond of plays” and “revels long o’ nights.” Cassius calls him a “masker and a reveller.” Brutus says that he is given “to sports, to wildness and much company.”

He makes his first appearance as the tool of Caesar. With Asiatic flattery, as though in the eastern formula, to hear were to obey, he tells his master:

When Caesar says “do this,” it is perform’d.

(I. ii. 10.)

He perceives his unspoken desires, his innermost wishes, and offers him the crown. It is no wonder that Brutus should regard him but as a “limb of Caesar,” or that Trebonius, considering him a mere time-server, should prophesy that he will “live and laugh” hereafter at Caesar’s death. But they are wrong. They do not recognise either the genuineness of the affection that underlies his ingratiating ways, or the real genius that underlies his frivolity. Here, as everywhere, Cassius’ estimate is the correct one. He fears Antony’s “ingrafted love” for Caesar, and predicts that they will find in him “a shrewd contriver.” Of the love indeed there can be no question. It is proved not only by his public utterances, which might be factitious, nor by his deeds, which might serve his private purposes, but by his words, when he is alone with his patron’s corpse.

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times.

Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!

(III. i. 254.)

It is worth noting the grounds that Antony in this solitary outburst alleges for his love of Caesar. He is moved not by gratitude for favours past or the expectation of favours to come, but solely by the supreme nobility of the dead. To the claims of nobility, in truth, Antony is always responsive and he is ready to acknowledge it in Brutus too. “This was the noblest Roman of them all”; so he begins his heartfelt tribute to his vanquished foe. This generous sympathetic strain in his nature is one of the things that make him dangerous. He is far from acting a part in his laments for Caesar. He feels the grief that he proclaims and the greatness he extols. His emotions are easily stirred, especially by worthy objects, and he has only to give them free rein to impress other people.

But along with this he has a subtle, scheming intellect; he is as much a man of policy as a man of sentiment. After the flight of Brutus and Cassius, we see him planning how he and his colleagues may cut down Caesar’s bequests, of which in his speech he had made so much; how he may shift some of the odium of his proceedings on to Lepidus’ back; how they may best arrange to meet the opposition. This mixture of feeling and diplomacy is especially shown in his words and deeds after the assassination. He does not shrink from any base compliance. His servant appears before the murderers, and at his bidding “kneels,” “falls down,” lies “prostrate” in token of submission, promising that his master will follow Brutus’ fortunes. But even here it is on the understanding that Caesar’s death shall be justified; and when he himself enters he gives his love and grief free scope.

O mighty Caesar, dost thou lie so low?

Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,

Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.

I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,

Who else must be let blood, who else is rank:

If I myself, there is no hour so fit

As Caesar’s death’s hour, nor no instrument

Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich

With the most noble blood of all this world.

I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard,

Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke,

Fulfil your pleasure. Live a thousand years,

I shall not find myself so apt to die;

No place will please me so, no mean of death,

As here by Caesar, and by you cut off,

The choice and master spirits of this age.

(III. i. 148.)

What could be more loyal on the one hand, or more discreet on the other? For, as he is well aware, if he comes to terms with the assassins at all, he is liable to an alternative accusation. Either his love for Caesar was genuine, and then his reconciliation with the murderers implies craven fear; or, if he can freely take their part, his previous homage to Caesar was mere pretence. As he himself says:

My credit now stands on such slippery ground,

That one of two bad ways you must conceit me,

Either a coward or a flatterer.

(III. i. 191.)

And what more dexterous course could he adopt than to assert his devotion to Caesar without restraint, with undiminished emphasis: and at the same time to profess his respect for the conspirators, “the choice and master spirits of this age,” and his readiness to join them if they prove that Caesar deserved to die. This honourable and reasonable attitude, which honour and reason would in reality prescribe, must especially impress Brutus, to whom Antony is careful chiefly to address himself. He enters a doubtful suppliant; at the end of the scene not only are his life and credit safe, but he has won from Brutus’ magnanimity the means to overthrow him.

It is characteristic of Antony that he has no scruple about using the vantage ground he has thus acquired. He immediately determines to employ the liberty of speech accorded him against the men who have granted it. To Octavius’ servant, who enters ere he has well ended his soliloquy, he says:

Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse

Into the market place: there shall I try,

In my oration, how the people take

The cruel issue of these bloody men.

(III. i. 291.)

He does not hesitate, though this course will involve in ruin those who have generously spared him and given him the weapons against themselves. Not even for his country’s sake will he pause, though, with his prescient imagination, he sees in all their lurid details the horrors of the

Domestic fury and fierce civil strife

(I. iii. 263.)

that must inevitably ensue.

And he effects his purpose, without any other help, by his wonderful address to the citizens. Perhaps nowhere else in History or Literature do we find the procedure of the demagogue of Genius set forth with such masterly insight. For Antony shows himself a demagogue of the most profligate description, but as undeniably the very genius of the art of moving men. Consider the enormous difficulties of his position. He is speaking under limitation and by permission before a hostile audience that will barely give him a hearing, and his task is to turn them quite round, and make them adore what they hated and hate what they adored. How does he set about it?

He begins with an acknowledgment and compliment to Brutus: “For Brutus’ sake I am beholding to you.” He disclaims the intention of even praising the dead. He cites the charge of ambition, but not to reply to it, merely to point out that any ambition has been expiated. But then he insinuates arguments on the other side: Caesar’s faithfulness and justice in friendship, the additions not to his private but to the public wealth that his victories secured, his pitifulness to the poor, his refusal of the crown. Really these things are no arguments at all. They have either nothing to do with the case, or are perfectly compatible with ambition, or may have been its very means or may have been meant to cloak it. Such indeed we know that in part at least they were. But that does not signify so far as Antony’s purpose is concerned. They were all matters well known to the public, fit to call forth proud and grateful and pleasing reminiscences of Caesar’s career. The orator has managed to praise Caesar while not professing to do so: if he does not disprove what Brutus said, yet in speaking what he does know, he manages to discredit Brutus’ authority. And now these regretful associations stirred, he can at any rate ask their tears for their former favourite. Have they lost their reason that they do not at least mourn for him they once loved? And here with a rhetorical trick, which, to his facile, emotional nature, may have also been the suggestion of real feeling, his utterance fails him; he must pause, for his “heart is in the coffin there with Caesar.”

We may be sure that whatever had happened to his heart his ear was intent to catch the murmurs of the crowd. They would satisfy him. Though he has not advanced one real argument, but has only played as it were on their sensations, their mood has changed. Some think Caesar has had wrong, some are convinced that he was not ambitious, all are now thoroughly favourable to Antony.

He begins again. And now he strikes the note of contrast between Caesar’s greatness yesterday and his impotence to-day. It is such a tragic fall as in itself might move all hearts to terror and pity. But what if the catastrophe were undeserved? Antony could prove that it was, but he will keep faith with the conspirators and refrain. Nevertheless he has the testament, though he will not read it, which, read, would show them that Caesar was their best friend.

Compassion, curiosity, selfishness are now enlisted on his side. Cries of “The will! The will!” arise. He is quick to take advantage of these. Just as he would not praise Caesar, yet did so all the same; so he refuses to read the will, for they would rise in mutiny—this is a little preliminary hint to them—if they heard that Caesar had made them his heirs.

Renewed insistence on the part of the mob, renewed coyness on the part of Antony; till at last he steps down from the pulpit, taking care to have a wide circle round him that as many as possible may see. But he does not read the will immediately. Partly with his incomparable eye to effect, partly out of the fullness of his heart (for the substance of his words is the same as in his private soliloquy), he stands rapt above the body. Caesar’s mantle recalls proud memories of the glory of Caesar and of Rome, the victory over the Barbarian.[185] And this mantle is pierced by the stabs of assassins, of Cassius, of Casca, of Brutus himself. He has now advanced so far that he can attack the man who was the idol of the mob but a few minutes before. And he makes his attack well. The very superiority of Brutus to personal claims, the very patriotism which none could appreciate better than Antony, and to which he does large justice when Brutus is no more, this very disinterestedness he turns against Brutus, and despite all he owes him, accuses him of black ingratitude. There is so much speciousness in the charge that it would be hard to rebut before a tribunal of sages: and when Antony makes his coup, withdrawing the mantle and displaying the mutilated corpse,

Kind souls, what, weep you when you but behold

Our Caesar’s vesture wounded? Look you here,

Here is himself, marr’d, as you see, with traitors:

(III. ii. 199.)

the cause of Brutus is doomed. Antony has a right to exult, and he does so. There is the triumphant pride of the artist in his art, when, on resuming, he represents Brutus as the rhetorician and himself as the unpractised speaker. He is no orator as Brutus is, and—with sublime effrontery—that was probably the reason he was permitted to address them. But

Were I Brutus

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony

Would ruffle up your spirits and put a tongue

In every wound of Caesar, that should move

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

(III. ii. 230.)

Note the last words: for though Antony feels entitled to indulge in this farcing and enjoys it thoroughly, he does not forget the serious business. He keeps recurring more and more distinctly to the suggestion of mutiny, and for mutiny the citizens are now more than fully primed. All this, moreover, he has achieved without ever playing his trump card. They have quite forgotten about the will, and indeed it is not required. But Antony thinks it well to have them beside themselves, so he calls them back for this last maddening draught.

And all the while, it will be observed, he has never answered Brutus’ charge on which he rested his whole case, that Caesar was ambitious. Yet such is the headlong flight of his eloquence, winged by genius, by passion, by craft, that his audience never perceive this. No wonder: it is apt to escape even deliberate readers.

Such a man will go fast and far. We next see him practically the ruler of Rome, swaying the triumvirate, treating Octavius as an admiring pupil whom he will tutor in the trade, ordering about or ridiculing the insignificant and imitative Lepidus.[186]

But he has the hybris of genius, unaccompanied by character and undermined by licence. It would be an anomaly if such an one were to be permanently successful. Shakespeare was by and by, though probably as yet he knew it not, to devote a whole play to the story of his downfall; here he contents himself with indicating his impending deposition and the agent who shall accomplish it. There is something ominous about the reticence, assurance, and calm self-assertion of the “stripling or springall of twenty years” as Plutarch calls Octavius. At the proscription Lepidus and even Antony are represented as consenting to the death of their kinsfolk: Octavius makes demands but no concessions. When Lepidus is ordered off on his errand, and Antony, secure in his superiority, explains his methods, Octavius listens silent with just a hint of dissent, but we feel that he is learning his lessons and will apply them in due time at his teacher’s expense. Already he appropriates the leadership. Before Philippi, Antony assigns to him the left wing and he calmly answers:

Upon the right hand I, keep thou the left.

Antony. Why do you cross me in this exigent?

Octavius. I do not cross you: but I will do so.

(V. i. 18.)

All these touches are contributed by Shakespeare, but the last is especially noticeable, because, though the words and the particular turn are his own, the incident itself is narrated not of Antony and Octavius but of their opponents.

Then Brutus prayed Cassius he might have the leading of the right winge, the whiche men thought was farre meeter for Cassius: both bicause he was the elder man, and also for that he had the better experience. But yet Cassius gave it him.

Octavius too has a higher conception of the dignity of his position. In that strange scene, another of Shakespeare’s additions, when the adversaries exchange gabs, like the heroes of the old Teutonic lays or the Chansons de Gestes, it is Antony who suggests the somewhat unseemly proceeding and it is Octavius who breaks it off. And at the close he, as it were, constitutes himself the heir of Brutus’ reputation, and assumes as a matter of course that he has the right and duty to provide for Brutus’ followers and take order for Brutus’ funeral.

All that served Brutus, I will entertain them ...

According to his virtue let us use him

With all respect and rites of burial

Within my tent his bones to-night shall lie.

(V. v. 60 and 76.)

For the first of these statements there is no warrant in Plutarch, and the second contradicts the impression his narrative produces; for in all the mention he makes of the final honours paid to Brutus, he gives the credit to Antony.

Antonius, having found Brutus bodie, he caused it to be wrapped up in one of the richest cote armors he had. Afterwards also, Antonius understanding that this cote armor was stollen, he put the theefe to death that had stollen it, and sent the ashes of his bodie to Servilia his mother.

Marcus Brutus.

And more explicitly in the Marcus Antonius:

(Antony) cast his coate armor (which was wonderfull rich and sumptuous) upon Brutus bodie, and gave commaundement to one of his slaves infranchised to defray the charge of his buriall.

By means of these additions and displacements Shakespeare shows the young Octavius with his tenacity and self-control already superseding his older and more brilliant colleague. We see in them the beginning as well as the prophecy of the end.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

CHAPTER I
POSITION OF THE PLAY AFTER THE GREAT TRAGEDIES.
SHAKESPEARE’S INTEREST IN THE SUBJECT

It may be taken as certain that Shakespeare did not at once set about continuing the story which he had brought to the end of one of its stages in Julius Caesar and of the future progress of which he had in that play given the partial programme. Antony and Cleopatra belongs to a different phase of his development.

Though not published, so far as we know, till it appeared in the Folio Edition of 1623, there is not much difficulty in finding its approximate date; and that, despite its close connection with Julius Caesar in the general march of events and in the re-employment of some of the characters, was some half-dozen years after the composition of its predecessor. The main grounds for this opinion, now almost universally accepted, are the following:

1. We learn from the Stationers’ Register that the publisher, Edward Blount, had entered a “booke called Antony and Cleopatra” on May 20th, 1608. Some critics have maintained that this could not be Shakespeare’s in view of the fact that in November, 1623, license was granted to the same Blount and the younger Jaggard, with whom he was now co-operating, to include in the collected edition the Shakespearian piece among sixteen plays of which the copies were “not formerly entered to other men.” But the objection hardly applies, as the previous entry was in Blount’s favour, and, though he is now associated with Jaggard, he may not have thought it necessary, because of a change of firm as it were, to describe himself as “another man.” Even, however, if the authorship of the 1608 play be considered doubtful, its publication is significant. For, as has often been pointed out, it was customary when a piece was successful at one theatre to produce one on a similar subject at another. The mere existence, then, of an Antony and Cleopatra in the early months of 1608, is in so far an argument that about that time the great Antony and Cleopatra was attracting attention.

2. There is evidence that in the preceding years Shakespeare was occupied with and impressed by the Life of Antony.

(a) Plutarch tells how sorely Antony took to heart what he considered the disloyalty of his followers after Actium.

He forsooke the citie and companie of his frendes, and built him a house in the sea, by the Ile of Pharos, upon certaine forced mountes which he caused to be cast into the sea, and dwelt there, as a man that banished him selfe from all mens companie; saying he would live Timons life, bicause he had the like wrong offered him, that was affore offered unto Timon: and that for the unthankefulnes of those he had done good unto, and whom he tooke to be his frendes he was angry with all men, and would trust no man.

In reference to this withdrawal of Antony’s to the Timoneon, as he called his solitary house, Plutarch inserts the story of Timon of Athens, and there is reason to believe that Shakespeare made his contributions to the play of that name just before he wrote Macbeth, about the year 1606.[187]

(b) In Macbeth itself he has utilised the Marcus Antonius probably for one passage and certainly for another. In describing the scarcity of food among the Roman army in Parthia, Plutarch says:

In the ende they were compelled to live of erbes and rootes, but they found few of them that men doe commonly eate of, and were enforced to tast of them that were never eaten before: among the which there was one that killed them, and made them out of their witts. For he that had once eaten of it, his memorye was gone from him, and he knewe no manner of thing.

Shakespeare is most likely thinking of this when after the disappearance of the witches, he makes Banquo exclaim in bewilderment:

Were such things here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten on the insane root

That takes the reason prisoner.

(I. iii. 83.)

In any case Macbeth contains an unmistakable reminiscence of the soothsayer’s warning to Antony.

He ... told Antonius plainly, that his fortune (which of it selfe was excellent good, and very great) was altogether bleamished, and obscured by Caesars fortune: and therefore he counselled him utterly to leave his company, and to get him as farre from him as he could. “For thy Demon,” said he (that is to say, the good angell and spirit that kepeth thee), “is affraied of his, and being coragious and high when he is alone, becometh fearefull and timerous when he commeth neere unto the other.”

Shakespeare was to make use of this in detail when he drew on the Life for an independent play.

O Antony, stay not by his side:

Thy demon, that’s thy spirit which keeps thee, is

Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable

Where Caesar’s is not; but, near him, thy angel

Becomes a fear, as being o’erpower’d: therefore

Make space enough between you.

(II. iii. 18.)

But already in Macbeth it suggests a simile, when the King gives words to his mistrust of Banquo:

There is none but he

Whose being I do fear: and, under him,

My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,

Mark Antony’s was by Caesar.[188]

(III. i. 54.)

More interesting and convincing is a coincidence that Malone pointed out in Chapman’s Bussy d’Ambois, which was printed in 1607, but was probably written much earlier. Bussy says to Tamyra of the terrors of Sin:

So our ignorance tames us, that we let

His[189] shadows fright us: and like empty clouds

In which our faulty apprehensions forge

The forms of dragons, lions, elephants,

When they hold no proportion, the sly charms

Of the Witch Policy makes him like a monster.

(III. i. 22.)

Compare Antony’s words:

Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish:

A vapour sometimes like a bear or lion ...

.... Here I am Antony:

Yet cannot hold this visible shape.

(IV. xiv. 2 and 13.)

It is hard to believe that there is no connection between these passages, and if there is Shakespeare must have been the debtor; but as Bussy d’Ambois was acted before 1600, this loan is without much value as a chronological indication.

3. Internal evidence likewise points to a date shortly after the composition of Macbeth.

(a) In versification especially valuable indications are furnished by the proportion of what Professor Ingram has called the light and the weak endings. By these terms he denotes the conclusion of the verse with a syllable that cannot easily or that cannot fully bear the stress which the normal scansion would lay upon it. In either case the effect is to break down the independence of the separate line as unit, and to vest the rhythm in the couplet or sequence, by forcing us on till we find an adequate resting-place. It thus has some analogy in formal prosody to enjambement, or the discrepancy between the metrical and the grammatical pause in prosody when viewed in connection with the sense. Now the employment of light and weak endings, on the one hand, and of enjambement on the other, is, generally speaking, much more frequent in the plays that are considered to be late than in those that are considered to be early. The tendency to enjambement indeed may be traced farther back and proceeds less regularly. But the laxity in regard to the endings comes with a rush and seems steadily to advance. It is first conspicuous in Antony and Cleopatra and reaches its maximum in Henry VIII. In this progress however there is one notable peculiarity. While it is unmistakable if the percentage be taken from the light and weak endings combined, or from the weak endings alone, it breaks down if the light endings be considered by themselves. Of them there is a decidedly higher proportion in Antony and Cleopatra than in Coriolanus, which nevertheless is almost universally held to be the later play. The reason probably is that the light endings mean a less revolutionary departure from the more rigid system and would therefore be the first to be attempted. When the ear had accustomed itself to them, it would be ready to accept the greater innovation. Thus the sudden outcrop of light and weak endings in Antony and Cleopatra, the preponderance of the light over the weak in that play, the increase in the total percentage of such endings and especially in the relative percentage of weak endings in the dramas that for various reasons are believed to be later, all confirm its position after Macbeth and before Coriolanus.

(b) The diction tells the same tale. Whether we admire it or no, we must admit that it is very concise, bold and difficult. Gervinus censures it as “forced, abrupt and obscure”; and it certainly makes demands on the reader. But Englishmen will rather agree with the well-known eulogy of Coleridge: “Feliciter audax is the motto for its style comparatively with that of Shakspere’s other works, even as it is the general motto of all his works compared with those of other poets. Be it remembered, too, that this happy valiancy of style is but the representative and result of all the material excellences so expressed.” But in any case, whether to be praised or blamed, it is a typical example of Shakespeare’s final manner, the manner that characterises Coriolanus and the Romances, and that shows itself only occasionally or incompletely in his preceding works.

4. A consideration of the tone of the tragedy yields similar results. It has been pointed out[190] that there is a gradual lightening in the atmosphere of Shakespeare’s plays after the composition of Othello and Lear. In them, and especially in the latter, we move in the deepest gloom. It is to them that critics point who read in Shakespeare a message of pessimism and despair. And though there are not wanting, for those who will see them, glimpses of comfort and hope even in their horror of thick darkness, it must be owned that the misery and murder of Desdemona, the torture and remorse of Othello, the persecution of Lear, the hanging of Cordelia, are more harrowing and appalling than the heart can well endure. But we are conscious of a difference in the others of the group. Though Macbeth retains our sympathy to the last, his story does not rouse our questionings as do the stories of these earlier victims. We are well content that he should expiate his crimes, and that a cleaner hand should inherit the sceptre: we recognise the justice of the retribution and hail the dawn of better times. In Coriolanus the feeling is not only of assent but of exultation. True, the tragedy ends with the hero’s death, but that is no unmitigated evil. He has won back something of his lost nobility and risen to the greatest height his nature could attain, in renouncing his revenge: after that what was there that he could live for either in Corioli or Rome?

Antony and Cleopatra has points of contact with both these plays, and shows like them that the night is on the wane. Of course in one way the view of life is still disconsolate enough. The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of life: ambitious egoism, uninspired craft and conventional propriety; these are the forces that clash in this gorgeous mêlée of the West and the East. At the outset passion holds the lists, then self-interest takes the lead, but principle never has a chance. We think of Lucifera’s palace in the Faerie Queene, with the seven deadly sins passing in arrogant gala before the marble front, and with the shifting foundations beneath, the dungeons and ruins at the rear. The superb shows of life are displayed in all their superbness and in all their vanity. In the end their worshippers are exposed as their dupes. Antony is a cloud and a dream, Cleopatra no better than “a maid that milks and does the meanest chares”: yet she sees that it is “paltry to be Caesar,” and hears Antony mock at Caesar’s luck. Whatever the goal, it is a futile one, and the objects of human desire are shown on their seamy side. We seem to lose sight of ideals, and idealism would be out of place. Even the passing reference to Shakespeare’s own art shows a dissipation of the glamour. In Julius Caesar Brutus and Cassius had looked forward to an immortality of glory on the stage and evidently regard the theatre as equal to the highest demands, but now to Cleopatra it is only an affair of vulgar makeshifts that parodies what it presents.

I shall see

Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness

I’ the posture of a whore.

(V. ii. 219.)

In so far the impression produced is a cheerless one, and Gervinus has gone so far as to say: “There is no great or noble character among the personages, no really elevated feature in the action of this drama whether in its politics or its love affairs.” This is excessive: but it is true that, as in Timon, the suggestion for which came from the same source and the composition of which may be dated a short time before, no very spiritual note is struck and no very dutiful figure is to the fore. And the background is a lurid one. “A world-catastrophe!” says Dr. Brandes, “(Shakespeare) has no mind now to write of anything else. What is sounding in his ears, what is filling his thoughts, is the crash of a world falling in ruins.... The might of Rome, stern and austere, shivered at the touch of Eastern voluptuousness. Everything sank, everything fell,—character and will, dominions and principalities, men and women. Everything was worm-eaten, serpent-bitten, poisoned by sensuality—everything tottered and collapsed.”

Yet though the sultry splendours of the scenes seem to blast rather than foster, though the air is laden with pestilence, and none of the protagonists has escaped the infection, the total effect is anything but depressing. As in Macbeth we accept without demur the penalty exacted for the offence. As in Coriolanus we welcome the magnanimity that the offenders recover or achieve at the close. If there is less of acquiescence in vindicated justice than in the first, if there is less of elation at the triumph of the nobler self than in the second, there is yet something of both. In this respect too it seems to stand between them and we cannot be far wrong if we place it shortly after the one and shortly before the other, near the end of 1607.

And that means too that it comes near the end of Shakespeare’s tragic period, when his four chief tragedies were already composed and when he was well aware of all the requirements of the tragic art. In his quartet of masterpieces he was free to fulfil these requirements without let or hindrance, for he was elaborating material that claimed no particular reverence from him. But now he turns once more to authorised history and in doing so once more submits to the limitations that in his practice authorised history imposed. Why he did so it is of course impossible to say. It was a famous story, accessible to the English public in some form or other from the days of Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, and at an early age Shakespeare was attracted by it, or at least was conversant with Cleopatra’s reputation as one of the world’s paragons of beauty. In Romeo and Juliet Mercutio includes her in his list of those, Dido, Hero, Thisbe and the rest, who in Romeo’s eyes are nothing to his Rosaline; compared with that lady he finds “Cleopatra a gipsy.”[191] And so indeed she was, for gipsy at first meant nothing else than Egyptian, and Skelton, in his Garland of Laurel, swearing by St. Mary of Egypt, exclaims:

By Mary gipcy,

Quod scripsi scripsi.

But in current belief the black-haired, tawny vagrants, who, from the commencement of the sixteenth century, despite cruel enactments cruelly enforced, began to swarm into England, were of Egyptian stock. And precisely in this there lay a paradox and riddle, for according to conventional ideas they were anything but comely, and yet it was a matter of common fame that a great Roman had thrown away rule, honour and duty in reckless adoration of the queen of the race. Perhaps Shakespeare had this typical instance in his mind when in Midsummer Night’s Dream he talks of the madness of the lover who

Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.

(V. i. 11.)

For to the end the poet ignores the purity of Cleopatra’s Greek descent, and seems by many touches to imagine her as of the same type as those undesirable immigrants against whom the penal laws were of so little avail. Nevertheless he accepts the fact of her charm, and, in As You Like It, among the contributions which the “Heavenly Synod” levied on the supreme examples of womankind for the equipment of Rosalind, specifies “Cleopatra’s majesty.”[192] It is not the quality on which he was afterwards to lay stress, it is not the quality that Plutarch accentuates, nor is it likely to have been suggested by the gipsies he had seen. But there was another source on which he may have drawn. Next to the story of Julius Caesar, the story of Antony and Cleopatra was perhaps the prerogative Roman theme among the dramatists of the sixteenth century[193] and was associated with such illustrious personages as Jodelle and Garnier in France, and the Countess of Pembroke and Daniel in England. It is, as we have seen, highly probable that Shakespeare had read the versions of his compatriots at any rate, and their dignified harangues are just of the kind to produce the impression of loftiness and state.

Be that as it may, Cleopatra was a familiar name to Shakespeare when he began seriously to immerse himself in her history. We can understand how it would stir his heart as it filled in and corrected his previous vague surmises. What a revelation of her witchcraft would be that glowing picture of her progress when, careless and calculating, she condescended to obey the summons of the Roman conqueror and answer the charge that she had helped Brutus in his campaign.

When she was sent unto by divers letters, both from Antonius him selfe and also from his frendes, she made so light of it, and mocked Antonius so much, that she disdained to set forward otherwise, but to take her barge in the river of Cydnus, the poope whereof was of gold, the sailes of purple, and the owers of silver, which kept stroke in rowing after the sounde of the musicke of flutes, howboyes, citherns, violls, and such other instruments as they played upon in the barge. And now for the person of her selfe: she was layed under a pavillion of cloth-of-gold of tissue, apparelled and attired like the goddesse Venus, commonly drawen in picture: and hard by her, on either hand of her, pretie faire boyes apparelled as painters doe set forth god Cupide, with little fannes in their hands, with which they fanned wind upon her. Her ladies and gentlewomen also, the fairest of them were apparelled like the nymphes Nereides (which are the mermaides of the waters) and like the Graces, some stearing the helme, others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of which there came a wonderfull passing sweete savor of perfumes, that perfumed the wharfes side pestered[194] with innumerable multitudes of people. Some of them followed the barge all alongest the rivers side: others also ranne out of the citie to see her comming in. So that in the end, there ranne such multitudes of people one after an other to see her, that Antonius was left post alone in the market place, in his Imperiall seate to geve audience: and there went a rumor in the peoples mouthes that the goddesse Venus was come to play with the god Bacchus,[195] for the generall good of all Asia. When Cleopatra landed, Antonius sent to invite her to supper with him. But she sent him word againe, he should doe better rather to come and suppe with her. Antonius therefore to shew him selfe curteous unto her at her arrivall, was contented to obey her, and went to supper to her: where he found such passing sumptuous fare that no tongue can expresse it.

Only by a few touches has Shakespeare excelled his copy in the words of Enobarbus: but he has merely heightened and nowhere altered the effect.

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold:

Purple the sails and so perfumed that

The winds were love-sick with them: the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggar’d all description: she did lie

In her pavilion—cloth-of-gold of tissue—

O’er picturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature: on each side her

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids

With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,

And what they undid did

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides

So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes

And made their bends adornings: at the helm

A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle

Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands

That yarely frame the office. From the barge

A strange invisible perfume hits the sense

Of the adjacent wharfs: and Antony,

Enthroned i’ the market-place, did sit alone,

Whistling the air: which, but for vacancy,

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

And made a gap in nature....

Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,

Invited her to supper: she replied

It should be better he became her guest;

Which she entreated: our courteous Antony,

Whom ne’er the word of “No” woman heard speak,

Being barber’d ten times o’er, goes to the feast

And for his ordinary pays his heart

For what his eyes eat only.

(II. ii. 196.)

And the impression of all this magnificence had not faded from Shakespeare’s mind when in after years he wrote his Cymbeline. Imogen’s chamber

is hang’d

With tapestry of silk and silver; the story

Proud Cleopatra, when she met her Roman,

And Cydnus swell’d above the banks, or for

The press of boats or pride.[196]

(II. iv. 68.)

But it was not only the prodigality of charm that would enthral the poet. In the relation of the lovers, in the character of Cleopatra, in the nature of her ascendancy, there is something that reminds us of the story of passion enshrined in the Sonnets. No doubt it is uncertain whether these in detail are to be regarded as biographical, but biographical they are at the core, at least in the sense that they are authentic utterance of feelings actually experienced. No doubt, too, the balance of evidence points to their composition, at least in the parts that deal with his unknown leman, early in Shakespeare’s career; but for that very reason the memories would be fitter to help him in interpreting the poetry of the historical record, for as Wordsworth says: “Poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity.” So once more Shakespeare may have been moved to “make old offences of affections new,” that is, to infuse the passion of his own youth into this tale of “old unhappy far-off things.” His bygone sorrows of the Sonnets come back to him when he is writing the drama, mirror themselves in some of the situations and sentiments, and echo in the wording of a few of the lines. It is of course easy to exaggerate the importance of these reminiscences. The Dark Lady has been described as the original of Cleopatra, but the original of Cleopatra is the Cleopatra of Plutarch, and in many ways she is unlike the temptress of the poet. She is dowered with a marvellous beauty which all from Enobarbus to Octavius acknowledge, while the other is “foul” in all eyes save those of her lover; her face “hath not the power to make love groan”; and in her there is no hint of Cleopatra’s royalty of soul. Nor is the devotion of Antony the devotion of the sonneteer; it is far more absolute and unquestioning, it is also far more comrade-like and sympathetic; at first he exults in it without shame, and never till the last distracted days does suspicion or contempt enter his heart. Still less is his passing spasm of jealousy at the close like the chronic jealousy of the poet. It is a vengeful frenzy that must find other outlets as well as the self-accusing remonstrances and impotent rebukes of the lyrical complaints. The resemblance between sonnets and play is confined to the single feature that they both tell the story of an unlawful passion for a dark woman—for this was Shakespeare’s fixed idea in regard to Cleopatra—whose character and reputation were stained, whose influence was pernicious, and whose fatal spells depended largely on her arts and intellect. But this was enough to give Shakespeare, as it were, a personal insight into the case, and a personal interest in it, to furnish him with the key of the situation and place him at the centre.

And there was another point of contact between the author and the hero of the tragedy. It is stated in Plutarch’s account of Antony: “Some say that he lived three and fiftie yeares: and others say six and fiftie.” But the action begins a decade, or (for, as we shall see, there is a jumbling of dates in the opening scenes like that which we have noted in the corresponding ones of Julius Caesar) more than a decade before the final catastrophe. Thus Shakespeare would imagine Antony at the outset as between forty-two and forty-six, practically on the same niveau of life as himself, for in 1607-1608 he was in his forty-fourth year. They had reached the same stadium in their career, had the same general outlook on the future, had their great triumphs behind them, and yet with powers hardly impaired they both could say,

Though grey

Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha’ we

A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can

Get goal for goal of youth.

(IV. viii. 19.)

There would be a general sympathy of attitude, and it even extends to something in the poet himself analogous to the headlong ardour of Antony. In the years that had elapsed since Shakespeare gave the first instalment of his story in Julius Caesar, a certain change had been proceeding in his art. The present drama belongs to a different epoch of his authorship, an epoch not of less force but of less restrained force, an epoch when he works perhaps with less austerity of stroke and less intellectualism, but—strange that it should be so in advancing years—with more abandonment to the suggestions of imagination and passion. In all these respects the fortunes of Antony and Cleopatra would offer him a fit material. In the second as compared with the first Roman play, there is certainly no decline. The subject is different, the point of view is different, the treatment is different, but subject, point of view and treatment all harmonise with each other, and the whole in its kind is as great as could be.

Perhaps some such considerations may explain why Shakespeare, after he had been for seven years expatiating on the heights of free tragic invention, yet returned for a time to a theme which, with his ideas of loyalty to recorded fact, dragged him back in some measure to the embarrassments of the chronicle history. It was all so congenial, that he was willing to face the disadvantages of an action that straggled over years and continents, of a multiplicity of short scenes that in the third act rise to a total of thirteen and in the fourth to a total of fifteen, of a number of episodic personages who appear without preparation and vanish almost without note. He had to lay his account with this if he dramatised these transactions at all, for to him they were serious matters that his fancy must not be allowed to distort. Indeed he accepts the conditions so unreservedly, and makes so little effort to evade them, that his mind seems to have taken the ply, and he resorts to the meagre, episodical scene, not only when Plutarch’s narrative suggests it, but when he is making additions of his own and when no very obvious advantage is to be secured. This is the only explanation that readily presents itself for the fourth scene of the second act, which in ten lines describes Lepidus’ leave-taking of Mecaenas and Agrippa.[197] There is for this no authority in the Life; and what object does it serve? It may indicate on the one hand the punctilious deference that Octavius’ ministers deem fit to show as yet to the incompetent Triumvir, and on the other his lack of efficient energy in allowing his private purposes to make him two days late at the rendezvous which he himself has advocated as urgent. But these hints could quite well have been conveyed in some other way, and this invented scene seems theatrically and dramatically quite otiose. Nevertheless, and this is the point to observe, it so fits into the pattern of the chronicle play that it does not force itself on one’s notice as superfluous.

It is partly for this reason that Antony and Cleopatra holds its distinctive place among Shakespeare’s masterpieces. On the one hand there is no play that springs more spontaneously out of the heart of its author, and into which he has breathed a larger portion of his inspiration; and on the other there is none that is more purely historical, so that in this respect it is comparable among the Roman dramas to Richard II. in the English series. This was the double characteristic that Coleridge emphasised in his Notes on Shakespeare’s Plays: “There is not one in which he has followed history so minutely, and yet there are few in which he impresses the notion of angelic strength so much—perhaps none in which he impresses it more strongly. This is greatly owing to the manner in which the fiery force is sustained throughout, and to the numerous momentary flashes of nature counteracting the historical abstraction.” The angelic strength, the fiery force, the flashes of nature are due to his complete sympathy with the facts, but that makes his close adherence to his authority all the more remarkable.

CHAPTER II
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA,
A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, AND LOVE POEM;
AS SHOWN BY ITS RELATIONS WITH PLUTARCH

The obligations to Plutarch, though very great, are of a somewhat peculiar kind. Shakespeare does not borrow so largely or so repeatedly from the diction of North as in Coriolanus or even in Julius Caesar. His literal indebtedness is for the most part confined to the exploitation here and there of a few short phrases or sentences, generally of a not very distinctive character. Thus Octavia is described as “having an excellent grace, wisedom and honestie, joined unto so rare a beawtie”; which suggests her “beauty, wisdom, modesty,” in the play (ii. ii. 246). Thus, after the scourging of Thyreus, Antony sends Caesar the message:

“If this mislike thee,” said he, “thou hast Hipparchus[198] one of my infranchised bondmen with thee: hang him if thou wilt, or whippe him at thy pleasure, that we may cry quittaunce.”

This becomes:

If he mislike

My speech and what is done, tell him he has

Hipparchus, my enfranchised bondman, whom

He may at pleasure whip, or hang, or torture,

As he shall like, to quit me.

(III. xiii. 147.)

So, too, Plutarch says of Dolabella’s disclosure to Cleopatra:

He sent her word secretly as she had requested him, that Caesar determined to take his journey through Suria, and that within three dayes he would sende her away before with her children.

The words are closely copied in Dolabella’s statement:

Caesar through Syria

Intends his journey, and within three days

You with your children will he send before:

Make your best use of this: I have perform’d

Your pleasure and my promise.

(V. ii. 200.)

It is only now and then that such small loans stand out as examples of the “happy valiancy of style” that characterises the drama as a whole. For instance, at the end when Cleopatra is dead and Charmian has applied the asp, the brief interchange of question and answer which Plutarch reports could not be bettered even by Shakespeare.

One of the souldiers seeing her, angrily sayd unto her: “Is that well done, Charmion?” “Verie well,” sayd she againe, “and meete for a Princes discended from a race of so many noble Kings.”

Shakespeare knows when he is well off and accepts the goods the gods provide.

1st Guard.Charmian, is this well done?

Charmian. It is well done and fitting for a princess

Descended from so many royal kings.

(V. ii. 238.)

Perhaps the noblest and one of the closest of these paraphrases is in the scene of Antony’s death. With his last breath he persuades her

that she should not lament nor sorowe for the miserable chaunge of his fortune at the end of his dayes: but rather that she should thinke him the more fortunate, for the former triumphes and honors he had received, considering that while he lived he was the noblest and greatest Prince of the world, and that now he was overcome, not cowardly but valiantly, a Romane by an other Romane.

Shakespeare’s Antony says:

The miserable change now at my end

Lament nor sorrow at: but please your thoughts

In feeding them with those my former fortunes

Wherein I lived, the greatest prince o’ the world,

The noblest: and do now not basely die,

Not cowardly put off my helmet to

My countryman,—a Roman by a Roman

Valiantly vanquish’d.

(IV. xv. 51.)

As a rule, however, even these short reproductions are not transcripts. Shakespeare’s usual method is illustrated in his recast of Antony’s pathetic protest to Caesar that

he made him angrie with him, bicause he shewed him selfe prowde and disdainfull towards him, and now specially when he was easie to be angered, by reason of his present miserie.

Shakespeare gives a more bitter poignancy to the confession.

Look, thou say

He makes me angry with him, for he seems

Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,

Not what he knew I was: he makes me angry;

And at this time most easy ’tis to do ’t,

When my good stars, that were my former guides,

Have empty left their orbs, and shot their fires

Into the abysm of hell.

(III. xiii. 140.)

Much the same estimate holds good of the longer passages derived from North, which for the rest are but few. The most literal are as a rule comparatively unimportant. A typical specimen is the list of complaints made by Antony against Octavius, and Octavius’ rejoinder:

And the chiefest poyntes of his accusations he charged him with, were these: First, that having spoyled Sextus Pompeius in Sicile, he did not give him his parte of the Ile. Secondly, that he did deteyne in his handes the shippes he lent him to make that warre. Thirdly, that having put Lepidus their companion and triumvirate out of his part of the Empire, and having deprived him of all honors: he retayned for him selfe the lands and revenues thereof, which had been assigned to him for his part.... Octavius Caesar aunswered him againe: that for Lepidus, he had in deede deposed him, and taken his part of the Empire from him, bicause he did overcruelly use his authoritie. And secondly, for the conquests he had made by force of armes, he was contented Antonius should have his part of them, so that he would likewise let him have his part of Armenia.

Shakespeare copies even Caesar’s convenient reticence as to the borrowed vessels.

Agrippa.Who does he accuse?

Caesar. Caesar: and that, having in Sicily

Sextus Pompeius spoil’d, we have not rated him

His part o’ the isle: then does he say, he lent me

Some shipping unrestored: lastly, he frets

That Lepidus of the triumvirate

Should be deposed; and, being, that we detain

All his revenue.

Agrippa. Sir, this should be answer’d.

Caesar. ’Tis done already, and the messenger gone.

I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel:

That he his high authority abused,

And did deserve his change: for what I have conquer’d

I grant him part: but then, in his Armenia,

And other of his conquer’d kingdoms, I

Demand the like.

(III. vi. 23.)

Less matter-of-fact, because more vibrant with its fanfare of names, but still somewhat of the nature of an official schedule, is the list of tributaries in Antony’s host.

(He) had with him to ayde him these kinges and subjects following: Bocchus king of Lybia, Tarcondemus king of high Cilicia, Archelaus king of Cappadocia, Philadelphus king of Paphlagonia, Mithridates king of Comagena, and Adallas king of Thracia. All the which were there every man in person. The residue that were absent sent their armies, as Polemon king of Pont, Manchus king of Arabia, Herodes king of Iury; and furthermore, Amyntas king of Lycaonia, and of the Galatians: and besides all these he had all the ayde the king of Medes sent unto him.

The long bead-roll of shadowy potentates evidently delights Shakespeare’s ear as it would have delighted the ear of Milton or Victor Hugo[199]:

He hath assembled

Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus

Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos king

Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;

King Malchus of Arabia; king of Pont;

Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king

Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,

The kings of Mede and Lycaonia,

With a more larger list of sceptres.

(III. vi. 68.)

Still, of the longer passages that show throughout a real approximation to North’s language, the two already quoted, the soothsayer’s warning to Antony, and the description of Cleopatra on the Cydnus are the most impressive: and even they, and especially the latter, have been touched up and revised. Shakespeare’s general procedure in the cases where he borrows at all is a good deal freer, and may be better illustrated from the passage in which Octavius recalls the bygone fortitude of Antony.

These two Consuls (Hircius and Pansa) together with Caesar, who also had an armye, went against Antonius that beseeged the citie of Modena, and there overthrew him in battell: but both the Consuls were slaine there. Antonius flying upon this overthrowe, fell into great miserie all at once: but the chiefest want of all other, and that pinched him most, was famine. Howbeit he was of such a strong nature, that by pacience he would overcome any adversitie, and the heavier fortune lay upon him, the more constant shewed he him selfe.... It was a wonderfull example to the souldiers, to see Antonius that was brought up in all finenes and superfluitie, so easily to drink puddle water, and to eate wild frutes and rootes: and moreover it is reported, that even as they passed the Alpes, they did eate the barcks of trees, and such beasts, as never man tasted of their flesh before.

This is good, but Shakespeare’s version visualises as well as heightens Antony’s straits and endurance, and brings them into contrast with his later effeminacy.

When thou once

Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew’st

Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel

Did famine follow: whom thou fought’st against,

Though daintily brought up, with patience more

Than savages could suffer: thou didst drink

The stale of horses, and the gilded puddle

Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did deign

The roughest berry on the rudest hedge:

Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,

The barks of trees thou browsed’st; on the Alps

It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,

Which some did die to look on: and all this—

It wounds thine honour that I speak it now—

Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek

So much as lank’d not.

(I. iv. 56.)

But including such elaborations, the number of passages repeated or recast from North is not considerable. In the whole of the first act this description of the retreat from Modena is the only one of any consequence, and though the percentage increases as the play proceeds, and they are much more frequent in the second half, even in the fifth act, the proportion of easily traceable lines is fifty-seven to four hundred and forty-six, or barely more than an eighth.

Much more numerous and generally much more noteworthy than the strictly verbal suggestions are those that, conveyed altogether in Shakespeare’s phrase, give such immediate life to the play, whether they supply episodes for acting or merely material for the dialogue. Sometimes a whole paragraph is distilled into a sentence, like that famous bit of domestic chit-chat that must have impressed Plutarch when a boy.

I have heard my grandfather Lampryas report, that one Philotas a Physition, born in the citie of Amphissa, told him that he was at the present time in Alexandria, and studied physicke: and that having acquaintance with one of Antonius cookes, he tooke him with him to Antonius house, (being a young man desirous to see things) to shew him the wonderfull sumptuous charge and preparation of one only supper. When he was in the kitchin, and saw a world of diversities of meates, and amongst others eight wilde boares rosted whole: he began to wonder at it, and sayd, “Sure you have a great number of ghestes to supper.” The cooke fell a-laughing, and answered him: “No,” (quoth he), “not many ghestes, nor above twelve in all: but yet all that is boyled or roasted must be served in whole, or else it would be marred straight. For Antonius peradventure will suppe presently, or it may be in a pretie while hence, or likely enough he will deferre it longer, for that he hath dronke well to-day, or else hath had some other great matters in hand: and therefore we doe not dresse one supper only, but many suppers, bicause we are uncerteine of the houre he will suppe in.”

In what strange ways has the gossip of the inquisitive medical student been transmitted through Lampryas and his grandchild to furnish an arabesque for Shakespeare’s tapestry! And, when we know its history, what a realistic touch does this anecdote lend to Mecaenas’ badinage, though Shakespeare has raised the profuse to the sublime by transferring the banquet from the evening to the morning, suppressing the fact of the relays, and insinuating that this was nothing out of the common!

Mecaenas. Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast,

and but twelve persons there: is this true?

Enobarbus. This was but as a fly by an eagle: we had

much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily

deserved noting.

(II. ii. 183.)

Or again we are told of Cleopatra’s precautions after Actium.

Now to make proofe of those poysons which made men dye with least paine, she tried it upon condemned men in prison. For when she saw the poysons that were sodaine and vehement, and brought speedy death with grievous torments: and in contrary manner, that suche as were more milde and gentle, had not that quicke speede and force to make one dye sodainly: she afterwardes went about to prove the stinging of snakes and adders, and made some to be applied unto men in her sight, some in one sorte, and some in an other. So when she had dayly made divers and sundrie proofes, she found none of all them she had proved so fit as the biting of an Aspicke, the which only causeth a heavines of the head, without swounding or complaining, and bringeth a great desire also to sleepe, with a little swet on the face, and so by little and little taketh away the sences and vitall powers, no living creature perceiving that the pacientes feele any paine. For they are so sorie when any bodie waketh them, and taketh them up; as those that being taken out of a sound sleepe, are very heavy and desirous to sleepe.

This leaves a trace only in three lines of Caesar’s reply when the guard detects the aspic’s trail; but these lines gain in significance if we remember the fuller statement.

Most probable

That so she died: for her physician tells me

She hath pursued conclusions infinite

Of easy ways to die.

(V. ii. 356.)

Apart from the great pivots and levers of the action Plutarch has supplied numbers of these minor fittings. Including with them the more literal loans, from which they cannot always be discriminated, we find in addition to the instances already cited the following unmistakable reminiscences: in Act i., Antony’s proposal to roam the streets with Cleopatra; in Act ii., the motive assigned for Fulvia’s rising, Antony’s ambiguous position as widower, Sextus Pompeius’ courtesy to Antony’s mother, Charmian’s description of the fishing, the conditions of peace offered to Pompey, Pompey’s flout at the seizure of his father’s house, the bantering of Antony in regard to Cleopatra, the banquet on the galley, Menas’ suggestion and Pompey’s reply; in Act iii., Ventidius’ halt in his career of victory and its reason, Octavia’s distraction between the claims of husband and brother, the overthrow of Pompey and deposition of Lepidus, the account of the coronation of Cleopatra and her children, Enobarbus’ remonstrance against Cleopatra’s presence in the armament, the allusion to the war being managed by her eunuch and her maids, the comparison of Octavius’ and Antony’s navies, the name Antoniad given to Cleopatra’s admiral, Antony’s challenge to Octavius, the soldier’s appeal to fight on land, many particulars about the battle of Actium, Antony’s dismissal of his friends with treasure, the embassage of Euphronius and Octavius’ reply, Thyreus’ commission, Antony’s renewed challenge, the birthday celebration; in Act iv., Octavius’ answer to the challenge, Antony’s disquieting speech at the banquet, the supposed departure of his divine patron, the defection of Enobarbus, the reference to the treason of Alexas and others, Antony’s successful sally, his return in triumph and embrace of Cleopatra ere he doffs his armour, her gift to the valiant soldier, the death of Enobarbus, the posting of the footmen on the hills before the final catastrophe, the presage of swallows building on Antony’s ship, the fraternization of the fleets, Antony’s rage at Cleopatra, her flight to the tomb, the message of her death, Antony’s revulsion of feeling at the news, Eros’ plighted obligation and his suicide, the mortal wound Antony gives himself, the second message from Cleopatra, his conveyance to the monument, Cleopatra’s refusal to undo the locks and her expedient of drawing him up, several particulars in the last interview, such as the commendation of Proculeius; in Act v., Dercetas’ announcement to Octavius of Antony’s death, Octavius’ reception of the tidings and his reference to their correspondence, his plans for Cleopatra, the interview of Proculeius with Cleopatra at the Monument, his unobserved entrance, the exclamation of the waiting-woman, Cleopatra’s attempted suicide, the visit of Octavius, his threats concerning Cleopatra’s children, her concealment of her treasure, the disclosure of Seleucus, her indignation at him and apology to Octavius, Octavius’ reception of it, Dolabella’s sympathy with the captive queen, the arrival of the countryman with the figs, the dressing in state, the death of Cleopatra and Iras before the soldiers enter, Charmian’s last service in adjusting the diadem, Octavius’ appreciation of Cleopatra’s courage and command for her burial beside Antony.

This enumeration shows how largely Shakespeare is indebted to Plutarch, and also how his obligations are greatest in the later portion of the play. They become conspicuous a little before the middle of the third act, and the proportion is maintained till the close; for though there are not so many in the fifth act, it is considerably shorter than the fourth or than the last eight scenes of the third.

Shakespeare however obtains from Plutarch not merely a large number of his details, but the general programme of the story and the presuppositions of the portraiture, as will appear from a short summary of Plutarch’s narrative, into which, for clearness’ sake, I insert the principal dates.

After Philippi, Antony gave himself up to a life of ostentation and luxury, interrupted by flashes of his nobler mood, first in Greece and subsequently in Asia. Then came his meeting with Cleopatra on the Cydnus, and in his passion for her all that was worthiest in his nature was smothered. Despite pressing public duties he accompanied her on her return to Alexandria, where he wasted his time in “childish sports and idle pastimes.” In the midst of his dalliance the tidings arrive with which the play opens, in 41 b.c., of the contest of his brother Lucius and his wife Fulvia, first with each other and then with Octavius, of their defeat and expulsion from Italy; as well as of the inroad of the Parthians under Labienus as far as Lydia and Ionia.

Then began Antonius with much a doe to rouse him selfe as if he had been wakened out of a deepe sleepe, and as a man may say comming out of a great dronkennes.

He sets out for Parthia, but in obedience to the urgent summons of Fulvia, changes his course for Italy. On the way he falls in with fugitives of his party who tell him that his wife was sole cause of the war and had begun it only to withdraw him from Cleopatra. Soon afterwards Fulvia, who was “going to meete with Antonius” fell sick and died at Sicyon in 40 b.c.—“by good fortune” comments Plutarch, as now the colleagues could be more easily reconciled. The friends of both were indisposed to “unrippe any olde matters” and a composition was come to whereby Antony obtained the East, Octavius the West, and Lepidus Africa. This agreement, since Antony was now a widower and “denied not that he kept Cleopatra, but so did he not confesse that he had her as his wife,” was confirmed by Antony’s marriage, which every one approved, with Octavius’ dearly loved half-sister Octavia, and it was hoped that “she should be a good meane to keepe good love and amitie betwext her brother and him.”

Meanwhile Sextus Pompeius in Sicily had been making himself troublesome with his pirate allies, and as he had showed great courtesy to Antony’s mother, it seemed good to make peace with him. An interview accordingly took place at Misenum in 39 b.c. as a result of which he was granted Sicily and Sardinia on the conditions mentioned in the play.

Antony was now able to resume his plans for punishing the Parthians and sent Ventidius against them while he still remained in Rome. But moved by the predominance of Octavius and the warning of the soothsayer, he resolved to take up his own jurisdiction, and with Octavia and their infant daughter set out for Greece, where he heard the news of Ventidius’ success in 38 b.c.

In 37 b.c., offended at some reports, he returned to Italy with Octavia, who had now a second daughter and was again with child. By her intercession good relations were restored between the brothers-in-law, each lending the other the forces of which he most stood in need. Octavius employed the borrowed ships against Sextus Pompeius, Antony was to employ the borrowed soldiers against the Parthians.

Leaving his wife and children in Octavius’ care, Antony proceeded directly to Asia.

Then beganne this pestilent plague and mischiefe of Cleopatraes love (which had slept a longe tyme and seemed to have bene utterlie forgotten and that Antonius had geven place to better counsell) againe to kindle and to be in force, so soone as Antonius came neere unto Syria.

He sends for her and to the scandal of the Romans pays her extravagant honours, showers kingdoms upon her, and designates their twin children the Sun and the Moon.

He does not, however, in seeming, neglect his expedition to Parthia, but gathers a huge and well appointed host wherewith to invade it. Nevertheless

this so great and puisant army which made the Indians quake for feare, dwelling about the contry of the Bactrians and all Asia also to tremble: served him to no purpose, and all for the love he bore to Cleopatra. For the earnest great desire he had to lye all winter with her, made him begin his warre out of due time, and for hast to put all in hazard, being so ravished and enchaunted with the sweete poyson of her love, that he had no other thought but of her, and how he might quickly returne againe: more then how he might overcome his enemies.

Not only did Antony choose the wrong season, but in his hurry he left all his heavy engines behind him and thus threw away his chances in advance. The campaign was a series of disasters and ended in an inglorious retreat. The only credit that can be given to him from beginning to end is for efficiency in misfortune and sympathy with his soldiers. Yet even these were impaired by his fatal passion.

The greate haste he made to returne unto Cleopatra, caused him to put his men to great paines, forcing them to lye in the field all winter long when it snew unreasonably, that by the way he lost eight thowsand of his men.

Arrived at the Syrian coast he awaits her coming.

And bicause she taried longer then he would have had her, he pined away for love and sorrow. So that he was at such a straight, that he wist not what to doe, and therefore to weare it out, he gave him selfe to quaffing and feasting. But he was so drowned with the love of her, that he could not abide to sit at the table till the feast were ended: but many times while others banketted, he came to the sea side to see if she were comming.

Meanwhile, in 36 b.c., during the Parthian expedition, Sextus Pompeius had been defeated, his death, not mentioned by Plutarch, following in the ensuing year, and Lepidus had been deposed by Octavius, who gave no account of the spoils. On the other hand, in 34 b.c., Antony, who had overrun and seized Armenia, celebrated his triumph not in Rome but in Alexandria.

Grievances were thus accumulating on both sides, and Octavia once more seeking to mediate, took ship to join her husband with the approval of Octavius, who foresaw the upshot, and regarded it as likely to put his brother-in-law in the wrong.

Antony bade her stop at Athens, promising to come to her, but afterwards, fearing lest Cleopatra should kill herself for grief, he broke tryst, and Octavia returned to Rome where she watched over his interests as best she might. Antony in the meantime accompanied Cleopatra to Egypt and gave the Romans new offence by paying her divine honours and parcelling out the East among her and her children.

Then came the interchange of uncompromising messages in 33 b.c., and Antony bade Octavia leave his house. The appeal to arms was inevitable, and as the taxation to which Octavius was compelled to resort in view of his rival’s great preparation roused general discontent, it was Antony’s cue to invade Italy. But he continued to squander his time in feasts and revels, and in such and other ways further alienated his friends in Rome.

In 32 b.c. Octavius declared war against Cleopatra, and had Antony deprived of his authority. The battle of Actium followed on the 2nd September, 31 b.c. But Antony, after his retirement to Egypt, in some measure recovered from his first despondency at the defeat, and even when he found himself forsaken by allies and troops, continued to live a life of desperate gaiety. After an ignominious attempt at negotiation and a flicker of futile success, the final desertion of his fleet, for which he blamed Cleopatra, put an end to his resistance, and he killed himself in 30 b.c., less, however, in despair at his overthrow than for grief at Cleopatra’s alleged death.

(He) said unto him selfe: “What doest thou looke for further, Antonius, sith spitefull fortune hath taken from thee the only joy thou haddest, for whom thou yet reservedst thy life.”

After mentioning how Antony’s son, Antyllus, and Cleopatra’s son, Caesarion, were betrayed to death by their governors, Plutarch describes how Cleopatra for a while is deterred from suicide chiefly by fears for her other children. Hearing, however, Octavius’ definite plans for her, she obtains leave to offer a last oblation at Antony’s tomb, and thereafter takes her own life. The biography concludes with a notice of Octavia’s care for all Antony’s children, not only Fulvia’s and her own, but those of whom Cleopatra was mother.

It will be seen from this sketch that no incidents of political importance are added, few are altered, and very few omitted by Shakespeare. Of course the dramatic form necessitates a certain concentration, and this of itself, even were there no farther motive, would account for the occasional synchronising of separate episodes. Thus the news of Fulvia’s death and Sextus Pompeius’ aggression is run together with the news of the wars of Fulvia and Lucius and the advance of the Parthians. Thus between the second marriage and the final breach it was convenient to condense matters, and, in doing this, to omit Antony’s flying visit to Italy, blend Octavia’s first and second attempts at mediation, and represent her as taking leave of her husband at Athens. In the same way the months between the battle of Actium and the death of Antony, and the days between the death of Antony and that of Cleopatra might easily be compressed without any hurt to the sentiment of the story. But even of this artistic license Shakespeare avails himself far less systematically than in Julius Caesar. There, as we saw, the action is crowded into five days, though with considerable intervals between some of them. There is no such arrangement in Antony and Cleopatra. Superficially this play is one of the most invertebrate in structure that Shakespeare ever wrote. It gives one the impression of an anxious desire to avoid tampering with the facts and their relations even when history does not furnish ready-made the material that bests fits the drama.

And in the main this impression is correct. Shakespeare supplies a panorama of some ten eventful years in which he can not only cite his chapter and verse for most of the official data, but reproduces, with amazing fidelity, the general contour of the historical landscape, in so far as it was visible from his point of view. And yet his allegiance to the letter has often been exaggerated and is to a great extent illusory. This does not mean merely that his picture fails to approve itself as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, when tested by the investigations of modern scholars. His position and circumstances were not theirs. He took Plutarch’s Marcus Antonius as his chief and almost sole authority, resorting possibly for suggestions of situation and phrase to the Senecan tragedies on the same theme, probably for the descriptions of Egypt to Holland’s translation of Pliny or Cory’s translation of Leo, and almost certainly for many details about Sextus Pompeius[200] to the 1578 version of Appian; but always treating the Life not only as his inexhaustible storehouse, but as sufficient guarantee for any statement that it contained. In short he could give the history of the time, not as it was but as Plutarch represented it, and as Plutarch’s representation explained itself to an Elizabethan. It is hardly to his discredit if he underestimates Cleopatra’s political astuteness, and has no guess of the political projects that recent criticism has ascribed to Antony, for of these things his author has little to say. It is hardly to his credit, if, on Appian’s hint, he realises the importance of Sextus Pompeius’ insular position and naval power, for he lived in the days of Hawkins and Drake.

But he is not slavishly literal even in his adherence to Plutarch. He adopts his essential and many of his subsidiary facts: he follows his lead in the broad course of events; he does not alter the main lines of the story. But it is surprising to find how persistently he rearranges and regroups the minor details, and how by this means he gives them a new significance. The portions of the play where he has made the narrative more compact are also, roughly speaking, those in which he has taken most liberties in dislocating the sequence, and the result is not merely greater conciseness but an original interpretation. Yet on the other hand we must not either misconstrue the meaning or overstate the importance of this procedure. In the first place it affects not so much the history of events as the portraiture of the persons. In the second place, even in the characterisation it generally adds vividness and depth to the presentation rather than alters the fundamental traits. Thus in Plutarch the soothsayer’s warning to Antony follows, in Shakespeare it precedes, the composition with Pompey. From the chronicler’s point of view this transposition is abundantly unimportant, but it does make a difference in our estimate of Antony: his consequent decision shows more levity and rashness in the play than in the biography. Yet in both his whole behaviour at this juncture is distinctly fickle and indiscreet; so the net result of the displacement is to sharpen the lines that Plutarch has already drawn. And this is true in a greater or less degree of most of the cases in which Shakespeare reshuffles Plutarch’s notes. On the whole, despite dramatic parallax and changed perspective, Antony and Cleopatra is astonishingly faithful to the facts as they were supposed to be. Shakespeare could hardly have done more in getting to the heart of Plutarch’s account, and in reconstructing it with all its vital and essential characteristics disentangled and combined afresh in their rational connection. And since after all Plutarch “meant right” this implies that Shakespeare is not only true to Plutarch, but virtually true to what is still considered the spirit of his subject.[201]

Indeed his most far-reaching modifications concern in the main the manner in which the persons appeal to our sympathies, and in which he wishes us to envisage their story; and these perhaps in a preliminary view can better be indicated by what he has suppressed than by what he has added or recast. There is one conspicuous omission that shows how he deals with character; there are several minor ones that in their sum show how he prescribes the outlook.

To begin with the former, it is impossible not to be struck by the complete deletion of the Parthian fiasco, which in Plutarch occupies nearly a fifth of the whole Life, or a fourth of the part with which Shakespeare deals in this play. It thus bulks large in Antony’s career, and though in the main it may be unsuitable for dramatic purposes, it is nevertheless connected in its beginning, conduct and close, with the story of his love for Cleopatra. Yet we have only one far off and euphemistic reference to it in the words of Eros, when Antony bids him strike.

The gods withhold me!

Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts,

Though enemy, lost aim, and could not?

(IV. xiv. 69.)

Why this reticence in regard to one of the most ambitious enterprises with which the name of Antony was associated? The truth is that the whole management of the campaign detracts grievously from the glamour of “absolute soldiership” with which the dramatist surrounds his hero and through which he wishes us to view him. His silence in regard to it is thus a hint of one far-reaching and momentous change Shakespeare has made in the impression the story conveys, and that is in the character of Antony himself. In the biography he is by no means so grandiose a figure, so opulent and magnificent a nature, as he appears in the play. Gervinus sums up the salient features of Plutarch’s Antony in the following sentence:

A man who had grown up in the wild companionship of a Curio and a Clodius, who had gone through the high school of debauchery in Greece and Asia, who had shocked everybody in Rome during Caesar’s dictatorship by his vulgar excesses, who had made himself popular among the soldiers by drinking with them and encouraging their low amours, a man upon whom the odium of the proscriptions under the rule of the triumvirate especially fell, who displayed a cannibal pleasure over Cicero’s bloody head and hand, who afterwards renewed in the East the wanton life of his youth, and robbed in grand style to maintain the vilest gang of parasites and jugglers, such a man depicted finally as the prey of an elderly and artful courtesan, could not possibly have been made the object of dramatic interest. It is wonderful how Shakespeare on the one hand preserved the historic features of Antony’s character, so as not to make him unrecognisable, and yet how he contrived on the other to render him an attractive personage.

The array of charges Gervinus compiles from Plutarch is not exaggerated. Indeed it could be enlarged and emphasised. Dishonesty in money matters, jealousy of his subordinates, an occasional lack of generalship that almost becomes inefficiency, might be added to the list. But Plutarch’s picture contains other traits that he does not seek to reconcile with those that repel us, but drops in casually and by the way: and in Shakespeare these are brought to the front. Valour, endurance, generosity, versatility, resourcefulness, self-knowledge, frankness, simplicity after a fashion, width of outlook, power of self-recovery, are all attributed to Antony even by his first biographer, though these qualities are overweighted by the mass of his delinquencies. Shakespeare shows them in relief; while the more offensive characteristics, like his youthful licentiousness, are relegated to his bygone past, or, like his jealousy and vindictiveness, are merely suggested by subordinate strokes, such as the break in Ventidius’ triumphant campaign, or the merciless scourging of Thyreus. It is sometimes said that Shakespeare’s Brutus is historically correct and that his Mark Antony is a new creation. The opposite statement would be nearer the truth. We feel that both the biographer and the dramatist have given a portrait of Cleopatra’s lover, and that both portraits are like; but the one painter has been content with a collection of vivid traits which in their general effect are ignoble and repulsive: the other in a sense has idealised his model, but it is by reading the soul of greatness through the sordid details, and explaining them by the conception of Antony, not perhaps at his best but at his grandest. He is still, though fallen, the Antony who at Caesar’s death could alter the course of history; a dissolute intriguer no doubt, but a man of genius, a man of enthusiasms, one who is equal or all but equal to the highest occasion the world can present, and who, if he fails owing to the lack of steadfast principle and virile will that results from voluptuous indulgence and unscrupulous practisings, yet remains fascinating and magnificent even in his ruin. And by means of this transfiguration, Shakespeare is able to lend absorbing interest to his delineation of this gifted, complex, and faulty soul, and to rouse the deepest sympathy for his fate. Despite his loyalty to the historical record he lifts his argument above the level of the Chronicle History, and makes it a true tragedy. In its deference for facts, Antony and Cleopatra is to be ranked with such pieces as Richard II. and Henry VIII., but in its real essence it claims another position. “The highest praise, or rather the highest form of praise, of this play,” says Coleridge, “is the doubt which the perusal always occasions in me, whether Antony and Cleopatra is not, in all exhibitions of a giant power in its strength and vigour of maturity, a formidable rival of Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, and Othello.”

In another aspect the more obvious of the minor omissions are in their general tendency not less typical of the way in which Shakespeare deals with his subject. For what are those that strike us at first sight? To begin with, many instances of Octavia’s devotion, constancy and principle are passed over, and she is placed very much in the shade. Then there is no reference to the children that sprang from her union with Antony, indeed their existence is by implication denied, and she seems to be introduced as another Iseult of the White Hands. Antony cries to Cleopatra,

Have I my pillow left unpress’d in Rome,

Forborne the getting of a lawful race,

And by a gem of women, to be abused

By one that looks on feeders?

(III. xiii. 106.)

Further, the tragic stories of Antony’s son Antyllus and of Cleopatra’s son Caesarion are left unused, Antyllus not being mentioned at all, Caesarion only by the way; though Daniel does not scruple to include both accessories within the narrower limits of a Senecan tragedy. More noticeable still, however, is the indifference with which the children of Antony and Cleopatra are dismissed. They are barely alluded to, though the Queen’s anxiety for their preservation, which supplies acceptable matter not only to Daniel but to Jodelle and Garnier, is avouched by Plutarch’s statement and driven home by North’s vigorous phrase. Plutarch describes her distress of body and mind after Antony’s death and her own capture.

She fell into a fever withal: whereof she was very glad, hoping thereby to have good colour to absteine from meate, and that so she might have dyed easely without any trouble.... But Caesar mistrusted the matter, by many conjectures he had, and therefore did put her in feare, and threatned her to put her children to shameful death. With these threats Cleopatra for feare yelded straight, as she would have yelded unto strokes; and afterwards suffred her selfe to be cured and dieted as they listed.

Shakespeare makes no use of this save in the warning of Octavius:

If you seek

To lay on me a cruelty, by taking

Antony’s course, you shall bereave yourself

Of my good purposes, and put your children

To that destruction which I’ll guard them from,

If thereon you rely.

(V. ii. 128.)

But here the threat is significant of Octavius’ character, not of Cleopatra’s, who makes no reply to it, and remains absolutely unaffected by it. Indeed she shows more sense of motherhood in her dying reference to the asp as “her baby at her breast,” than in all the previous play.

It cannot be doubted that the effect of all these omissions is to concentrate the attention on the purely personal relations of the lovers. And the prominence assigned to them also appears if we compare the Life and the drama as a whole.

It will be noted that in direct quotation, in incident and allusion, in general structure, Shakespeare owes far more to his authority in the last half of the play than in the first: for the closer observance of, and the larger loans from, the biography begin with the central scenes of the third act. But it is at this stage of the narrative that Cleopatra, for a while in the background, once more becomes the paramount person; and few are the allusions to her from the period of Actium that Shakespeare suffers to escape him. Moreover such independent additions as there are in the latter portion of the play, have mostly to do with her; and in six of the invented scenes in the earlier acts she has the chief or at least a leading role. Clearly, when she is in evidence, Shakespeare feels least need to supplement, and when she is absent he has to fill in the gap. And this is significant of his whole conception. Gervinus tries to express the contrast between the Antony of Plutarch and the Antony of Shakespeare by means of a comparison. “We are inclined,” he writes, “to designate the ennobling transformation which the poet undertook by one word: he refined the crude features of Mark Antony into the character of an Alcibiades.” In a way that is not ill said, so far as it goes; but it omits perhaps the most essential point. The great thing about Shakespeare’s Antony is his capacity for a grand passion. We cannot talk of Alcibiades as a typical lover in the literature of the world, but Antony has a good right to his place in the “Seintes Legende of Cupyde.” When three-quarters of a century after Shakespeare Dryden ventured to rehandle the theme in the noble play that almost justifies the audacity of his attempt, he called his version, All for Love or the World well lost. We have something of the same feeling in reading Shakespeare, and we do not have it in reading Plutarch. Plutarch has no eyes for the glory of Antony’s madness. He gives the facts or traditions that Shakespeare reproduced, but he regards the whole affair as a pitiable dotage, or, at best, as a calamitous visitation—regards it in short much as the Anti-Shakesperians do now. After describing the dangerous tendencies in Antony’s mixed nature, he introduces his account of the meeting at the Cydnus, with the deliberate statement which the rest of his story merely works out in detail:

Antonius being thus inclined, the last and extreamest mischiefe of all other (to wit, the love of Cleopatra) lighted on him, who did waken and stirre up many vices yet hidden in him, and were never seene to any; and if any sparke of goodnesse or hope of rising were left him, Cleopatra quenched it straight and made it worse than before.

Similarly his final verdict in the Comparison of Demetrius and Marcus Antonius is unrelenting:

Cleopatra oftentimes unarmed Antonius, and intised him to her, making him lose matters of importaunce, and verie needeful jorneys, to come and be dandled with her about the rivers of Canobus and Taphosiris. In the ende as Paris fledde from battell and went to hide him selfe in Helens armes; even so did he in Cleopatras armes, or to speak more properlie, Paris hidde him selfe in Helens closet, but Antonius to followe Cleopatra, fledde and lost the victorie.... He slue him selfe (to confesse a troth) cowardly and miserably.

Shakespeare by no means neglects this aspect of the case, as Dryden tends to do, and he could never have taken Dryden’s title for his play. Nevertheless, while agreeing with Plutarch, he agrees with Dryden too. To him Antony’s devotion to Cleopatra is the grand fact in his career, which bears witness to his greatness as well as to his littleness, and is at once his perdition and his apotheosis. And so in the third place this is a love tragedy, and has its relations with Romeo and Juliet and Troilus and Cressida, the only other attempts that Shakespeare made in this kind: as is indicated even in their designations. For these are the only plays that are named after two persons, and the reason is that in a true love story both the lovers have equal rights. The symbol for it is an ellipse with two foci not a circle with a single centre.[202]

It has sometimes been pointed out that what is generally considered the chief tragic theme and what was an almost indispensable ingredient in the classic drama of France, is very seldom the Leit-motif of a Greek or a Shakespearian masterpiece. In this triad however Shakespeare has made use of it, and it is interesting to note the differences of treatment in the various members of the group. In Romeo and Juliet he idealises youthful love with its raptures, its wonders, its overthrow in collision with the harsh facts of life. Troilus and Cressida shows the inward dissolution of such love when it is unworthily bestowed, and suffers from want of reverence and loftiness. In Antony and Cleopatra love is not a revelation as in the first, nor an illusion as in the second, but an infatuation. There is nothing youthful about it, whether as adoration or inexperience. It is the love that seizes the elderly man of the world, the trained mistress of arts, and does this, as it would seem, to cajole and destroy them both. It is in one aspect the love that Bacon describes in his essay with that title.

He that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas. For whosoever esteemeth too much of Amorous Affection quitteth both Riches and Wisedom. This Passion hath his Flouds in the very times of Weaknesse, which are great Prosperitie and great Adversitie, though this latter hath beene lesse observed. Both which times kindle Love, and make it more fervent, and therefore shew it to be the Childe of Folly. They doe best, who, if they cannot but admit Love, yet make it keepe Quarter, And sever it wholly from their serious Affaires and Actions of life; For if it checke once with Businesse, it troubleth Men’s Fortunes, and maketh Men that they can no wayes be true to their owne Ends.... In Life it doth much mischiefe, Sometimes like a Syren, Sometimes like a Fury. You may observe that amongst all the great and worthy Persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either Ancient or Recent), there is not One that hath beene transported to the mad degree of Love; which shewes that great Spirits and great Businesse doe keepe out this weake Passion. You must except, never the lesse, Marcus Antonius the halfe partner of the Empire of Rome.

Part Siren, part Fury, that in truth is precisely how Plutarch would personify the love of Antony: and yet it is just this love that makes him memorable. Seductive and destructive in its obvious manifestations, nevertheless for the great reason that it was so engrossing and sincere, it reveals and unfolds a nobility and depth in his character, of which we should otherwise never have believed him capable.

These three aspects of this strange play, as a chronicle history, as a personal tragedy and as a love poem, merge and pass into each other, but in a certain way they successively become prominent in the following discussion.

CHAPTER III
THE ASSOCIATES OF ANTONY

The political setting of Julius Caesar had been the struggle between the Old Order and the New. The Old goes out with a final and temporary flare of success; the New asserts itself as the necessary solution for the problem of the time, but is deprived of its guiding genius who might best have elicited its possibilities for good and neutralised its possibilities for evil. In Antony and Cleopatra we see how its mastery is established and confirmed despite the faults and limitations of the smaller men who now represent it. But in the process very much has been lost. The old principle of freedom, which, even when moribund, serve to lend both the masses and the classes activity and self-consciousness, has quite disappeared. The populace has been dismissed from the scene, and, whenever casually mentioned, it is only with contempt. Octavius describes it:

This common body,

Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,

Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,

To rot itself with motion.

(I. iv. 44.)

Antony has passed so far from the sphere of his oratorical triumph, that he thinks of his late supporters only as “the shouting plebeians,” who cheapen their sight-seeing “for poor’st diminutives, for doits” (iv. xiii. 33). His foreign Queen has been taught his scorn of the Imperial people, and pictures them as “mechanic slaves, with greasy aprons, rules, and hammers,” and with “their thick breaths, rank of gross diet” (v. ii. 208). Beyond these insults there is no reference to the plebs, except that, as we learn from Octavius, he and Antony have both notified it of their respective grievances against each other; but this is a mere formality that has not the slightest effect on the progress of events, and no citizen or group of citizens has part in the play.

Even the idea of the State is in abeyance. The sense of the majesty of Rome, which inspired both the conspirators and their opponents, seems extinct. No enterprise, whether right or wrong, is undertaken in the name of patriotism. On the very outposts of the Empire, where, in conflict with the national foe, the love of country is apt to burn more clearly than amidst the security and altercation of the capital, we see a general, in the moment of victory, swayed in part by affection for his patron, in part by care for his own interest, but not in the slightest degree by civic or even chivalrous considerations. When Ventidius is urged by Silius to pursue his advantage against the Parthians, he replies that he has done enough:

Who does i’ the wars more than his captain can

Becomes his captain’s captain: and ambition,

The soldier’s virtue, rather makes choice of loss,

Than gain which darkens him.

I could do more to do Antonius good,

But ’twould offend him; and in his offence

Should my performance perish.

(III. i. 21.)

And not only is Silius convinced; he gives his full approval to Ventidius’ policy:

Thou hast, Ventidius, that

Without the which a soldier, and his sword,

Grants scarce distinction.

(III. i. 27.)

Are things better with Octavius’ understrappers? They serve him well and astutely, but there is no hint that their service is prompted by any large public aim, and its very efficacy is due in great measure to its unscrupulousness. Agrippa and Mecaenas are ready for politic reasons to suggest or support the marriage of the chaste and gentle Octavia with a voluptuary like Mark Antony, whose record they know perfectly well, and pay decorous attentions to Lepidus while mocking him behind his back: Thyreus and Proculeius make love to the employment, when Octavius commissions them to cajole and deceive Cleopatra; Dolabella produces the pleasantest impression, just because, owing to a little natural manly feeling, he palters with his prescribed obligations to his master. But in none of them all is there a trace of any liberal or generous conception of duty; they are human instruments, more or less efficient, more or less trustworthy, who make their career by serving the purposes of Octavius’ personal ambition.

Or turn to the court of Alexandria with its effeminacy, wine-bibbing, and gluttony. Sextus Pompeius talks of its “field of feasts,” its “epicurean cooks,” its “cloyless sauce” (ii. i. 22, et seq.). Antony palliates his neglect of the message from Rome with the excuse that, having newly feasted three kings, he did “want of what he was i’ the morning” (ii. ii. 76). But even in the morning, as Cleopatra recalls, he can be drunk to bed ere the ninth hour, and then let himself be clad in female garb (ii. v. 21).

It is not indeed to Egypt that this intemperance is confined. The contagion has spread to the West, as we see from the picture of the orgy on board the galley at Misenum; a picture we may take in a special way to convey Shakespeare’s idea of the conditions, since he had no authority for it, but freely worked it up from Plutarch’s innocent statement that Pompey gave the first of the series of banquets on board his admiral galley, “and there he welcomed them and made them great cheere.” But in the play all the boon companions, and not merely the home-comers from the East, cup each other till the world goes round; save only the sober Octavius, and even he admits that his tongue “splits what it speaks.” “This is not yet an Alexandrian feast,” says Pompey. “It ripens towards it,” answers Antony (ii. vii. 102). It ripens towards it indeed; but more in the way of crude excess than of curious corruption. In that the palace of the Ptolemies with its eunuchs and fortune-tellers, its male and female time-servers and hangers-on, is still inimitable and unchallenged. It is interesting to note how Shakespeare fills in the previous history of Iras and Charmian, whom Plutarch barely mentions till he tells of their heroic death. In the drama they are introduced at first as the products of a life from which all modesty is banished by reckless luxury and smart frivolity. Their conversation in the second scene serves to show the unabashed protervitas that has infected souls capable of high loyalty and devotion.[203] And their intimate is the absolutely contemptible Lord Alexas, with his lubricity, officiousness and flatteries, who, when evil days come, will persuade Herod of Jewry to forsake the cause of his patrons and will earn his due reward (iv. vi. 12). For there is no moral cement to hold together this ruinous world. After Actium the deserters are so numerous that Octavius can say:

Within our files there are,

Of those that served Mark Antony but late,

Enough to fetch him in.

(IV. i. 12.)

There is not even decent delay in their apostasy. The battle is hardly over when six tributary kings show “the way of yielding” to Canidius, who at once renders his legions and his horse to Caesar (iii. x. 33). Shakespeare heightens Plutarch’s statement in regard to this, for in point of fact Canidius waited seven days on the chance that Antony might rejoin them, and then, according to Plutarch, merely fled without changing sides: but the object is to set forth the universal demoralisation and instability, and petty qualifications like that implied in the week’s delay or abandonment of the post instead of desertion to the enemy are dismissed as of no account. In another addition, for which he has likewise no warrant, Shakespeare clothes the prevalent temper in words. When Pompey rejects the unscrupulous device to obtain the empire, Menas is made to exclaim:

For this,

I’ll never follow thy pall’d fortunes more.

(II. vii. 87.)

Menas is a pirate, but he speaks the thought of the time; for it is only to fortune that the whole generation is faithful. Everywhere the cult of material good prevails, whether in the way of acquisition or enjoyment; and that can give no sanction to payment of service apart from the results.

The corroding influence of the Zeitgeist even on natures naturally honest and sound is vividly illustrated in the story of Enobarbus: and the study of his character is peculiarly interesting and instructive, because he is the only one of the more prominent personages who is practically a new creation in the drama, the only one in whose delineation Shakespeare has gone quite beyond the limits supplied by Plutarch, even while making use of them. Lepidus and Pompey, with whom he proceeds in a somewhat similar fashion, are mere subordinates. Octavius and even Cleopatra are only interpreted with new vividness and insight. Antony himself is exhibited only with the threads of his nature transposed, as, for example, when a fabric is held up with its right side instead of its seamy side outwards. But for Enobarbus, who often occupies the front of the stage, the dramatist found only a few detached sentences that suggested a few isolated traits, and while preserving these intact, he introduces them merely as component elements in an entirely original and complex personality. It is therefore fair to suppose that the character of Enobarbus will be of peculiar importance in the economy of the piece.

Plutarch refers to him thrice. The first mention is not very noticeable. Antony, during his campaign in Parthia, had on one occasion to announce to his army a rather disgraceful composition with the enemy, according to which he received permission to retreat in peace.

But though he had an excellent tongue at will, and very gallant to enterteine his souldiers and men of warre, and that he could passingly well do it, as well, or better then any Captaine in his time, yet being ashamed for respects, he would not speake unto them at his removing, but willed Domitius Ænobarbus to do it.

Thus we see Enobarbus designated for a somewhat invidious and trying task, and this implies Antony’s confidence in him, and his own efficiency.

Then we are told that when the rupture with Caesar came,

Antonius, through the perswasions of Domitius, commaunded Cleopatra to returne againe into Ægypt, and there to understand[204] the successe of this warre,

a command, which, however, she managed to overrule. Here again in Enobarbus’ counsel we see the hard-headed and honest officer, who wishes things to be done in the right way, and risks ill-will to have them so done. It is on this passage that Shakespeare bases the outburst of Cleopatra and the downright and sensible remonstrance of Enobarbus.

Cle. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.

Eno. But why, why, why?

Cle. Thou hast forespoke my being in these wars,

And say’st it is not fit.

Eno. Well, is it, is it?

(III. vii. 1.)

More remotely too this gave Shakespeare the hint for Enobarbus’ other censures on Antony’s conduct of the campaign.

Thirdly, in the account of the various misfortunes that befell Antony before Actium, and the varying moods in which he confronted them, Shakespeare read:

Furthermore, he dealt very friendely and courteously with Domitius, and against Cleopatraes mynde. For, he being sicke of an agewe when he went and tooke a little boate to goe to Caesars campe, Antonius was very sory for it, but yet he sent after him all his caryage, trayne and men: and the same Domitius, as though he gave him to understand that he repented his open treason, he died immediately after.

This, of course, supplied Shakespeare with the episodes of Enobarbus’ desertion and death, though he altered the date of the first, delaying it till the last flicker of Antony’s fortune; and the manner of the second, making it the consequence, which the penitent deliberately desires, of a broken heart.

But this is all that Plutarch has to say about the soldier. He is capable; he is honest and bold in recommending the right course; when Antony wilfully follows the wrong one, he forsakes him; but, touched perhaps by his magnanimity, dies, it may be, in remorse.

Now see how Shakespeare fills in and adds to this general outline. Practical intelligence, outspoken honesty, real capacity for feeling, are still the fundamental traits, and we have evidence of them all from the outset. But, in the first place, they have received a peculiar turn from the habits of the camp. Antony, rebuking and excusing his bluntness, says:

Thou art a soldier only, speak no more.

(II. ii. 109.)

Indeed he is a soldier, if not only, at any rate chiefly and essentially; and a soldier of the adventurer type, carrying with him an initial suggestion of the more modern gentlemen of fortune like Le Balafré or Dugald Dalgetty, who would fight for any cause, and offered their services for the highest reward to the leader most likely to secure it for them. He has also their ideas of a soldier’s pleasures, and has no fancy for playing the ascetic. In Alexandria he has had a good time, in his own sphere and in his own way indulging in the feasts and carouses and gallantries of his master. He tells Mecaenas, thoroughly associating himself with the exploits of Antony:

We did sleep day out of countenance, and made the night light with drinking.

(II. ii. 181.)

He speaks with authority of the immortal breakfast at which the eight wild boars were served, but makes little of it as by no means out of the way. Similarly he identifies himself with Antony in their love affairs when Antony announces his intention of setting out at once:

Why, then, we kill all our women: we see how mortal an unkindness is to them: if they suffer our departure, death’s the word.

(I. ii. 137.)

And after the banquet on the galley, when the exalted personages, “these great fellows,” as Menas calls them, have retired more than a little disguised in liquor, he, fresh from the Egyptian Bacchanals, stays behind to finish up the night in Menas’ cabin.

Yet he has a certain contempt for the very vices in which he himself shares, at least if their practitioners are overcome by them and cannot retain their self-command even in their indulgence. When Lepidus succumbs, this more seasoned vessel jeers at him:

There’s a strong fellow, Menas!

[pointing to the attendant who carries off Lepidus.]

Men. Why?

Eno. A’ bears the third part of the world, man: see’st not?

(II. vii. 95.)

Nor does he suffer love to interfere with business:

Under a compelling occasion, let women die: it were pity to cast them away for nothing: though, between them and a great cause, they should be esteemed nothing.

(I. ii. 141.)

His practical shrewdness enables him, though of a very different nature from Cassius, to look, like Cassius, quite through the deeds of men. He always lays his finger on the inmost nerve of a situation or complication. Thus when Mecaenas urges the need of amity on the Triumvirs, Enobarbus’ disconcerting frankness goes straight to the point that the smooth propriety of the other evades:

If you borrow one another’s love for the instant, you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again: you shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

(II. ii. 103.)

Antony silences him, saying he wrongs this presence; but Octavius sees he has hit the nail on the head though in a somewhat indecorous way:

I do not much dislike the matter, but

The manner of his speech.

(II. ii. 113.)

Just in the same way he takes the measure of the arts and wiles and affectations of Cleopatra and her ladies, and admits no cant into the consolations which he offers Antony on Fulvia’s death:

Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice.... Your old smock brings forth a new petticoat; and indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.

(I. ii. 167.)

Yet he is by no means indifferent to real charm, to the spell of refinement, grace and beauty. Like many who profess cynicism, and even in a way are really cynical, he is all the more susceptible to what in any kind will stand his exacting tests, especially if it contrast with his own rough jostling life of the barracks and of the field. It is in his mouth that Shakespeare places that incomparable description of Cleopatra on the Cydnus, and there could be no more fitting celebrant of her witchery. Of course the poetry of the passage is supposed in part to be due to the theme, and is a tribute to Cleopatra’s fascinations; but Enobarbus has the soul to feel them and the imagination to portray them. Indeed she has no such enraptured eulogist as he. He may object to her presence in the camp and to her interference in the counsels of war; but that is only because, like Bacon, he believes that “they do best, who if they cannot but admit love, make it keep quarter, and sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life”; it is not because he underrates her enchantment or would advise Antony to forego it. On the contrary, he seems to reproach his general when, in a passing movement of remorse, Antony regrets having ever seen her:

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

(I. ii. 159.)

And he not only sees that Antony, despite the most sacred of ties, the most urgent of interests, will inevitably return to her: the enthusiasm of his words shows that their predestinate union has his full sympathy and approval.

Mec. Now Antony must leave her utterly.

Eno. Never; he will not;

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale

Her infinite variety: other women cloy

The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry

Where most she satisfies.

(II. ii. 238.)

And this responsiveness to what is gracious, has its complement in his responsiveness to what is magnificent. He has an ardent admiration for his “Emperor.” He is exceeding jealous for his honour, and has no idea of the mighty Antony stooping his crest to any power on earth. When Lepidus begs him to entreat his captain “to soft and gentle speech” towards Octavius, he retorts with hot pride and zeal, like a clansman’s for his chief:

I shall entreat him

To answer like himself: if Caesar move him,

Let Antony look over Caesar’s head

And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,

Were I the wearer of Antonius’ beard,

I would not shave’t to-day.

(II. ii. 3.)

He glories even in Antony’s more doubtful qualities, his lavishness, his luxury, his conviviality, his success in love, for in all these his master shows a sort of royal exuberance; and they serve in the eyes of this practical but splendour-loving veteran to set off his more technical excellences, the “absolute soldiership,” the “renowned knowledge” on which he also dwells (iii. vii. 43 and 46). But with all his enthusiasm for Antony, he is from the first critical of what he considers his weaknesses and mistakes, just as with all his enthusiasm for Cleopatra he has a keen eye for her affectations and interferences. Knowing Antony’s real bent, he sees the inexpedience of the Roman marriage, and foretells the result:

Men. Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.

Eno. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not

prophesy so.

Men. I think the policy of that purpose made more in the

marriage than the love of the parties.

Eno. I think so too. But you shall find, the band that

seems to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler

of their amity.

(II. vi. 122.)

He is as contemptuous of Antony’s easy emotionalism as of Octavius’ politic family affection. At the parting of brother and sister, Enobarbus and Agrippa exchange the asides:

Eno. Will Caesar weep?

Agr. He has a cloud in’s face.

Eno. He were the worse for that, were he a horse;

So is he, being a man.

Agr.Why, Enobarbus,

When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,

He cried almost to roaring: and he wept

When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.

Eno. That year, indeed, he was troubled with a rheum;

What willingly he did confound he wail’d,

Believe’t, till I wept too.

(III. ii. 51.)

It is therefore not hard to understand how, when Antony wilfully sacrifices his advantages and rushes on his ruin, his henchman’s feelings should be outraged and his fidelity should receive a shock. After the flight at Actium, Cleopatra asks him: “Is Antony or we in fault for this?” And Enobarbus, though he had opposed the presence and plans of the Queen, is inexorable in laying the blame on the right shoulders:

Antony only, that would make his will

Lord of his reason.

(III. xiii. 3.)

He is raised above the common run of the legionaries by his devotion to his master; but his devotion is half instinctive, half critical; and, as a rational man, he can suppress in his nature the faithful dog. For the tragedy of Enobarbus’ position lies in this: that in that evil time his reason can furnish him with no motive for his loyalty except self-interest and confidence in his leader’s capacity; or, failing these, the unsubstantial recompense of fame. He is not Antony’s man from principle, in order to uphold a great cause,—no one in the play has chosen his side on such a ground; and fidelity at all costs to a person is a forgotten phrase among the cosmopolitan materialists who are competing for the spoils of the Roman world. So what is he to do? His instincts pull him one way, his reason another, and in such an one instincts unjustified by reason lose half their strength. At first he fights valiantly on behalf of his inarticulate natural feeling. When Canidius deserts, he still refuses in the face of evidence to accept the example:

I’ll yet follow

The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason

Sits in the wind against me.

(III. x. 35.)

But Antony’s behaviour in defeat, his alternations between the supine and the outrageous, shake him still more; and only the allurement of future applause, not a very cogent one to such a man in such an age, wards off for a while the negative decision:

Mine honesty and I begin to square.

The loyalty well held to fools does make

Our faith mere folly: yet he that can endure

To follow with allegiance a fall’n lord

Does conquer him that did his master conquer,

And earns a place i’ the story.

(III. xiii. 41.)

The paltering of Cleopatra however is a further object lesson:

Sir, sir, thou art so leaky,

That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for

Thy dearest quit thee.

(III. xiii. 63.)

Then the observation of Antony’s frenzy of wrath and frenzy of courage finally convinces him that the man is doomed, and he forms his resolution:

Now he’ll outstare the lightning. To be furious

Is to be frighted out of fear: and in that mood

The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still

A diminution in our captain’s brain

Restores his heart: when valour preys on reason,

It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek

Some way to leave him.

(III. xiii. 195.)

There is something inevitable in his recreancy, for the principle that Menas puts in words is the presupposition on which everybody acts; and Antony himself can understand exactly what has taken place:

O, my fortunes have

Corrupted honest men!

(IV. v. 16.)

Enobarbus’ heart is right, but in the long run it has no chance against the convincing arguments of the situation. And yet his heart has shown him the worthy way, and, in his despair and remorse, it recovers hold of the truth that his head had made him doubt. Observe however that even his revulsion of feeling is brought about by the appeal to his worldly wisdom; it is not by their unassisted power that the discredited whispers of conscience make themselves heard and regain their authority. Enobarbus’ penitence, though sudden, is all rationally explained, and is quite different from the miraculous conversions of some wrong-doers in fiction, who in an instant are awakened to grace for no conceivable cause and by no intelligible means. He is made to realise that he has taken wrong measures in his own interest, by Octavius’ treatment of the other deserters.

Alexas did revolt; and went to Jewry on

Affairs of Antony; there did persuade

Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar

And leave his master Antony: for this pains

Caesar hath hang’d him. Canidius and the rest

That fell away have entertainment, but

No honourable trust. I have done ill:

Of which I do accuse myself so sorely,

That I will joy no more.

(IV. vi. 11.)

Then the transmission to him of his treasure with increase, makes him feel that after all loyalty might have been a more profitable investment:

O Antony,

Thou mine of bounty, how would’st thou have paid

My better service, when my turpitude

Thou dost so crown with gold!

(IV. vi. 31.)

But he does not stop here. It is only in this way that his judgment, trained by the time to test all things by material advantage, can be convinced. But when it is convinced, his deeper and nobler nature finds free vent in self-recrimination and self-reproach. He goes on:

This blows my heart:

If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean

Shall outstrike thought: but thought will do’t, I feel.

I fight against thee! No: I will go seek

Some ditch wherein to die; the foul’st best fits

My latter part of life.

(IV. vi. 35.)

And this too is most natural. Antony’s generosity restores to him his old impression of Antony’s magnificence which he had lost in these last sorry days. With that returns his old enthusiasm, and with that awakes the sense of his own transgression against such greatness. He is ready now in expiation to sacrifice the one thing that in the end made him still shrink from treason. He had tried to steady himself, as we have seen, with the thought that the glory of loyalty would be his, if he remained faithful to the last. Now he demands the brand of treachery for his name, though he fain would have Antony’s pardon for himself:

O Antony,

Nobler than my revolt is infamous,

Forgive me in thine own particular:

But let the world rank me in register

A master-leaver and a fugitive.

(IV. ix. 18.)

Thus he dies heart-broken and in despair. Personal attachment to an individual, the one ethical motive that lingers in a world of self-seekers to give existence some dignity and worth, is the inspiration of his soul. But even this he cannot preserve unspoiled: on accepted assumptions he is forced to deny and desecrate it. He succumbs less through his own fault than through the fault of the age; and this is his grand failure. When he realises what it means, there is no need of suicide: he is killed by “swift thought,” by the consciousness that his life with this on his record is loathsome and alien, a “very rebel to his will,” that only “hangs on him” (iv. ix. 14).

Among the struggling and contentious throng of worldlings and egoists who to succeed must tread their nobler instincts underfoot, and even so do not always succeed, are there any honest and sterling characters at all? There are a few, in the background, barely sketched, half hid from sight. But we can perceive their presence, and even distinguish their gait and bearing, though the artist’s purpose forbade their portrayal in detail.

First of these is Scarus, the simple and valiant fightingman, who resents the infatuation of Antony and the ruinous influence of Cleopatra as deeply as Enobarbus, but whose unsophisticated soldier-nature keeps him to his colours with a troth that the less naïf Enobarbus could admire but could not observe. It is from his mouth that the most opprobrious epithets are hurled on the absconding pair, the “ribaudred nag of Egypt, whom leprosy o’ertake,” and “the doting mallard,” “the noble ruin of her magic” who has kissed away kingdoms and provinces. But as soon as he hears they have fled toward Peloponnesus, he cries:

’Tis easy to’t; and there will I attend

What further comes.

(III. x. 32.)

He attends to good purpose, and is the hero of the last skirmish; when Antony’s prowess rouses him to applause, from which he is too honest to exclude reproach:

O my brave emperor, this is fought indeed!

Had we done so at first, we had droven them home

With clouts about their heads.

(IV. vii. 4.)

Then halting-bleeding, with a wound that from a T has been made an H, he still follows the chase. It is a little touch of irony, apt to be overlooked, that he, who has cursed Cleopatra’s magic and raged because kingdoms were kissed away, should now as grand reward have his merits commended to “this great fairy,” and as highest honour have leave to raise her hand—the hand that cost Thyreus so dear—to his own lips. Doubtless, despite his late outbreak, he appreciates these favours as much as the golden armour that Cleopatra adds. Says Antony,

He has deserved it, were it carbuncled

Like holy Phoebus car.

(IV. viii. 28.)

He has: for he is of other temper than his nameless and featureless original in Plutarch, who is merely a subaltern who had fought well in the sally.

Cleopatra to reward his manlines, gave him an armor and head peece of cleene gold: howbeit the man at armes when he had received this rich gift, stale away by night and went to Caesar.

Not so Scarus. He is still at his master’s side on the disastrous morrow and takes from him the last orders that Antony as commander ever gave.

In this Roman legionary the spirit of military obligation still asserts its power; and the spirit of domestic obligation is as strong in the Roman matron Octavia. Shakespeare has been accused of travestying this noble and dutiful lady. He certainly does not do that, and the strange misstatement has arisen from treating seriously Cleopatra’s distortion of the messenger’s report, or from taking that report, when the messenger follows Cleopatra’s lead, as Shakespeare’s deliberate verdict. If the messenger says that she is low-voiced and not so tall as her rival, is that equivalent to the “dull of tongue, and dwarfish” into which it is translated? And finding it so translated, is it wonderful that the browbeaten informant should henceforth adopt the same style himself, and exaggerate her deliberate motion to creeping, her statuesque dignity to torpor, the roundness of her face to deformity—which Cleopatra at once interprets as foolishness—the lowness of her forehead to as much as you please, or, in his phrase, “as she would wish it.” Agrippa, on the other hand speaks of her as one,

whose beauty claims

No worse a husband than the best of men:

Whose virtue and whose general graces speak

That which none else can utter.

(II. ii. 130.)

Mecaenas, too, pays his tribute to her “beauty, wisdom, modesty” (ii. ii. 246). And if the praises of the courtiers are suspect, they are not more so than the censures with which Cleopatra flatters herself or is flattered. But if we dismiss, or at least discount, both sets of overstatements, and with them Antony’s own phrase, “a gem of women,” uttered in the heat of jealous contrast, there are other conclusive evidences of the opinion in which she is held. Enobarbus speaks of her “holy, cold, and still conversation” (ii. vi. 131). Antony thinks of her as patient, even when he threatens Cleopatra with her vengeance by personal assault (iv. xii. 38). Cleopatra, with her finer intuition, even when recalling Antony’s threat, conjectures more justly what that vengeance would be:

Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes

And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour

Demuring upon me.

(IV. xv. 27.)

And elsewhere she asserts that she will not

once be chastised with the sober eye

Of dull Octavia.

(V. ii. 54.)

It is easy to construct her picture from these hints. Calm, pure, devout, submissive; quite without vivacity or initiative, she presents the old-fashioned ideal of womanhood, that finds a sphere subordinate though august, by the domestic hearth. And this is in the main Plutarch’s conception of her too. But there are differences. The sacrifices of the lady to the exigencies of statecraft is emphasised by the historian: “She was maryed unto him as it were of necessitie, bicause her brother Caesars affayres so required it,” and that even in her year of mourning, so that a dispensation had to be obtained; since it was “against the law that a widow should be maried within tenne monethes after her husbandes death.” Nevertheless her association with Antony is far more intimate in Plutarch than in Shakespeare; she is the mother of his children, feels bound to him, and definitely takes his side. When relations first become strained between the brothers-in-law, and not, as in the drama, just before the final breach, she plays the peace maker, but successfully and on Antony’s behalf. She seeks out her brother; tells him she is now the happiest woman in the world; if war should break out between them, “it is uncertaine to which of them the goddes have assigned the victorie or overthrowe. But for me, on which side soever victorie fall, my state can be but most miserable still.” In Shakespeare this petition, eked out with reminiscences of the appeal of Blanch in King John, and with anticipations of the appeal of Volumnia in Coriolanus, is addressed to Antony, and the even balance of her sympathies is accented and reiterated in a way for which Plutarch gives no warrant.

In the Life again, even when Antony has rejoined Cleopatra, has showered provinces on her and his illegitimate children, and, after the Parthian campaign, is living with her once more, Octavia insists on seeking him out and brings him

great store of apparell for souldiers, a great number of horse, summe of money, and gifts, to bestow on his friendes and Captaines he had about him: and besides all those, she had two thowsand souldiers chosen men, all well armed, like unto the Praetors bands.

She has to return from Athens without seeing Antony, but, despite Caesar’s command, she still lives in her husband’s house, still tries to heal the division, looks after his children and promotes the business of all whom he sends to Rome.

Howbeit thereby, thinking no hurt, she did Antonius great hurt. For her honest love and regard to her husband, made every man hate him, when they sawe he did so unkindly use so noble a Lady.

And finally, when Antony sent her word to leave his house, she took with her all his children save Fulvia’s eldest son who was with his father, and instead of showing resentment, only bewailed and lamented “her cursed hap that had brought her to this, that she was accompted one of the chiefest causes of this civill warre.”

Her even more magnanimous care for all Antony’s offspring without distinction, when Antony is no more, belongs of course to a later date; but all the previous instances of her devotion to his interest fall well within the limits of the play, and yet Shakespeare makes no use of them.

It does not suit him to suggest that Antony ever deviated from his passion for Cleopatra or bestowed his affection elsewhere: indeed, on the eve of his marriage, he reveals his heart and intentions clearly enough. But Shakespeare also knows that without affection to bring it out, there will be no answering affection in a woman like Octavia. She will be true to all her obligations, so long as they are obligations, but no love will be roused to make her do more than is in her bond. And of love there is in the play as little trace on her part as on Antony’s. It is brother and sister, not husband and wife, that exchange the most endearing terms: “Sweet Octavia,” “My dearest sister,” and “my noble brother,” “most dear Caesar”; while to Antony she is “Octavia,” “gentle Octavia,” or at most “Dear Lady,” and to her he is “Good my lord.” At the parting in Rome Caesar has a cloud in his face and her eyes drop tears like April showers. At the parting in Athens there is only the formal permission to leave, on the one hand, and the formal acknowledgment on the other. Evidently, if, as she says, she has her

heart parted betwixt two friends

That do afflict each other,

(III. vi. 77.)

or if Antony describes her equipoise of feeling as

the swan’s down-feather,

That stands upon the swell at full of tide,

And neither way inclines,

(III. ii. 48.)

it is not because she regards them both with equal tenderness. Her brother has her love; her husband, so long as he deserves it, has her duty. But when he forfeits his claim, she has done with him, unlike Plutarch’s Octavia, who pursues him to the end, and beyond the end, with a self-forgetfulness that her mere covenant could never call forth. Of all this there is nothing in the play. Her appeal to Antony in defence of Caesar is far warmer than her appeal to Caesar on behalf of Antony, and when she definitely hears that Antony has not only joined Cleopatra against her brother but has installed Cleopatra in her own place, she merely says, “Is it so?” and falls silent. No wonder. She is following Antony’s instructions to the letter:

Let your best love draw to that point, which seeks

Best to preserve it.

(III. iv. 21.)

And again:

When it appears to you where this begins,

Turn your displeasure that way; for our faults

Can never be so equal that your love

Can equally move with them.

(III. iv. 33.)

But this tacit assumption, fully borne out by her previous words, that the claims of husband and brother are equal in her eyes, and that the precedence is to be determined merely by a comparison of faults, shows how little of wifely affection Octavia felt, though doubtless she would be willing to fulfil her responsibilities to the smallest jot and tittle.

The hurried, loveless and transitory union, into which Antony has entered only to suit his convenience, for as Enobarbus says, “he married but his occasion here,” and into which Octavia has entered only out of deference to her brother who “uses his power unto her,” has thus merely a political and moral but no emotional significance. This Roman marriage lies further apart from the love story of Antony than the marriage in Brittany does from the love story of Tristram. This diplomatic alliance interferes as little with Octavia’s sisterly devotion to Octavius as the political alliances of Marguerite d’Angoulême interfered with her sisterly devotion to Francis I. And much is gained by this for the play. In the first place the hero no longer, as in the biography, offends us by fickleness in his grand idolatry and infidelity to a second attachment, on the one hand, or by ingratitude to a longsuffering and loving wife on the other. But just for that reason Octavia does not really enter into his life, and claims no full delineation. She is hardly visible, and does not disturb our sympathies with the lovers or force on us moral regards by demuring on them and chastising them with her sober eyes. Nevertheless visible at intervals she is, and then she seems to tell of another life than that of Alexandrian indulgence, a narrower life of obligations and pieties beside which the carnival of impulse is both glorified and condemned. And she does this not less effectually, but a great deal less obtrusively, that in her shadowy form as she flits from the mourning-chamber to the altar at the bidding of her brother, and from Athens to Rome to preserve the peace, we see rather the self-devoted sister than the devoted wife. For in the play she is sister first and essentially, and wife only in the second place because her sisterly feeling is so strong.

Still more slightly sketched than the domestic loyalty of Octavia or even than the military loyalty of Scarus, is the loyalty of Eros the servant; but it is the most affecting of all, for it is to the death. Characteristically, he who obtains the highest spiritual honours that are awarded to any person in the play, is one of a class to which in the prime of ancient civilisation the possibility of any moral life would in theory have been denied. Morality was for the free citizen of a free state: the slave was not really capable of it. And indeed it is clear that often for the slave, who might be only one of the goods and chattels of his owner, the sole chance of escape from a condition of spiritual as well as physical servitude would lie in personal enthusiasm for the master, in willing self-absorption in him. But in a world like that of Antony and Cleopatra such personal enthusiasm, as we have seen, is almost the highest thing that remains. So it is the quondam slave, Eros the freedman, bred in the cult of it, who bears away the palm. Antony commands him to slay him:

When I did make thee free, sworest thou not then

To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once;

Or thy precedent services are all

But accidents unpurposed. Draw, and come.

(IV. xiv. 81.)

But Eros by breaking his oath and slaying himself, does his master a better service. He cheers him in his dark hour by this proof of measureless attachment:

Thus do I escape the sorrow

Of Antony’s death.

(IV. xiv. 94.)

CHAPTER IV
THE POLITICAL LEADERS

So much for the freedman whom Antony hails as his master, thrice nobler than himself. But what about his betters, the “great fellows” as Menas calls them, his rivals and associates in Empire?

Let us run through the series of them; and despite his pride of place we cannot begin lower than with the third Triumvir.

Lepidus, the “slight unmeritable man, meet to be sent on errands,” as he is described in Julius Caesar, maintains the same character here, and is hardly to be talked of “but as a property.” In the first scene where he appears, when he and Octavius are discussing Antony’s absence, he is a mere cypher. Even in this hour of need, Octavius unconsciously and as a matter of course treats Antony’s negligence as a wrong not to them both but only to himself. The messenger never addresses Lepidus and assumes that the question is between Caesar and Pompey alone. At the close this titular partner “beseeches” to be informed of what takes place, and Octavius acknowledges that it is his “bond,” but clearly it is not his choice.

No doubt on the surface he pleases by his moderate and conciliatory attitude. When Octavius is indicting his absent colleague, Lepidus is frank in his excuse:

I must not think there are

Evils enow to darken all his goodness:

His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,

More fiery by night’s blackness.

(I. iv. 10.)

Knowing the zeal and influence of Enobarbus, he recommends his mediation as a becoming and worthy deed, and tries to mitigate his vehemence:

Your speech is passion:

But, pray you, stir no embers up.

(II. ii. 12.)

And when the Triumvirs meet, the counsels of forbearance, which Shakespeare assigns to him and which in Plutarch are not associated with his name, are just in the right tone:

Noble friends,

That which combined us was most great, and let not

A leaner action rend us. What’s amiss

May it be gently heard: when we debate

Our trivial difference loud, we do commit

Murder in healing wounds: then, noble partners,

The rather, for I earnestly beseech,

Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,

Nor curstness grow to the matter.

(II. ii. 17.)

But all this springs from no real kindliness or public spirit. Pompey understands the position:

Lepidus flatters both,

Of both is flatter’d: but he neither loves,

Nor either cares for him.

(II. i. 14.)

It is mere indolence and flaccidity of temper that makes him ready to play the peace-maker, and his efforts are proof of incompetence rather than of nobility. He is so anxious to agree with everybody and ingratiate himself with both parties, that he excites the ridicule not only of the downright Enobarbus, but of the reticent and diplomatic Agrippa:

Eno. O, how he loves Caesar!

Agr. Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!

Eno. Caesar? Why, he’s the Jupiter of men.

Agr. What’s Antony? The god of Jupiter.

Eno. Spake you of Caesar? How! the nonpareil!

Agr. O Antony! O thou Arabian bird!

Eno. Would you praise Caesar, say “Caesar”: go no further.

Agr. Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.

(III. ii. 7.)

He will be all things to all men that he himself may be saved; and his love of peace runs parallel with his readiness for good cheer. He likes to enjoy himself and soon drinks himself drunk. The very servants see through his infirmity:

Sec. Serv. As they pinch one another by the disposition, he cries out “no more”; reconciles them to his entreaty and himself to the drink.[205]

(II. vii. 6.)

And they proceed to draw the moral of the whole situation. Lepidus’ ineptitude is due to the same circumstance that brings Costard’s criticism on Sir Nathaniel when the curate breaks down in the pageant. “A foolish mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dashed. He is a marvellous good neighbour, faith, ... but, for Alexander,—alas, you see how ’tis,—a little o’erparted.” Lepidus too is a marvellous good neighbour, but for a Triumvir,—alas, you see how ’tis,—a little o’erparted. He is attempting a part or role that is too big for him. He is in a position and company where his nominal influence goes for nothing and his want of perception puts him to the blush.

Sec. Serv. Why, this it is to have a name in great men’s fellowship: I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service as a partizan I could not heave.

First Serv. To be called into a huge sphere, and not to be seen to move in’t, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully disaster the cheeks.

(II. vii. 12.)

In his efforts at bonhomie, he becomes so bemused that even Antony, generally so affable and courteous, does not trouble to be decently civil, and flouts him to his wine-sodden face, with impertinent school-boy jests about the crocodile that is shaped like itself, and is as broad as it has breadth, and weeps tears that are wet. Caesar, ever on the guard, asks in cautious admonition: “Will this description satisfy him?” But Antony is scornfully aware that he may dismiss punctilios:

With the health that Pompey gives him; else he is a very epicure.

(II. vii. 56.)

His deposition, which must come in the natural course of things, is mentioned only casually and contemptuously:

Caesar, having made use of him in the wars ’gainst Pompey, presently denied him rivality: would not let him partake in the glory of the action: and not resting here, accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey: upon his own appeal, seizes him: so the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.

(III. v. 7.)

Accused of letters written to Pompey! So he had been at his old work, buttering his bread on both sides. His suppression is one of the grievances Antony has against Caesar, who has appropriated his colleague’s revenue; and it is interesting to note the defence that Caesar, who never chooses his grounds at random, gives for his apparent arbitrariness:

I have told him, Lepidus was grown too cruel;

That he his high authority abused,

And did deserve his change.

(III. vi. 32.)

So this friend of all the world may be accused of inhumanity and misrule. The charge is plausible. Shakespeare could not here forget that at the proscription, Lepidus is represented as acquiescing in the death of his own brother-in-law to secure the death of Antony’s nephew. Still his alleged cruelty may only have been a specious pretext on Octavius’ part to screen his own designs, and even to transfer his own offences to another man’s shoulders. Pompey says, in estimating the chances of his venture,

Caesar gets money where

He loses hearts.

(II. i. 13.)

Appian refers to these exactions, but in Plutarch there is as yet no mention of Octavius making himself unpopular by exorbitant imposts, and only at a later time is he said to have done so in preparing for his war with Antony. The subsequent passage, which Shakespeare does not use, or hardly uses, in its proper place, may have suggested the present statement:

The great and grievous exactions of money did sorely oppresse the people.... Hereuppon there arose a wonderfull exclamation and great uprore all Italy over: so that among the greatest faults that ever Antonius committed., they blamed him most for that he delayed to give Caesar battell.... When such a great summe of money was demaunded of them, they grudged at it, and grewe to mutinie upon it.

Does Shakespeare, by antedating Caesar’s oppressive measures, mean to insinuate his own gloss on the charge of cruelty against Lepidus that he found in Plutarch? At any rate in that case Octavius would be merely following the course that Antony had already laid down:

Though we lay these honours on this man,

To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads,

He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,

To groan and sweat under the business,

Either led or driven, as we point the way:

And having brought our treasure where we will,

Then take we down his load, and turn him off,

Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears,

And graze in commons.

(J. C. IV. i. 19.)

Octavius certainly carries out Antony’s programme in the result, and it would add to the irony of the situation if he had also done so in the process, and, while exploiting Lepidus’ resources, had incidentally eased himself of a slanderous load. No wonder that Antony is annoyed. But if he frets at his colleague’s undoing, we may be sure that apart from personal chagrin, it is only because Octavius’ influence has been increased and his own share of the spoils withheld. Of personal regret there is nothing in his reported reception of the news. Lepidus the man, Antony dismisses with an angry gesture and exclamation: he

spurns

The rush that lies before him; cries, “Fool, Lepidus!”

(III. v. 17.)

Sextus Pompeius who at one time had a fair chance of entering into a position equal or superior to that of Lepidus, comes higher in the scale than he. He has a certain feeling for righteousness:

If the great gods be just, they shall assist

The deeds of justest men.

(II. i. 1.)

He has a certain nobility of sentiment that enables him to rise to the occasion. When to his surprise he learns that he will have to reckon with the one man he dreads, he cries:

But let us rear

The higher our opinion, that our stirring

Can from the lap of Egypt’s widow pluck

The ne’er-lust-wearied Antony.

(II. i. 35.)

So, when told that he looks older, his reply is magnanimous:

Well, I know not

What counts harsh Fortune casts upon my face;

But in my bosom shall she never come,

To make my heart her vassal.

(II. vi. 55.)

Antony confesses that he owes him thanks for generous treatment:

He hath laid strange courtesies and great

Of late upon me.

(II. ii. 157.)

We presently get to hear what these were, and must admit that he acted like a gentleman:

Though I lose

The praise of it by telling, you must know,

When Caesar and your brother were at blows,

Your mother came to Sicily, and did find

Her welcome friendly.

(II. vi. 43.)

He has moreover a certain filial piety for the memory of his father, and a certain afterglow of free republican sentiment:

What was’t

That moved pale Cassius to conspire; and what

Made the all-honour’d, honest Roman, Brutus,

With the arm’d rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,

To drench the Capitol: but that they would

Have one man but one man? And that is it

Hath made me rig my navy: at whose burthen

The anger’d ocean foams; with which I meant

To scourge the ingratitude that despiteful Rome

Cast on my noble father.

(II. vi. 14.)

But even if all this were quite genuine, it would not suffice to form a really distinguished character. In the first place Sextus never penetrates to the core of things but lingers over the shows. Thus he has no grip of his present strength or of the insignificance to which he relegates himself by his composition. For Shakespeare differs from Plutarch, and follows Appian, in making his rising a very serious matter.[206] It is this that in the play, and in complete contradiction of the Life, is the chief motive for Antony’s return to Italy: and he gives his reasons. He says that Pompey “commands the empire of the sea” (i. ii. 191),—a great exaggeration of Plutarch’s statement that he “so scoored[207] all the sea thereabouts (i.e., near Sicily) that none durst peepe out with a sayle.” He continues, that “the slippery people” begin to throw all the dignities of Pompey the Great upon his son (i. ii. 193), though there is no hint of this popular support in the history. And he concludes that Pompey’s

... quality, going on,

The sides o’ the world may danger.

(I. ii. 198.)

In Plutarch it is not prudence but courtesy that moves the Triumvirs to negociate with him. His hospitality to Antony’s mother is expressly mentioned as the cause of their leniency; “therefore they thought good to make peace with him.” Similarly Shakespeare may have warrant from Appian, but he certainly has not warrant from Plutarch, to represent Octavius as listening in dismay to reports of malcontents “that only have fear’d Caesar” (i. iv. 38) crowding to Pompey’s banners from love of him; or as harassed by Antony’s absence, when this occasion “drums him from his sport” (i. iv. 29); or as driven by fear of Pompey to “cement their divisions and bind up the petty difference” (ii. i. 48). In all these ways Shakespeare treats the trifling disturbance of Plutarch’s account as a civil war waged by not unequal forces. And even after the tension has been somewhat relieved by Antony’s arrival, Octavius bears witness in regard to Pompey’s strength by land that it is

Great and increasing: but by sea

He is an absolute master.

(II. ii. 165.)

Obviously then Shakespeare conceives Pompey as having much to hope for, and much to lose. But Pompey does not realise his own power. By the treaty he throws away his advantages. In the division of the world he only gets Sicily and Sardinia, which were his already; and in return he must rid all the sea of pirates, and send wheat to Rome. By the first provision he deprives himself of recruits like Menas and Menecrates; by the second, he caters for his scarce atoned enemies. Surely there is justification for Menas’ aside: “Thy father, Pompey, would ne’er have made this treaty” (ii. vi. 84), and his like remark to Enobarbus: “Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune” (ii. vi. 109). He practically gives over the contest which he has a fair prospect of winning, and allows himself to be cajoled of the means by which he might at least gain security and power. But the most that he obtains is a paper guarantee for a fraction of the spoils; though he ought to have known that such guarantees are rotten bands with rivals like Octavius, who will only wait the opportunity, that must now inevitably come, to set them aside.

But besides, this magnanimity, which he is so fond of parading, is not only insufficient, even were it quite sterling coin; in his case it rings counterfeit. We cannot forget that his noble sentiments about justice are uttered to Menas and Menecrates, “great thieves by sea.” Is Pompeius Magnus to be avenged, is freedom to be restored by the help of buccaneers who find it expedient to “deny” what they have done by water? Surely all this is not very dexterous make-believe, intended to impose on others or himself. Even his rejection of Menas’ scheme for doing away with the Triumvirs, though it shows his regard for appearances, does not imply any honourable feeling of the highest kind. For listen to his words:

Ah, this thou should’st have done,

And not have spoke on’t! In me, ’tis villany;

In thee ’t had been good service. Thou must know,

’Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour;

Mine honour, it. Repent that e’er thy tongue

Hath so betray’d thine act: being done unknown,

I should have found it afterwards well done;

But must condemn it now.

(II. vii. 79.)

Here he shows no moral scruple, but only anxiety about his reputation. He would have no objection to reap the reward of crime, and would even after a decorous interval approve it; but he will not commit or authorise it, because he wishes to pose in his own eyes and the eyes of others as the man of justice, principle and chivalry. He is one of the people who “would not play false and yet would wrongly win,” and who often excite more contempt than the resolute malefactor. And the reason is that their abstention from guilt arises not from tenderness of conscience but from perplexity of intellect. They confound shadow and substance; for by as much as genuine virtue is superior to material success, by so much is material success superior to the illusion of virtue. In the case of Pompey, the treachery of Octavius is almost excused by the ostentation, obtuseness, and half-heartedness of the victim. It is fitting that after being despoiled of Italy he should owe his death to a mistake. This at least is the story, not found in Plutarch, which Shakespeare in all probability adopts at the suggestion of Appian. It is not given as certain even by Appian, who leaves it open to question whether he was killed by Antony’s command or not. But perhaps Shakespeare considers that his futile career should end futilely through the overzeal of an agent who misunderstands his master’s wishes; so he makes Eros tell how Antony

Threats the throat of that his officer

That murder’d Pompey.

(III. v. 19.)

It suits the dramatist too to free his hero from complicity in such a deed, and exhibit him as receiving the news with generous indignation and regret. Yet such regret is very skin-deep. Even Antony’s chief complaint in regard to Pompey’s overthrow is that he gets none of the unearned increment; or, as Octavius says,

that, having in Sicily

Sextus Pompeius spoil’d, we had not rated him

His part o’ the isle.

(III. vi. 24.)

Higher still in our respect, if not in our affection, but even in our respect not very high, is Octavius at the head of his statesmen, politicians, men of the world, his Mecaenases, Agrippas and the rest, with their savoir faire and savoir vivre. They never let themselves go in thought or in deed; all their words and behaviour are disciplined, reserved, premeditated. Antony’s description of their principal is no doubt true, and it breathes the contempt of the born soldier, who has drunk delight of battle with his peers, for the mere deviser of calculations and combinations:

He at Philippi kept

His sword e’en like a dancer; while I struck

The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and ’twas I

That the mad Brutus ended: he alone

Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had

In the brave squares of war.

(III. xi. 35.)

Nor is there any prestige of genius or glamour of charm to conciliate admiration for such men. Theirs are the practical, rather uninteresting natures, that generally rise to the top in this workaday world. They know what they wish to get; they know what they must do to get it; and the light from heaven never shines on their eyes either to glorify their path or to lead them astray.

The most obvious trait, as Kreyssig remarks, in the somewhat bourgeois personality of Octavius is his sobriety, in every sense of the word: a self-contained sobriety, which, though supposed to be a middle-class virtue, is in him pushed so far as to become almost aristocratic. For it fosters and cherishes his self-esteem; and his self-esteem rises to an enormous and inflexible pride, which finds expression alike in his dignity and in his punctiliousness. In both respects it is outraged by the levity of Antony, which he resents as compromising himself. His colleague must

No way excuse his soils, when we do bear

So great weight in his lightness.

(I. iv. 24.)

A man like this, fast centred in himself, cannot but despise the impulse-driven populace; he could never have courted it to sway it to his purposes, as Antony did of old; to him it is a rotting water-weed. This temper, lofty and imposing in some respects, is apt to attach undue importance to form and etiquette, as when the “manner” of Enobarbus’ interruption, not its really objectionable because all too incontrovertible matter, arouses his disapproval: but it is a difficult temper to take liberties with. None of his counsellors dreams of venturing with him on the familiarity which Enobarbus, Canidius, and even the common soldier, employ as a matter of course with Antony. And this is partly due to his lack of sympathy, to his deficient social feeling. Such an one plumes himself on being different from and superior to his fellows. He is like the Prince of Arragon in the Merchant of Venice:

I will not choose what many men desire,

Because I will not jump with common spirits

And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.

(M. of V. II. ix. 3.)

It is because Antony’s vices are those of the common spirits and the barbarous multitudes that Octavius despises him:

You shall find there

A man who is the abstract of all faults

That all men follow.

(I. iv. 8.)

His own failings do not lie in the direction of vulgar indulgence. He is a foe to all excess. When the feasters pledge him, he objects to the compulsory carouse:

I could well forbear ’t.

It’s monstrous labour, when I wash my brain,

And it grows fouler....

I had rather fast from all four days

Than drink so much in one.

(II. vii. 105.)

And he can address a dignified remonstrance and rebuke to his less temperate associates:

What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,

Let me request you off: our graver business

Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let’s part:

You see we have burnt our cheeks....

The wild disguise hath almost

Antick’d us all.

(II. vii. 126.)

A man of this kind will be externally faultless in all the domestic requirements, a good husband and a good brother, in so far as rigid fidelity to the nuptial tie and scrupulous care for his sister’s provision are concerned. He is honestly shocked at Antony’s violation of his marriage bond. We feel that if Cleopatra did really entertain the idea of subduing him by her charms, it was nothing but an undevout imagination. One might as well think to set on fire “a dish of skim milk,” as Hotspur calls men of this sort.

But the better side of this is his genuine family feeling. His love for his sister may be limited and alloyed, but it is unfeigned. It has sometimes been pointed out that his indignation at Octavia’s scanty convoy when she returns from Athens to Rome, is stirred quite as much on his own behalf as on hers:

Why have you stolen upon us thus? You come not

Like Caesar’s sister.... You are come

A market maid to Rome; and have prevented

The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown,

Is often left unlov’d.

(III. vi. 42.)

It is quite true that he thinks of what is due to himself, but he does not altogether forget her claims; and even when he regrets the defective “ostentation” of love—a term that is apt to rouse suspicion, no doubt, but less so in Elizabethan than in modern ears—he bases his regret on the just and valid ground that without expression love itself is apt to die. That behind his own “ostentation” of fondness (which of course he is careful not to neglect, for it is a becoming and creditable thing), there is some reality of feeling, is proved by the parting scene. His affectionate farewell and even his gathering tears might be pretence; but he promises to send her regular letters:

Sweet Octavia,

You shall hear from me still.

(III. ii. 58.)

It really means something when a man like Octavius, busy with the affairs of the whole world, spares time for frequent domestic correspondence.

And yet this admirable brother has not hesitated to arrange for his sister a “mariage de convenance” with Antony, a man whom he disapproves and dislikes. From the worldly point of view it is certainly the most brilliant match she could make; and this perhaps to one of Octavius’ arid nature, with its total lack of sympathy, imagination and generous ideals, may have seemed the main consideration. All the same we cannot help feeling that he was thinking mainly of himself, and, though with some regrets, has sacrificed her to the exigencies of statecraft. Menas and Enobarbus, shrewd and unsentimental observers, agree that policy has made more in the marriage than love. So much indeed is obvious, even if its purpose is what on the face of it it professes to be, the reconcilement of the men it makes brothers-in-law. But, as we shall see, Octavius may have a more tortuous device in it than this.

Treating it meanwhile, however, as an expedient for knitting the alliance with his rival, what inference does it suggest? If for the sake of his own interests, Octavius shows himself far from scrupulous in regard to the sister whom he loves and whose material well-being is his care, what may we expect of him in the case of those who are indifferent or dangerous or hostile?

He has no hesitation about ousting his colleague Lepidus, or ruining the reconciled rebel Pompeius, despite his compacts with both. Then it is Antony’s turn; and Antony is a far more formidable antagonist, with all his superiority in material resources, fertility of genius, proven soldiership and strategic skill. It is not because Octavius is the greater man that he succeeds. It is, in the first place, because he concentrates all his narrow nature to a single issue, while Antony with his greater width of outlook disperses his interest on many things at once. How typical of each are the asides with which respectively they enter their momentous conference. Antony is already contemplating other contingencies:

If we compose well here, to Parthia:

Hark, Ventidius.

(II. ii. 15.)

Octavius will not be diverted from the immediate business:

I do not know,

Mecaenas; ask Agrippa.

(II. ii. 16.)

So, too, when the composition has taken place, Antony squanders his strength in the invasion of Parthia, the conquest of Armenia and other annexations, not to mention his grand distraction in Egypt. But Octavius pursues his one purpose with the dogged tenacity of a sleuth hound, removes Pompey who might be troublesome, seizes the resources of Lepidus, and is able to oppose the solid mass of the West to Antony’s loose congeries of Asiatic allies and underlings, whose disunited crowd seems to typify his own unreconciled ambitions.

But even so it is not so much that Octavius wins, as that Antony loses. In another sense than he means, the words of the latter are true:

Not Caesar’s valour hath o’erthrown Antony,

But Antony’s hath triumph’d on itself.

(IV. xv. 14.)

It is his extraordinary series of blunders, perversities, and follies that play into his antagonist’s hands and give him the trick, though that antagonist holds worse cards and is less expert in many points of the game.

But in so far as Octavius can claim credit for playing it, it is due to cunning and chicane rather than to any wisdom or ability of the higher kind. At the outset he prepares a snare for Antony, into which Antony falls, and by the fall is permanently crippled. It seems more than probable that the marriage with Octavia was suggested, not to confirm the alliance, but to provoke a breach at a more convenient season. The biographer expressly assigns the same sort of ulterior motive to a later act of apparent kindliness, when Octavia was again used as the unconscious pawn. When she, just before the final breach, insists on setting out to join her husband, Plutarch explains:

Her brother Octavius was willing unto it, not for his (i.e. Antony’s) respect at all (as most authors doe report) as for that he might have an honest culler to make warre with Antonius if he did misuse her, and not esteeme of her as she ought to be.

This was quite enough to suggest to Shakespeare a similar interpretation of the marriage project from the first. He does not indeed expressly state but he virtually implies it, as appears if we realise the characters and circumstances of those concerned. At the time the match is being arranged, Enobarbus quite clearly foresees and openly predicts the upshot to Mecaenas and Agrippa. Will they, and especially Agrippa, who is nominal author of the plan and announces it as “a studied not a present thought,” have overlooked so probable an issue? Will it never have occurred to the circumspect and calculating Octavius, who evidently leads up to Agrippa’s intervention and proposal? Or if through some incredible inadvertence it has hitherto escaped them all, will not the vigilant pair of henchmen hasten to inform their master of the unexpected turn that things seem likely to take? Not at all. Despite the convinced and convincing confidence of Enobarbus’ prophecy, they waive it aside. Mecaenas merely replies with diplomatic decorum:

If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle

The heart of Antony, Octavia is

A blessed lottery to him.

(II. ii. 247.)

No doubt. But though Touchstone says, “Your If is your only peace-maker,” it can also be a very good peace-breaker on occasion. In Enobarbus’ opinion (and in his own way Octavius is just as shrewd), Octavia with her “holy, cold and still conversation” is no dish for Antony. But though this is now expressly pointed out to Octavius’ confidants, the marriage goes on as though nothing could be urged against it. The reason is that nothing can, from the point of view of the contrivers. If it turns out well, so far good; if it turns out ill, so much the better. Only when it is an accomplished fact, does Caesar give a glimpse of what it involves in the sinister exhortation:

Let not the piece of virtue which is set

Betwixt us, as the cement of our love,

To keep it builded, be the ram to batter

The fortress of it.

(III. ii. 28.)

Thus when Antony returns to Cleopatra, as he was bound to do, Octavius manages to represent himself as the aggrieved party, as champion of the sanctity of the hearth, the vindicator of old Roman pieties; and in this way gains a good deal of credit at the outset of the quarrel.

And for the fortunate conduct of it, he is indebted, apart from Antony’s demoralisation, to his adroitness in playing on the weakness of others, rather than to any nobler strength in himself. Thus he irritates Antony’s reckless chivalry, both vain and grandiose, by defying him to give battle by sea at Actium. Antony is not bound even by any punctilio of honour to consent, for Octavius has twice declined a similar challenge.

Ant.Canidius, we

Will fight with him by sea.

Cle.By sea! What else?

Can. Why will my lord do so?

Ant.For that he dares us to’t.

Eno. So hath my lord dared him to single fight.

Can. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia,

Where Caesar fought with Pompey; but these offers,

Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off;

And so should you.

(III. vii. 28.)

But Octavius knows his man, and this appeal to his audacity, enforced by the command of Cleopatra, determines Antony like a true knight-errant to the fatal course.

This passage is of great significance in Shakespeare’s delineation of Octavius, because, though suggested by Plutarch, it completely alters the complexion and some of the facts of Plutarch’s story. That records the two-fold challenge of Antony, but represents it as answering, not preceding the message of Octavius. Moreover that message contains no reference to a naval combat and has nothing in common with the shape it assumes in the play.

Octavius Caesar sent unto Antonius, to will him to delay no more time, but to come on with his army into Italy: and that for his owne part he would give him safe harber, to lande without any trouble, and that he would withdraw his armie from the sea, as farre as one horse could runne, until he had put his army ashore, and had lodged his men.

That is, in the original Octavius takes the lead in dare-devilry, and seems voluntarily to suggest such terms as even Byrhtnoth at the Battle of Maldon conceded only by request. Shakespeare could not fit this in with his conception of the cold-blooded politician, and substitutes for it a proposal that will put the enemy at a disadvantage; while at the same time he accentuates Octavius’ unblushing knavery, by making him apply this provocation after he has twice rejected offers that do not suit himself.

Again, having won his first victory through Cleopatra’s flight, Caesar cynically reckons for new success on her corruptibility:

From Antony win Cleopatra: promise,

And in our name, what she requires; add more,

From thine invention, offers: women are not

In their best fortunes strong; but want will perjure

The ne’er-touch’d vestal: try thy cunning, Thyreus.

(III. xii. 24.)

This scheme indeed miscarries owing to Antony’s intervention, but meanwhile it has become unnecessary owing to the torrent of deserters. So Octavius is sure of his case, and can dismiss with ridicule the idea of a single fight. In Plutarch he does so too, but with the implied brag that he would certainly be victor: “Caesar answered him that he had many other wayes to dye then so;” when the he stands for Antony: but owing to North’s fortunate ambiguity Shakespeare takes it as referring to the speaker:

Let the old ruffian know

I have many other ways to die; mean time

Laugh at his challenge.

(IV. i. 4.)

A more subtle contumely; for it implies that Caesar with scornful impartiality acknowledges Antony’s superiority as a sabreur, but can afford to dismiss that as of no moment. His response has already been annotated in advance by Enobarbus, when Antony was inditing his cartel:

Yes, like enough, high-battled Caesar will

Unstate his happiness, and be staged to the show,

Against a sworder!... That he should dream,

Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will

Answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdued

His judgement too.

(III. xiii. 29.)

Octavius has by this time the ball at his feet, and can even cast the contemptuous alms of his pity on “poor Antony,” as he calls him (iv. i. 16). Nor are his expectations deceived, for he reckons out everything:

Go, charge Agrippa.

Plant those that have revolted in the van,

That Antony may seem to spend his fury

Upon himself.

(IV. vi. 8.)

And though he suffers a momentary check, he presently achieves the final triumph through the treason and baseness of Antony’s Egyptian followers, on which he rightly felt he might rely.

And when he has won the match he makes use of his advantage with more appearance than reality of nobleness. He wishes to have not only the substantial rewards of victory, but the shows and trappings of it as well. He seeks to preserve Cleopatra alive,

for her life in Rome

Would be eternal in our triumph.

(V. i. 65.)

This is the secret of his clemency and generosity, that he would have her “grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels.” And if he has another reason for sparing her, it is not for the sake of clemency and generosity in themselves, but for the parade of these qualities: as indeed Proculeius unconsciously lets out in the naïf advice he gives her:

Do not abuse my master’s bounty by

The undoing of yourself: let the world see

His nobleness well acted, which your death

Will never let come forth.

(V. ii. 44.)

And ably does Octavius play his role: he “extenuates rather than enforces,” gilds his covert threats with promises, and dismisses the episode of the unscheduled treasure with Olympian serenity. His only fault is that he rather overacts the part. His excess of magnanimity, when by nature he is far from magnanimous, tells Cleopatra all she needs to know, and leaves little for the definite disclosures of Dolabella:

He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not

Be noble to myself.

(V. ii. 191.)

But, though not magnanimous, he is intelligent: and his intelligence enables and enjoins him to recognise greatness when it is no longer opposed to his own interest, and when the recognition redounds to his own credit, by implying that the conqueror is greater still. His panegyrics on Antony, and afterwards on Cleopatra, are very nearly the right things to say and are very nearly said in the right way. When he hears of his rival’s suicide, his first exclamation does not ill befit the occasion:

The breaking of so great a thing should make

A greater crack: ... the death of Antony

Is not a single doom; in the name lay

A moiety of the world.

(V. i. 14.)

But this disinterested emotion does not last long. The awe at fallen greatness soon leads to comparisons with the living greatness that has proved its match. The obsequious bystanders find this quite natural and point it out without a hint of sarcasm:

Agr.Caesar is touch’d.

Mec. When such a spacious mirror’s set before him,

He needs must see himself.

So Octavius proceeds to a recital of Antony’s merits in which he bespeaks a double portion of the praise he seems to dispense:

O Antony!

I have follow’d thee to this; but we do lance

Diseases in our bodies: I must perforce

Have shown to thee such a declining day,

Or look on thine: we could not stall together

In the whole world: but yet let me lament,

With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,

That thou, my brother, my competitor,

In top of all design, my mate in empire,

Friend and companion in the front of war,

The arm of mine own body, and the heart

Where mine his thoughts did kindle,—that our stars,

Unreconciliable, should divide

Our equalness to this.

(V. i. 35.)

And here, as business calls, he breaks off and postpones the rest to “some meeter season.” Similarly when he finds Cleopatra dead he has the insight to do her justice:

Bravest at the last,

She levell’d at our purposes, and, being royal,

Took her own way.

(V. ii. 238.)

Then follows the official valediction:

She shall be buried by her Antony:

No grave upon the earth shall clip in it

A pair so famous. High events as these

Strike those that make them; and their story is

No less in pity than his glory which

Brought them to be lamented.

(V. ii. 361.)

So the last word is a testimonial to himself.

These are eulogies of the understanding, not of the heart. They are very different in tone from the tributes of Antony to his patron Julius or his opponent Brutus. The tears and emotion, genuine though facile, of the latter are vouched for even by the sarcasms of Agrippa and Enobarbus. Octavius’ utterance, when he pronounces his farewell, is broken, we may be sure, by no sob and choked by no passion. His éloge has been compared to a funeral sermon, and will not interfere with the victor’s appetite for the fruits of victory. But though his feeling is not stirred to the depths, he is fairly just and fairly acute. He is no contemptible character, this man who carries off the palm from one of infinitely richer endowment. The contrast between the two rivals, and the justification of the success of the less gifted, is summed up in a couple of sentences they exchange at the banquet off Misenum. When Octavius shrinks from the carouse, Antony bids him: “Be a child o’ the time” (ii. vii. 106). “Possess it, I’ll make answer,” is Octavius’ reply and reproof.

CHAPTER V
MARK ANTONY

“Be a child o’ the time,” says Antony, and he carries out his maxim to the letter. Only that time could bring forth such a devotee of the joys of life and lavish on him such wealth of enjoyment. But the time was one that devoured its own children. Those who chose to be merely its products, must accept its ordinances, and it was cruel as well as indulgent. It was the manlier as well as the safer course for the child to possess the time, to repudiate its stock, and, if might be, to usurp the heritage.

We must bear the counter admonition of Octavius in mind when we approach the personage to whom it was addressed. All who have a wide range of interests, and with these warmth of imagination and spontaneity of impulse, must feel that their judgment is apt to be bribed by the attractions of Mark Antony. He is so many-sided, so many-ways endowed, so full of vitality and vigour, potentially so affluent and bright, that we look to find his life a clear and abundant stream, and disbelieve our senses when we see a turbid pool that loses itself in the sands. If we listen to the promptings of our blood, we hail him as demi-god, but the verdict of our reason is that he is only a futility. And both estimates base on Shakespeare who inspires and reconciles them both.

Of course we are apt to carry with us to the present play the impression we have received from the sketch of Antony in Julius Caesar. And not without grounds. He is still a masquer and a reveller, he is still a shrewd contriver. But we gradually become aware of a difference. First, the precedence that these characteristics takes is reversed. In Julius Caesar it is the contriving side of his nature that is prominent, and the other is only indicated by the remarks of acquaintances: in Antony and Cleopatra, it is his love of pleasure that is emphasised, while of his contrivance we have only casual glimpses. And the contrast is not merely an alteration in the point of view, it corresponds to an alteration in himself; in the earlier drama he subordinates his luxury to his schemes, and in the latter he subordinates his schemes to his luxury. But this is not all. In the second place, his two main interests have changed in the degree of what may be called their organisation. In Julius Caesar he concentrates all his machinations on the one object of overthrowing the tyrannicides and establishing his power; his pleasures, however notorious, are random and disconnected dissipations without the coherence of a single aim. In Antony and Cleopatra, however manifold they may be, they are all subdued to the service of his master passion, they are all focussed in his love for Cleopatra; while his strategy is broken up to mere shifts and expedients that answer the demand of the hour. Passion has become not only the regulative but the constitutive force in his character.

When the action begins, he is indemnifying himself with a round of indulgence for the strenuous life between the fall of Julius and the victories at Philippi, some of the toils and privations of which, passed over in the earlier play, Octavius now recalls in amazement at the contrast. It is not so strange. One remembers Professor von Karsteg’s indictment of the English that they spare no pains because they live for pleasure. “You are all in one mass, struggling in the stream to get out and lie and wallow and belch on the banks. You work so hard that you have all but one aim, and that is fatness and ease!”[208] Something similar strikes us in Antony. It is natural that action should be followed by reaction and that abstinence should lead to surfeit. It is doubly natural, when effort and discipline are not prized for themselves or associated with the public good, but have only been accepted as the means to a selfish aim. By them he has acquired more than mortal power: why should he not use it in his own behoof, oblivious of every call save the prompting of desire? A vulgar attitude, we may say; but it is lifted above vulgarity by the vastness of the orbit through which his desire revolves. It is grandiose, and almost divine; in so far at least as it is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. He has a gust for everything and for everything in the highest degree, for each several pleasure and its exact antithesis. In what does he not feel zest? Luxury, banqueting, drunkenness, appeal to him, so that Pompey prays they “may keep his brain fuming” (ii. i. 24). Or he acts the god, and with Cleopatra as Isis, dispenses sovereignty from the “tribunal silver’d,” as they sit on their “chairs of gold” (iii. vi. 3). Or he finds a relish in vulgar pleasures, and with the queen on his arm, mingles incognito in the crowd, wandering through the streets “to note the qualities of people” (i. i. 52). Or he goes a-fishing, in which art he is a novice and presently becomes a dupe, when he pulls up the salt-fish “with fervency” (ii. v. 18). And a willing dupe, the conscious humorous dupe of love to his tricksy enchantress, he is pleased to be in many other ways:

That time,—O times!—

I laugh’d him out of patience; and that night

I laugh’d 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 Philippian.

(II. v. 18.)

In short his breathless pursuit of all sorts of experiences more than justifies the scandalised summary of Octavius:

He fishes, drinks, and wastes

The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike

Than Cleopatra; nor the queen of Ptolemy

More womanly than he.

(I. iv. 4.)

And he goes on to describe how Antony has been so indiscriminate as

to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy;

To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit

And keep the turn of tippling with a slave;

To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet

With knaves that smell of sweat.

(I. iv. 17.)

Yet, however he may seem to sink in his pleasures, he is never submerged; such is his joyousness and strength that they seem to bear him up and carry him along rather than drag him down. As Cleopatra perceives:

His delights

Were dolphin-like; they show’d his back above

The element they lived in.

(V. ii. 88.)

It is this demand to share in all the Erdgeist has to offer, that raises Antony above the level of the average sensualist. His dissipations impose by their catholicity and heartiness. His blithe eagerness never flags and nothing mundane leaves him unmoved:

There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch

Without some pleasure now.

(I. i. 46.)

This is his ideal, an infinity of pastimes under the presidency of his love; and any ideal, no matter what, always dignifies those whom it inspires. But it also demands its sacrifice; and in the present case Antony with a sort of inverse sublimity offers up to it all that the ambitious, the honourable or the virtuous man counts good.

For a life like his is hardly compatible even in theory with the arduous functions of the commander, the governor, the administrator; and in practice it inevitably leads to their neglect. In the opening scene we see him leave unheard the momentous tidings from Rome, and turn aside to embrace his royal paramour. His followers are filled with angry disgust:

Nay, but this dotage of our general’s

O’erflows the measure: those his goodly eyes

That o’er the files and musters of the war

Have glow’d like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,

The office and devotion of their view

Upon a tawny front.

(I. i. 1.)

The general voice cries out against him at home, where his faults are taunted

With such full licence as both truth and malice

Have power to utter.

(I. ii. 112.)

His newly arrived friends find the worst libels verified, as Demetrius admits:

I am full sorry

That he approves the common liar, who

Thus speaks of him at Rome.

(I. i. 59.)

Octavius is not unduly severe in his condemnation:

To confound such time,

That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud

As his own state and ours,—’tis to be chid

As we rate boys, who, being mature in knowledge,

Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,

And so rebel to judgement.

(I. iv. 28.)

Nor is he without qualms himself. Sudden revulsions of feeling disturb his riots when “a Roman thought hath struck him” (i. ii. 87). He feels that stopping short in his labours and relaxing his energy, he gives his baser tendencies the sway, and cries:

O, then we bring forth weeds,

When our quick minds lie still.

(I. ii. 113.)

This, however, makes things worse rather than better. It does not rouse him to any constant course, it only perplexes his purpose. He does not wish to give up anything: the life at Rome and the life at Alexandria both tug at his heart-strings; and he cannot see that the Eastern and the Western career are not to be reconciled. It is still nominally open to him to make a choice, but at any rate the choice must be made. It must often have occurred to him to throw aside his civil ties, and to set up as independent Emperor with his Egyptian Queen. And apart from old associations there were only two reasons why he should not: lingering respect for his marriage with Fulvia, whom in a way he still loved, and dread of the avenging might of Rome directed by all the craft of Octavius. These impediments are suddenly removed; and their removal belongs to Shakespeare’s conception. It may be traced in part to his own invention, in part perhaps to the suggestion of Appian, but in any case it is of far-reaching significance.

In the biography the situation is fundamentally different, though superficially alike. There Antony is threatened at once in the West and the East. Octavius has driven his wife and brother out of Italy; Labienus, the old foe of Caesarism, has led the Parthians into the provinces. It is to meet these dangers that Antony leaves Egypt, and to the Parthian as the more pressing he addresses himself first. Only at Fulvia’s entreaty does he alter his plan and sail for home with two hundred ships; but her opportune death facilitates a composition with Octavius. Then the alliance between them having been confirmed, and the petty trouble with Sextus Pompeius having been easily settled, Antony is able with ampler resources to turn against the troublesome Parthians.

These are the facts as Caesar narrates them; and according to them Antony had no option but to break off his love affair and set out to face one or both of the perils that menaced him; the peril from Octavius who has defeated him in his representatives, the peril from Labienus who has overrun the Near East. These items are not wanting in Shakespeare, and as the news of them arrives, his Antony exclaims as Plutarch’s might have done:

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

Or lose myself in dotage.

(I. ii. 120.)

But even as he speaks a second messenger arrives who supplements the tidings of the first with new circumstances that are really of much later date and quite different significance in Plutarch, and that entirely alter the complexion of affairs. He hears by word of mouth that Fulvia is dead, and, apparently by letter, that Sextus Pompeius stands up against Caesar and commands the empire of the sea. In Plutarch he is called to Rome by the fact not of Fulvia’s being dead but of her being alive; and her death only prepares the way for a reconciliation when he is already nearing home. Still less is his return connected with the enterprise of Pompey which is mentioned only after the reconciliation is accomplished, and, as we have seen, is treated quite as a detail. But Shakespeare, inserting these matters here and viewing them as he does, dismisses altogether or in part the motive which Plutarch implies for Antony’s behaviour. Indeed they should rather be reasons for his continuing and proceeding further in his present course. One main objection to his connection with Cleopatra is removed, and the way is smoothed to marriage with his beloved. All danger from Rome is for the time at an end; and the opportunity is offered for establishing himself in Egypt while Pompey and Octavius waste each other’s strength, or for making common cause with Pompey, who, as we know, is well inclined to him and takes occasion to pay him court.

But in Shakespeare’s Antony, the very removal of external hindrances gives new force to those within his own heart. Regrets and compunctions are stirred. The memory of his wife rises up with new authority, the entreaties of his friends and the call of Rome sound with louder appeal in his ears:

Not alone

The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,

Do strongly speak to us: but the letters too

Of many our contriving friends in Rome

Petition us at home.

(I. ii. 186.)

With a man of his emotional nature, precisely the opportunity so procured to carry out one set of his wishes, gives the other set the mastery. Of his wife’s death he exclaims:

There’s a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it:

What our contempt doth often hurl from us,

We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,

By revolution lowering, does become

The opposite of itself: she’s good, being gone;

The hand could pluck her back that shoved her on.

I must from this enchanting queen break off.

(I. ii. 126.)

It is no doubt the nobler and more befitting course that he proposes to himself, but it is so only on the condition that he follows it out with his whole heart. If he takes it up to let it go; if one half or more than one half of his soul lingers with the flesh-pots of Egypt, then nothing could be more foolish and calamitous. He merely throws away the grand chance of realising his more alluring ambition, and advances no step to the sterner and loftier heights. For he will patch up the Roman Triumvirate and rehabilitate the power of Octavius to his own hurt, unless he resolves henceforth to act as a Roman Triumvir and as the dominant partner with Octavius; and he will never again have so good an occasion for legitimising and thus excusing his relation with Cleopatra. This latter step was so obviously the natural one that Octavius almost assumes he must have taken it. On making his proposal for the match with Octavia, Agrippa says: “Great Antony is now a widower,” but Octavius interrupts:

Say not so, Agrippa:

If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof

Were well deserved of rashness.

(II. ii. 122.)

But though he thus shrinks from the irrevocable choice, we see clearly enough at his departure from Egypt that the impulse towards Rome must soon be spent, and that therefore his refusal to commit himself, and his whole enterprise, show rather weakness and indecision than resolution and strength. To soothe Cleopatra he tells her:

Be prepared to know

The purposes I bear; which are, or cease,

As you shall give the advice. By the fire

That quickens Nilus’ slime, I go from thence

Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war

As thou affect’st.

(I. iii. 66.)

He is speaking too true when he says:

Our separation so abides, and flies,

That thou, residing here, go’st yet with me,

And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.

(I. iii. 102.)

And his last message runs:

Say, the firm Roman to great Egypt sends

This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,

To mend the petty present, I will piece

Her opulent throne with kingdoms: all the east,

Say thou, shall call her mistress.

(I. v. 44.)

And with these pledges like so many mill-stones round his neck, he sets off to swim in the dangerous cross-currents of Roman politics. It is true that pledges do not weigh over heavily with him, but in this case their weight is increased by his inner inclinations.

So the reconciliation with Octavius is hollow from the first, and being hollow it is a blunder. Antony of course is able to blind himself to its hollowness and to conduct the negociations with great adroitness. His dignified and frank apology is just what he ought to say, supposing that the particular end were to be sought at all, and it has an air of candour that could not well be consciously assumed:

As nearly as I may,

I’ll play the penitent to you: but mine honesty

Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power

Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,

To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;

For which myself, the ignorant motive, do

So far ask pardon as befits mine honour

To stoop in such a case.

(II. ii. 91.)

But this is only another instance of the born orator’s faculty for throwing himself into a situation, and feeling for the time what it is expedient to express. It is a fatal gift, which betrays him oftener than it helps. If it prompts his moving utterances over the bodies of Caesar and Brutus, and in so far directly or indirectly assists his cause, it nevertheless even then to some cynical observers like Enobarbus suggests a spice of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy it is not, but it comes almost to the same thing; for the easily aroused emotion soon subsides after it has done its work and yields to some quite contrary impulsion. But meanwhile the worst of it is, that it carries away the eloquent speaker, and hurries him in directions and to distances that are not for his good. With Antony’s real and permanent bias, even a temporary reconcilement with Octavius is a mistake; but what shall we say of his marriage with Octavia? Yet he jumps at it at once; and with that convincing air of sincerity that can only be explained by his really liking it for the moment, exclaims:

May I never

To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,

Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand:

Further this act of grace: and from this hour

The heart of brothers govern in our loves

And sway our great designs.

(II. ii. 146.)

And again he realises just what is proper to feel and say to his betrothed, and says it so that we are sure he feels it so long as he is speaking:

My Octavia,

Read not my blemishes in the world’s report:

I have not kept my square: but that to come

Shall all be done by the rule.

(II. iii. 4.)

Yet she has barely left him, when, at the warning of the soothsayer, and the thought of Octavius’ success in games of chance and sport, he resolves to outrage the still uncompleted marriage and return to his Egyptian bondage:

I will to Egypt:

For though I make this marriage for my peace,

I’ the East my pleasure lies.

(II. iii. 38.)

But when this is his fixed determination, why make the marriage at all? Does he fail to see that it will bring not peace but a sword? Yet he is so hood-winked by immediate opportunism that he bears his share in making Pompey harmless to the mighty brother-in-law he is just about to offend. And knowing his own heart as he does, he can nevertheless assume an air of resentment at the veiled menace in Octavius’ parting admonition: “Make me not offended in your mistrust” (iii. ii. 33).

He has truly with all diligence digged a pit for himself. Already he is the wreck of the shrewd contriver whose machinations Cassius so justly feared. And this collapse of faculty, this access of presumption and hebetude belong to Shakespeare’s conception of the case. In Plutarch the renewed agreement of the Triumvirs is expedient and even necessary; the marriage scheme is adopted in good faith and for a period serves its purpose; the granting of terms to Pompey is an unimportant act of grace.

Nevertheless some powers of contrivance Shakespeare’s Antony still retains. He despatches the capable Ventidius on the Parthian campaign, and he has the credit and éclat, when

with his banners and his well-paid ranks,

The ne’er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia

(Are) jaded out o’ the field.

(III. i. 32.)

He himself over-runs and conquers Armenia, and other Asiatic kingdoms, and with his new prestige and resources is able to secure the support of a formidable band of subject kings. When Octavia has returned to Rome and he to Egypt, and war breaks out, he is still, thanks to these allies and to his own veteran legionaries whom he has so often led to victory and spoil, the master of a power that should more than suffice to make the fortune his.

But in his infatuation he throws all his advantages away. He pronounces on himself the verdict which his whole story confirms:

When we in our viciousness grow hard—

O misery on’t!—the wise gods seel our eyes;

In our own filth drop our clear judgements; make us

Adore our errors; laugh at’s, while we strut

To our confusion.

(III. xiii. 111.)

Of the preliminary blunder, which Plutarch signalises as “among the greatest faults that ever Antonius committed,” viz., his failure to give Octavius battle, when universal discontent was excited at home by Octavius’ exactions, there is no mention, or only a very slight and doubtful one in the play. When Eros has told the news of Pompey’s overthrow and Lepidus’ deposition, Enobarbus at once foresees the sequel:

Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps, no more:

And throw between them all the food thou hast,

They’ll grind the one the other.

(III. v. 14.)

And presently he continues:

Our great navy’s rigg’d.

Eros. For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius,

My lord desires you presently; my news

I might have told hereafter.

Eno. ’Twill be nought:

But let it be. Bring me to Antony.

(III. v. 20.)

Here we seem to have a faint reminiscence of Plutarch’s statement. Eros takes for granted as the obvious course, that the great navy ready to start will make an immediate descent on the enemy’s stronghold. Enobarbus, who understands Antony, knows that nothing will come of it, and that their destination is Egypt. In point of fact we learn in the next scene that Antony has arrived in Alexandria and there kept his state with Cleopatra.

But if Shakespeare glides over this episode, he dwells with all the greater detail on the array of imbecilities with which Antony follows it up. First, despite the advice of Enobarbus, he lets Cleopatra be present in the war. Then to please her caprice, and gratify his own fantastic chivalry, he sets aside the well-based objections of Enobarbus, of Canidius, of the common soldiers; and accepts Octavius’ challenge to fight at sea, though his ships are heavy, his mariners inexpert, and he himself and his veterans are more used to the dry land. Even so the inspiration of his soldiership and generalship is giving him a slight superiority, when the panic of Cleopatra withdraws her contingent of sixty ships:

Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt,—

Whom leprosy o’ertake!—i’ the midst o’ the fight,

When vantage like a pair of twins appear’d,

Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,

The breese upon her, like a cow in June,

Hoists sail and flies.

(III. x. 10.)

Not all is lost even then. But Antony follows the fugitive, when, if he were true to himself, the day might still be retrieved. This is the view that Shakespeare assigns to Canidius; and while all the previous items he derived from Plutarch, only distributing them among his persons, and adding to their picturesqueness and force, this is an addition of his own to heighten the ignominy of Antony’s desertion:

Had our general

Been what he knew himself, it had gone well.

(III. x. 25.)

And the explanation of his “most unnoble swerving,” if in one way an excuse, in another is an extra shame to his manhood, and too well justifies Enobarbus’ dread of Cleopatra’s influence:

Your presence needs must puzzle Antony;

Take from his heart, take from his brain, from’s time,

What should not then be spared.

(III. vii. 11.)

The authority for the idea that Antony was in a manner hypnotised by her love, Shakespeare found, like so much else, in the Life, but he enhances the effect immeasurably, first by putting the avowal in Antony’s own lips, and again by the more poignant and pitiful turn he gives it. Plutarch says:

There Antonius shewed plainely, that he had not onely lost the corage and hart of an Emperor, but also of a valliant man, and that he was not his owne man: (proving that true which an old man spake in myrth that the soule of a lover lived in another body, and not in his owne) he was so caried away with the vaine love of this woman, as if he had bene glued into her, and that she could not have removed without moving of him also.

Antony cries in the play:

O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt?...

Thou knew’st too well

My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,

And thou shouldst tow me after: o’er my spirit

Thy full supremacy thou knew’st, and that

Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods

Command me....

You did know

How much you were my conqueror: and that

My sword, made weak by my affection, would

Obey it on all cause.

(III. x. 51.)

But in Shakespeare’s view the final decision was not reached even at the battle of Actium. Despite that disaster and the subsequent desertions, Antony is still able to offer no inconsiderable resistance in Egypt. In direct contradiction of Plutarch’s statement, he says, after the reply to Euphronius and the scourging of Thyreus:

Our force by land

Hath nobly held; our sever’d navy too

Have knit again, and fleet, threatening most sea-like.

(III. xiii. 169.)

Whether this be fact or illusion, it shows that in his own eyes at least some hope remains: but in the hour of defeat he was quite unmanned and seemed to give up all thought of prolonging the struggle. When for the first time after his reverse we meet him in Alexandria, he prays his followers to “take the hint which his despair proclaims” (iii. xi. 18), and to leave him, with his treasure for their reward. This circumstance Shakespeare obtained from Plutarch, but in Plutarch it is not quite the same. There the dismissal takes place at Taenarus in the Peloponnesus, the first stopping-place at which Antony touches in his flight, and apparently is dictated by the difficulty of all the fugitives effecting their escape. At any rate he was very far even then from despairing of his cause, for in the previous sentence we read that he “sent unto Canidius, to returne with his army into Asia, by Macedon”; and some time later we find him, still ignorant of the facts, continuing to act on the belief “that his armie by lande, which he left at Actium, was yet whole.”[209] Here on the other hand he has succeeded in reaching his lair, and it is as foolish as it is generous to throw away adherents and resources that might be of help to him at the last. But he is too despondent to think even of standing at bay. He tells his friends:

I have myself resolved upon a course

Which has no need of you.

(III. xi. 9.)

That course was to beseech Octavius by his schoolmaster,

To let him breathe between the heavens and earth,

A private man in Athens.

(III. xii. 14.)

Here he touches the bottom mud of degradation and almost sinks to the level of Lepidus who did obtain permission to live under surveillance at Circeii “till death enlarged his confine.” And here too Shakespeare follows Plutarch, but here too with a difference. For in the biography this incident comes after some time has elapsed, and new disappointments and new indulgences have made deeper inroads in Antony’s spirit. In one aspect no doubt he is less pitiable in thus being brought to mortification by degrees. In Shakespeare he adopts this course before ever he has seen the Queen, and in so far shows greater weakness of character. Like Richard II. he bows his head at once, and without an effort takes “the sweet way to despair.” Yet just for that reason he is from another point of view less ignoble. It is the sudden sense of disgrace, the amazement, the consternation at his own poltroonery that turns his knees to water. But the very immediacy and poignancy of his self-disgust is a guarantee of surviving nobility that needs only an occasion to call it forth. The occasion comes in the refusal of his own petition and the conditional compliance with Cleopatra’s. Antony’s answer to this slighting treatment is his second challenge. This too Shakespeare obtained from Plutarch, but of this too he altered the significance and the date. In Plutarch it is sent after Antony’s victorious sally, apparently in elation at that trifling success, and is recorded without other remark than Octavius’ rejoinder. In Shakespeare it is the retort of Antony’s self-consciousness to the depreciation of his rival, and it is the first rebound of his relaxed valour. When the victor counts him as nought he is stung to comparisons, and feels that apart from success and external advantages he is still of greater worth:

Tell him he wears the rose

Of youth upon him; from which the world should note

Something particular: his coin, ships, legions,

May be a coward’s; whose ministers would prevail

Under the service of a child as soon

As i’ the command of Caesar: I dare him, therefore,

To lay his gay comparisons apart,

And answer me declined, sword against sword,

Ourselves alone.

(III. xiii. 20.)

Of course it is absurd and mad; and the madness and absurdity are brought out, in the play, not in the Life, by the comments of Enobarbus, Octavius and Mecaenas. Indeed at this juncture Antony’s valour, or rather his desperation, does not cease to prey on his reason. His insult to Caesar in the scourging of his messenger is less an excess of audacity than the gnash of the teeth in the last agony: as Enobarbus remarks:

’Tis better playing with a lion’s whelp

Than with an old one dying.

(III. xiii. 94.)

Octavius may treat these transports of a great spirit in the throes as mere bluster and brutality, and find in them a warrant for his ruthless phrase, “the old ruffian.” There is a touch of the ruffian in Antony’s wild outbursts. Even the mettlesome vein in which he commands another gaudy night on Cleopatra’s birthday is open to Enobarbus’ disparagement: that a diminution of his captain’s brain restores his heart. Truly the last shreds of prudence are whirled away in his storm of recklessness and anguish and love. At the defiant anniversary feast his soul is so wrung with gratitude to his true servants and grief at the near farewell, that he must give his feelings words though they will discourage rather than hearten the company. Cleopatra does not understand it, for her own nature has not the depth of Antony’s, and deep can only call to deep. “What means this?” she asks.

Eno. ’Tis one of those odd tricks which sorrow shoots

Out of the mind.

(IV. ii. 14.)

Again, in amazement at his tearful pathos, she exclaims: “What does he mean?” And with an effort at cynicism, Enobarbus, who has scoffed at Antony’s emotion over the bodies of Caesar and Brutus, replies: “To make his followers weep”; for Enobarbus tries to think that it is merely the orator’s eloquence that runs away with him in his melting mood. Nevertheless his own sympathies are touched for the moment: “I, an ass, am onion-eyed.” In truth none can mistake the genuine feeling of Antony’s words, though at the hint he can at once change their tone and give them an heroic and even a sanguine turn.[210]

Know, my hearts,

I hope well of to-morrow; and will lead you

Where rather I’ll expect victorious life

Than death and honour.

(IV. ii. 41.)

But whatever deductions be made, Antony’s last days in Alexandria bring back a St. Martin’s summer of genial power and genial nobility that are doubly captivating when set off against the foil of Caesar’s coldness. The grand proportions of his nature, that are obscured in the vintage time of success and indulgence, show forth again when the branches are bare. No doubt he again and again does the wrong things, or at least the things that lead to no useful result. His patron god deserts him as in Plutarch, but that god in Shakespeare is not Bacchus but Hercules, and he departs earlier than in the story and not on the last night before the end; for the withdrawal of the divine friend is now less the presage of death than the symbol of inefficacy. Antony’s insight and judgment may be failing; his flashes of power may be like his flashes of jealousy, and indicate the dissolution of his being. Still when all is said and done, he seems to become bolder, grander, more magnanimous, as the fuel is cut off from his inward fire and it burns and wastes in its own heat. His reflux of heroism cannot save him against the material superiority and concentrated ambition of Octavius, for it is not the consequent energy that commands success and that implies a consequent purpose in life: but all the more impressive and affecting is this gallant fronting of fate. As Cleopatra arms him for his last little victory, he cries with his old self-consciousness:

O love,

That thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew’st

The royal occupation! thou shouldst see

A workman in ’t.

(iV. iv. 15.)

He welcomes the time for battle:

This morning, like the spirit of a youth,

That means to be of note, begins betimes.

(iV. iv. 26.)

Cleopatra recognises his greatness and his doom:

He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might

Determine this great war in single fight!

Then, Antony,—but now—well, on.

(iV. iv. 36.)

That day he does well indeed. He pursues the recreant Enobarbus with his generosity and the vanquished Romans with his valour. He returns victorious and jubilant to claim his last welcoming embrace.

O thou day o’ the world,

Chain mine arm’d neck; leap thou, attire and all,

Through proof of harness to my heart, and there

Ride on the pants triumphing.

(iV. viii. 13.)

Then the morrow brings the end. His fleet deserts, and for the moment he suspects Cleopatra as the cause, and overwhelms her with curses and threats. The suspicion is natural, and his nature is on edge at the fiasco, which this time is no fault of his.

The soul and body rive not more in parting

Than greatness going off.[211]

(iV. xiii. 5.)

But his mood changes. Even before he hears Cleopatra’s disclaimer and the news of her alleged death, he has become calm, and only feels the futility of it all; he is to himself “indistinct, as water is in water” (iv. xiv. 10). Then comes the message that his beloved is no more, and his resolution is fixed:

Unarm me, Eros; the long day’s task is done,

And we must sleep.

(iV. xiv. 36.)

His thoughts are with his Queen in the Elysian fields where he will ask her pardon,[212] and he only stays for Eros’ help. But when Eros chooses his own rather than his master’s death, Antony in his large-hearted way gives him the praise, and finds in his act a lesson.

Thrice-nobler than myself!

Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what

I should, and thou couldst not.

(iV. xiv. 95.)

The wound he deals himself is not at once fatal. He lives long enough to comfort his followers in the heroic words:

Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate

To grace it with your sorrows: bid that welcome

Which comes to punish us, and we punish it

Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up:

I have led you oft: carry me now, good friends,

And have my thanks for all.[213]

He has heard the truth about Cleopatra, and only importunes death that he may snatch that one last interview sacred to his love of her, his care for her, and to that serene, lofty dignity which now he has attained. The world seems a blank when this full life is out; and looking at the race that is left, we feel inclined to echo Cleopatra’s words above the corpse:

O, wither’d is the garland of the war,

The soldier’s pole is fall’n: young boys and girls

Are level now with men; the odds is gone,

And there is nothing left remarkable

Beneath the visiting moon.

(iV. xv. 64.)

CHAPTER VI
CLEOPATRA

To Cleopatra, the lodestar, the temptress, the predestined mate of Antony, we now turn: and perhaps even Shakespeare has no more marvellous creation than she, or one in which the nature that inspires and the genius that reveals, are so fused in the ideal truth. Campbell says: “He paints her as if the gipsy herself had cast her spell over him, and given her own witchcraft to his pencil.” The witchcraft everybody feels. It is almost impossible to look at her steadily, or keep one’s head to estimate her aright. She is the incarnate poetry of life without duty, glorified by beauty and grace; of impulse without principle, ennobled by culture and intellect. But however it may be with the reader, Shakespeare does not lose his head. He is not the adept mesmerised, the sorcerer ensorcelled. Such avatars as the Egyptian Queen have often been described by other poets, but generally from the point of view either of the servile devotee or of the unsympathetic censor. Here the artist is a man, experienced and critical, yet with the fires of his imagination still ready to leap and glow. He stands in right relation to the laws of life; and his delineation is all the more impressive and all the more aesthetic, the more remorselessly he sacrifices the one-sided claims of the conception in which he delights to the laws of tragic necessity.

Cleopatra is introduced to us as a beauty of a somewhat dusky African type in the full maturity, or perhaps a little past the maturity, of her bloom. The first trait is for certain historically wrong.[214] The line of the Ptolemies was of the purest Grecian breed, with a purity of which they were proud, and which they sought to preserve by close intermarriage within their house. But Shakespeare has so impressed his own idea of Cleopatra on the world that later painters and poets have followed suit ever since. Tennyson, in the Dream of Fair Women tells how she summons him:

I, turning, saw throned on a flowery rise

One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll’d,

A Queen with swarthy cheeks and bold black eyes,

Brow-bound with burning gold.

Hawthorne in his Transformation, describing Story’s statue of Cleopatra, which here he attributes to Kenyon, goes further:

The face was a marvellous success. The sculptor had not shunned to give the full Nubian lips and the other characteristics of the Egyptian physiognomy. His courage and integrity had been abundantly rewarded: for Cleopatra’s beauty shone out richer, warmer, more triumphantly beyond comparison, than if, shrinking timidly from the truth, he had chosen the tame Grecian type.

Hawthorne goes astray through taking Shakespeare’s picture, or rather another picture which Shakespeare’s suggested to his own fancy, as a literal portrait; but his very mistake shows how incongruous a fair Cleopatra would now seem to us.

Not often or obtrusively, but of set purpose and beyond the possibility of neglect, does Shakespeare refer to her racial peculiarities. Philo talks of her “tawny front” (i. i. 6), and both he and Antony call her a gipsy with reference not merely to the wily and vagabond character with which these landlopers in Shakespeare’s day were stigmatised, but surely to the darkness of her complexion as well. But the most explicit and the most significant statement is her own:

Think on me,

That am with Phoebus’ amorous pinches black.

(i. v. 27.)

This is one of her ironical exaggerations; but does it not suggest something torrid and tropical, something of the fervours of the East and South, that burn in the volcanic fires of Othello and the impulsive splendours of Morocco? Does it not recall the glowing plea of the latter,

Mislike me not for my complexion,

The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun,

To whom I am a neighbour and near bred.

(M. of V., iI. i. 1.)

The sun has indeed shone on her and into her. She has known the love and adoration of the greatest.

Broad-fronted Caesar,

When thou wast here above the ground, I was

A morsel for a monarch: and great Pompey

Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;

There would he anchor his aspect and die

With looking on his life.

(i. v. 29.)

Shakespeare magnifies the glories of her conquests, for it was not Pompey the Great but his son who had been her lover of old. But these experiences were only the preparation for the grand passion of her life. She has outgrown them; and if the first freshness is gone, the intoxication of fragrance, the flavour and lusciousness are enhanced. However much she believed herself engrossed by these early fancies, now that she is under the spell of her Antony, her “man of men,” she looks back on them as of her

salad days

When (she) was green in judgement, cold in blood.

(i. v. 73.)

Talking of her preparations to meet Antony, Plutarch says:

Gessing by the former accesse and credit she had with Julius Caesar and Cneus Pompey (the sonne of Pompey the Great) only for her beawtie; she began to have good hope that she might more easily win Antonius. For Caesar and Pompey knew her when she was but a young thing, and knew not then what the world ment: but now she went to Antonius, at the age when a womans beawtie is at the prime, and she also of best judgement.

“At the prime” are Plutarch’s words; for in point of fact she was then twenty-eight years of age. In this Shakespeare follows and goes beyond his authority; he gives us the impression of her being somewhat older. Pompey talks of her contemptuously as “Egypt’s widow,” and prays:

All the charms of love,

Salt Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip.

(iI. i. 20.)

She herself in ironical self-disparagement avows that she is “wrinkled deep in time” (i. v. 29) and exclaims:

Though age from folly could not give me freedom,

It does from childishness.

(I. iii. 57.)

But what then? Like Helen and Gudrun and the ladies of romance, or like Ninon de Lenclos in actual life, she never grows old. As even the cynical Enobarbus proclaims, “age cannot wither her.” She has only gained skill and experience in the use and embellishment of her physical charms, and with these the added charms of grace, culture, expressiveness. She knows how to set off her attractions with all the aids of art, wealth and effect, as we see from the mise-en-scène at the Cydnus: and her mobility and address, her wit, her surprises, her range of interest do the rest. Again Shakespeare has got the clue from Plutarch:

Now her beawtie (as it is reported) was not so passing, as unmatchable of other women,[215] nor yet suche, as upon present viewe did enamor men with her; but so sweete was her companie and conversacion, that a man could not possiblie but be taken. And besides her beawtie, the good grace she had to talke and discourse, her curteous nature that tempered her words and dedes, was a spurre that pricked to the quick. Furthermore, besides all these, her voyce and words were marvelous pleasant; for her tongue was an instrument of musicke to divers sports and pastimes, the which she easely turned to any language that pleased her.

In one respect Shakespeare differs from Plutarch; he bestows on her surpassing and unmatchable beauty, so that she transcends the artist’s ideal as much as that transcends mortal womanhood; she o’er-pictures

that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature.[216]

(iI. ii. 205.)

But he agrees with Plutarch in making her beauty the least part of her spell. Generally speaking it is taken for granted rather than pointed out; and of its great triumph on the Cydnus we hear only in the enraptured reminiscences of Enobarbus. Thus it is removed from the sphere of sense to the sphere of imagination, and is idealised in the fervour of his delight; but, though this we never forget, it is of her other charms that we think most when she is present on the scene.

She is all life and movement, and never the same, so that we are dazzled and bewildered, and too dizzy to measure her by any fixed standard. Her versatility of intellect, her variety of mood, are inexhaustible; and she can pass from gravity to gaiety, from fondness to banter, with a suddenness that baffles conjecture. We can forecast nothing of her except that any forecast will be vain. At her very first entrance the languishing gives place in a moment to the exasperating vein:

If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

(i. i. 14.)

Fulvia perchance is angry; or, who knows

If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent

His powerful mandate to you.

(i. i. 20.)

For she turns to account even the gibe and the jeer, stings her lover with her venomous punctures, and pursues a policy of pin-pricks not to repel but to allure. The hint comes from Plutarch.

When Cleopatra found Antonius jeasts and slents to be but grosse and souldier-like, in plaine manner; she gave it him finely and without feare taunted him throughly.

And on the other hand she can faint at will, weep and sob beyond measure.

We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears: they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report.

(i. ii. 152.)

Here, too, the hint is given by Plutarch, but in a later passage, when she fears Antony may return to Octavia:

When he went from her, she fell a weeping and blubbering, looked rufully of the matter, and still found the meanes that Antonius should often tymes finde her weeping.

In the play, when he announces his departure, she is ready to fall; her lace must be cut; she plays the seduced innocent; but she mingles wormwood with her pathos and overwhelms him with all sorts of opposite reproaches. Since he does not bewail Fulvia, that is proof of infidelity:

O most false love!

Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill

With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,

In Fulvia’s death, how mine received shall be.

(i. iii. 62.)

When his distress is not to be confined, she taxes him with mourning for his wife:

I prithee, turn aside and weep for her;

Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears

Belong to Egypt.

(i. iii. 76.)

When he loses patience, she mocks at him:

Ant. You’ll heat my blood: no more.

Cle. You can do better yet; but this is meetly.

Ant. Now, by my sword,—

Cle. And target. Still he mends;

But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,

How this Herculean Roman does become

The carriage of his chafe.

(i. iii. 80.)

But at the word of his leaving she is at once all wistful tenderness:

Courteous lord, one word.

Sir, you and I must part, but that’s not it:

Sir, you and I have loved, but there’s not it;

That you know well: something it is I would,—

O, my oblivion is a very Antony,

And I am all forgotten.[217]

(i. iii. 86.)

But thence again she passes on the instant to grave and quiet dignity:

All the gods go with you! upon your sword

Sit laurel victory! and smooth success

Be strew’d before your feet!

(i. iii. 99.)

It is the unexpectedness of her transitions, the impossibility of foreseeing what she will say or do, the certainty that whatever she says or does will be a surprise, that keeps Antony and everyone else in perpetual agitation.[218] Tranquillity and dullness fly at the sound of her name. Her love relies on provocation in both senses of the word, and to a far greater extent in Shakespeare than in Plutarch. Thus Plutarch tells how Octavius’ expedition in occupying Toryne caused dismay among Antony’s troops: “But Cleopatra making light of it: ‘And what daunger, I pray you,’ said she, ‘if Caesar keepe at Toryne?’” On which North has the long marginal note:

The grace of this tawnt can not properly be expressed in any other tongue, bicause of the equivocation of this word Toryne, which signifieth a citie of Albania, and also, a ladell to scoome the pot with: as if she ment, Caesar sat by the fire side, scomming of the pot.

Shakespeare makes no attempt to find an equivalent for the untranslatable jest, but substitutes one of those bitter mocks before which Antony has so often to wince. When he expresses wonder at his rival’s dispatch, she strikes in:

Celerity is never more admired

Than by the negligent.

(iII. vii. 25.)

And she does this sort of thing on principle. She tells Alexas:

See where he is, who’s with him, what he does:

I did not send you: if you find him sad,

Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report

That I am sudden sick.

(i. iii. 2.)

Is it then all artifice? Are all her eddying whims and contradictions mere stratagems to secure her sway? For a moment Antony seems to think so. “She is cunning past man’s thought,” he says in reference to her swooning: and perhaps it is because of her cunning as well as her sinuous grace that his endearing name for her is his “Serpent of old Nile” (i. v. 25). Enobarbus’ reply is in effect that her displays of emotion are too vehement to be the results of art; they are the quintessence of feeling: “her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love” (i. ii. 151).

And both these views are correct. It is her deliberate programme to keep satiety afar by the swiftness and diversity of the changes she assumes; but it is a programme easy to carry out, for it corresponds to her own nature. She is a creature of moods. Excitement, restlessness, curiosity pulse in her life-blood. In Antony’s absence she is as flighty with herself as ever she was with him. She feeds on memories and thoughts of him, but they plague rather than soothe her. In little more than a breathing-space she turns to music, billiards, and fishing; and abandons them all to revel once in her day-dreams.

When the messenger arrives after Antony’s marriage, she in her ungovernable eagerness interrupts him and will not let him disclose the tidings for which she longs. When she hears what they are, she loses all restraint; she stuns him with threats, curses, blows; she hales him by the hair and draws a knife upon him. Then, sinking down in a faint, she suddenly recovers herself with that irrepressible vitality and inquisitiveness of hers, that are bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh:

Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him

Report the feature of Octavia, her years,

Her inclination, let him not leave out

The colour of her hair.

(iI. v. 111.)

And while we are still smiling at the last little touch, comes that moving outburst of a sensitive and sorely stricken soul:

Pity me, Charmian,

But do not speak to me.

(iI. v. 118.)

Not long, however, is she in despair. Her knowledge of Antony’s character, her knowledge of her own charms, even her vanity and self-illusion combine to give her assurance of final triumph; and when we next meet her, she is once more hopeful and alert. “Why, methinks,” she sums up at the close of her not very scientific investigation, “this creature’s no such thing” (iii. iii. 43); and she concludes, “All may be well enough” (iii. iii. 50).

The charm and piquancy of this nimble changefulness are obvious, and it is not without its value as a weapon in the warfare of life. But it is equally true that such shifting gusts will produce unreliability, and even shiftiness. It is quite natural that Cleopatra, a queen and the daughter of kings, should, in her presumptuous mood, insist on being present in the campaign and on leading to battle her own sixty ships. It is no less natural that amid the actual horrors of the conflict, the luxuriously bred lady should be seized with panic and take to flight. Indeed it is precisely what we might expect. For despite the royalty of soul she often displays, there is in Cleopatra a strain of physical timidity, for which Shakespeare has already prepared us. When the messenger of woe is to give his tidings to Antony, he hesitates and says:

The nature of bad news infects the teller,

and Antony answers nobly and truly:

When it concerns the fool or coward.

(i. ii. 99.)

We cannot help remembering Antony’s words when Cleopatra visits on the bearer the fault of the bad news to her:

Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me

Thou wouldst appear most ugly.

(iI. v. 96.)

Such a reception according to Antony stamps the fool or the coward. Cleopatra is no fool, but there is a touch of cowardice in her, that appears over and over again.

Thus it is perhaps fear, fear blended with worldliness, that gains a hearing for Thyreus. There is absolutely no indication that she is playing a part and temporising, out of faithfulness to Antony. She had already sent her own private petition to Caesar, confessing his greatness, submitting to his might, and requesting “the circle of the Ptolemies” for her heirs. This, otherwise than in Plutarch, she had done without Antony’s knowledge, who tells her, as though for her information, that he had sent his schoolmaster to bear his terms; with which Cleopatra’s were not associated. Her whole behaviour shows that she dreads Octavius’ power, and dreads the loss of her own wealth and dignities. But, in the scene with Thyreus, is she really prepared to desert and betray her lover? Antony suspects that she is, and appearances are indeed against her. Enobarbus believes that she is, and Enobarbus generally hits on the truth. Yet we have always to remember the temptation she would feel to try her spells on Thyreus and his master: and even after Enobarbus’ desertion she remains with Antony, clings to him, encourages him, arms him, is proud of him. In any case it would not be cold-blooded perfidy, but one of those flaws of weakness, of fear, of self-pity, of self-interest, that take her unawares.[219] For the final treason of the fleet at any rate, of which Antony imagines her guilty, she seems in no way responsible. Plutarch mentions Antony’s infuriated suspicion but adds no word in confirmation, and Shakespeare, who would surely not have left us without direction on so important a matter, is equally reticent. Such hints as he gives, point the other way. We may indeed discount the disclaimers of Mardian and Diomedes who would probably say anything they were told to say. But when Antony greets Cleopatra, “Ah, thou spell! avaunt!” her exclamation,

Why is my lord enraged against his love?

(iV. xii. 31.)

seems to express genuine amazement rather than assumed innocence. And in her conversation with her attendants her words, to all appearance, imply that she cannot understand his rage: to her it is merely inexplicable frenzy:

Help me, my women! O, he is more mad

Than Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly

Was never so emboss’d.

(iV. xiii. 1.)

Moreover, if she had packed cards with Caesar, it is difficult to see why she should not claim a price for her treachery, instead of locking herself up in the Monument as she does, and trying to keep the Romans out. All the negociations and interviews after Antony’s death seem to imply that she had no previous understanding with Octavius.

But she recoils from her lover’s desperation, as she always does when he is deeply moved. She has ever the tact to feel the point at which her blandishments and vexations are out of place and will no longer serve her turn. Just as after the disaster of Actium she only sobs:

O my lord, my lord,

Forgive my fearful sails!

(iII. xi. 54.)

and then can urge no plea but “pardon”; just as after her interview with Thyreus, with no hint of levity, she solemnly imprecates curses on herself and her offspring if she were false; so now she bows before his wrath and flees to the monument. Then follows the fiction of her death, a fiction in which the actress does not forget the finesses of her art.

Say, that the last I spoke was “Antony,”

And word it, prithee, piteously.

(iV. xiii. 8.)

It is not the most candid nor dignified expedient, but probably it is the most effective one; for violent ills need violent cures; and perhaps there was nothing that could allay Antony’s storm of distrust but as fierce a storm of regret. At any rate it has the result at which Cleopatra aims; but she knows him well, and presently foresees that the antidote may have a further working than she intends. Diomedes seems to state the mere truth when he says that her prophesying fear dispatched him to proclaim the truth.

But it is too late; and there only remains the lofty parting scene, when if she still fears to open the gates lest Caesar should enter, she draws her lover up to the monument, and lightens his last moments no less with her queenliness than with her love. She feels the fitness and the pathos in his ending, that none but Antony should conquer Antony: she not obscurely hints that she will take the same path. When he bids her:

Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety;

(iV. xv. 47.)

she answers well, “They do not go together.” Her passionate ejaculation ere she faints above his corpse, her appeal to her frightened women,

what’s brave, what’s noble,

Let’s do it after the high Roman fashion,

(V. xv. 87.)

have a whole-heartedness and intensity that first reveal the greatness of her nature.

And yet even now she seems to veer from the prouder course on which she has set out. We soon find her in appearance paltering with her Roman decision. She sends submissive messages to Caesar; she delays her death so long that Proculeius can surprise her in her asylum; she accepts her conqueror’s condescension; she stoops to hold back and conceal the greater part of her jewels.

It is a strange riddle that Shakespeare has here offered to the student, and perhaps no certain solution of it is to be found. In this play, even more than in most, he resorts to what has been called his shorthand, to the briefest and most hurried notation of his meaning, and often it is next to impossible to explain or extend his symbols.

The usual interpretation, which has much to commend it, accepts all these apparent compliances of Cleopatra for what on the face they are. They are taken as instances of Shakespeare’s veracious art that abstains from sophisticating fact for the sake of effect, and attains a higher effect through this very conscientiousness and self-restraint. Just as he makes the enthusiastic fidelity of Enobarbus fail to stand the supreme test, so he detects a flaw in the resolute yearning of Cleopatra. The body of her dead past weighs her down, and she cannot advance steadily in the higher altitudes. She wavers in her determination to die, as is implied by her retention of her treasure, and “the courtesan’s instincts of venality and falsehood”[220] still assert their sway. She has too easily taken to heart Antony’s advice, and is but too ready, despite all her brave words, to grasp at her safety along with her honour, or what she is pleased to consider her honour to be. And, just as in the case of Enobarbus, an external stimulus is needed to urge her to the nobler course. The gods in their unkindness are kind to her. Dolabella’s disclosures and her own observations convince her that Caesar spares her only for his own glory and for her shame; that, as she foreboded, her safety and her honour do not go together. Then, at the thought of the indignity, all her royal and aristocratic nature rises in revolt, and she at last chooses as she ought.

On the other hand it is possible to maintain that all these apparent lapses are mere subterfuges forced on Cleopatra to ensure the success of her scheme; and this interpretation receives some support not only from the text of the play, but from the comparison of it with North, and a consideration of what in the original narrative Shakespeare takes for granted, of what he alters, and of what he adds.[221]

After her more or less explicit statements in Antony’s death scene, her suppliant message from the monument is an interpolation of the dramatist’s; but so is the very different declaration which she subsequently makes to her confidantes and in which her purpose of suicide seems unchanged:

My desolation does begin to make

A better life. ’Tis paltry to be Caesar;

Not being Fortune, he’s but Fortune’s knave,

A minister of her will: and it is great

To do the thing that ends all other deeds;

Which shackles accidents and bolts up change;

Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung,[222]

The beggar’s nurse and Caesar’s.

(V. ii. 1.)

Which of these two utterances gives the true Cleopatra, the one transmitted at second hand for Octavius’ consumption, or the one breaking from her in private to her two women who will be true to her till death? Quite apart from the circumstances in which, and the persons to whom, they are spoken, there is a marked difference in tone between the ceremonious official character of the first, and the spontaneous sincerity of the second.

Then just at this moment Proculeius arrives and engages her in talk. It is not wonderful that she should look for a moment to the man Antony had recommended to her; but, though she is deferential to Octavius, her one request is not for herself but for her son. And when the surprise is effected, there is no question of the genuineness of her attempt at self-destruction. Even when she is disarmed, she persists, as with Plutarch, in her resolution to kill herself if need be by starvation. In Plutarch she is dissuaded from this by threats against her children; in Shakespeare events proceed more rapidly, and she has no time to put such a plan in practice; nor is any serious use made of the maternal “motif.” From first to last it is, along with grief for Antony, resentment at the Roman triumph that moves her. And these feelings are in full activity when immediately afterwards she is left in charge of Dolabella. This passage also is an addition, and it is noteworthy that it begins with her deification of Antony, and ends with Dolabella’s assurance, which in Plutarch only follows later where the play repeats it, of her future fate.

Cle. He’ll lead me, then, in triumph?

Dol. Madam, he will; I know’t.

(V. ii. 109.)

It is just then that Caesar is announced; and it is hard to believe that Cleopatra, with her two master passions excited to the height, should really contemplate embezzling treasure as provision for a life which surely, in view of the facts, she could not care to prolong. Moreover, in Plutarch’s narrative there is a contradiction or ambiguity which North’s marginal note brings into relief, and which would be quite enough to set a duller man than Shakespeare thinking about what it all meant.

At length, she gave him a breefe and memoriall of all the readie money and treasure she had. But by chaunce there stoode Seleucus by, one of her Treasorers, who to seeme a good servant, came straight to Caesar to disprove Cleopatra, that she had not set in al, but kept many things back of purpose. Cleopatra was in such a rage with him, that she flew upon him and tooke him by the heare of the head, and boxed him wellfavoredly. Caesar fell a-laughing, and parted the fray. “Alas,” said she, “O Caesar: is not this a great shame and reproche, that thou having vouchsaved to take the peines to come unto me, and hast done me this honor, poore wretche, and caitife creature, brought into this pitiefull and miserable estate: and that mine owne servaunts should come now to accuse me, though it may be I have reserved some juells and trifles meete for women, but not for me (poore soule) to set out my selfe withall, but meaning to geve some pretie presents and gifts unto Octavia and Livia, that they making meanes and intercession for me to thee, thou mightest yet extend thy favor and mercie upon me?” Caesar was glad to heare her say so, perswading him selfe thereby that she had yet a desire to save her life. So he made her answere, that he did not only geve her that to dispose of at her pleasure, which she had kept backe, but further promised to use her more honorably and bountifully then she would thinke for: and so he tooke his leave of her, supposing he had deceived her, but in deede he was deceived him selfe.

And North underlines the suggestive clauses with his comment:

Cleopatra finely deceiveth Octavius Caesar, as though she desired to live.

It is not hard therefore to see how the whole episode may be taken as contrived on her part. It would be a device of the serpent of old Nile, one of her triumphs of play-acting, by means of which she gets the better of her conqueror and makes him indeed an ass unpolicied. And though the suggestion would come from Plutarch, whom Shakespeare follows in the main very closely throughout this passage, it is pointed out that some of Shakespeare’s modifications in detail seem to favour this view.

And to begin with it should be noticed that in all this episode he passes over what is abject or hysterical or both in Plutarch’s Cleopatra, and gives her a large measure of royal self-respect and self-command. This is how Octavius finds her in the original story:

Cleopatra being layed upon a little low bed in poore estate, when she sawe Caesar come in to her chamber, she sodainly rose up, naked in her smocke, and fell downe at his feete marvelously disfigured: both for that she had plucked her heare from her head, as also for that she had martired all her face with her nailes, and besides, her voyce was small and trembling, her eyes sonke into her heade with continuall blubbering.

Thus, and with other traits that we omit, Plutarch describes her “ougly and pitiefull state,” when Caesar comes to see and comfort her. We cannot imagine Shakespeare’s Cleopatra ever so forgetting what was due to her beauty, her rank, and herself. Then the narrative proceeds:

When Caesar had made her lye downe againe, and sate by her beddes side; Cleopatra began to cleere and excuse her selfe for that she had done, laying all to the feare she had of Antonius. Caesar, in contrarie maner, reproved[223] her in every poynt.

In the play this suggestion is put back to the interview with Thyreus; and is made, not refuted, on the authority of Octavius.

Thy. He knows that you embrace not Antony

As you did love, but as you fear’d him.

Cle.O!

Thy. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he

Does pity as constrained blemishes,

Not as deserved.

Cle.He is a god, and knows

What is most right: mine honour was not yielded,

But conquer’d merely.

(iII. xiii. 56.)

But this was before the supreme sorrow had come to quicken in her, her nobler instincts. Now she has no thought of incriminating Antony and exculpating herself. She says with quiet dignity:

Sole sir o’ the world,

I cannot project mine own cause so well

To make it clear: but do confess I have

Been laden with like frailties, which before

Have often shamed our sex.

(V. ii. 120.)

Even her wrath at Seleucus is less outrageous than in Plutarch. She threatens his eyes, but does not proceed to physical violence. She does not fly upon him and seize him by the hair of the head and box him well-favouredly. These vivacities Shakespeare had remarked, but he transfers them to the much earlier scene when she receives news of Antony’s marriage and strikes the messenger to the ground, and strikes him again, and drags him up and down. Now she has somewhat more self-control, and is no longer carried beyond all limits of decency by her ungovernable moods. Shakespeare, therefore, gives her a new dignity and strength even in this most equivocal scene; and how could these be reconciled with a craven hankering for life and a base desire to retain by swindling a share of its gewgaws?

But a further alteration, we are told, gives a definite though unobtrusive hint that all the while she is in collusion with Seleucus, and that the whole affair is a comedy arranged between them to keep open the door of death. Not only does the treasurer escape unpunished after his disclosure, but he is invited to make it. In Plutarch he merely happens to stand by, and intervenes “to seeme a good servant.” Here Cleopatra calls for him; bids Caesar let him speak on his peril; and herself orders him, “Speak the truth, Seleucus.”

Moreover his statement and her excuse point to a much more serious embezzlement than Plutarch suggests, and just in so far would give Octavius a stronger impression of her desire to live. In the biography Seleucus confines himself to saying that “she had not set in al, but kept many things back of purpose”: and she confesses only to “some juells and trifles meete for women ... meaning to geve some pretie presents and gifts unto Octavia and Livia.” In the play to her question: “What have I kept back?” Seleucus answers:

Enough to purchase what you have made known:

(V. ii. 148.)

and she, after the express proviso she makes in advance, that she has not admitted petty things in the schedule, now acknowledges that she has reserved not only “lady trifles, immoment toys“—these were already accounted for—but some “nobler token” for Octavius’ sister and wife.

If these clues are unduly faint, we are reminded that such elliptical treatment is not without parallel in other incidents of the drama. Octavius’ policy in regard to Octavia’s marriage, for example, has, in just the same way, to be gathered from the general drift of events and the general probabilities of the case, from an unimportant suggestion in Plutarch, from the opportunity furnished to Agrippa, and his agency in that transaction, which are not more explicit than the opportunity furnished to Seleucus, and his agency in this.

These arguments are ingenious and not without their cogency, but they leave one unconvinced. The difficulties in accepting them are far greater than in the analogous question of Antony’s marriage. For in the latter the theory of Octavius’ duplicity does not contradict the impression of the scene. Nor does it contradict but only supplements the statement of the historian: the utmost we can say is that it is not made sufficiently prominent. And, lastly, the doubt that is thus left possible does not concern a protagonist of the drama, but at most the chief or one of the chief of the minor characters. But in the present case the impression produced on the unsophisticated reader is certainly that Cleopatra is convicted of fraud: and however that impression may be weakened by a review of the circumstances as a whole, there is no single phrase or detail that brings the opposite theory home to the imagination. Besides, the complicity of Seleucus would be a much bolder fabrication than the complicity of Agrippa: the latter is not recorded, but the opposite of the former is recorded, and was accepted by all who dealt with this episode from Jodelle to Daniel, and probably by all who read Plutarch: the treasurer was present by accident and used the opportunity to ingratiate himself. So Shakespeare, without giving adequate guidance himself, would leave people to the presuppositions they had formed under the guidance of his author. Surely this is a very severe criticism on his art. But this is not all. The misconstruction which he did nothing to prevent and everything to produce, would concern the heroine of the piece, an even more important personage than the hero, as is shown by her receiving the fifth act to herself, while Antony is dismissed in the fourth.

These objections, however, only apply to the view that the suppression and discovery of the treasure were parts of a deliberate stratagem. They do not affect the arguments that Cleopatra has virtually accepted death as the only practical solution, and that the rest of her behaviour at this stage accords ill with mercenary imposture.

In a word both these antagonistic theories approve themselves in so far as they take into account the facts alleged and the impressions produced by the drama. If we credit our feelings, it is quite true that Cleopatra is taken by surprise and put out of countenance, that she seeks to excuse herself and passionately resents the disloyalty of Seleucus. And again, if we credit our feelings, it is quite true that from the time the mortally wounded Antony is brought before her, she has made up her mind to kill herself, and that she is nobler and more queenly for her decision than she was before or than Plutarch makes her.

Of course, buoyant and versatile, feeling her life in every limb, and quick to catch each passing chance, she may even now without really knowing it, without really believing it, have hoped against hope that she might still obtain terms she could accept undisgraced. And the hope of life would bring with it the frailties of life, for clearly it is only the resolve to die that lifts her above herself. So here we should only have another instance of the complexity of her strange nature that can consciously elect the higher path, and yet all the while in its secret councils provide, if it may be, for following the lower.

But is there not another interpretation possible? What are these “lady trifles” and “nobler tokens” that together would purchase all the wealth of money, plate and jewels she has declared. Plutarch, talking of her magnificence when she obeyed Antony’s first summons, evidently does not expect to be believed, and adds that it was such “as is credible enough she might bring from so great a house, and from so wealthie a realme as Ægypt was.” And now she is “again for Cydnus,” and needs her “crown and all.” Already to all intents and purposes she has resolved on her death, as is shown by her frequent assurances. She has also resolved on the means of it; for scarcely has Caesar left, than she tells Charmian:

I have spoke already, and it is provided.

(V. ii. 195.)

Will she not also have resolved on the manner of it; and both in the self-consciousness of her beauty and in memory of her first meeting with Antony, does she not desire to depart life for the next meeting with due pomp and state? If we imagine she was keeping back her regalia for this last display, we can understand why Shakespeare inserted the “nobler token” in addition to the unconsidered trifles which she was quite ready to own she had reserved, and of which indeed in Shakespeare though not in Plutarch she had already made express mention as uninventoried.[224] We can understand her consternation and resentment at the disclosure; for just as in regard to the “nobler token” she could not explain her real motives without ruining her plan. And we can admire her “cunning past man’s thought” in turning the whole incident to account as proof that she was willing to live on sufferance as protégée of Caesar.

No doubt this suggestion is open to the criticism that it is nowhere established by a direct statement; but that also applies to the most probable explanation of some other matters in the play. And meanwhile I think that it, better than the two previous theories we have discussed, satisfies the conditions, by conforming with the data of the play, the treatment of the sources, and the feelings of the reader. On the one hand it fully admits the reality of Cleopatra’s fraud and of her indignation at Seleucus. On the other it removes the discrepancy between her dissimulation, and the loftiness of temper and readiness for death, which she now generally and but for the usual interpretation of this incident invariably displays. It tallies with what we may surmise from Shakespeare’s other omissions and interpolations; and if it goes beyond Plutarch’s account of Caesar’s deception by Cleopatra, it does not contradict it, and therefore would not demand so full and definite a statement as a new story entirely different from the original.

Be that as it may, there is at least no trace of hesitation or compliance in the Queen from the moment when she perceives that Octavius is merely “wording” her. Her self-respect is a stronger or, at any rate, a more conspicuous motive than her love. Antony, when he believed her false had said to her:

Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving,

And blemish Caesar’s triumph. Let him take thee,

And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians:

Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot

Of all thy sex; most monster-like be shown

For poor’st diminutives, for doits: and let

Patient Octavia plough thy visage up

With her prepared nails.

(iV. xii. 32.)

These words of wrath have lingered in her memory and she echoes them in his dying ears:

Not the imperious show

Of the full-fortuned Caesar ever shall

Be brooch’d with me; if knife, drugs, serpents have

Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe:

Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes

And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour

Demuring upon me.

(iV. xv. 23.)

The loathsomeness of the prospect grows in her imagination, and compared with it the most loathsome fate is desirable. She tells Proculeius:

Know, sir, that I

Will not wait pinion’d at your master’s court;

Nor once be chastised with the sober eye

Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up

And show me to the shouting varletry

Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt

Be gentle grave unto me! rather on Nilus’ mud

Lay me stark naked, and let the water-flies

Blow me into abhorring! rather make

My country’s high pyramides my gibbet,

And hang me up in chains.

(V. ii. 52.)

And now in the full realisation of the scene, she brings it home to her women:

Cle.Now, Iras, what think’st thou?

Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown

In Rome, as well as I: mechanic slaves

With greasy aprons, rules and hammers, shall

Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,

Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,

And forced to drink their vapour.

Iras.The gods forbid!

Cle. Nay, ’tis most certain, Iras: saucy lictors

Will catch at us, like strumpets; and scald rhymers

Ballad us out of tune.

(V. ii. 207.)

Such thoughts expel once for all her mutability and flightiness:

My resolution’s placed and I have nothing

Of woman in me: now from head to foot

I am marble constant; now the fleeting moon

No planet is of mine.

(V. ii. 238.)

And the scene that follows with the banalities and trivialities of the clown who supplies the aspics among the figs, brings into relief the loneliness of a queenly nature and a great sorrow. Yet not merely the loneliness, but the potency as well. Who would have given the frivolous waiting-women of the earlier scenes credit for devotion and heroism? Yet inspired by her example they learn their lesson and are ready to die as nobly as she. Iras has spoken for them all:

Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,

And we are for the dark.

(V. ii. 193.)

Now she brings the robe and crown Cleopatra wore at Cydnus, and then, like Eros, ushers the way. Charmian stays but to close the eyes and arrange the diadem of her dead mistress:

Downy windows, close;

And golden Phoebus never be beheld

Of eyes again so royal. Your crown’s awry;

I’ll mend it, and then play.

(V. ii. 319.)

Thereupon she too applies the asp and provokes its fang.

O, come apace, dispatch.

(V. ii. 325.)

Even in the last solemn moment there is vanity, artifice, and voluptuousness in Cleopatra. She is careful of her looks, of her state, of her splendour, even in death; and doubtless would have smiled if she could have heard Caesar’s tardy praise:

She looks like sleep,

As she would catch another Antony

In her strong toil of grace.

(V. ii. 349.)

And she does not depart quite in the high Roman fashion. She has studied to make her passage easy, and has taken all measures that may enable her to liken the stroke of death to a lover’s pinch and the biting of the asp to the suckling of a babe, and to say:

As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle.

(V. ii. 314.)

None the less her exit in its serene grace and dignity is imperial, and deserves the praise of the dying Charmian and the reluctant Octavius.

CHAPTER VII
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

Hitherto this discussion of Antony and Cleopatra has so far as possible passed over the most distinctive thing in the history of the hero and heroine, the fatal passion that binds them together, gives significance to their lives, and makes their memories famous. Knowing their environment and their nature we are in a better position to see in some measure what it meant.

We have noted how in that generation all ties of customary morality are loosed, how the individual is a law to himself, and how selfishness runs riot in its quest of gratification, acquisition, material ambition. Among the children of that day those make the most sympathetic impression who import into the somewhat casual and indefinite personal relations that remain—the relation of the legionary to his commander, of the freedman to his patron, of the waiting-woman to her mistress—something of universal validity and worth. But obviously no connection in a period like this at once arises so naturally from the conditions, and has the possibilities of such abiding authority, as the love of the sexes. On the one hand it is the most personal bond of all. Love is free and not to be compelled. It results from the spontaneous motion of the individual. Were we to conceive the whole social fabric dissolved, men and women would still be drawn together by mutual inclination in more or less permanent unions of pairs. And yet this attraction that seems to be and that is so completely dictated by choice, that is certainly quite beyond the domain of external compulsion, is in another aspect quite independent of the will of the persons concerned, and sways them like a resistless natural force. It has been said that the highest compliment the lover can pay the beloved is to say, “I cannot help loving you.” Necessity is laid upon him, and he is but its instrument. If then the inclination is so pervasive and imperious that it becomes a master passion, clearly it will supply the grand effective bond when other social bonds fail. When nothing else can, it will enable a man and woman to overleap a few at least of the barriers of their selfishness, and in some measure to merge their egoism in sympathy. This is what justifies Antony’s idolatry of Cleopatra to our feelings. The passion is enthusiastic, and in a way is self-forgetful; and passion, enthusiasm, self-forgetfulness, whatever their aberrations, always command respect. They especially do so in this world of greeds and cravings and calculating self-interest. This infinite devotion that shrinks from no sacrifice, is at once the greatest thing within Antony’s reach, and witness to his own greatness in recognising its worth. The greatest thing within his reach: when we remember what the ambitions of his fellows and his rivals were, there is truth in the words with which he postpones all such ambitions to the bliss of the mutual caress:

Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch

Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space.

Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike

Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life

Is to do thus: when such a mutual pair (embracing)

And such a twain can do’t, in which I bind,

On pain of punishment, the world to weet

We stand up peerless.

(i. i. 33.)

And only one of grand general outlook could feel like this, when he had tasted the sweets of conquest and power, and when all the kingdoms of the world were reached to his hand as the alternative for the kingdom of his love. It takes a hero, with such experiences behind him and such opportunities before, to make the disastrous choice. Heine tells us how he read Plutarch at school and how the master “impressed on us that Antony for this woman spoiled his public career, involved himself in domestic unpleasantnesses, and at last plunged himself in ruin. In truth my old master was right, and it is extremely dangerous to establish intimate relations with a person like Cleopatra. It may be the destruction of a hero; but only of a hero. Here as everywhere there is no danger for worthy mediocrity.”

But despite the sympathy with which Shakespeare regards Antony’s passion both as an object of pursuit and as an indication of nobility, he is quite aware that it is pernicious and criminal. Relatively it may be extolled: absolutely it must be condemned. It is rooted in breach of troth and duty, and it bears within itself the seeds of infidelity and wrong. It has none of the inviolability and security of a lawful love. After all, Cleopatra’s gibes about Antony’s relations with “the married woman” and herself, despite their affectation of petulance, are only too much to the point, so far as he is concerned; and when she has yielded to Julius, Pompey, and Antony in turn, what guarantee has the last favourite that she will not do so again to some later supplanter? In point of fact each is untrue to the other, Antony by his marriage with Octavia, Cleopatra by her traffickings with Octavius and Thyreus.[225] She forfeits in the sequel her right to be angry at his truancy; he has forfeited in advance the right to be angry at hers. But it is their penalty that these resentments should come between them; and at the very time when they most need each other’s support, their relation, being far from the perfect kind that casts out mistrust, is vitiated by jealousy on the one side and fear on the other. She flees to the Monument, shuts herself up from his blind rage in craven panic, and seeks to save her life by lies. At the sight of the liberties she has allowed Thyreus to take, he loses himself in mad outbursts which have but a partial foundation in the facts. Then he jumps to the conclusion that she has arranged for the desertion of the sailors, and dooms her to death, when in reality she seems to know nothing about it.

Betray’d I am:

O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,—

Whose eye beck’d forth my wars and call’d them home;

Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,—

Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,

Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.

(iV. xii. 24.)

These terrors and suspicions are inevitable in such love as theirs.

Or is their feeling for each other to be called love at all? The question has been asked even in regard to Antony. From first to last he is aware not only of her harmfulness but of her pravity. He is under no illusions about her cunning, her boggling, her falsity. And can this insight co-exist with devotion?

Much more frequently it has been asked in regard to Cleopatra. She frankly avows even in retrospect her policy of making him her prey. Thus does she mimic fact in her pastime:

Give me mine angle: we’ll to the river; there,

My music playing far off, I will betray

Tawny-finn’d fishes; my bended hook shall pierce

Their slimy jaws; and, as I draw them up,

I’ll think them every one an Antony,

And say, “Ah, ha! you’re caught.”

(iI. v. 10.)

Moreover, her first capture of him at that banquet where he paid his heart as ordinary, was a mere business speculation. He has been useful to her since, for he is the man to piece her opulent throne with kingdoms. When he seems lost to her, she realises that she can no longer gratify her caprices as once she did.

Alex. Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you

But when you are well pleased.

Cle.That Herod’s head

I’ll have: but how, when Antony is gone

Through whom I might command it?

(iII. iii. 4.)

Or, if other motives supervene, they belong to wanton whim and splendid coquetry. Her deliberate allurements, her conscious wiles, her calculated tenderness, are all employed merely to retain her command of the serviceable instrument, and at the same time minister to her vanity, since Antony would accept such a rôle only from her.

If both or either of these theories were adopted, the whole interest and dignity of the theme would be gone. If Antony were not genuinely in love, his follies and delinquencies would cast him beyond the pale of our tolerance. If Cleopatra were not genuinely in love, she would at best deserve the description of Ten Brink, “a courtesan of genius.” If the love were not mutual, Antony would be merely the toy of the courtesan, Cleopatra merely the toy of the sensualist.

But in point of fact, it is mutual and sincere. Antony’s feeling has to do with much more than the senses. It goes deeper and higher; and even when he doubts Cleopatra’s affection, he never doubts his own:

(Her) heart I thought I had, for she had mine.

(iV. xiv. 16.)

Cleopatra’s feeling may have originated in self-interest and may make use of craft. But in catching Antony she has been caught herself; and though interest and vanity are not expelled, they are swallowed up in vehement admiration for the man she has ensnared. Her artifices are successful, because they are the means made use of by a heart that is deeply engaged; and it is no paradox to say that they are evidence of her sincerity. So often as she refers to her lover seriously, it is with something like adoration. After the first separation, he is her “man of men.” In her first bitterness at his marriage, she cannot let him go, for

Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,

The other way’s a Mars.

(iI. v. 116.)

Even when he is fallen and worsted, she has no doubt how things would go were it a merely personal contest between him and his rival. When he returns from his last victory, she greets him: “Lord of lords! O infinite virtue!” (iv. viii. 16). When he dies, the world seems to her “no better than a sty” (iv. xv. 62). When she recalls his splendour, his bounty, his joyousness, it seems not a reality, but a dream, which yet must be more than a dream.

If there be, nor ever were, one such,

It’s past the size of dreaming: nature wants stuff

To vie strange forms with fancy; yet, to imagine

An Antony, were nature’s piece ’gainst fancy,

Condemning shadows quite.

(V. ii. 96.)

Various interpretations have been given of these lines, but on any possible interpretation they exalt Antony alike above fact and fancy.[226] And when we run through the whole gamut of the words and deeds of the pair, from their squabbles to their death, it seems to me possible to doubt their love only by isolating some details and considering them to the exclusion of the rest.

But the truth is that the love of Antony and Cleopatra is genuine and intense; and if it leads to shame as well as to glory, this is to be explained, apart from the circumstances of the time, apart from the characters of the lovers, in the nature of the variety to which it belongs.

Plutarch, whose thoughts when he is discussing such subjects are never far from Plato’s, has a passage in which he characterises Antony’s passion by reference to the famous metaphor in the Phaedrus.

In the ende, the horse of the minde, as Plato termeth it, that is so hard of rayne (I meane the unreyned lust of concupiscence), did put out of Antonius’ heade all honest and commendable thoughts.

Certainly it is not the milder and more docile steed that takes the lead in Antony’s affection. But it is perhaps a little surprising that Plutarch did not rather go for his Platonic illustration to the Symposium, where the disquisitions of Aristophanes and Diotima explain respectively what Antony’s love is and is not. Aristophanes, with his myth that men, once four-legged and four-armed, were split in two because they were too happy, and now are pining to find their counterparts, gives the exact description of what the love of Antony and Cleopatra is.

Each of us when separated is but the indenture of a man, having one side only like a flat-fish, and he is always looking for his other half.... When one of them finds his other half, ... the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment.[227]

And, on the other hand, Diotima’s opposite theory does not apply to this particular case, at least, to begin with or superficially:

You hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other half; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half of themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a good. And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away, if they are evil.... For there is nothing which men love but the good.[228]

We may put the case in a somewhat more popular and modern fashion. All love that really deserves the name must base more or less completely on sympathy, on what Goethe called Wahlverwandschaft, or elective affinity. But such affinity may be of different kinds and degrees, and according to its range will tend to approximate to one of two types. It may mean sympathy with what is deepest and highest in us, our aspiration after the ideal, our bent towards perfection; or it may mean sympathy with our whole nature and with all our feelings and tendencies, alike with those that are high and with those that are low. The former is the more exacting though the more beneficent. It implies the suppression and abnegation in us of much that is base, of much that is harmless, of much, even, that may be good, for the sake of the best. In it we must inure ourselves to effort and sacrifice for the sake of advance in that supersensible realm where the union took place.

The second is less austere, and, for the time being, more comprehensive. It is founded on a correspondence in all sorts of matters, great and small, noble and base, of good or of bad report. If it lacks the exclusive loftiness of the other, it affords many more points of contact and a far greater wealth of daily fellowship. And of this latter variety, the love of Antony and Cleopatra is perhaps the typical example. At first sight it is evident that they are, as we say, made for each other. They are both past the first bloom of youth. Cleopatra, whom at the outset Plutarch makes twenty-eight years of age, and of whose wrinkles and waned lip Shakespeare, though in irony and exaggeration, finds it possible to speak, has relatively reached the same period of life as Antony, whom Plutarch makes at the outset forty-three or forty-six years of age, and whom Shakespeare represents as touched with the fall of eld. And they correspond in their experiences. Neither is a novice in love and pleasure: Cleopatra, the woman with a history, Antony, the masquer and reveller of Clodius’ set, have both seen life. They are alike in their emotionalism, their impressibility, their quick wits, their love of splendour, their genial power, their intellectual scope, their zest for everything. Plutarch narrates—and it is strange that à propos of this he did not quote Aristophanes’ saying in the Symposium—

She, were it in sport, or in matter of earnest, still devised sundrie new delights to have Antonius at commaundement, never leaving him night nor day, nor once letting him go out of her sight. For she would play at dyce with him, drinke with him, and hunt commonly with him, and also be with him when he went to any exercise or activity of body. And sometime, also, when he would goe up and downe the citie disguised like a slave in the night, and would peere into poore men’s windowes and their shops, and scold and brawle with them within the house: Cleopatra would be also in a chamber-maides array, and amble up and downe the streets with him, so that oftentimes Antonius bare away both mockes and blowes.

Here we have a picture of the completest camaraderie in things serious and frivolous, athletic and intellectual, decorous and venturesome, with memories of which the play is saturated. We are witnesses of Cleopatra’s impatience when he is away for a moment: we hear of her drinking him to bed before the ninth hour, and of their outdoor sports. Antony proposes to roam the streets with her and note the qualities of the people. Perhaps it was some such expedition that gave Enobarbus material for his description:

I saw her once

Hop forty paces through the public street;

And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,

That she did make defect perfection,

And, breathless, power breathe forth.

(II. ii. 233.)

It is such doings that raise the gorge of the genteel Octavius, who has no sense for popular pleasures, whether we call them simple or vulgar. But the daughter of the Ptolemies is less fastidious, and is as ready as Antony to escape from the etiquette of the court and take her share in these unceremonious frolics. Yet it is not only these lighter moods and moments that draw them together. In the depth of his mistrust, Antony recalls the “grave charm” of his enchantress; and she, when he is no more, remembers that

his voice was propertied

As all the tuned spheres.

(V. ii. 83.)

But what of serious and elevated they have in common gains warmth and colour by their mutual delight in much that is neither one nor other. He tells her,

But that your royalty

Holds idleness your subject, I should take you

For idleness itself.

(I. iii. 91.)

And he pays homage to her in every mood:

Fie, wrangling queen!

Whom everything becomes, to chide, to laugh,

To weep; whose every passion fully strives

To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!

(I. i. 48.)

It is as genuine and catholic admiration as Florizel’s for Perdita:

What you do

Still betters what is done....

Each your doing,

So singular in each particular,

Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,

That all your acts are queens.

(W.T. IV. iv. 135.)

But apart from their sincerity and range, how different are the two tributes: Florizel’s all innocence and simplicity, Antony’s raffiné and sophisticated. We feel from his words that he would endorse Shakespeare’s ambiguous praise of his own dark lady:

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill,

That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?

(Sonnet cl. 5.)

Does not Enobarbus speak in almost exactly the same way of the Cleopatra that Antony adores?

Vilest things

Become themselves in her; that the holy priests

Bless her when she is riggish.

(II. ii. 243.)

Thus the two are alike not only in great and indifferent things, but in their want of steadfastness, their want of principle, their compliance with baseness. Hence they encourage each other in what debilitates and degrades, as well as in what fortifies and exalts. At its worst their love has something divine about it, but often it seems a divine orgy rather than a divine inspiration. Not seldom does it lead to madness and ignominy. That Antony loses the world for it is a small matter and even proves his grandeur of soul. But for it, besides “offending reputation,” he profanes his inward honour as well; and that unmasks it as the Siren and Fury of their lives. Indeed, such love is self-destructive, and for it the lovers sacrifice the means of securing it against the hostile power of things. Yet, just because it is so plenary and permeating, it becomes an inspiration too. When its prodigal largesse fails, at the hour when it is stripped of its inessential charms, the lovers are thrown back on itself; and at once it elevates them both. Antony, believing Cleopatra dead, and not yet undeceived as to the part that he fancies she played at the last, thinks only of following her to entreat and obtain a reconciliation.

I will o’ertake thee, Cleopatra, and

Weep for my pardon.

(IV. xiv. 44.)

When he learns that she still lives, no reproach crosses his lips for the deceit; his only wish as the blood flows from his breast is to be borne “where Cleopatra bides” to take a last farewell. He wrestles with death till he receives the final embrace:

I am dying, Egypt, dying: only

I here importune death awhile, until

Of many thousand kisses the poor last

I lay upon thy lips.

(IV. xv. 18.)

Thereafter he has no thought of himself but only of her, counselling her in complete self-abnegation to seek of Caesar her honour with her safety, and recommending her to trust only Proculeius—one who, as we soon learn, would be eager to preserve her life.

And her love, too, though perhaps more fitfully, yet all the more strikingly, is deepened and solemnised by trial. After Actium it quite loses its element of mockery and petulance. Her flout at Antony’s negligence before the battle is the last we hear her utter. Henceforth, whether she protests her faith, or speeds him to the fight, or welcomes him on his return, her words have a new seriousness and weight.[229] Her feeling seems to become simpler and sincerer as her fortunes cloud, and at her lover’s death it is nature alone that triumphs. In the first shock of bereavement Iras, attempting consolation, addresses her as “Royal Egypt, Empress”; and she replies:

No more, but e’en a woman, and commanded

By such poor passion as the maid that milks

And does the meanest chares.

(IV. xv. 72.)

Her grief for her great loss, a grief, perhaps, hardly anticipated by herself, is in her own eyes her teacher, and “begins to make a better life.” Even now she may falter, if the usual interpretation of her fraud with the treasure is correct. Even now, at all events, she has to be urged by the natural and royal but not quite unimpeachable motive, the dread of external disgrace. Cleopatra is very human to the last. Her weaknesses do not disappear, but they are but as fuel to the flames of her love by which they are bred and which they help to feed. It is still as the “curled Antony” she pictures her dead lover, and it is in “crown and robe” that she will receive that kiss which it is her heaven to have. But even in this there is a striking similarity to Antony’s expectation of the land where “souls do couch on flowers,” and where they will be the cynosure of the gazing ghosts. Their oneness of heart and feeling is indeed now complete, and their love is transfigured. It is at his call she comes, and his name is the last word she utters, before she lays the second asp on her arm. The most wonderful touch of all is that now she feels her right to be considered his wife. This, of course, is due to Shakespeare, but it is not altogether new. It occurs in Daniel’s tragedy, when she calls on Antony’s spirit to pray the gods on her behalf:

O if in life we could not severd be,

Shall death divide our bodies now asunder?

Must thine in Egypt, mine in Italy,

Be kept the Monuments of Fortune’s wonder?

If any powres be there whereas thou art

(Sith our country gods betray our case),

O worke they may their gracious helpe impart

To save thy wofull wife from such disgrace.

It also occurs twice in Plutarch, from whom Daniel probably obtained it. In the Comparison of Demetrius and Marcus Antonius, he writes:[230]

Antonius first of all married two wives together, the which never Romane durst doe before, but him self.

In the biography, when Cleopatra has lifted him to the Monument, we are told:

Then she dryed up his blood that had berayed his face, and called him her Lord, her husband, and Emperour, forgetting her owne miserie and calamity for the pitie and compassion she tooke of him.

It is not, therefore, the invention of the idea, but the new position in which he introduces it, that shows Shakespeare’s genius. It has no great significance, either in Plutarch or Daniel. In the one, Cleopatra is speaking in compassion of Antony; in the other, she is bespeaking Antony’s compassion for herself. But in Shakespeare, when she scorns life for her love, and prefers honour with the aspic’s bite to safety with shame, she feels that now at last their union has the highest sanction, and that all the dross of her nature is purged away from the pure spirit:

Husband, I come:

Now to that name my courage prove my title!

I am fire and air: my other elements

I give to baser life.

(V. ii. 290.)

Truly their love, which at first seemed to justify Aristophanes against Diotima, just because it is true love, turns out to answer Diotima’s description after all. Or perhaps it rather suggests the conclusion in the Phaedrus: “I have shown this of all inspirations to be the noblest and the highest, and the offspring of the highest; and that he who loves the beautiful, is called a lover, because he partakes of it.” Antony and Cleopatra, with all their errors, are lovers and partake of beauty, which we cannot say of the arid respectability of Octavius. It is well and right that they should perish as they do: but so perishing they have made their full atonement; and we can rejoice that they have at once triumphed over their victor, and left our admiration for them free.

CORIOLANUS

CHAPTER I
POSITION OF THE PLAY BEFORE THE ROMANCES.
ITS POLITICAL AND ARTISTIC ASPECTS

Coriolanus seems to have been first published in the folio of 1623, and is one of the sixteen plays described as not formerly “entered to other men.” In this dearth of information there has naturally been some debate on the date of its composition, yet the opinions of critics with few exceptions agree as to its general position and tend more and more to limit the period of uncertainty to a very few months.

This comparative unanimity is due to the evidence of style, versification, and treatment rather than of reminiscences and allusions. Though a fair number of the latter have been discovered or invented, some of them are vague and doubtful, some inapposite or untenable, hardly any are of value from their inherent likelihood.

Of these, one which has been considered to give the terminus a quo in dating the play was pointed out by Malone in the fable of Menenius. Plutarch’s account is somewhat bald:

On a time all the members of mans bodie, dyd rebell against the bellie, complaining of it, that it only remained in the middest of the bodie, without doing any thing, neither dyd beare any labour to the maintenaunce of the rest: whereas all other partes and members dyd labour paynefully, and was very carefull to satisfie the appetites and desiers of the bodie. And so the bellie, all this notwithstanding, laughed at their follie, and sayed: “It is true, I first receyve all meates that norishe mans bodie: but afterwardes I send it againe to the norishement of other partes of the same. Even so (quoth he) O you, my masters, and cittizens of Rome: the reason is a like betwene the Senate, and you. For matters being well digested, and their counsells throughly examined, touching the benefit of the common wealth; the Senatours are cause of the common commoditie that commeth unto every one of you.”

This is meagre compared with Shakespeare’s full-blooded and dramatic narrative, and though in any case the chief credit for the transformation would be due to the poet, who certainly contributes most of the picturesque and humorous details and all of the interruptions and rejoinders, it has been thought that he owes something to the expanded version in Camden’s Remaines concerning Britaine, which appeared in 1605.

All the members of the body conspired against the stomacke, as against the swallowing gulfe of all their labors; for whereas the eies beheld, the eares heard, the handes labored, the feete traveled, the tongue spake, and all partes performed their functions, onely the stomacke lay idle and consumed all. Here uppon they ioyntly agreed al to forbeare their labors, and to pine away their lasie and publike enemy. One day passed over, the second followed very tedious, but the third day was so grievous to them all, that they called a common Counsel; the eyes waxed dimme, the feete could not support the bodie, the armes waxed lasie, the tongue faltered, and could not lay open the matter; therefore they all with one accord desired the advise of the Heart. Then Reason layd open before them that hee against whome they had proclaimed warres, was the cause of all this their misery: For he as their common steward, when his allowances were withdrawne of necessitie withdrew theirs fro them, as not receiving that he might allow. Therefore it were a farre better course to supply him, than that the limbs should faint with hunger. So by the perswasion of Reason, the stomacke was served, the limbes comforted, and peace re-established. Even so it fareth with the bodies of Common weale; for albeit the Princes gather much, yet not so much for themselves, as for others: So that if they want, they cannot supply the want of others; therefore do not repine at Princes heerein, but respect the common good of the whole publike estate.

It has been pointed out,[231] in criticism of Malone’s suggestion, that in some respects Shakespeare’s version agrees with Plutarch’s and disagrees with Camden’s. Thus in Camden it is the stomach and not the belly that is denounced, the members do not confine themselves to words but proceed to deeds, it is not the belly but Reason from its seat in the heart that sets forth the moral. This is quite true, but no one doubted that Shakespeare got from Plutarch his general scheme; the only question is whether he fitted into it details from another source. It has also been objected that Shakespeare was quite capable of making the additions for himself; and this also is quite true as the other and more vivid additions prove, if it needed to be proved. Nevertheless, when we find Shakespeare’s expansions in the play following some of the lines laid down by Camden in the Remaines, occasionally with verbal coincidence, it seems not unlikely that the Remaines were known to him. Thus he does not treat the members like Plutarch in the mass, but like Camden enumerates them and their functions; the stomach in Camden like the belly in Shakespeare is called a gulf, a term that is very appropriate but that would not occur to everyone; the heart where Reason dwells and to which Camden’s mutineers appeal for advice, is the counsellor heart in Shakespeare’s list.[232] Moreover, it has been shown by Mr. Sidney Lee that there were friendly relations between the two men. So it is a conjecture no less probable than pleasing that Shakespeare owed a few hints to the great and patriotic scholar whom Ben Jonson hailed as “most reverend head.”

It is clear, however, that if the debt to Camden was more certain than it is, this would only give us the year before which Coriolanus could not have been written, and it would not of itself establish a date shortly after the publication of the Remaines. Such a date has been suggested, but the reference to Camden has been made merely auxiliary to the argument of a connection between the play and the general circumstances of the time. This surmise, for it can hardly be called more, will presently be noticed, and meanwhile it may be said that the internal evidence is all against it.

On the other hand, an excessively late date has been proposed for Coriolanus on the ground of its alleged indebtedness to the fourth edition of North, of which it is sometimes maintained that Shakespeare possessed a copy. Till 1612, Volumnia says in her great appeal:

Think now with thy selfe, how much more unfortunatly, then all the women livinge we are come hether;

but in the fourth edition this becomes unfortunate, and so Shakespeare has it:

Think with thyself

How more unfortunate than all living women

Are we come hither.

(V. iii. 96.)

But the employment of the adjectival for the adverbial form is a very insignificant change, and is, besides, suggested by the rhythm. Moreover, such importance as it might have, is neutralised by a counter argument on similar lines, which would go to prove that one of the first two editions was used. In them Coriolanus tells Aufidius:

If I had feared death, I would not have come hither to have put my life in hazard: but prickt forward with spite and desire I have to be revenged of them that thus have banished me, etc.

In 1603, this suffers the curtailment, “pricked forward with desire to be revenged, etc.” But Shakespeare says:

If

I had fear’d death, of all men i’ the world

I would have ’voided thee, but in mere spite,

To be full quit of those my banishers,

Stand I before thee here.

(IV. v. 86.)

This argument is no doubt of the same precarious kind as the other; still in degree it is stronger, for the persistence of spite is much more distinctive than the disappearance of a suffix.

In any case this verbal detail is a very narrow foundation to build a theory upon, which there is nothing else to support, except one of those alluring and hazardous guesses that would account for the play in the conditions of the time. This, too, as in the previous case, may be reserved for future discussion. Meanwhile the dating of Coriolanus, subsequently to 1612, is not only opposed to internal evidences of versification and style, but would separate it from Shakespeare’s tragedies and introduce it among the romantic plays of his final period.

If, however, we turn to the supposed allusions that make for the intermediate date of 1608 or 1609, we do not find them much more satisfactory.

Thus it has been argued that the severe cold in January, 1608, when even the Thames was frozen over, furnished the simile:

You are no surer, no,

Than is the coal of fire upon the ice.

(I. i. 176.)

But surely there must have been many opportunities for such things to present themselves to Shakespeare’s observation or imagination, by the time that he was forty-four years old.

Again Malone found a reference to James’s proclamation in favour of breeding silk-worms and the importation of young mulberry trees during 1609, in the expression:

Now humble as the ripest mulberry

That will not hold the handling.

(III. ii. 79.)

But even in Venus and Adonis Shakespeare had told how, in admiration of the youth’s beauty, the birds

Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries; (1103.)

and in Midsummer-Night’s Dream, Titania orders the fairies to feed Bottom

With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries.

(III. i. 170.)

A third of these surmises is even more gratuitous. Chalmers calls attention to the repeated references in the play to famine and dearth, and supposes they were suggested by the scarcity which prevailed in England during the years 1608 and 1609. But the lack of corn among the people is one of the presuppositions of the story, to which Plutarch also recurs.

There is only one allusion that has strength to stand by itself, though even it is doubtful; and it belongs to a different class, for, if authentic, it is suggested not to Shakespeare by contemporary events, but to a contemporary writer by Shakespeare. Malone noticed the coincidence between the line, “He lurch’d all swords of the garland” (ii. ii. 105), and a remark in Epicoene: “You have lurched your friends of the better half of the garland” (v. i.); and considered that here, as not infrequently, Ben Jonson was girding at Shakespeare. Afterwards he withdrew his conjecture because he found a similar expression in one of Nashe’s pamphlets, and concluded that it was proverbial; but it has been pointed out in answer to this[233] that Nashe has only the lurch and not the supplementary words, of the garland, while it is to the phrase as a whole, not to the component parts, that the individual character belongs. This, if not absolutely beyond challenge, is at least very cogent, and probably few will deny that Coriolanus must have been in existence before Epicoene was acted in January 1609, old style.

How long before? And did it succeed or precede Antony and Cleopatra?

Attempts have been made to find in that play immediate anticipations of the mental attitude and of particular thoughts that appear in Coriolanus. Thus Octavia’s dilemma in her petition has been quoted:

A more unhappy lady,

If this division chance, ne’er stood between,

Praying for both parts:

The good gods will mock me presently,

When I shall pray, “O, bless my lord and husband!”

Undo that prayer, by crying out as loud,

“O, bless my brother!” Husband win, win brother,

Prays, and destroys the prayer; no midway

’Twixt these extremes at all.

(III. iv. 12.)

And this has been taken as a link with Volumnia’s perplexity:

And to poor we

Thine enmity’s most capital: thou barr’st us

Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort

That all but we enjoy: for how can we,

Alas, how can we for our country pray,

Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,

Whereto we are bound? Alack, or we must lose

The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,

Our comfort in the country. We must find

An evident calamity, though we had

Our wish, which side should win.

(V. iii. 103.)

But then the same sort of conflict puzzles the Lady Blanch in King John:

Which is the side that I must go withal?

I am with both: each army hath a hand;

And in their rage, I having hold of both,

They whirl asunder and dismember me.

Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;

Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;

Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;

Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive:

Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose

Assured loss before the match be play’d.

(III. i. 327.)

Could not this style of argument be used to prove that Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra immediately followed King John?

Or again the contemptuous descriptions of the people by Octavius, Cleopatra and Antony himself have been treated as preludes to the more savage vituperations in Coriolanus. But Julius Caesar gives an equally unflattering account of mob law, and some of Casca’s gibes would quite fit the mouth of Coriolanus or Menenius. On these lines we should be as much entitled to make this play the direct successor of the first as of the second of its companions, a theory that would meet with scant acceptance. The truth is that whenever Shakespeare deals with the populace, he finds some one to disparage it in the mass.

Still there is little doubt that Coriolanus does occupy the position these arguments would assign to it, but the real evidence is of another kind. To begin with there is what Coleridge describes in Antony and Cleopatra as the “happy valiancy of style,” which first becomes marked in that play, which is continued in this, and which henceforth in a greater or less degree characterises all Shakespeare’s work. Then even more conclusive are the peculiarities of metre, and especially the increase in the total of weak and light endings together with the decrease of the light by themselves. Finally, there is the conduct of the story to a conclusion that proposes no enigma and inflicts no pang, but even more than in the case of Macbeth satisfies, and even more than in the case of Antony and Cleopatra uplifts the heart, without troublesome questionings on the part of the reader. “As we close the book,” says Mr. Bradley, “we feel more as we do at the close of Cymbeline than as we do at the close of Othello.” We cannot be far wrong in placing it in the last months of 1608 or the first months of 1609.

Attempts have been made to find suggestions of a personal kind for Shakespeare’s choice of the subject. The extreme ease with which they have been discovered for the various dates proposed may well teach us caution. Thus Professor Brandl who assigns it an earlier position than most critics and discusses it before Lear sees in it the outcome of events that occurred in the first years of the century.

The material for Coriolanus was perhaps put in Shakespeare’s way by a contemporary tragedy which keenly excited the Londoners, and especially the courtly and literary circles, about 1603 and 1604. Sir Walter Raleigh had been one of the most splendid gentlemen at the court of Elizabeth, was a friend of Spenser and Ben Jonson, had himself tried his hand at lyric poetry, and in addition as adventurous officer had discovered Virginia and annexed Guiana. He was the most highly considered but also the best hated man in England: for his behaviour was domineering, in the consciousness of his innate efficiency he showed without disguise his contempt for the multitude, the farm of wine-licenses granted him by the Queen had made him objectionable to the pothouse politicians, and his opposition in parliament to a bill for cheapening corn had recently drawn on him new unpopularity. He, therefore, shortly after the accession of James succumbed to the charge, that he, the scarred veteran of the Spanish wars, the zealous advocate of new expeditions against Spain, had involved himself in treasonous transactions with this, the hereditary foe of England. In November 1603 the man who had won treasure-fleets and vast regions for his country, almost fell a victim to popular rage as he was being transferred from one prison to another.[234] A month later he was condemned to death on wretched evidence: he was not yet executed however but locked up in the Tower, so that men were in suspense as to his fate for many years. To depict his character his biographer Edwards involuntarily hit on some lines of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus. The figure of the Roman, who had deserved well but incurred hatred, of the patriot whom his aristocratic convictions drive to the enemy, was already familiar to the dramatist from North’s translation of Plutarch; and Camden’s Remaines concerning Britaine, which had newly appeared in 1605 contributed a more detailed version of the fable of the belly and the members, first set forth by Livy. From this mood and about this time Coriolanus, for the dating of which only the very relative evidence of metre and style is available, may most probably have proceeded.[235]

In this passage, Professor Brandl has brought out some of the considerations that would lend the case of Raleigh a peculiar interest in the eyes of men like Shakespeare, and has made the most of the parallels between his story and the story of Coriolanus.[236] It is necessary of course to look away from almost all the points except those enumerated, for when we remember Sir Walter’s robust adulation of Elizabeth, and tortuous policy at court, it is difficult to pair him with the Roman who “would not flatter Neptune for his trident,” and of whom it was said, “his heart’s his mouth.” Still the analogies in career and character are there, so far as they go; but they are insufficient to prove that the actual suggested the poetical tragedy, still less to override the internal evidence, relative though that be; for they could linger and germinate in the poet’s mind to bring forth fruit long afterwards: as for example the treason and execution of Biron in 1602 inspired Chapman to write The Conspiracie and The Tragedie which were acted in 1608.

Again, in connection with what seems to be the actual date, an attempt has been made to explain one prominent characteristic of the play from a domestic experience through which Shakespeare had just passed. His mother died in September 1608, and her memory is supposed to be enshrined in the picture of Volumnia. As Dr. Brandes puts it:[237]

The death of a mother is always a mournfully irreparable loss, often the saddest a man can sustain. We can realise how deeply it would go to Shakespeare’s heart when we remember the capacity for profound and passionate feeling with which nature had blessed and cursed him. We know little of his mother; but judging from that affinity which generally exists between famous sons and their mothers, we may suppose she was no ordinary woman. Mary Arden, who belonged to an old and honourable family, which traced its descent (perhaps justly) back to the days of Edward the Confessor, represented the haughty patrician element in the Shakespeare family. Her ancestors had borne their coat of arms for centuries, and the son would be proud of his mother for this among other reasons, just as the mother would be proud of her son. In the midst of the prevailing gloom and bitterness of his spirits,[238] this fresh blow fell upon him, and out of his weariness of life as his surroundings and experiences showed it to him, recalled this one mainstay to him—his mother. He remembered all she had been to him for forty-four years, and the thoughts of the man and the dreams of the poet were thus led to dwell upon the significance in a man’s life of this unique form, comparable to no other—his mother. Thus it was that, although his genius must follow the path it had entered upon and pursue it to the end, we find, in the midst of all that was low and base in his next work, this one sublime mother-form, the proudest and most highly-wrought that he has drawn, Volumnia.

Thus Shakespeare, in a mood of pessimism, and in the desolation of bereavement, turned to a subject that he treated on its seamy side, but redeemed from its meanness by exalting the idea of the mother in obedience to his own pious regrets. Even, however, if we grant the assumptions in regard to Mary Arden’s pedigree and her aristocratic family pride, and the unique support she gave to her son, does this statement give a true account of the impression the play produces? Is it the fact that, apart from the figure of Volumnia, the story is “low and base,” and is it not rather the record of grand though perverted heroism? Is it the fact that Volumnia stands out as a study of motherhood, such as the first heartache at a mother’s death would inspire? The most sympathetic traits in her portrait are drawn by Plutarch. Shakespeare’s many touches supply the harshness, the ambition, the prejudice. If these additions are due to Shakespeare’s wistful broodings on his own mother, a woman with a son of genius may well hope that he will never brood on her.

Then, especially by those who advocate a later date for the play, a political motive for it has been discovered. Mr. Whitelaw, who would assign it to 1610, when James’s first parliament was dissolved, conjectures that “in Coriolanus Shakespeare intended a two-fold warning, to the pride of James, and to the gathering resistance of the Commons.”[239] Mr. Garnett,[240] on the other hand, maintains that “Coriolanus, to our apprehension, manifestly reflects the feelings of a conservative observer of the contests between James and his refractory parliaments,” and placing it after the Tempest, would connect it with the dissolution of the Addled Parliament in 1614. But since the friction between King and Commons, though it intensified with the years, was seldom entirely absent, this theory adapts itself pretty well to any date, and Dr. Brandes, while refusing to trace the spirit of the play to any “momentary political situation,” adopts the general principle as quite compatible with the state of affairs in 1608. He puts the case as follows:

Was it Shakespeare’s intention to allude to the strained relations existing between James and his parliament? Does Coriolanus represent an aristocratically-minded poet’s side-glance at the political situation in England? I fancy it does. Heaven knows there was little resemblance between the amazingly craven and vacillating James and the haughty, resolute hero of Roman tradition, who fought a whole garrison single-handed. Nor was it personal resemblance which suggested the comparison, but a general conception of the situation as between a beneficent power on the one hand, and the people on the other. He regarded the latter wholly as mob, and looked upon their struggle for freedom as mutiny, pure and simple.

This theory, however, in all its varieties seems to attribute too definite an influence to the controversies of the hour, and to turn Shakespeare too much into the politician prepense. Certainly Coriolanus is not meant to be a constitutional manifesto; probably it does not, even at unawares, idealise a contemporary dispute; it is hardly likely that Shakespeare so much as intrudes conscious allusions to the questions then at issue. And this on account not only of the particular opinions attributed to him, but, much more, of his usual practice in poetic creation. Do any of these alleged incentives in the circumstances, public or private, of his life go far to explain his attraction to a story and selection of it, its power over him and his power over it? Doubtless in realising the subject that took his fancy, he would draw on the stores of his experience as well as his imagination. In dealing with the tragedy of a proud and unpopular hero of antiquity, very possibly he would be helped by what he knew of the tragedy of a proud and unpopular worthy of his own time. In dealing with the influence of a mother and the reverence of a son, very probably the memories of his own home would hover before his mind. In dealing with the plebeians and patricians of Rome, he would inevitably fill in the details from his knowledge of the burgesses and nobles of England, and he might get hints for his picture of the bygone struggle, from the struggle that he himself could watch. But it is the story of Coriolanus that comes first and that absorbs all such material into itself, just as the seed in its growth assimilates nourishment from the earth and sunshine and rain. These things are not the seed. The experiences are utilised in the interest of the play; the play is not utilised in the interest of the experiences.

It is particularly important to emphasise this in view of the circumstance that Coriolanus has often been regarded as a drama of principles rather than of character, even by those who refrain from reading into it any particular reference. But Shakespeare’s supreme preoccupation is always with his fable, which explains, and is explained by, human nature in action. He does not set out to commend or censure or examine a precept or a theory or a doctrine. Of course the life of men is concerned with such matters, and he could not exclude them without being untrue to his aim. Thus, to take the most obvious example, it is impossible to treat of character with a total omission of ethical considerations, since character is connected with conduct, and conduct has its ethical aspect; and, indeed, success in getting to the truth of character depends very much on the keenness of the moral insight. It is very largely Shakespeare’s moral insight that gives him his unrivalled position among the interpreters of men; and we may, if we like, derive any number of improving lessons from his works. But he is an artist, not a moralist; and he wrote for the story, not for the moral. Just in the same way an architect seeks to design a beautiful or convenient building, not to illustrate mechanical laws. Nevertheless, in proportion as these are neglected, the building will not rise or will not last; and if they are obeyed, however unconsciously, the illustration of them will be provided. In Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley, when Caroline gives Robert Moore this very play to read, he asks, “Is it to operate like a sermon?” And she answers: “It is to stir you; to give you new sensations. It is to make you feel life strongly”—(that is the main thing, and then comes the indirect consequence)—“not only your virtues but your vicious perverse points.”

Now just as in all Shakespeare’s dramas, though or rather because they are personal, the ethical considerations cannot be excluded; so in a drama that moves through a constitutional crisis, though or rather because it, too, is personal, political considerations cannot be excluded. They are there, though it is on the second plane. And just as his general delineation of character would be unsatisfactory if his moral insight were at fault, so his delineation of the characters that play their part in this history would be unsatisfactory if his political insight were at fault. He is not necessarily bound to appreciate correctly the conditions that prevailed in reality or by report: that is required only for historical accuracy or fidelity to tradition. But he is bound to appreciate the conditions as he imagines them, and not to violate in his treatment of them the principles that underlie all political society.

Yet this he has been accused of doing. He has been charged with a hatred of the people that is incompatible even with a benevolent tyranny, and with a glorification of the protagonist’s ruthless disregard of popular claims. Thus Dr. Brandes, in the greater part of a chapter, dwells upon Shakespeare’s “physical aversion for the atmosphere of the people,” and “the absence of any humane consideration for the oppressed condition of the poor”; and, on the other hand, upon his “hero-worship” for Marcius, whom he glorifies as a demi-god. Though admitting the dramatist’s detestation of the crime of treason, this critic sees no implicit censure of what preceded it. To him Shakespeare’s impression of life as conveyed in the play is that “there must of necessity be formed round the solitary great ones of the earth, a conspiracy of envy and hatred raised by the small and mean.”

It is no doubt true that this and many other Shakespearian plays abound in hostile or scornful vituperation of the people; and not only of their moral and mental demerits; their sweaty clothes, their rank breaths, their grossness and uncleanness are held up to derision and execration. But are we to attribute these sentiments to Shakespeare? Such utterances are ex hypothesi dramatic, and show us merely the attitude of the speakers, who are without exception men of the opposite camp or unfriendly critics. Only once does Shakespeare give his personal, or rather, impersonal estimate. It is in the Induction to the second part of Henry IV., when Rumour, whose words, in this respect at least, cannot be influenced by individual bias, speaks of

the blunt monster of uncounted heads,

The still-discordant, wavering multitude. (line 18.)

That is, the populace as a whole is stupid, disunited, fickle. And this is how, apart from the exaggerations of their opponents, Shakespeare invariably treats crowds of citizens, whether in the ancient or modern world. He therefore with perfect consistency regards them as quite unfit for rule, and when they have it or aspire to it, they cover themselves with ridicule or involve themselves in crime. But this is by no means to hate them. On the contrary he is kindly enough to individual representatives, and he certainly believes in the sacred obligation of governing them for their good. Where then are the governors to be found? Shakespeare answers: in the royal and aristocratic classes. It is the privilege and duty of those born in high position to conduct the whole community aright. Shakespeare can do justice to the Venetian oligarchy and the English monarchy. But while to him the rule of the populace is impossible, he also recognises that nobles and kings may be unequal to their task. The majority of his kings indeed are more or less failures; his nobles—and in this play, the patricians—often cut a rather sorry figure. In short, popular government must be wrong, but royal or aristocratic government need not be right.

And this was exactly what historical experience at the time seemed to prove. The Jacqueries, the Peasants’ Wars, the Wat Tyler or Jack Cade Insurrections, were not calculated to commend democratic experiments; and, on the other hand, the authority of king and nobles had often, though not always, secured the welfare of the state.

Now, holding these opinions, would Shakespeare be likely to glorify Coriolanus? Of course, in a sense he does. There is a Lues Boswelliana to which the dramatist like the biographer should and must succumb. He must have a fellow-feeling for his hero and understand from within all that can be urged on his behalf. So Shakespeare glorifies Coriolanus in the same way that he glorifies Hamlet or Brutus or Antony. That is, he appreciates their greatness and explains their offences so that we sympathise with them and do not regard them as unaccountable aberrations; but offences they remain and they are not extenuated. On the contrary they receive all due prominence and are shown to bring about the tragic catastrophe. This is even more the case with Coriolanus than with some of the others. So much stress is laid on his violence and asperities that to many he is antipathetic, and the antipathy is reflected on the cause that he champions. Gervinus says very truly:

It will be allowed that from the example of Brutus many more would be won over to the cause of the people, than would be won over to aristocratic principles by Coriolanus.

Quite apart from the final apostasy he strikes the unprejudiced reader as an example to eschew rather than to imitate. Charlotte Brontë, not a Shakespearian scholar but a woman of no less common sense than genius, gives the natural interpretation of his career in the passage I have already referred to. After Caroline and Moore have finished the play, she makes the former ask concerning the hero:

“Was he not faulty as well as great?”

Moore nodded.

“And what was his fault? What made him hated by the citizens? What caused him to be banished by his countrymen?”

She answers her own question by quoting Aufidius’ estimate, and proceeds:

“And you must not be proud to your work people; you must not neglect the chance of soothing them; and you must not be of an inflexible nature, uttering a request as austerely as if it were a command.”

That, so far as it goes, is a quite legitimate “moral” to draw from the story; and it is the obvious one.

How then does Shakespeare conceive the political situation? On the one side there is a despised and famished populace, driven by its misery to demand powers in the state that it cannot wisely use, and trusting to leaders that are worse than itself. On the other side there is a prejudiced aristocracy, numbering competent men in its ranks, but disorganised and, to some extent, demoralised by plebeian encroachments, so that it can no longer act with its old efficiency and consistency. And there is one great aristocrat, pre-eminently consistent and efficient, but whose greatness becomes mischievous to himself and others, partly because it is out of harmony with the times, partly because it is corrupted by his inordinate pride. And to all these persons, or groups of persons, Shakespeare’s attitude, as we shall see, is at once critical and sympathetic. Admitting the conditions, we can only agree with Coleridge’s verdict: “This play illustrates the wonderfully philosophic impartiality of Shakespeare’s politics.[241] And there is no reason why the conditions should not be admitted. It is easy to imagine a society in which the masses are not yet ripe for self-government, and in which the classes are no longer able to steer the state, while a gifted and bigoted champion of tradition only makes matters worse. Indeed, something similar has been exemplified in history oftener than once or twice. Whether in point of fact Shakespeare’s conception is correct for the particular set of circumstances he describes is quite another question, that concerns neither the excellence of Coriolanus as a drama nor the fairness of its political views, but solely its fidelity to antiquarian truth and the accuracy of its antiquarian data.”

Clearly it was impossible for Shakespeare to revive the spirit of the times in Coriolanus, even to the extent that he had done so in Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra, for the simple reason that in them, with whatever trespasses into fiction on the part of himself or his authority, he was following the record of what had actually taken place, while now he was dealing with a legend that seems to have the less foundation in fact the more it is examined. The tribunate, with the establishment of which the whole action begins, the opposition to which by Marcius is his main offence, and the occupants of which play so important a part in the proceedings, is now generally held to be of much later origin than the supposed date of the story. There is no agreement as to the names of the chief persons; Coriolanus is Cneius or Caius, his mother is Veturia or Volumnia, his wife is Volumnia or Vergilia, the Volscian leader Tullus Aufidius or Amfidius or Attius Tullius. Even the appellation Coriolanus rouses suspicion, for the bestowal of such titles seems to have been unknown till long afterwards, and, in the view of some, points not to conquest but to origin; and there are contradictory accounts of the hero’s end. It has been conjectured[242] that the whole story arose in connection with religious observances and contains a large mythological admixture; and we may remember how at the end it is associated with the erection of the temple to Fortuna Muliebris.

This much at least is beyond doubt, that the account given by Plutarch, from whom Shakespeare took his material, and even by Livy, whom he may have read, has much less matter-of-fact reality than characterises the later Roman lives. There are many discrepancies and contradictions, especially in Plutarch’s description. Now he gives what we may consider an idealised picture of the plebs, attributing to it extraordinary self-control and sagacity, and again it is to him merely the rascal vulgar. Now he seems to approve the pliancy which the Senate showed on the advice of the older and wiser men, and again he seems to blame it as undignified. And the mixture of bravado and pusillanimity during the siege is almost unintelligible. Now the city sends the humblest embassages to the rebel, now it haughtily refuses to treat till he has withdrawn from Roman soil, and again it despatches what North calls “a goodly rabble of superstition and priestes” with new supplications.

From a narrative that teemed with incongruities like the above, Shakespeare was entitled to select the alternatives that would combine to a harmonious whole, and he rightly chose those that were nearest to his own comprehension and experience, though perhaps in doing so he failed to make the most of such elements of historic truth as the tradition may contain, and certainly effaced some of the antique colouring.

But if Plutarch’s Coriolanus has less foundation in fact than some of the later Lives, it is not without compensating advantages. The circumstance that it is in so large measure a legend, implies that the popular imagination has been busy working it up, and it already falls into great scenic crises which lend themselves of their own accord to the dramatist’s art. It is rather remarkable in view of this that it had received so little attention from the tragedians of the time. Perhaps its two-fold remoteness, from worldwide historical issues on the one hand, and from specifically romantic feeling on the other, may have told against it. The stories of Lucretia and Virginia had as primitive and circumscribed a setting, and were nevertheless popular enough: but they have an emotional interest that appeals to the general taste. The story of Julius Caesar lacks the sentimental lure, but concerns such mighty issues that it was the best beloved of all. And next comes the story of Antony and Cleopatra, which in a high degree unites both attractions. But Coriolanus, even as treated by Shakespeare, is unsympathetic to many, and the legend is of so little historic significance that it is often omitted from modern handbooks of Roman history; so, for these reasons, despite its pre-eminent fitness for the stage, it was generally passed over.

Not universally, however. It seems already to have engaged the attention of one important dramatist in France, the prolific and gifted Alexandre Hardy. Hardy began to publish his works only in 1623, and the volume containing his Coriolan appeared only in 1625; so there is hardly any possibility of Shakespeare’s having utilised this play. And, on the other hand, it was certainly written before 1608, probably in the last years of the sixteenth century, but in any case by 1607, so there is even less possibility of its being influenced by Shakespeare’s treatment. All the more interesting is it to observe the coincidences that exist between them, and that are due to their having selected a great many of the same motifs from Plutarch’s story. It shows that in that story Plutarch met the playwright half way, and justifies the statement of Hardy in his argument that “few subjects are to be found in Roman history which are worthier of the stage.”[243] The number of subsequent French dramas with Coriolanus as hero proves that he was right, though in England, as so frequently, Shakespeare’s name put a veto on new experiments.

Hardy’s tragedy in style and structure follows the Senecan manner of Jodelle and Garnier, but he compromised with mediaeval fashions in so far as to adopt the peculiar modification of the “simultaneous” or “complex” decoration which is usual in his other plays. In accordance with that, several scenes were presented at the same time on the stage, and actors made their first speeches from the area appropriated to that one of them which the particular phase of the action required. There was thus considerable latitude in regard to the unity of place, and even more in regard to the unity of time; but the freedom was not so great as in the Elizabethan theatre, for after all there was space only for a limited number of scenes, or “mansions” as they would formerly have been called. Generally there were five, two at each side and one at the back. In the Coriolan there were six, and there is as well a seventh place indicated in the play without scenical decoration.[244] Even so they are few, compared with the two and twenty[245] that Shakespeare employs; and though no doubt that number might be considerably reduced without injury to the effect, by running together localities that approximate in character and position, one street with another street, the forum with a public place and the like, still it would in any case exceed what Hardy allows himself. This may account for some of his omissions as compared with Shakespeare.

His scenarium includes the house of Coriolanus and the forum at Rome, the house of Coriolanus and the house of Amfidius at Antium, the Volscian camp near Rome, the council-hall at Antium, and in addition to these an indeterminate spot where Coriolanus soliloquises after his expulsion.[246] There is no room for Corioli, and this may be why Hardy begins somewhat later than Shakespeare with the collision between the hero and the people, and gets as far as the banishment by the end of the first act. In the second, Marcius leaves Rome, presents himself to Amfidius, and obtains the leadership of the Volscians. The third portrays the panic of the Romans and the reception of their embassage by Coriolanus. In the fourth, the Roman ladies make ready to accompany Volumnia on her mission, Amfidius schemes to use all Coriolanus’ faults for his destruction, Volumnia arrives in the camp and makes her petition, which her son at length grants though he foresees the result. The fifth is occupied with his murder in the Senate House at Antium, and concludes with his mother’s reception of the news.

Thus the sequence and selection of episodes are much the same in the two tragedies, except that Hardy, perhaps, as I have said, owing to the exigencies of his decorative system, does not begin till the exploit at Corioli is over, and adds, as he could do so by using once more Coriolanus’ house in Rome, the final scene with Volumnia. Otherwise the scaffolding of the plays is very similar, and it is because both follow closely the excellent guidance of Plutarch. But it is interesting also to note that some of their additions are similar, for when they were independently made, it shows how readily Plutarch’s narrative suggested such supplements. Thus, as in Shakespeare, but not as in Plutarch, Volumnia counsels her son to bow his pride before the people, and he, though in the end consenting, at first refuses.

Volomnie. Voicy le jour fatal qui te donne (mon fils)

Par une humilité tes hayneurs deconfits;

Tu vaincras, endurant, la fiere ingratitude

Et le rancoeur malin de ceste multitude.

Tu charmes son courroux d’une submission;

Helas! ne vueille donc croire à ta passion.

Cede pour un moment, et la voila contente,

Et tu accoiseras une horrible tourmente,

Que Rome divisée ébranle à ton sujet:

La pieté ne peut avoir plus bel objet,

Et faire mieux paroistre à l’endroit d’une mere,

A l’endroit du païs, qu’escoutant ma priere.

Coriolan. Madame, on me verroit mille morts endurer,

Plustôt que suppliant sa grace procurer,

Plustôt qu’un peuple vil à bon tiltre se vante

D’avoir en mon courage imprimé l’épouvante,

Que ceux qui me devroient recognoistre seigneur,

Se prévallent sur moy du plus petit honneur:

Moy, fléchir le genoüil devant une commune!

Non, je ne le veux faire, et ne crains sa rancune.

Thus Coriolanus, again as in Shakespeare but not as in Plutarch, accepts his banishment as a calamity to those that inflict it.

Je luy obeirai, ouy ouy, je mettrai soin

De quitter ces ingrats plustost qu’ils n’ont besoin.

Thus the machinations of Amfidius before the final cause of offence are amplified far beyond the limits of Plutarch, and these are in part excused by his previous rivalry with Coriolanus which, as in Shakespeare, is made ever so much more personal and graphic.

Un esperon d’honneur cent fois nous a conduits,

Aveugles de fureur, à ces termes reduits

De sentre-deffier[247] au front de chaque armée,

Vouloir mourir, ou seul vaincre de renommée.

In short, though Hardy’s drama, as compared with Shakespeare’s, is a work of talent as compared with a work of genius, it shows that the Life had in it the material for a tragedy already rough-dressed, with indications, obvious to a practised playwright, of some of the processes that still were needed.

Shakespeare, then, was now dealing with a much more tractable theme than in his previous Roman plays, and this is evident in the finished product. Technically and artistically it is a more perfect achievement than either of them. In Julius Caesar the early disappearance of the titular hero does not indeed affect the essential unity of the piece, but it does, when all is said and done, involve, to the feelings of most readers, a certain break in the interest. In Antony and Cleopatra the scattering of the action through so many short scenes does not interfere with the main conception, but it does make the execution a little spasmodic. In both instances Shakespeare had to suit his treatment to the material. But that material in the case of Coriolanus offered less difficulty. It lay ready to the dramatist’s hand and took the shape that he imposed, almost of itself. The result is a masterpiece that, as an organic work of art, has been placed on the level of Shakespeare’s most independent tragedies.[248]

Thus it is easy to see how the personality of the hero dominates the complex story, as the heart transmits the life-blood through the body and its members, and receives it back again; how his character contains in itself the seeds of his offence and its reparation; how the other figures are related to him in parallel and contrast; how the two grand interests, the conflict between Coriolanus and Aufidius, the conflict between Coriolanus and the people, intertwine, but always so that the latter remains the principal strand; how the language is suited to the persons, the circumstances, and the prevailing tone. In short, whatever the relations in which we consider the play, they seem, like the radii of a circle, to depart from and meet in one centre.

Hardly less admirable are the balance and composition of the whole, which yet in no wise impair the interest of the individual scenes. Dr. Johnson indeed makes the criticism: “There is perhaps too much bustle in the first act and too little in the last.” This possibly is more noticeable when the play is acted than when it is read; but it is fitting that from the noise and hubbub of the struggle there should be a transition to the outward quietude of the close that harmonises with the inward acquiescence in the mind of reader or spectator. Nor is the element of tumult entirely lacking at the last. To the uproar in the street of Rome, where the life of Marcius is threatened, corresponds the uproar in the public place of Antium where it is actually taken. But Dr. Johnson was probably thinking of those battle scenes beloved by Elizabethan audiences and generally wearisome to modern taste. There are no fewer than five of them in the first act, a somewhat plentiful allowance. But they are written by no means exclusively in the drum-and-trumpet style. On the contrary they are rich in psychological interest, and bring home to us many characteristics of the hero that we have to realise. Not only are we witnesses of his prowess, but his pride in Rome, his contempt of baseness, his rivalry with Aufidius, his power of rousing enthusiasm in the field, are all shown in relief. Such things lift these concessions to temporary fashion above the level of outworn crudities.

And the construction is very perfect too. Perhaps the crisis, understood as the acme of Coriolanus’ success, when he is voted to the consulship in the middle of the third scene of the second act comes a little early. But crisis may bear another meaning. It may denote the decisive point of the conflict, and this is only reached in the centre of the play. To the supreme tension of the scenes that describe Coriolanus’ denunciation of the Tribunes, the consultations in his house, his final condemnation, all that goes before gradually leads up, and from that all that follows after gradually declines. In the first act we are introduced to the circumstances, the opposition between the Romans and the Volsces, the Senate and the Plebs, and to all the leading characters, as well as Coriolanus and his friends and opponents, in an exposition that is not merely declaratory but is full of action and life: and we see that the situation is fraught with danger. In the second act we are shown more definitely how the grand disaster will come from the collision of Coriolanus with the people, and the cloud gathers even in the instant of his success. In the third the storm breaks, and, despite a momentary lull, in the end sweeps away all wonted landmarks. The fourth presents the change that follows in the whole condition of things: the rival of Aufidius has recourse to his generosity, the champion of Rome becomes her foe, and the people, after its heedless triumph, is plunged into dismay. In the fifth we proceed by carefully considered ways to the catastrophe: the deliverance of Rome from material and the hero from moral perdition, the expiation of his passion in death and the fruitless triumph of his rival.

But through this symmetrical rise and fall of the excitement, there is no abatement of the interest. Attention and suspense are always kept on the alert. They are secured partly by the diversity of the details and the swiftness of the fluctuations. Dr. Johnson says:

The Tragedy of Coriolanus is one of the most amusing of our author’s performances. The old man’s merriment in Menenius, the lofty lady’s dignity in Volumnia, the bridal modesty in Virgilia, the patrician and military haughtiness in Coriolanus, the plebeian malignity and tribunitian insolence in Brutus and Sicinius, make a very pleasing and interesting variety; and the various revolutions of the hero’s fortune fill the mind with anxious curiosity.

This is so because, while the agitation culminates in the third act, the emotion is neither overtaxed in the two that precede nor allowed to subside in the two that follow. For though this movement, first of intensification, then of relaxation, is discernible in the play as a whole, it is not uniform or uninterrupted. There is throughout a throb and pulse, an ebb and flow. The quieter scenes alternate with the more vehement: Coriolanus’ fortune by turns advances and retires. Only when we reflect do we become aware that we have risen so high out of our daily experience, and have returned “with new acquist” of wisdom to a spot whence we can step back to it once more.

But to produce so consummate a masterpiece from the material of history, no matter how dramatic that material was, Shakespeare was bound to reshape it more freely than he was wont to do when dealing with historical themes. We have seen from Hardy’s example what stores of half-wrought treasure Plutarch’s narrative offered to a dramatist who knew his business. Still it was only half-wrought, and in working it up Shakespeare consciously or unconsciously allowed himself more liberties than in his other Roman plays. His loans indeed are none the fewer or the less on that account; nowhere has he borrowed more numerous or so lengthy passages. But it almost seems as though with the tact of genius he had the feeling that he was at work, not on fact, but on legend. Though he is far from recasting the Roman tradition as he recast the pseudo-historic traditions of his own island in Lear and Macbeth, yet he gives a new colouring to the picture as he hardly does to genuine histories like Richard II. or Antony and Cleopatra.

This will appear from a comparison of the play with the Life.

CHAPTER II
PARALLELS AND CONTRASTS WITH PLUTARCH

The first impression produced by a comparison of the biography and the play is that the latter is little more than a scenic replica of the former. Shakespeare has indeed absorbed so many suggestions from the translation that it is difficult to realise how much he has modified them, or to avoid reading these modifications into his authority when we try to distinguish what he has received from what he has supplied. And the illusion is confirmed by the frequency with which we light on familiar words, familiar traits, familiar incidents. For the similarity seems at first to pervade the language, the characterisation, and the action.[249]

In the language it is most marked. Nowhere has Shakespeare borrowed so much through so great a number of lines as in Volumnia’s appeal to the piety of her son. This passage, even if it stood alone, would serve to make the play a notable example of Shakespeare’s indebtedness to North.[250] But it does not stand alone. Somewhat shorter, but still longer than any loan in the other plays, is Coriolanus’ announcement of himself to Aufidius, and in it Shakespeare follows North even more closely than in the former instance.

If thou knowest me not yet, Tullus, and seeing me, dost not perhappes beleeve me to be the man I am in dede, I must of necessitie bewraye my selfe to be that I am. I am that Caius Martius, who hath done to thy self particularly, and to all the Volsces generally, great hurte and mischief, which I cannot denie for my surname of Coriolanus that I beare. For I never had other benefit nor recompence, of all the true and paynefull service I have done, and the extreme daungers I have bene in, but this only surname: a good memorie and witnes, of the malice and displeasure thou showldest beare me. In deede the name only remaineth with me: for the rest, the envie and crueltie of the people of Rome have taken from me, by the sufference of the dastardlie nobilitie and magistrates, who have forsaken me, and let me be banished by the people. This extremitie hath now driven me to come as a poore suter, to take thy chimney harthe, not of any hope I have to save my life thereby. For if I had feared death, I would not have come hither to have put my life in hazard: but prickt forward with strife and desire I have to be revenged of them that thus have banished me, whom now I beginne to be avenged on, putting my persone betweene their enemies. Wherefore, if thou hast any harte to be wrecked[251] of the injuries thy enemies have done thee, spede thee now, and let my miserie serve thy turne, and so use it, as my service maye be a benefit to the Volsces: promising thee, that I will fight with better good will for all you, then ever I dyd when I was against you, knowing that they fight more valliantly, who know the force of their enemie, then such as have never proved it. And if it be so that thou dare not, and that thou art wearye to prove fortune any more; then am I also weary to live any lenger. And it were no wisedome in thee, to save the life of him, who hath bene heretofore thy mortall enemie, and whose service now can nothing helpe nor pleasure thee.

Shakespeare gives little else than a transcript, though, of course, a poetical and dramatic transcript, of this splendid piece of forthright prose.

Coriolanus. If, Tullus,

Not yet thou knowest me, and, seeing me, dost not

Think me for the man I am, necessity

Commands me name myself.

Aufidius.What is thy name?

Coriolanus. A name unmusical to the Volscians’ ears,

And harsh in sound to thine.

Aufidius.Say, what’s thy name?

Thou hast a grim appearance, and thy face

Bears a command in’t: though thy tackle’s torn,

Thou show’st a noble vessel: what’s thy name?

Coriolanus. Prepare thy brow to frown; know’st thou me yet?

Aufidius. I know thee not: thy name?

Coriolanus. My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done

To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces

Great hurt and mischief: thereto witness may

My surname, Coriolanus: the painful service,

The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood

Shed for my thankless country are requited

But with that surname; a good memory,

And witness of the malice and displeasure

Which thou should’st bear me: only that name remains;

The cruelty and envy of the people,

Permitted by our dastard nobles, who

Have all forsook me, hath devoured the rest:

And suffer’d me by the voice of slaves to be

Whoop’d out of Rome. Now this extremity

Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope—

Mistake me not—to save my life, for if

I had fear’d death, of all men i’ the world

I would have ’voided thee, but in mere spite,

To be full quit of those my banishers,

Stand I before thee now. Then if thou hast

A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge

Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims

Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight,

And make my misery serve thy turn: so use it

That my revengeful services may prove

As benefits to thee, for I will fight

Against my canker’d country with the spleen

Of all the under fiends. But if so be

Thou darest not this and that to prove more fortunes

Thou’rt tired, then, in a word, I also am

Longer to live most weary, and present

My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;

Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,

Since I have ever follow’d thee with hate,

Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country’s breast

And cannot live but to thy shame, unless

It be to do thee service.

(IV. v. 60.)

As much material, though it is amplified and rearranged, has been incorporated, as we shall have to point out, in Coriolanus’ invective against the tribunate and the distribution of corn. Within a narrower compass we see the same adherence to North’s phraseology in Brutus’ instructions to the people, where, very notably, Shakespeare’s fidelity to his author has made it possible to supply an omission in the text with absolute certainty as to the sense and great probability as to the wording. The opening sentences of the Life run as follows:

The house of the Martians at Rome was of the number of the patricians, out of the which hath sprong many noble personages: whereof Ancus Martius was one, King Numaes daughters sonne, who was king of Rome after Tullus Hostilius. Of the same house were Publius, and Quintus, who brought Rome their best water they had by conducts. Censorinus also came of that familie, that was so surnamed, bicause the people had chosen him Censor twise.

Shakespeare puts the notifications in the Tribune’s mouth:

Say we read lectures to you,

How youngly he began to serve his country,

How long continued, and what stock he springs of,

The noble house o’ the Marcians, from whence came

That Ancus Martius, Numa’s daughter’s son,

Who, after great Hostilius, here was king:

Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,

That our best water brought by conduits hither:

And Nobly nam’d, so twice being Censor,

Was his great Ancestor.

(iI. iii. 242.)

Many editors saw that something had dropped out, but no attempt to fill the gap was satisfactory, till Delius, having recourse to North, supplemented,

[And Censorinus, that was so surnamed]

And nobly named so, twice being censor.[252]

These lines also show how Shakespeare reproduces Plutarch’s statement even when they are for him not quite in keeping. Plutarch, writing in the second century, could instance Publius, Quintus and Censorinus as ornaments of the Marcian gens; but Brutus’ reference to them is an anachronism as they come after the supposed date of the play. So too Plutarch says of the attack on the Romans before Corioli:

But Martius being there at that time, ronning out of the campe with a fewe men with him, he slue the first enemies he met withall, and made the rest of them staye upon a sodaine, crying out to the Romaines that had turned their backes, and calling them againe to fight with a lowde voyce. For he was even such another, as Cato would have a souldier and a captaine to be: not only terrible, and fierce to laye about him, but to make the enemie afeard with the sounde of his voyce, and grimnes of his countenaunce.

Shakespeare makes short work of chronology by putting this allusion into the mouth of Titus Lartius:

Thou wast a soldier

Even to Cato’s[253] wish, not fierce and terrible

Only in strokes; but, with thy grim looks, and

The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,

Thou madest thine enemies shake, as if the world

Were feverous and did tremble.

(i. iv. 56.)

Occasionally even mistakes in North’s text or marginal notes, or in Shakespeare’s interpretation or recollection of what he had read, have passed into the play. Thus it has been shown[254] that North, owing to a small typographical error in the French, misunderstood the scope of Cominius’ offer to Marcius. Amyot says:

“Et en fin lui dit, que de tous les cheveaux prisonniers, et autres biens qui avoient esté pris et gaignés en grande quantité, il en choisist dix de chaque sorte à sa volonté, avant que rien en fust distribué, ni desparti aux autres.”

There should be a comma after cheveaux, as appears on reference to the Greek,[255] and Marcius is told to select ten of the horses, prisoners, and other chattels; but North took the prisonniers as used adjectivally in agreement with the preceding noun and translated:

So in the ende he willed Martius, he should choose out of all the horses they had taken of their enemies, and of all the goodes they had wonne (whereof there was great store) tenne of every sorte which he liked best, before any distribution should be made to other.

Further there is the quite incorrect abridgment in the margin:

The tenth parte of the enemies goods offered Martius for rewarde of his service by Cominius the Consul.

Shakespeare combines these misstatements:

Of all the horses,

Whereof we have ta’en good and good store, of all

The treasure in this field achieved and city,

We render you the tenth, to be ta’en forth,

Before the common distribution, at

Your only choice.

(i. ix. 31.)

Of great frequency are the short sentences from North that are embedded in Shakespeare’s dialogue. Thus, the preliminary announcement of Marcius’ hardihood is introduced with the remark:

Now in those dayes, valliantnes was honoured in Rome above all the other vertues.

Cominius begins his panegyric:

It is held

That valour is the chiefest virtue, and

Most dignifies the haver.

(iI. ii. 87.)

When Marcius drives the Volscians back to Corioli and the Romans hesitate to pursue, we are told:

He dyd encorage his fellowes with wordes and deedes, crying out to them, that fortune had opened the gates of the cittie more for the followers, then for the flyers.

Compare his exhortation:

So, now the gates are ope: now prove good seconds:

’Tis for the followers fortune widens them,

Not for the fliers.

(i. iv. 43.)

When the proposal to distribute the corn is being discussed, many senators are in favour of it:

But Martius standing up on his feete, dyd somewhat sharpely take up those, who went about to gratifie the people therein, and called them people pleasers and traitours to the nobilitie.

Brutus charges him with this in the play:

When corn was given them gratis, you repined;

Scandal’d the suppliants for the people, call’d them

Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.

(iII. i. 43.)

Sometimes the debt is confined to a single phrase or word and yet is unmistakable. When Coriolanus has reached Antium, Plutarch quotes Homer on Ulysses:

So dyd he enter into the enemies towne.

In the play Coriolanus before the house of Aufidius soliloquises:

My love’s upon

This enemy town. I’ll enter.

(iV. iv. 23.)

Now and then some apparently haphazard detail can be explained if we trace it to its source. Thus, Cominius talks of the “seventeen battles” which the hero had fought since his first exploit. Why seventeen? Doubtless Shakespeare had in his mind the account of the candidature, when Marcius showed the wounds “which he had receyved in seventeene yeres service at the warres, and in many sundrie battells.” In Plutarch the number of years is prescribed by his mythical chronology, for he dates the beginning of Marcius’ career from the wars with the Tarquins, which were supposed to have broken out in 245 a.u.c., while Corioli was taken in 262: but when transferred to the battles it becomes a mere survival which serves at most to give apparent definiteness.

But occasionally such survivals have a higher value. It is instructive, for example, to notice how Shakespeare utilises the tradition dear to Plutarch’s antiquarian tastes but not very interesting to an Elizabethan audience of the acknowledgment made to the goddess, Fortuna Muliebris, after the withdrawal of Coriolanus from Rome.

The Senate ordeined, that the magistrates to gratifie and honour these ladyes, should graunte them all that they would require. And they only requested that they would build a temple of Fortune of the women, for the building whereof they offered them selves to defraye the whole charge of the sacrifices, and other ceremonies belonging to the service of the goddes. Nevertheles, the Senate commending their good will and forwardnes, ordeined, that the temple and image should be made at the common charge of the cittie.

And the marginal note sums up: “The temple of Fortune built for the women.” This seems to be the archaeological ore from which is forged Coriolanus’ gallant hyperbole:

Ladies, you deserve

To have a temple built you.

(V. ii. 206.)

From the worshippers they become the worshipped.

Sometimes in the survival the fact is transformed to figure, the prose to poetry. After Marcius’ miracles of valour at Corioli, Cominius gives him, “in testimonie that he had wonne that day the price of prowes above all other, a goodly horse with a capparison, and all furniture to him.” This Shakespeare does not omit. Cominius declares:

Caius Marcius

Wears this war’s garland: in token of the which

My noble steed,[256] known to the camp, I give him

With all his trim belonging.

(i. ix. 59.)

But the same episode furnishes Titus Lartius with his imagery as he points to the wounded and victorious hero:

O general,

Here is the steed, we the caparison!

(i. ix. 11.)

This illustrates the sort of sea-change that always takes place in the language of North under the hands of the magician, though it may not always be equally perceptible. But it is never entirely lacking, even where we are at first more struck by the amount that Shakespeare has retained without alteration. The Life, for instance, describes what takes place after Marcius has joined Cominius, before they hurry off to the second fight.

Martius asked him howe the order of their enemies battell was, and on which side they had placed their best fighting men. The Consul made him aunswer, that he thought the bandes which were in the voward of their battell, were those of the Antiates, whom they esteemed to be the war-likest men, and which for valliant corage would give no place, to any of the hoste of their enemies. Then prayed Martius to be set directly against them.

Here is what Shakespeare makes of this:

Mar. How lies their battle? Know you on which side

They have placed their men of trust?

Com.As I guess, Marcius,

Their bands in the vaward are the Antiates,

Of their best trust; o’er them Aufidius,

Their very heart of hope.

Mar.I do beseech you,

By all the battles wherein we have fought,

By the blood we have shed together, by the vows

We have made to endure friends, that you directly

Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates;

And that you not delay the present, but,

Filling the air with swords advanced and darts,

We prove this very hour.

(i. vi. 51.)

Here to begin with Shakespeare hardly does more than change the indirect to the direct narrative and condense a little, but presently he adds picturesqueness, passion, and, by the introduction of Aufidius, dramatic significance. And this is invariably his method. It is unfair to quote the parallel passages without the context, for, apart from the subtle transmutation they have undergone, they are preludes to original utterance and almost every one of them is a starting point rather than the goal. Shakespeare’s normal practice is illustrated in the fable of Menenius, in which, with every allowance made for possible assistance from Camden, the words of his authority or authorities are only so many spur-pricks that set his own imagination at a gallop. And what goes before and comes after is pure Shakespeare.

And it should be noticed that his textual appropriations from North, long or short, obvious or covert, never clash with his more personal contributions, which in bulk are far more important. They are all subdued to the tone that the purpose of the dramatist imposes. Delius says with absolute truth: “This harmonious colouring would make it impossible for us, in respect of style, to discover real or suppositious loans from Plutarch in Shakespeare’s drama, and definitely identify them as such, if by chance North’s translation were inaccessible.” Yet this harmonious colouring, that has its source in the author’s mind and that is required by the theme, does not prevent an individualisation in the utterance, whether wholly original or partly borrowed, that fits it for the lips of the particular speaker. The language, even when it is suggested by North, is not only spontaneous and consistent, it is dramatic as well, and apposite to the strongly marked characters of whom the story is told.

To these characters, and their development by Shakespeare, we now turn. It may be remarked that all of them, except the quite episodical Adrian and Nicanor, are nominally to be found in Plutarch, by whom the hero himself is drawn at full length and in great detail. For his delineation then there was a great deal to borrow and Shakespeare has borrowed a great deal. In his general bearing and in many of his features the Coriolanus of the play is the Coriolanus of the Life, though of course imagined with far more firmness and comprehension. Only on very close scrutiny do we see that each has a physiognomy of his own, and that the difference in the impressions they produce is due not merely to the execution but to the conception. This will become clear as the general discussion proceeds and will incidentally occupy our attention from time to time. Meanwhile it should be noticed that, Coriolanus excepted, Plutarch’s persons are very shadowy and vague. If we compare this biography with those that Shakespeare had used for his earlier Roman plays, it is obvious that it is much more of a monograph. In the others room is found for sketches of many subordinate figures in connection with the titular subject, but Marcius stands out alone and the remaining personages are scarcely more than names. In the tragedy, too, he is in possession of the scene, but his relatives, his friends, and his enemies are also full of interest and life; and for their portraiture Shakespeare had to depend almost entirely on himself.

Next to the hero, for example, it is his mother who is most conspicuous in the play; and how much did Plutarch contribute to the conception of her concrete personality? He supplies only one or two hints, some of which Shakespeare disregards or contradicts. They both attribute to her the sole training of the boy, but Plutarch implies that her discipline was slack and her instruction insufficient, while in Shakespeare she incurs no such blame except in so far as we infer a certain lack of judiciousness from her peculiar attitude to her grandson and from her son’s exaggeration of some of her own traits. But injudiciousness is not quite the same as the laxity that Plutarch’s apologetic paragraph would insinuate:

Caius Martius, whose life we intend now to write, being left an orphan by his father, was brought up under his mother a widowe, who taught us by experience, that orphanage bringeth many discommodities to a childe, but doth not hinder him to become an honest man, and to excell in vertue above the common sorte; as they, are meanely borne, wrongfully doe complayne, that it is the occasion of their casting awaye, for that no man in their youth taketh any care of them to see them well brought up, and taught that were meete. This man is also a good proofe to confirme some mens opinions, that a rare and excellent witte untaught, doth bring forth many good and evill things together; like as a fat soile bringeth forth herbes and weedes, that lieth unmanured.[257] For this Martius naturell wit and great harte dyd marvelously sturre up his corage, to doe and attempt notable actes. But on the other side for lacke of education, he was so chollericke and impacient, that he would yeld to no living creature; which made him churlishe, uncivill, and altogether unfit for any mans conversation.

Again, in reference to Marcius’ strenuous career, Plutarch writes:

The only thing that made him to love honour, was the joye he sawe his mother dyd take of him. For he thought nothing made him so happie and honorable, as that his mother might heare every bodie praise and commend him, that she might allwayes see him returne with a crowne upon his head, and that she might still embrace him with teares ronning downe her cheekes for joye.

In the play, it is not with tears of joy that Volumnia welcomes her warrior home.

Here is another instance of piety that Plutarch cites:

Martius thinking all due to his mother, that had bene also due to his father if he had lived; dyd not only content him selfe to rejoyce and honour her, but at her desire tooke a wife also, by whom he had two children, and yet never left his mothers house therefore.

In Shakespeare there is no word of Marcius’ marrying at his mother’s desire, and though she apparently lives with him, it is in his, not in her house.

All these notices occur in the first pages of the Life. Thenceforward till her intervention at the close there is only a passing mention of her affliction at her son’s banishment.

When he was come home to his house againe, and had taken his leave of his mother and wife, finding them weeping, and shreeking out for sorrowe, and had also comforted and persuaded them to be content with his chaunce; he immediately went to the gate of the cittie.

Even in regard to the intercession, where Shakespeare follows Plutarch most closely, he makes one significant omission. In the original, it is the suggestion of Valeria “through the inspiration of some god above,” that the women should sue for peace, and she visits Marcius’ kinswoman to secure their help: by the suppression of this circumstance, the prominent place is left to Volumnia. And in the appeal itself Shakespeare, besides the various vivifying and personal touches, makes one important addition. In Plutarch her words are throughout forcible and impassioned, but they do not burst into the wrathful indignation of the close, which alone is sufficient to break down Coriolanus’ resolution.

Now it is clear that the presence of Volumnia does not pervade the Life as it does the play, and she has not nearly so much to do. Moreover, besides being less important, she is less masculine and masterful. Indeed, from Plutarch’s hints it would be possible to construct for her a character that differed widely from that of Shakespeare’s heroine. She is like the latter in her patriotism, her love for and delight in her son, and, at the critical moment, in her influence over him. But even her influence is less constant, and seems to be stronger in the way of unconscious inspiration than of positive direction. It would be quite legitimate to picture her as an essentially womanly woman, high-souled and dutiful, but finding her chosen sphere in the home, overflowing with sympathy and affection, and failing in her obligations as widowed mother only by a lack of sternness.

And if Shakespeare has given features to Volumnia, much more has he done so to Virgilia and young Marcius. Both, of course, are presented in the merest outline, but in Plutarch the wife is only once named and the children are not named at all. Shakespeare’s Virgilia, on the other hand, by the few words she speaks and the few words spoken to her, by her very restraint from speech and the atmosphere in which she moves, produces a very definite as well as a very pleasing impression. Ruskin, after enumerating some other of Shakespeare’s female characters, concludes that they “and last and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all faultless; conceived in the highest heroic type of humanity.” This enthusiasm may be, as Ruskin’s enthusiasms sometimes were, exaggerated and misplaced, but it could not be roused by a nonentity; and a nonentity Plutarch’s Virgilia is.

Young Marcius, again, is not merely one of the two children mentioned in the Life. As Mr. Verity remarks,[258] in this case “the half is certainly better than the whole”; and the named half has a wholeness of his own that the anonymous brace can lay no claim to. He is a thorough boy, and an attractive though boisterous one. If he is cruel to winged things, he is brave and circumspect withal. He has a natural objection to be trodden on even for a patriotic cause; if the risk is too great, “he’ll run away till he’s bigger, but then he’ll fight.”

Passing from Coriolanus’ kinsfolk to his friends, we meet with very similar results. Titus Lartius is sketched very slightly in Shakespeare, but a good deal more visually than in Plutarch, who says of him in two sentences that he was “one of the valliantest men the Romaines had at that time,” and that, having entered Corioli with Marcius, he, “when he was gotten out, had some leysure to bring the Romaines with more safetie into the cittie.” Cominius is hardly more distinct. As Consul he conducts the campaign against Corioli; welcomes Marcius from his first exploit, and gives him the opportunity for his second, in the double engagement that then took place; thereafter officially rewards and eulogises his gallantry, which “he commended beyond the moone”; and that is practically all that is said about him. In the play, though in it too his part was a small one, he has characteristics of his own which Shakespeare has created for him without much help from these vague suggestions. Nor has Marcius, in the original story, any intimate association with either of his fellow soldiers. It is stated that at first he is in Lartius’ division of the army, and afterwards joins Cominius and wins his praises, but it is only in the affair of Corioli that their names are mentioned together.

In the drama, however, Menenius is undoubtedly the chief of the young man’s friends as well as one of the most prominent persons; and what has Plutarch to say about him? He is introduced only in connection with the fable which he tells the seceders to the Holy Hill, and, apart from the fable, all that we hear of him is confined to the following few sentences:

The Senate being afeard of their departure, dyd send unto them certaine of the pleasauntest olde men, and the most acceptable to the people among them. Of those, Menenius Agrippa was he, who was sent for chief man of the message from the Senate. He, after many good persuasions and gentle requestes made to the people, on the behalfe of the Senate, knit up his oration in the ende, with a notable tale.... These persuasions pacified the people, conditionally, that the Senate would graunte there should be yerely chosen five magistrates, which they now call Tribuni Plebis.

Even the few particulars given in this passage Shakespeare alters or neglects. It is not to the secessionists on the Mons Sacer, but to a street mob in Rome, that the fable is told. It not merely serves to lubricate in advance the negotiations that result in the tribunate, but effectually discomfits the murmurers, and Menenius learns only subsequently and to his surprise that the Senate has meanwhile conceded the political innovation. There is no hint in Plutarch of his being himself one of the patricians, and if Shakespeare glanced at Holland’s Livy he would see that in point of fact tradition assigned to him a plebeian origin.[259] Above all he has no dealings whatever with Marcius, and, according to Livy, died a year before his banishment. Plutarch thus furnishes hardly anything for the portrait of the man, and nothing at all for his relations with the hero.

And it is the same, or nearly the same, if we turn from Marcius’ friends to his enemies.

The tribunes, for example, are comparatively colourless. On the institution of the new magistracy,

Junius Brutus, and Sicinius Vellutus were the first tribunes of the people that were chosen, who had only bene the causes and procurers of this sedition.

Then we hear of their opposition to the colonisation of Velitrae because it was infected with the plague, and to a new war with the Volscians, because it was in the interest only of the rich; but they have nothing to do with the rejection of Marcius when he is candidate for the consulship. Only at a later time, when he inveighs against the relief of the people and the tribunitian power, do they stir up a popular tumult and insist that he shall answer their charges, adopting tactics not unlike those that are attributed to them in the play.

All this was spoken to one of these two endes, either that Martius against his nature should be constrained to humble him selfe, and to abase his hawty and fierce minde: or els if he continued still in his stowtnes, he should incurre the peoples displeasure and ill-will so farre, that he should never possibly winne them againe. Which they hoped would rather fall out so, then otherwise; as in deede they gest unhappely, considering Martius nature and disposition.

He answers not only with his wonted boldness, but “gave him selfe in his wordes to thunder and looke therewithall so grimly as though he made no reckoning of the matter.” This affords his opponents their chance:

Whereupon Sicinius, the cruellest and stowtest of the Tribunes, after he had whispered a little with his companions, dyd openly pronounce in the face of all the people, Martius as condemned by the Tribunes to dye.

Matters do not end here. A formal trial is agreed to, at which the resourceful magistrates procure the sentence of banishment, partly by arranging that the votes shall be taken not by centuries but by tribes, so that “the poore needy people” and the rabble may be in the majority, partly by eking out the indictments to which they are pledged to confine themselves, with other accusations. Then they drop out.

It may be observed that Brutus is only once named, and nothing is said of his disposition or ways. Even of Sicinius, who is more conspicuous, we only read that he was “the cruellest and stowtest” of the two. But it is less their character than their policy that occupies Plutarch, and even their policy is presented in an ambiguous light. They are described as the only authors of the rising which culminated in the exodus from the city; but with that exodus Plutarch on the whole seems to sympathise. They are described as “seditious tribunes” when they oppose the colonisation of Velitrae and the renewal of the war; but Plutarch shows they had good grounds for doing so. Even their action against Coriolanus for opposing the grant of corn and advocating the abolition of their office, was from their own point of view, and perhaps from any point of view, perfectly legitimate. We can only say that in the measures they took they were violent and unscrupulous. Yet when we consider the bitterness of party feeling and the exigencies of public life, they seem no worse than many statesmen who have been accounted great. Even their overt policy then is more respectable than that of Shakespeare’s pair of demagogues, and of course it is Shakespeare who has created, or all but created, for them their vulgar but life-like characters.

Nor are things greatly different in the case of the third of Marcius’ enemies, Tullus Aufidius, though Plutarch tells us somewhat more about him, and Shakespeare in the main fills in rather than alters Plutarch’s sketch. The first mention of him occurs when the exile determines on his revenge.

Now in the cittie of Antium, there was one called Tullus Aufidius, who for his riches, as also for his nobilitie and valliantnes, was honoured emong the Volsces as a king. Martius knewe very well that Tullus dyd more malice and envie him, then he dyd all the Romaines besides: bicause that many times in battells where they met, they were ever at the encounter one against another, like lustie coragious youthes, striving in all emulation of honour, and had encountered many times together. In so muche, as besides the common quarrell betweene them, there was bred a marvelous private hate one against another. Yet notwithstanding, considering that Tullus Aufidius was a man of a greate minde, and that he above all other of the Volsces, most desired revenge of the Romaines, for the injuries they had done unto them; he dyd an act that confirmed the true wordes of an auncient Poet, who sayed:

It is a thing full harde, mans anger to withstand.

After the welcome at Antium, Tullus and Coriolanus combine to bring on the war and are entrusted with the joint command; but Tullus chooses to remain at home to defend his country, while Coriolanus conducts the operations abroad, in which he is wonderfully successful. A truce he grants the Romans is however the occasion for a rift in their alliance.

This was the first matter wherewith the Volsces (that most envied Martius glorie and authoritie) dyd charge Martius with. Among those, Tullus was chief: who though he had receyved no private injurie or displeasure of Martius, yet the common faulte and imperfection of mans nature wrought in him, and it grieved him to see his owne reputation bleamished, through Martius great fame and honour, and so him selfe to be lesse esteemed of the Volsces, then he was before.

We do not hear of him after this till Coriolanus has come back from the siege of Rome.

Now when Martius was returned againe into the cittie of Antium from his voyage, Tullus that hated him and could no lenger abide him for the feare he had of his authoritie; sought divers meanes to make him out of the waye, thinking that if he let slippe that present time, he should never recover the like and fit occasion againe.

So he contrives and effects the assassination of his rival.

Thus the chief features of Aufidius’ character and the story of its development, the emulation that is dislodged by generosity, the generosity that is submerged in envy, were already supplied for Shakespeare’s use. But the darker hues are lacking in the earlier picture. There is neither the unscrupulous rancour in his initial relations with Marcius that Shakespeare attributes to them, nor the hypocritical pretence at the close. Plutarch does not bring the contrast with Coriolanus to a head. And in connection with this it should be observed that Tullus appears late and intervenes only incidentally. Less than a sentence is spared to his earlier antagonism with Coriolanus, nor is he present in the march on Rome or during the siege. And this is typical of Plutarch’s treatment of all the subordinate persons. They enter for a moment, and are dismissed. But in Shakespeare they accompany the action throughout, and do this in such a way that they illustrate and influence the character and career of the hero, and have their own characters and careers illustrated and influenced by him. They are all, even young Marcius by description, introduced in the first four scenes, with an indication of their general peculiarities and functions, and with the single exception of Titus Lartius, they continue to reappear almost to the end.

The recurrent presence of the agents of itself involves considerable modification in the conduct of the plot, but in this respect too we are at first more struck by the resemblances than the differences between the two versions; and it is possible to exhibit the story in such a manner that its main lines seem the same in both.

The setting is furnished by the primitive Roman state when it has newly assumed its republican form. Less than a score of years before, it passed through its first great crisis in its successful rejection of the kingship, and ever since has been engaged in a life-and-death struggle with representatives of the exiled dynasty and with jealous neighbours somewhat similar in power and character to itself. It has made good its position under the direction of a proud and valiant aristocracy, but not without paying the price. The constant wars have resulted in widespread poverty and distress among the lower classes till they can bear it no longer and demand constitutional changes by which, as they think, their misery may be redressed. Rome is thus confronted with the internal peril of revolution as well as the foreign peril of invasion, and the future mistress of the world runs the risk of being cut off at the outset of her career by tribal broils and domestic quarrels. It is this that gives the legend a certain grandeur of import. The Senate, finding itself and its partisans in the minority, concedes to the commons rights which have the effect of weakening its old authority, and for that reason are bitterly resented by upholders of the old order. Meanwhile, however, Rome is able to take the field against the Volscians and gains a decisive victory over them, mainly owing to the soldiership of the young patrician, Marcius, who wins for himself in the campaign the name of Coriolanus. The ability he has shown, the glory he has achieved, the gratitude that is his due, seem to mark him out for a leading role. He almost deserves, and almost attains, the highest dignity the little state has to confer: but he has already given proof of his scorn for popular demands and opposition to the recent innovations, and at the last moment he is set aside. Not only that, but the new magistrates, in dread of his influence, incite the people against him and procure his condemnation to death, which, however, is afterwards mitigated to banishment. His friends of the nobility dare not or cannot interpose, and he departs into exile. Then his civic virtue breaks beneath the strain, and, reconciling himself with the Volscians, he leads them against his country. Nothing can stay his advance, and he is on the point of reducing the city, when, yielding to filial affection what he had refused to patriotic obligation, he relinquishes his revenge when he has it within his grasp. But this gives a pretext to those among his new allies who envy his greatness, and soon afterwards he is treacherously slain.

This general scheme is common to the biography and the play, and many of the details, whether presented or recounted, are derived from the former by the latter. Such, in addition to those already mentioned in another connection, are Marcius’ first exploit in the battle with Tarquin, when he bestrides a citizen, avenges his injury, and is crowned with the garland of oak; the dispersion of the soldiers to take spoil in Corioli, and Marcius’ consequent indignation; the response to his call for volunteers; his petition on behalf of his former host; the initial approval of his candidature by the plebs from a feeling of shame; the custom of candidates wearing the humble gown and showing their old wounds at an election; the popular joy at his banishment; the muster of nobles to see him to the gates; his popularity with the Volscian soldiery and their eagerness to serve under him; the perturbation and mutual recriminations in Rome at his approach; his reception of former friends when they petition him for mercy; the device of interrupting his speech in Antium lest his words should secure his acquittal.

To this extent Shakespeare and Plutarch agree, and the agreement is important and far-reaching. Has the dramatist, then, been content to embellish and supplement the diction of the story, and give new life to the characters, while leaving the fable unchanged except in so far as these other modifications may indirectly affect it? On the contrary we shall see that the design is thoroughly recast, that each of the borrowed details receives a new interpretation or a heightened colouring, that significant insertions and no less significant omissions concur to alter the effect of the whole.

Sometimes Shakespeare’s innovations followed almost necessarily and without any remoter result from the greater fullness and concreteness of his picture, and the care with which he grouped the persons round his hero. Such are many of the conversations and subordinate scenes, by means of which the story is conveyed to us in all its reality and movement; the episode of Valeria’s call, the description and words of Marcius’ little son, Aufidius’ self-disclosure to his soldiers and his lieutenant, even the interview between the Volscian scout and the Roman informer.

Still in this class, but more important, are the inventions that have no authority in Plutarch, but that are not opposed to and may even have been suggested by some of his hints. Thus in the Life, Volumnia’s interposition is not required to make Marcius submit himself to the judgment of the people, and in this connection she is not mentioned at all; but at any rate her action in Shakespeare does not belie the influence that Plutarch ascribes to her.

Occasionally, again, the deviation from and observance of the biographer’s statements follow each other so fast, and are both so dominated by truth to his spirit, that it needs some vigilance to note all the points where the routes diverge or coincide. Take, for example, the account of the candidature:

Shortely after this, Martius stoode for the Consulshippe; and the common people favored his sute, thinking it would be a shame to denie, and refuse, the chiefest noble man of bloude, and most worthie persone of Rome, and specially him that had done so great service and good to the common wealth. For the custome of Rome was at that time, that such as dyd sue for any office, should for certen dayes before be in the market place, only with a poore gowne on their backes, and without any coate underneath, to praye the cittizens to remember them at the daye of election: which was thus devised, either to move the people the more, by requesting them in suche meane apparell, or els bicause they might shewe them their woundes they had gotten in the warres in the service of the common wealth, as manifest markes and testimonie of their valliantnes.... Now Martius following this custome, shewed many woundes and cuttes upon his bodie, which he had receyved in seventeene yeres service at the warres, and in many sundrie battells, being ever the formest man that dyd set out feete to fight. So that there was not a man emong the people, but was ashamed of him selfe, to refuse so valliant a man: and one of them sayed to another, “We must needes chuse him Consul, there is no remedie.” But when the daye of election was come, and that Martius came to the market place with great pompe, accompanied with all the Senate, and the whole Nobilitie of the cittie about him, who sought to make him Consul, with the greatest instance and intreatie they could, or ever attempted for any man or matter: then the love and good will of the common people, turned straight to an hate and envie toward him, fearing to put this office of soveraine authoritie into his handes, being a man somewhat partiall toward the nobilitie, and of great credit and authoritie amongest the Patricians, and as one they might doubt would take away alltogether the libertie from the people.

Now Shakespeare borrows from Plutarch the explanation of the rather remarkable circumstance that the people at first gave Martius their support, and, like Plutarch, he emphasises it by giving it twice over, though he avoids the dullness of repetition by making one of the statements serious and one humorous. The first is put in the mouth of the official of the Capitol:

He hath so planted his honours in their eyes, and his actions in their hearts, that for their tongues to be silent, and not confess so much, were a kind of ingrateful injury: to report otherwise, were a malice, that giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.

(II. ii. 32.)

The second is given in the language of the plebeians themselves:

First Citizen. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him.

Second Citizen. We may, sir, if we will.

Third Citizen. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a power that we have no power to do: for if he show us his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues into those wounds and speak for them; so, if he tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude: of the which we being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members.

(II. iii. 1.)

But this is only before he wears the candidate’s gown, for, otherwise than in Plutarch, he does not show his wounds—“No man saw them,” say the citizens (iii. iii. 173)—and gives such offence by his contumacy that it is on this the tribunes are able to take further action. In the biography he is rejected only because the indiscreet advocacy of the nobles makes the plebeians fear that he will be too much of a partizan. He shows no reluctance either to stand or to comply with the conditions. All these things are the inventions of Shakespeare, and are made to bring about the catastrophe which in his authority was due to very different causes. Nevertheless, they are suggested by Plutarch in so far as they are merely additional illustrations of that excess of aristocratic pride, on which Plutarch, too, insists as the source of Marcius’ offences and misfortunes.

But this example merges into another kind of alteration which may primarily have been due to the need of greater economy and dramatic condensation, but which in its results involves a great deal more. In Plutarch, Coriolanus’ unsuccessful candidature has, except as it adds to his private irritation, no immediate result; and only some time later does his banishment follow on quite another occasion. Corn had come from Sicily, and in the dearth it was proposed to distribute it gratis: but Marcius inveighed against such a course and urged that the time was opportune for the abolition of the Tribunate, in a speech which, in the play, he “speaks again” when his election is challenged. But the Life reports it only as delivered in the Senate; and the tribunes, who are present, at once leave and raise a tumult, attempt to arrest him and are resisted. The senators, to allay the commotion, resolve to sell the corn cheap, and thus end the discontent against themselves, but the tribunes persist in their attack on the ringleader, hoping, as we have seen, that he will prove refractory and give a handle against himself. When he does this and the death-sentence is pronounced, there is still so much feeling of fairness that a legal trial is demanded, which the tribunes consent to grant him, and to which he consents to submit on the stipulation that he shall be charged only on the one count of aspiring to make himself king. But when the assembly is held the tribunes break their promise and accuse him of seeking to withhold the corn and abolish the Tribunate, and of distributing the spoils of the Antiates only among his own followers. For shortly after the fall of Corioli, the people had refused to march against the Volsces, and Coriolanus, organising a private expedition, had won a victory, taken great booty, and given it to all those who had been of the party. So the unexpectedness and injustice of this last indictment throws him out.

This matter was most straunge of all to Martius, looking least to have been burdened with that, as with any matter of offence. Whereupon being burdened on the sodaine, and having no ready excuse to make even at that instant: he beganne to fall a praising of the souldiers that had served with him in that jorney. But those that were not with him, being the greater number, cried out so lowde, and made such a noyse, that he could not be heard. To conclude, when they came to tell the voyces of the Tribes, there were three voyces odde, which condemned him to be banished for life.

Now there are several things to notice in Shakespeare’s very different version. The first is the tact with which he compresses a great many remotely connected incidents into one. He antedates the affair about the corn with Marcius’ speech against the distribution and the Tribunate, and only brings it in as a supplementary circumstance in the prosecution. The real centre of the situation is Coriolanus’ behaviour when a candidate, and round this all else is grouped: and this behaviour, it will be remembered, is altogether a fabrication on Shakespeare’s part. Two other things follow from this.

In the first place, the unreasonableness of the Romans as a whole is considerably mitigated. More prominence, indeed, is given to the machinations of the tribunes, but on the other hand the body of electors is not only acting less on its own initiative than on the prompting of its guides, but it proceeds quite properly to avenge grievances that do exist and avert dangers that do threaten. And this excuse is to some extent valid for the leaders too. In Plutarch, the Senate has come to terms on the question of the corn, yet Coriolanus is hounded down for an opposition which has turned out to be futile. In the play, though he has met with a check, both he and his friends hope that even now he may win the election, and the evils that would result to the people from his consulship are still to be feared.

Again, Plutarch dwells on the unfairness of the arrangements for taking the votes, which has the effect of packing the jury:

And first of all the Tribunes would in any case (whatsoever became of it) that the people would proceede to geve their voyces by Tribes, and not by hundreds: for by this meanes the multitude of the poore needy people (and all such rabble as had nothing to lose, and had lesse regard of honestie before their eyes) came to be of greater force (bicause their voyces were numbered by the polle) then the noble honest cittizens: whose persones and purse dyd duetifully serve the common wealth in their warres.

This is not exactly omitted in the drama, but it is slurred over, and Plutarch’s clear explanation is entirely suppressed, so that few of Shakespeare’s readers and still fewer of his hearers could possibly suspect the significance.

Sicinius.Have you a catalogue

Of all the voices that we have procured

Set down by the poll?

Ædile.I have; ’tis ready.

Sicinius. Have you collected them by tribes?

Ædile.I have.

(III. iii. 8.)

Above all, the accusations brought against Coriolanus, in Shakespeare, are substantially just. He may not seek to wind himself into a power tyrannical, if we take tyrant, as Plutarch certainly did but as Shakespeare probably did not, in the strict classical sense of tyrannus, but with his disregard of aged custom and his avowed opinions of the people, there can be no doubt that he would have wielded the consular powers tyrannically, in the ordinary acceptation of the word. For there can be as little doubt about his ill-will to the masses and his abhorrence of the tribunitian system. And it is on these grounds that he is condemned. It is very noticeable that the division of the Antiate spoil, which in Plutarch is the most decisive and unwarrantable allegation against him, is mentioned by Shakespeare only in advance as a subordinate point that may be brought forward, but, as a matter of fact, it is never urged.

Brutus. In this point charge him home, that he affects

Tyrannical power: if he evade us there,

Enforce him with his envy to the people,

And that the spoil got on the Antiates

Was ne’er distributed.

(III. iii. 1.)

Shakespeare makes no further use of a circumstance to which Plutarch attaches so great importance that he dwells on it twice over and gives it the prominent place in the narrative of the trial. This piece of sharp practice becomes quite negligible in the play, and the only chicanery of which the tribunes are guilty in the whole transaction is that, as in the Life, but more explicitly, they goad Coriolanus to a fit of rage in which he avows his real sentiments—a tactical expedient that many politicians would consider perfectly permissible. Shakespeare, as has often been pointed out, in some ways shows even less appreciation than Plutarch of the merits of the people; so it is all the more significant that, at the crisis of the play, he softens down and obliterates the worst traits in their proceedings against their enemy.

And the second thing we observe is that by all this Shakespeare emphasises the insolence and truculence of the hero. It is Coriolanus’ pride that turns his candidature, which begins under the happiest auspices, to a snare. It is still his pride that plays into the tribunes’ hands and makes him repeat in mere defiance his offensive speech. It is again his pride, not any calumny about his misapplying the profits of his raid, that gives the signal for the adverse sentence. Just as in this respect the plebs is represented as on the whole less ignoble than Plutarch makes it, so Coriolanus’ conduct is portrayed as more insensate.

And this two-fold tendency, to palliate the guilt of Rome and to stress the violence that provoked it, appears in the more conspicuous of Shakespeare’s subsequent deviations from his authority.

In Plutarch, Tullus and Aufidius have great difficulty in persuading the magnates of Antium to renew the war, and only succeed when the Romans expel the Volscian residents from their midst.

On a holy daye common playes being kept in Rome, apon some suspition, or false reporte, they made proclamation by sound of trumpet, that all the Volsces should avoyde out of Rome before sunne set. Some thincke this was a crafte and deceipt of Martius, who sent one to Rome to the Consuls, to accuse the Volsces falsely, advertising them howe they had made a conspiracie to set upon them, whilest they were busie in seeing these games, and also to sette their cittie a fyre.

At any rate, the proclamation brings about a declaration of hostilities, and war speedily follows.

Now in Shakespeare, Lartius, for fear of attack, has to surrender Corioli even before Coriolanus meets with his rebuff.

Coriolanus. Tullus Aufidius then had made new head?

Lartius. He had, my lord, and that it was which caused

Our swifter composition.

(III. i. 1.)

Moreover, all the preparations of the Volsces are complete for a new incursion. Cominius, indeed, cannot believe that they will again tempt fortune so soon.

They are worn, lord consul, so

That we shall hardly in our ages see

Their banners wave again.

(III. i. 6.)

But Cominius is wrong. In the little intercalated scene between the Roman and the Volsce, we learn that they have mustered an army which the latter thus describes:

A most royal one; the centurions and their charges, distinctly billeted, already in the entertainment, and to be on foot at an hour’s warning.

(IV. iii. 47.)

And Aufidius welcomes Coriolanus to the feast with the words:

O, come, go in,

And take our friendly senators by the hands:

Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,

Who am prepared against your territories,

Though not for Rome itself.

(IV. v. 137.)

The arrival of such an auxiliary, however, at once alters that plan, and we presently learn that they are now going to make direct for the city:

To-morrow; to-day; presently; you shall have the drum struck up this afternoon: ’tis, as it were, a parcel of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.

(IV. v. 229.)

Now in Plutarch we cannot but be struck by the pusillanimous part the Romans play when menaced by their great peril. They answer the declaration of war with a bravado which events quite fail to justify, but, despite the warning they have received, they make no resistance and do not even prepare for it. In Shakespeare there is more excuse for them. They are taken completely by surprise. Their foe has almost been their match before, when they were equipped to meet him, and had their champion on their side. Now that champion is not only gone, but is at the head of the invading army.

Nor is this all. In Plutarch, Coriolanus begins operations by making a raid on the Roman territories with light-armed troops, retiring again with his plunder. Still the Romans do not take any precautions. In a second campaign he gets within five miles of the city, and still they do nothing but send an embassage. Even when, at the peril of his popularity, he grants them a truce of thirty days, they make no use of it for defence, but only continue to transmit arrogant or abject messages. This further opportunity, too, which they so strangely neglect, is wisely omitted by Shakespeare. With him the irruption is swift and sudden beyond the grasp of human thought. Coriolanus breaks across the border and strikes straight for Rome. There is no time for defensive measures, no possibility of aid. Even so, the part the Romans play is not so heroic as might be expected, but it is at least intelligible and much less dastardly than in the history.

Or take another instance. In describing the first inroad of Coriolanus, Plutarch writes:

His chiefest purpose was, to increase still the malice and dissention betweene the nobilitie, and the communaltie: and to drawe that on, he was very carefull to keepe the noble mens landes and goods safe from harme and burning, but spoyled all the whole countrie besides, and would suffer no man to take or hurte any thing of the noble mens. This made greater sturre and broyle betweene the nobilitie and people, then was before. For the noble men fell out with the people, bicause they had so unjustly banished a man of so great valure and power. The people on thother side, accused the nobilitie, how they had procured Martius to make these warres, to be revenged of them: bicause it pleased them to see their goodes burnt and spoyled before their eyes, whilest them selves were well at ease, and dyd behold the peoples losses and misfortunes, and knowing their owne goods safe and out of daunger: and howe the warre was not made against the noble men, that had the enemie abroad, to keepe that they had in safety.

In Shakespeare there is no word of Coriolanus making any such distinction either from policy or partisanship: he is incensed against all the inhabitants of Rome, “the dastard nobles” quite as much as the offending plebeians. And, on the other hand, though the patricians revile the populace and its leaders, there is no division between the orders, and they show no inclination to disregard the solidarity of their interests. This contrast becomes more marked in the sequel. According to Plutarch, the people in panic desire to recall the exile; but the

Senate assembled upon it, would in no case yeld to that. Who either dyd it of a selfe will to be contrarie to the peoples desire: or bicause Martius should not returne through the grace and favour of the people.

Afterwards, however, when he encamps so near Rome, the majority has its way:

For there was no Consul, Senatour, nor Magistrate, that durst once contrarie the opinion of the people, for the calling home againe of Martius.

Accordingly, the first envoys are instructed to announce to him his re-instatement in all his rights.

In Shakespeare’s account the action of Rome becomes much more dignified. In none of the negociations, in no chance word of citizen, tribune or senator, is there any hint of the sentence on Coriolanus being revoked. Only when peace is concluded does his recall follow quite naturally, as an act of gratitude, in the burst of jubilant relief:

Unshout the shout that banish’d Marcius,

Repeal him with the welcome of his mother.

(V. v. 4.)

This, too, is one of the indications of Shakespeare’s feeling for Roman greatness, that we should bear in mind when elsewhere he seems to show less sense even than Plutarch of her civic virtue.

The last notable deviation of the play from the biography occurs in the passage which deals with the murder of Coriolanus, and the difference is such as to make the victim far more responsible for the crime.

In Plutarch, after his return to Antium, Tullus, wishing to make away with him, demands that he should be deposed from his authority and taken to task. Marcius replies that he is willing to resign, if this be required by all the lords, and also to give account to the people if they will hear him. Thereupon a common council is called, at which proceedings begin by certain orators inciting popular feeling against him.

When they had tolde their tales, Martius rose up to make them aunswer. Now, notwithstanding the mutinous people made a marvelous great noyse, yet when they sawe him, for the reverence they bare unto his valliantnes, they quieted them selves, and gave still audience to alledge with leysure what he could for his purgation. Moreover, the honestest men of the Antiates, and who most rejoyced in peace, shewed by their countenaunce that they would heare him willingly, and judge also according to their conscience. Whereupon Tullus fearing that if he dyd let him speake, he would prove his innocencie to the people, bicause emongest other things he had an eloquent tongue, besides that the first good service he had done to the people of the Volsces, dyd winne him more favour, then these last accusations could purchase him displeasure: and furthermore, the offence they layed to his charge, was a testimonie of the good will they ought him, for they would never have thought he had done them wrong for that they tooke not the cittie of Rome, if they had not bene very neare taking of it, by meanes of his approche and conduction. For these causes Tullus thought he might no lenger delaye his pretence and enterprise, neither to tarie for the mutining and rising of the common people against him: wherefore those that were of the conspiracie, beganne to crie out that he was not to be heard, nor that they would not suffer a traytour to usurpe tyrannicall power over the tribe of the Volsces, who would not yeld up his estate and authoritie. And in saying these wordes, they all fell upon him, and killed him in the market place, none of the people once offering to rescue him. Howbeit it is a clear case, that this murder was not generally consented unto, of the most parte of the Volsces: for men came out of all partes to honour his bodie, and dyd honorablie burie him, setting out his tombe with great store of armour and spoyles, as the tombe of a worthie persone and great captaine.

Here the conspirators do not give him a chance, but kill him before a word passes his lips. In the tragedy, on the contrary, all might have been well, if in his rage of offended pride at Tullus’ insults and taunts, he had not been carried away with his vaunts and reminders to excite and excuse the passions of his hearers. And thus with Shakespeare his ungovernable insolence is now made the cause of his death, just as before it has been accentuated as the cause of his banishment.

Still, though the exasperation against Coriolanus in Rome as in Corioli is thus in a measure justified, his own violence also receives its apology. In the latter case it is the provocation of Aufidius that rouses him to frenzy. In the former, it is the ineptitude of the citizens that fills him with scorn for their claims. And it is with reference to this and his whole conception of the Roman plebs that Shakespeare has made the most momentous and remarkable change in his story, the consideration of which we have purposely left to the last. The discussion of the difference in Plutarch’s and in Shakespeare’s attitude to the people will show us some of the most important aspects of the play.

CHAPTER III
THE GRAND CONTRAST.
SHAKESPEARE’S CONCEPTION
OF THE SITUATION IN ROME

It is difficult to describe with any certainty the reasons for Shakespeare’s variations from Plutarch in his treatment of the people. They may, like some of those already discussed, be due to the dramatic requirement of compression. They may be due to the deliberate purpose of exonerating the hero. They may, and this is more likely, have arisen quite naturally and unconsciously from Shakespeare’s indifference to questions of constitutional theory and his inability to understand the ideals of an antique self-governing commonwealth controlled by all its free members as a body. In any case the result is a picture of the primitive society, from which some of Plutarch’s inconsistencies, but with them some of the most typical traits, have been removed. The grand characteristic which the Tudor Englishman rejects, or all but rejects, is the intuitive political capacity which Plutarch, perhaps in idealising retrospect, attributes to all classes of citizens in the young republic, and which at any rate in after development formed the distinctive genius of the Roman state. He has indeed an inarticulate sense of it that enables him to suggest the general impression. He could not but have a sense of it; for few men have been so pentrated with the greatness of later Rome as he, and he seems to have felt, as the shapers of the tradition and as Plutarch felt, that such a tree must have sprung from a healthy seed. So when we examine what his story involves, we have evidence enough of a general spirit of moderation, accommodation, compromise, that flow from and minister to an efficient practical patriotism; an ingrafted love of the city; and a conviction of the community of interests among high and low alike. Mr. Watkiss Lloyd puts this with great emphasis, and on the whole with great truth.

Rome is preserved from cleaving in the midst by the virtues of the state, the reverence for the political majority which pervades both contending parties. The senate averts the last evil by the timely concession of the tribunitian power first, and then by sacrifice of a favourite champion of their own order, rather than civil war shall break out and all go to ruin in quarrel for the privilege and supremacy of a part. Rather than this they will concede, and trust to temporising, to negociating, to management, to the material influence of their position and the effect of their own merits and achievements, to secure their power or recover it hereafter. Among the people, on the other hand, there is also a restraining sentiment, a religion that holds back from the worst abuses of successful insurrection and excited faction. The proposition to kill Marcius is easily given up. Even the tribunes are capable of being persuaded to forego the extremity of rancour against the enemy of the people and of their authority, when he is fairly in their power, and commute death for banishment; and, the victory achieved, they counsel tranquility, as Menenius, on the other hand, softens down; and all goes smoothly again like a reconciled household, after experience of the miseries of adjusting wrongs by debate and anger.

Similarly the interests of the country are supreme when Coriolanus, with his new allies, advances to the attack:

Some impatience of the people against the tribunes is natural, but the tribunes with all their faults, take their humiliation not ignobly, and the nobles never for a moment dream of getting a party triumph by foreign aid. The danger of the country engrosses all, and at last Volumnia presses upon her son the right and the noble, and employs all the influences of domestic and natural affection—but all entirely to the great political and national end,—and is as disregardful of the fortunes or interests of the aristocratical party, which might have hoped to seize the opportunity for recovering lost ground, as she is apparently unaware, unconscious, regardless of what may be the consequences personally to her much loved son.

And Mr. Lloyd clinches his plea by his estimate of the catastrophe.

In the concluding scene we appear to see the supremacy of Rome assured.... In the senate house of the Volscians is perpetrated the assassination, from the disgrace of which the better spirit of the Romans preserved their city: Aufidius and his fellows with equal envy and ingratitude take the place of the plotting tribunes, and the senators are powerless to control the conspirators and mob of citizens who abet them.

They are, in short, in comparison with Rome self-condemned; and this becomes more manifest if we contrast the finale of the play with the concluding sentences in Plutarch, which Shakespeare leaves unused.

Now Martius being dead, the whole state of the Volsces hartely wished him alive again. For first of all they fell out with the Æques (who were their friendes and confederates) touching preheminence and place: and this quarrell grew on so farre betwene them, and frayes and murders fell out apon it one with another. After that, the Romaines overcame them in battell, in which Tullus was slaine in the field, and the flower of all their force was put to the sworde: so that they were compelled to accept most shameful conditions of peace, in yelding them selves subject unto the conquerors, and promising to be obedient at their commandement.

It is at first sight rather strange that Shakespeare should give no indication that the Volscians, first by condoning Tullus’ crime, the breach of friendship from desire for pre-eminence, then by repeating it as a community, prepare the way for their own downfall. Perhaps he felt that no finger-post was necessary, and that all must see how in the long run such a state must inevitably succumb to the greater moral force of Rome.

A few slight qualifications would have to be made in Mr. Lloyd’s statement of his thesis to render it absolutely correct, but it is true in the main. Nevertheless, true though it be, it makes no account of two very important considerations. One of these is that despite the general appreciation which Shakespeare shows for the attitude of the Roman Civitas, he has no perception of the real issues between the plebeians and the patricians, or of the course which the controversy took, though these matters constitute the chief claim of the citizens of early Rome to the credit they receive in Plutarch’s narrative. And the other consideration is, that Shakespeare’s general appreciation of the community he describes is perceptible only when we view the play at a distance and in its mass: the impression in detail as we follow it from scene to scene is by no means so favourable to either party.

The first point is well brought out by the total omission in the drama of the initial episode in the discussion between the populace and the senate, and between the populace and Marcius. And the omission is all the more noticeable since Plutarch gives it particular prominence as directly leading to the establishment of the tribunate, which the drama, as we shall see, ascribes merely to an insignificant bread riot. Here is what Shakespeare must have read, and what slips from him without leaving more than a trace, though to modern feeling it is one of the most impressive passages in the whole Life.

Now (Martius) being growen to great credit and authoritie in Rome for his valliantnes, it fortuned there grewe sedition in the cittie, bicause the Senate dyd favour the riche against the people, who dyd complaine of the sore oppression of userers, of whom they borowed money. For those that had litle, were yet spoyled of that litle they had by their creditours, for lack of abilitie to paye the userie: who offered their goodes to be solde, to them that would geve most. And suche as had nothing left, their bodies were layed holde of, and they were made their bonde men, notwithstanding all the woundes and cuttes they shewed, which they had receyved in many battells, fighting for defence of their countrie and common wealth: of the which, the last warre they made, was against the Sabynes, wherein they fought apon the promise the riche men had made them, that from thenceforth they would intreate them more gently, and also upon the worde of Marcus Valerius chief of the Senate, who by authoritie of the counsell, and in the behalfe of the riche, sayed they should performe that they had promised. But after that they had faithfully served in this last battell of all, where they overcame their enemies, seeing they were never a whit the better, nor more gently intreated, and that the Senate would geve no eare to them, but make as though they had forgotten their former promise, and suffered them to be made slaves and bonde men to their creditours, and besides, to be turned out of all that ever they had; they fell then even to flat rebellion and mutinie, and to sturre up daungerous tumultes within the cittie. The Romaines enemies, hearing of this rebellion, dyd straight enter the territories of Rome with a marvelous great power, spoyling and burning all as they came. Whereupon the Senate immediatly made open proclamation by sounde of trumpet, that all those which were of lawfull age to carie weapon, should come and enter their names into the muster masters booke, to goe to the warres: but no man obeyed their commaundement. Whereupon their chief magistrates, and many of the Senate, beganne to be of divers opinions emong them selves. For some thought it was reason, they should somewhat yeld to the poore peoples request, and that they should a little qualifie the severitie of the lawe. Other held hard against that opinion, and that was Martius for one. For he alleaged, that the creditours losing their money they had lent, was not the worst thing that was thereby: but that the lenitie that was favored, was a beginning of disobedience, and that the prowde attempt of the communaltie, was to abolish lawe, and to bring all to confusion. Therefore he sayed; if the Senate were wise, they should betimes prevent, and quenche this ill favored and worse ment beginning. The Senate met many dayes in consultation about it: but in the end they concluded nothing. The poore common people seeing no redresse, gathered them selves one daye together, and one encoraging another, they all forsooke the cittie, and encamped them selves upon a hill, called at this daye the holy hill, alongest the river of Tyber, offering no creature any hurte or violence, or making any shewe of actuall rebellion; saving that they cried as they went up and down, that the riche men had driven them out of the cittie, and that all Italie through they should finde ayer, water and ground to burie them in. Moreover, they sayed, to dwell at Rome was nothing els but to be slaine, or hurte with continuell warres and fighting for defence of the riche mens goodes.

Plutarch goes on to tell how in this crisis the Senate adopts a conciliatory attitude, and how after the fable of Menenius, the mutineers are pacified by the concession of five Tribuni plebis, “whose office should be to defend the poore people from violence and oppression.” Then he concludes this part of his recital:

Hereupon the cittie being growen againe to good quiet and unitie, the people immediatly went to the warres, shewing that they had a good will to doe better than ever they dyd, and to be very willing to obey the magistrates in that they would commaund concerning the warres.

Now, in this account there is no question which side is on the right and has a claim on our sympathies. The plebs is reduced to distress by fighting for the state and for the aristocratic régime that was set up some twenty years before: its misery is aggravated by harsh and inadequate laws, the redress of which it seeks by a policy of passive resistance; its demands are so equitable that they are approved by a portion of the Senate, and so urgent that they are conceded by the Senate as a whole: but such is the strength of class selfishness, that when the hour of need is past, the patricians violate their explicit promise, and the grievances become more intolerable than before. Even now the plebeians break out in no violent rebellion, and hardly show their discontent in a casual riot. In their worst desperation they merely secede, and in their very secession they are far from stubborn. They admit Menenius’ moral that the Senate has an essential function in the state: and as a preliminary to their return, only stipulate for a machinery that will protect them against further oppression.

But hardly a line in the description of this movement which the plebeians conducted so moderately and sagaciously to a successful end, has passed into the picture of Shakespeare. He ignores the reasonableness of their cause, the reasonableness of their means, and fails to perceive the essential efficiency and steadiness of their character, though all these things are expressed or implied in Plutarch’s narrative. This episode, in which the younger contemporary of Nero favours the people, the elder contemporary of Pym summarily dismisses, and substitutes for it another far less important, in which they appear in no very creditable light, but which had nothing to do with the institution of the Tribunate, and occurred in consequence of the dearth only after the capture of Corioli.

Now when this warre was ended, the flatterers of the people beganne to sturre up sedition againe, without any newe occasion, or just matter offered of complainte. For they dyd grounde this seconde insurrection against the Nobilitie and Patricians, apon the people’s miserie and misfortune, that could not but fall out, by reason of the former discorde and sedition, betweene them and the Nobilitie. Bicause the most parte of the errable land within the territorie of Rome, was become heathie and barren for lacke of plowing, for that they had no time nor meane to cause corne, to be brought them out of other countries to sowe, by reason of their warres which made the extreme dearth they had emong them. Now those busie pratlers that sought the peoples good will, by suche flattering wordes, perceyving great scarsitie of corne to be within the cittie, and though there had bene plenty enough, yet the common people had no money to buye it: they spread abroad false tales and rumours against the Nobilitie, that they in revenge of the people, had practised and procured the extreme dearthe emong them.

This circumstance, combined with the still later demand for a distribution of corn, Shakespeare transposes, and makes the surely rather inappropriate cause of the appointment of the tribunes. Inappropriate, that is, to what the logic of the situation requires, and to what the sagacity of the traditional plebs would solicit. They ask for bread and they get a magistrate. But not inappropriate to the unreasoning demands of a frenzied proletariat. Many parallels might be cited from the French revolutions. But this is just an instance of Shakespeare’s inability to conceive a popular rising in other terms than the outbreak of a mob.

And this leads us to the second point. The general moderation and dignity implied in the attitude of Rome, viewed broadly and comprehensively, almost disappears when we are confronted with the full concrete life of the participants in all its picturesque and incisive details.

For consider first a little more closely the treatment of the people. We have seen that in many ways the proceedings which it and its representatives take against Coriolanus are more defensible in Shakespeare than in Plutarch: but, on the other hand, they have less rational grounds for the original insurrection, and are much less clear-sighted and consequent in choosing the means of redress. They are comparatively well-meaning and fair, neither bitter nor narrow-minded, but they are quite inefficient, far from self-reliant, very childish and helpless. They are conspicuously lacking in political aptitude, but they make up for it by a certain soundness of feeling. Plutarch’s plebeians go the right way about protecting themselves from unjust laws, but they pursue Coriolanus with rancorous chicane even when his policy has been overturned. Shakespeare’s plebeians seek to legislate against a natural calamity, but at the crisis they turn quite justifiably, if a little tardily, on a would-be governor who makes no secret of his ill-will. Taken as separate units, they may be unwashed and puzzle-headed, but they are worthy fellows whom misery has driven desperate, yet whose misery claims compassion, though their desperation makes them meddle in things too high for them. In the opening scene, the First Citizen, even when calling for the death of Marcius, does so merely because he imagines that it is the preliminary to getting cheap food:

The gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.

(I. i. 15.)

But even among the maddened and famishing crowd, Marcius is not without his advocate. The Second Citizen admonishes them:

Consider you what services he has done for his country?

(I. i. 30.)

And though these the ringleader discounts on the ground that they were due not to patriotism, but to personal pride and filial affection, his apologist, persisting in his defence, points out that he is not responsible for his inborn tendencies.

What he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him.

(I. i. 42.)

All this is candid enough: a benevolent neutral could not say more. These rioters have no thought of libelling their adversary. They deny neither his claims nor his merits; they only assert that these are outweighed by his offences. The Second Citizen proceeds in his plea:

You must in no way say he is covetous;

and the First rejoins:

If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations; he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.

(I. i. 43.)

We have seen how Shakespeare adopts from Plutarch the motive for the plebeians’ initial support of Coriolanus at the election, but he makes it a more striking instance of their fairness, for he represents them as quite aware and mindful of the reasons on the other side.

Fourth Citizen. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you have not deserved nobly.

Coriolanus. Your enigma?

Fourth Citizen. You have been a scourge to her enemies, you have been a rod to her friends; you have not indeed loved the common people.

(II. iii. 94.)

It is all very well for the candidate to turn this off with a flout, but it is the sober truth. That the despised plebeian should see both sides of the case shows in him more sanity of judgment than Coriolanus ever possessed: that he should nevertheless cast his vote for such an applicant shows more generosity as well. And the generosity, if also the simplicity, of the electors is likewise made more pronounced than in Plutarch by their persevering in their course despite the scorn with which Coriolanus treats them; of which Plutarch of course knows nothing. Even that they forgive till the tribunes irritate the wounds and predict more fatal ones from the new weapon that has been put into such ruthless hands.

Did you perceive

He did solicit you in free contempt

When he did need your loves, and do you think

That his contempt shall not be bruising to you,

When he hath power to crush?

(II. iii. 207.)

All these instances of right feeling and instinctive appreciation of greatness are in Shakespeare’s picture, while they are either not at all or in a much less degree in Plutarch’s. And these citizens are capable of following good leadership as well as bad. They listen to Menenius, and are “almost persuaded” by his argument, without, as in Plutarch, making their acceptance of it merely provisional. Under Cominius they quit themselves, as he says, “like Romans,” and he gives them the praise:

Breathe you, my friends: well fought.

(I. vi. 1.)

Afterwards too he recognises that they are earning their share of the spoil, even as before they had borne themselves stoutly:

March on, my fellows:

Make good this ostentation, and you shall

Divide in all with us.

(I. vi. 85.)

This is said to the volunteers who come forward at Marcius’ summons, an episode for which there is hardly a hint in Plutarch. There, indeed, we read that he cannot call off the looters from the treasures of Corioli:

Whereupon taking those that willingly offered them selves he went out of the cittie:

which supplies the sentence,

I, with those that have the spirit, will haste

To help Cominius.

(I. v. 14.)

But this hint, if hint it were, Shakespeare uses anew with far stronger and brighter colouring in the incident of Marcius’ stirring appeal to Cominius’ men and their enthusiastic response: which is to be found only in the drama:

If any such be here—

As it were sin to doubt—that love this painting

Wherein you see me smear’d: if any fear

Lesser his person than an ill report;

If any think brave death outweighs bad life

And that his country’s dearer than himself;

Let him alone, or so many so minded,

Wave thus, to express his disposition,

And follow Marcius.

[They all shout and wave their swords, take him

up in their arms, and cast up their caps.]

(I. vi. 67.)

If they are handled in the right way, these citizen soldiers can play their part well. But they need to be rightly handled, they need to have their feelings stirred. They have no rational initiative of their own, and cannot do without inspiration and guidance. For, consider the grounds for their rising. Shakespeare not only completely suppresses the remarkable secession to the Mons Sacer, but barely mentions the social grievances that led to it. The First Citizen says indeed of the patricians:

[They] make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will.

(I. i. 83.)

But this is a mere passing remark, and no stress is laid on these, the real causes of the discontent, in comparison with the dearth, which for the rest seems to end with the Coriolan campaign, when there is, as Cominius promises, a “common distribution” of the spoils. Now the dearth is represented as a mere disastrous accident, for which no one is responsible, and for which there is no remedy save prayer—or such a foray as presently took place. Menenius expressly says so:

For the dearth,

The gods, not the patricians, made it, and

Your knees to them, not arms, must help.

(I. i. 74.)

It is alleged, no doubt, by the mutineers that the “storehouses are crammed with grain,” but there is no confirmation of this in the play, and the way in which “honest” Menenius reports the rumour, and Marcius, who is never less than honest receives it, implies that it is mere tittle tattle and gossip of the chimney corner.

Marcius.What’s their seeking?

Menenius. For corn at their own rates: whereof, they say,

The city is well stored.

Marcius.Hang ’em!  They say!

They’ll sit by the fire, and presume to know

What’s done i’ the Capitol; who’s like to rise,

Who thrives and who declines; side factions and give out

Conjectural marriages; making parties strong

And feebling such as stand not in their liking

Below their cobbled shoes. They say there’s grain enough!

(I. i. 192.)

In short their temper is hardly parodied in the modern skit,

Who fills the butchers’ shops with large blue flies?

And if they resemble the ignorant fanatics of later days in the unreasonableness of their complaints, they resemble them too, as we have seen, in the unreasonableness of their remedies. If things were as the play implies what help would lie in constitutional reform? They are no better than the starving Sansculottes who sought to allay their hunger by snatching new morsels of the royal prerogative. It really reads like a scene in Carlyle’s Paris of 1790 a.d., and not like any scene in Plutarch’s Rome of 494 b.c., when Coriolanus describes the delight of the famine-stricken crowds at getting their representatives:

They threw their caps

As they would hang them on the horns o’ the moon,

Shouting their emulation.

(I. i. 216.)

Moreover, when left to themselves, or when their sleeping manhood is not awakened, these plebeians, otherwise than those of Plutarch, have not even the average of physical courage. They can fight creditably under the competent management of Cominius, or heroically under the stimulus of Marcius’ rousing appeal: but if such influences are lacking, they fail. Menenius says of them:

Though abundantly they lack discretion,

Yet are they passing cowardly.

(I. i. 206.)

Marcius ironically invites them to the wars by indicating what would be, and turns out to be, provision for their needs:

The Volsces have much corn: take these rats thither

To gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutineers,

Your valour puts well forth: pray, follow.

(I. i. 253.)

And the citizens steal away. In truth the low opinion of their mettle seems justified by events. At Corioli the troops under Cominius do well, but those in Marcius’ division, perhaps because his treatment does not call out what is best in them, seem to deserve a part at least of his imprecations:

All the contagion of the south light on you,

You shames of Rome! You herd of——. Boils and plagues

Plaster you o’er, that you may be abhorr’d

Further than seen, and one infect another

Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese,

That bear the shapes of men, how have you run

From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!

All hurt behind! backs red, and faces pale

With flight and agued fear!

(I. iv. 30.)

Nor do they appear in a better light in the moment of partial victory, for they at once fall to plunder instead of following it up and helping their fellows. This touch, of course, Shakespeare derived from Plutarch.

The most parte of the souldiers beganne incontinently to spoyle, to carie awaye, and to looke up the bootie they had wonne. But Martius was marvelous angry with them, and cried out on them, that it was no time now to looke after spoyle, and to ronne straggling here and there to enriche them selves, whilest the other Consul and their fellowe cittizens peradventure were fighting with their enemies; and howe that leaving the spoyle they should seeke to winde them selves out of daunger and perill. Howbeit, crie, and saye to them what he could, very fewe of them would hearken to him.

But Shakespeare is not content with this. He quite without warrant describes the articles as worthless, to emphasise the baseness of the pillagers.

See here these movers that do prize their hours

At a crack’d drachma! Cushions, leaden spoons,

Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would

Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves,

Ere yet the fight be done, pack up.

(I. v. 5.)

This strain of baseness appears in another way afterwards, when they yell and hoot at their banished enemy, like a pack of curs at a retreating mastiff, or when at his threatened return they eat their words and their deeds.

First Citizen. For mine own part, When I said, banish him, I said ’twas pity.

Second Citizen. And so did I.

Third Citizen. And so did I: and, to say the truth, so did very many of us....

First Citizen. I ever said we were i’ the wrong when we banished him.

Second Citizen. So did we all.

(IV. vi. 139 and 155.)

What then is Shakespeare’s opinion of the people as a whole? Despite his sympathy with those of whom it is composed, it is to him a giant not yet in his teens, with formidable physical strength, with crude natural impulses to the good and the bad, kindly-natured and simple-minded, not incapable of fair-dealing and generosity; but rude, blundering, untaught, and therefore subject to spasms of fury, panic, and greed, fit for useful service only when it finds the right leader, but sure to go wrong if abandoned to its own or evil guidance.

To the danger of evil guidance, however, it is specially exposed, for it loves flattery and is imposed on by professions of goodwill: so Shakespeare reserves his severest treatment for those who cajole it, the demagogues of the Tribunate. No doubt in his tolerant objective way he concedes even to them a measure of justification. He was bound to do so, else they would have been outside the pale of dramatic sympathy; and also the culpability of Coriolanus would have been obscured. So there is something to be said even for their policy and management. They are quite right in fearing the results of Coriolanus’ elevation to the chief place in Rome:

Sicinius.On the sudden,

I warrant him consul.

Brutus.Then our office may

During his power, go sleep.

(II. i. 237.)

Their admonitions to the electors are such as the organisers of a party are not only entitled but bound to give to a constituency:

Could you not have told him

As you were lesson’d, when he had no power,

But was a petty servant to the state,

He was your enemy, ever spake against

Your liberties and the charters that you bear

I’ the body of the weal: and now, arriving

A place of potency and sway o’ the state,

If he should still malignantly remain

Fast foe to the plebeii, your voices might

Be curses to yourselves.

(II. iii. 180.)

These forebodings of what is likely to occur are not only thoroughly justifiable but obvious.

Then, though their abandonment of the methods of violence and acceptance of a trial are discounted partly by the perils of open force, partly by their confidence in and manipulation of a verdict to their minds, their willingness to substitute the penalty of banishment for the extreme sentence of death, must stand, as we have seen, to the credit, if not of their placability, at least of their moderation and prudence. Moreover, if we could disregard the dangers of war, their “platform,” as we should now call it, seems approved by its success. One cannot but sympathise with the satisfaction of Sicinius at the results of Marcius’ expulsion:

We hear not of him, neither need we fear him:

His remedies are tame i’ the present peace

And quietness of the people, which before

Were in wild hurry. Here do we make his friends

Blush that the world goes well, who rather had,

Though they themselves did suffer by ’t, behold

Dissentious numbers pestering streets, than see

Our tradesmen singing in their shops and going

About their functions friendly.

(IV. vi. 1.)

And when the citizens pass with their greetings, the tribune has a right to say to Menenius:

This is a happier and more comely time

Than when these fellows ran about the streets,

Crying confusion.

(IV. vi. 27.)

Even Menenius has to give a modified and grudging approval of the new position of things:

All’s well: and might have been much better, if

He could have temporised.

(IV. vi. 16.)

And when the disastrous news comes in, after the first outburst of incredulous wrath and terrified impatience, the two colleagues bear themselves well enough. There is shrewdness and good sense in Sicinius’ words to the citizens:

Go, masters, get you home: be not dismay’d;

These are a side that would be glad to have

This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,

And show no sign of fear.

(IV. vi. 149.)

When this very natural and probable conjecture proves false, they both rise to the occasion, or seek to do so, the cross-grained Sicinius somewhat more effectually than the glib-tongued Brutus, and show a certain dignity and justness of feeling. Their remonstrance with and petition to Menenius, if we grant the patriotism on the one side as well as the other, are not without their cogency:

Nay, pray, be patient: if you refuse your aid

In this so never-needed help, yet do not

Upbraid’s with our distress.

(V. i. 33.)

When Menenius objects that his mission will be futile, Sicinius’ reply comes near being noble:

Yet your good will

Must have that thanks from Rome, after the measure

As you intended well.

(V. i. 45).

When Menenius, returning from his fruitless mission, describes Coriolanus in his unapproachable, inexorable power, the tribune’s rejoinder is again the true one:

Menenius. He wants nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne in.

Sicinius. Yes, mercy, if you report him truly.

(V. iv. 24.)

Yet these various traits so little interfere with the general impression, that perhaps many tolerably careful readers who are familiar with the play, hardly take them into account. In the total effect they both seem to us pitiful busybodies, whose ill-earned influence only leads to disaster; or, as Menenius describes them:

A pair of tribunes that have rack’d for Rome,

To make coals cheap.

(V. i. 16.)

The first feature we notice in them is their pride, a vice which they blame in Coriolanus, and with which their own is expressly contrasted. For his is the haughty, unbending self-consciousness that is based on the sense of indwelling force, and has a shrinking disgust for praise. Theirs, on the other hand, revels in popularity, and their power depends entirely on the support which that popularity secures them. As Menenius tells them:

You are ambitious for poor knaves’ caps and legs.

(II. i. 76.)

Your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone.

(II. i. 39.)

They are really consequential and overweening rather than proud. And magnifying their importance and their office, they are apt to take too seriously any trifle in which they are concerned, and to become irritated at any mishap to their own convenience. Having no standard but themselves by which to measure the proportion of things, they are fussy over minor points and lose their tempers over petty troubles. This is the point of Menenius’ banter.

You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party, if you chanced to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers; set up the bloody flag against all patience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing: all the peace you make in their cause is, calling both the parties knaves.

(II. i. 77.)

This is, they are disposed to treat a molehill as a mountain, but if they are galled, to break out in indiscriminate and unjustified abuse. Menenius gives it them home in respect of these foibles:

You talk of pride: O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O that you could!

Brutus. What then, sir?

Menenius. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome.

(II. i. 41.)

This is the utterance of an enemy; nevertheless it is confirmed by their behaviour, and is moreover a prophecy of their action in regard to Marcius. In the first place their pride has been insulted by his:

Sicinius. Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius?

Brutus. He has no equal.

Sicinius. When we were chosen tribunes of the people,—

Brutus. Mark’d you his lip and eyes?

Sicinius.Nay, but his taunts.

Brutus. Being moved, he will not spare to gird the gods—

Sicinius. Bemock the modest moon.

(I. i. 256.)

A man who gibes at the gods, the moon, and above all the tribunes, is evidently a profane and irreverent fellow who should be got rid of. And perhaps it is anxiety not only for the public good but for their own authority that makes them dread their office may “go sleep,” during his consulship. At any rate the disrespect with which they have been treated is one main motive of their indignation: “Our Aediles smote, ourselves resisted!” they exclaim in pardonable horror (iii. i. 319).

Then the means they take to ruin Coriolanus, though not without its astuteness, and similar enough to what is practised every day in parliamentary tactics, is altogether base: it is the device of mean, paltry, inferior natures. They speculate on the defect of their enemy’s greatness, they reckon on his heroic vehemence and forcefulness to destroy him, and lay plans to betray his nobility to a passion that will embroil him with the people. It is as easy, says Sicinius, to drive him to provocation “as to set dogs on sheep” (ii. i. 273). But easy though it is, they are careful to give minute directions to their gang. Sicinius tells them that any condition proposed to him,

Would have gall’d his surly nature,

Which easily endures not article

Tying him to aught; so putting him to rage,

You should have ta’en the advantage of his choler

And pass’d him unelected.

(II. iii. 203.)

Then, after engineering the disavowal of the elected candidate, Brutus calculates

If, as his nature is, he fall in rage

With their refusal, both observe and answer

The vantage of his anger.

(II. iii. 266.)

And here are his final instructions for the behaviour of the people at the trial:

Put him to choler straight: he hath been used

Ever to conquer, and to have his worth

Of contradiction: being once chafed, he cannot

Be rein’d again to temperance; then he speaks

What’s in his heart; and that is there which looks

To break his neck.

(III. iii. 25.)

The suggestion for these proceedings comes, as we saw, from Plutarch; but in this one respect his tribunes are by no means so wily. They contrive a dilemma in which Coriolanus will have either to humble or to compromise himself; but though they would prefer the latter alternative, they do nothing to bring it about.

Yet with all their activity in the matter, they are meanly desirous of evading responsibility and saving their own skins.

Brutus.Lay

A fault on us, your tribunes; that we labour’d,

No impediment between, but that you must

Cast your election on him.

Sicinius.Say you chose him

More after our commandment than as guided

By your own true affections, and that your minds,

Pre-occupied with what you rather must do

Than what you should, made you against the grain

To voice him consul: lay the fault on us.

(II. iii. 234.)

And parallel with this is the crowning vulgarity of their triumph:

Go, see him out at gates, and follow him,

As he hath follow’d you, with all despite;

Give him deserved vexation.

(III. iii. 138.)

This is perhaps the supreme instance of their headstrong, testy and inconsiderate violence, for, as we shall see, it embitters the wavering Marcius and drives him to alliance with the foe. But the same violence has abundantly appeared before. The rest do all in their power to appease the tumult and procure a hearing for Sicinius, he uses the opportunity to add fuel to the fire and deserves Menenius’ rebuke:

This is the way to kindle, not to quench.

(III. i. 197.)

When Brutus proceeds in the same way, Cominius interrupts:

That is the way to lay the city flat;

To bring the roof to the foundation,

And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges,

In heaps and piles of ruin.

(III. i. 204.)

Menenius has to admonish them:

Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt

With modest warrant.

(III. i. 274.)

And again:

One word more, one word.

This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find

The harm of unscann’d swiftness, will too late

Tie leaden pounds to’s heels.

(III. i. 311.)

They do yield at last, but clearly the game they were playing in unreflecting impatience was most hazardous for the populace itself. Indeed, even when they have accepted more moderate counsels, the expulsion of Coriolanus seems an act not only of ingratitude but of recklessness. Their low cunning has attained an end, good perhaps in itself for the party they represent, but even for that party of insignificant advantage in view of the wider issues. Volumnia’s taunt is very much to the point:

Hadst thou foxship

To banish him that struck more blows for Rome

Than thou hast spoken words?

(IV. ii. 18.)

For after all, the pressing need in that period of constant war, as Plutarch and Shakespeare imagine it, was defence of the whole state, the plebs as well as the senate, against the foreign enemy, and the danger of an invasion was one of the ordinary probabilities of the case. Most men who had any sense of proportion would, in the circumstances, pause before they banished the sword and soldiership of Rome. No doubt the tribunes were to be excused for not foreseeing the renegacy of Coriolanus; when it is announced as a fact Menenius can hardly credit it.

This is unlikely:

He and Aufidius can no more atone

Than violentest contrariety.

(IV. vi. 71.)

It is less excusable that they should neglect the danger of a new attack from the Volsces, for though Cominius, as we saw, makes a similar error, he does so when Marcius is still on the side of the Romans. Menenius’ exclamation, when the invasion actually takes place and when the news of it is first brought to Rome, describes a situation, the possibility or probability of which every public man should have anticipated.

’Tis Aufidius,

Who, hearing of our Marcius’ banishment,

Thrusts forth his horns again into the world:

Which were inshell’d when Marcius stood for Rome,

And durst not once peep out.

(IV. vi. 42.)

This, though of course an understatement, for in point of fact Aufidius did not wait for Marcius’ banishment, is at any rate the least that was to be expected. But the tribunes, with a sanguine and criminal shortsightedness that suggests a distinguished pair of British politicians in our own day, refuse to admit as conceivable a fact the likelihood of which the circumstances of the case and recent experience avouch.

Brutus.It cannot be

The Volsces dare break with us.

Menenius.Cannot be!

We have record that very well it can,

And three examples of the like have been

Within my age.

(IV. vi. 47.)

Besides, the Volscians were not the only jealous neighbours the young republic had to guard herself against.

But their reception of the unwelcome tidings is a new instance of the ignoble strain in the tribunes’ nature. The first effect they have on Brutus is to enrage him against the informant: “Go see this rumourer whipp’d”; and Sicinius seconds the humane direction, but improves on it that the public may be duly cautioned against telling unpalatable truths: “Go whip him ’fore the people’s eyes.” Menenius may well remonstrate:

Reason with the fellow,

Before you punish him, where he heard this,

Lest you shall chance to whip your information,

And beat the messenger who bids beware

Of what is to be dreaded.

(IV. vi. 51.)

This is not merely an illustration of their habitual touchiness and irritability at whatever thwarts them. Once more we think of the words of the messenger in Antony and Cleopatra when he fears to report the worst: “The nature of bad news infects the teller”; and of Antony’s reply: “When it concerns the fool and coward.” There is beyond doubt more than a spice of folly and cowardice in the self-important quidnuncs, with their purblind temerity and shifty meanness. We are very glad to hear in the end of Brutus being mishandled by the mob and very sorry that Sicinius goes free: but at least he has had his dose of alarm and mortification, and in the future his influence will be gone; which is well. Yet they are not bad men. They are very like the majority of the citizens of Great and Greater Britain, and no inconsiderable portion of those who govern the Empire and its members. They have a certain amount of principle, shrewdness, and, if the test of misfortune comes, even of proper feeling. They would have made very worthy aldermen of a small municipality. But measured against the greatness of Rome, or even of Coriolanus, they are as gnats to the lion.

The picture, then, of the people and its elect is not flattering if we follow it in detail, but a similar examination is hardly more favourable to the nobles. Of course their behaviour is to a certain extent accounted for by the peculiarity of their position. Hitherto, since the expulsion of the kings, the “honoured number” have had it all their own way in the state, and Shakespeare imputes no blame to their management, unless it be their excessive arrogance towards the populace they rule and employ. But now bad times have made that populace seditious, and they have discovered that, rightly or wrongly, they must give it a share of the power. Their pride, their traditions, the consciousness of their faculty for government, pull them one way, the necessities of the case pull them another. A dominant caste is placed in a false position when it is forced to capitulate to assailants for whom it feels an unreasonable contempt and a reasonable mistrust. When we consider the difficulties of the situation and the broad results, the patricians, as we saw, come off respectably enough, and we must give them credit for circumspection, adaptability, and civic cohesion. But in detail their attitude betrays the uncertainty and weakness that cannot but ensue in a man or a body of men when there is a conflict between conviction and expediency, and an attempt to obey them both. Their scorn of the plebeians, followed by the very brief effort for their champion and very prompt acquiescence in his expatriation, makes an unpleasant impression; and this is more noticeable in the drama than in the biography. Plutarch repeatedly states that they disagree among themselves, many of them sympathising with the popular demands and only the younger men favouring the harsh and reactionary views of Coriolanus.[260] This distinction has left no trace in the play except in the stage-direction which represents him as departing into exile escorted to the gates by his friends, his relatives, and “the young nobility of Rome”: but otherwise Shakespeare makes no use of it. Coriolanus is mouthpiece for the ideals not of heedless youth but of all the aristocracy, though most of them may be more politic than he and not so frank. Nevertheless his presuppositions are theirs, and therefore they seem temporisers and poltroons beside their outspoken advocate. Indeed, through Menenius, they admit they have been to blame:

We loved him; but, like beasts

And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,

Who did hoot him out o’ the city.

(IV. vi. 121.)

Nor do they act very vigorously when destruction threatens Rome. They do not indeed seek to separate their cause from that of the whole community and make terms with their former friend for their own class. Beyond some naturally bitter gibes at the “clusters” and their leaders, not unaccompanied for the rest by bitter outbursts against themselves, there is no trace of the dissensions with the people which Plutarch describes. But they have no thought of organising any attempt at resistance. True, there are circumstances in Shakespeare that account for this supineness as it is not explained in his authority. It is partly due to the feeling that they are in the wrong, which Shakespeare in a much greater degree than Plutarch attributes to them. As their own words show:

Cominius.For his best friends, if they

Should say, “Be good to Rome,” they charged him even

As those should do that had deserved his hate,

And therein show’d like enemies.

Menenius.’Tis true:

If he were putting to my house the brand

That should consume it, I have not the face

To say, “Beseech you, cease.”

(IV. vi. 111.)

And again:

If he could burn us all into one coal,

We have deserved it.

(IV. vi. 137.)

Partly, too, there has been no time for preparation, for, as we have seen, the invasion is a bolt from the blue, and after it has first struck there is no convenient truce of thirty days before its recurrence. Entreaty, says Sicinius, might help

More than the instant army we can make;

(V. i. 37.)

and it is the opinion of all.

Partly, too, the inertness of Rome is a tribute to the greatness of the adversary, which is enhanced beyond the hyperboles of Plutarch, and with which to inspire them the Volscians are irresistible.

He is their god: he leads them like a thing

Made by some other deity than nature

That shapes men better: and they follow him,

Against us brats, with no less confidence

Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,

Or butchers killing flies.

(IV. vi. 90.)

But contrition, unpreparedness, despair of success hardly excuse the palsy of incompetence into which this proud aristocracy has now fallen. It does not of course sink so low as in Plutarch. Of the first of the repeated deputations he narrates:

The ambassadours that were sent, were Martius familliar friendes and acquaintaunce, who looked at the least for a curteous welcome of him, as of their familliar friende and kynesman. Howbeit they founde nothing lesse. For at their comming, they were brought through the campe, to the place where he was set in his chayer of state, with a marvelous and unspeakable majestie, having the chiefest men of the Volsces about him: so he commaunded them to declare openly the cause of their comming. Which they delivered in the most humble and lowly wordes they possiblie could devise, and with all modest countenaunce and behaviour agreeable for the same. When they had done their message; for the injurie they had done him, he aunswered them very hottely and in great choller.

This is evidently the foundation of the interviews with Cominius and Menenius respectively, and it is worth while noting the points of difference.

In the first place single individuals are substituted for an unspecified number. Just in the same way the final deputation consists of “Virgilia, Volumnia, leading young Marcius, Valeria, and Attendants,” without any of “all the other Romaine Ladies” that accompany them in Plutarch. In the last case it is the members and the friend of Coriolanus’ family, in the previous cases it is his sworn comrade Cominius and his idolatrous admirer Menenius who make the appeal: and this at once gives their intercessions more of a personal and less of a public character. One result of this with which we are not now concerned, is that the rigour of Coriolanus’ first two answers is considerably heightened; but at present it is more important to observe that the impression of a formal embassy is avoided. Cominius and Menenius strike us less as delegates from the Roman state, than as private Romans who may suppose that their persuasions will have special influence with their friend. There is nothing to indicate that Cominius was official envoy of the republic, and we know that Menenius went without any authorisation, in compliance with the request made by Sicinius and Brutus in the street. Shakespeare’s senate is spared the ignominy of the recurring supplications to which Plutarch’s senate condescends. If these are not altogether suppressed, the references to them are very faint and vague.

And also the suppliants bear themselves more worthily. Menenius is far from employing “the most humble and lowly wordes” that could possibly be devised or “the modest countenaunce and behaviour agreeable for the same.” Cominius indeed tells how at the close of the interview, we may suppose as a last resort, he “kneeled before” Coriolanus, but there was no more loss of dignity in his doing so, consul and general though he had been, than there was afterwards in Volumnia’s doing the same; and his words as he repeats them do not show any lack of self-respect.

Still the inactivity, the helplessness, the want of nerve in the Roman nobles in the hour of need are somewhat pitiful. It was the time to justify their higher position by higher patriotism, resourcefulness and courage. They do not make the slightest effort to do so. Remorse for their desertion of Coriolanus need not have lamed their energies, since now they would be confronting him not for themselves but for the state. Even their “instant armies” might do something if commanded and inspired by devoted captains. At the worst they could lead their fellow-citizens to an heroic death. One cannot help feeling that if a Coriolanus, or anyone with a tithe of his spirit, had been among them, things would have been very different. But while they retain much of the old caste pride, they have lost much of the old caste efficiency.

Thus Shakespeare, when he comes to the concrete, views with some severity both the popular and the senatorial party. They show themselves virulent and acrimonious in their relations with each other, yet inconsequent even in their virulence and acrimony: then, after having respectively enforced and permitted the banishment of their chief defender, they are ready to succumb to him without a blow when, it has well been said, he returns not even as an émigré using foreign aid to restore the privileges of his own order and the old régime, but as a barbarian bringing the national foe to exterminate the state and all its members. And we cannot help asking: Is this an adequate representation of the young republic that was ere long to become the mistress of the world? We must look steadily at those general aspects of the story which we have noticed above, as well as at the doings of the persons and parties amidst which Coriolanus is set, if we would get the total effect of the play. Then it produces something of the feeling which prompted Heine’s description of the ancient Romans:

They were not great men, but through their position they were greater than the other children of earth, for they stood on Rome. Immediately they came down from the Seven Hills, they were small.... As the Greek is great through the idea of Art, the Hebrew through the idea of one most holy God; so the Romans are great through the idea of their eternal Rome; great, wheresoever they have fought, written or builded in the inspiration of this idea. The greater Rome grew, the more this idea dilated: the individual lost himself in it: the great men who remain eminent are borne up by this idea, and it makes the littleness of the little men more pronounced.[261]

The Idea of Rome! It is the triumph of that which yields the promise and evidence of better things that the final situation contains. The titanic intolerance of Coriolanus after being expelled by fear and hatred from within, has threatened destruction from without, and the threat has been averted. The presumptuous intolerance of the demagogues, after imperilling the state, has been discredited by its results, and their authority is destroyed. The Idea of Rome in the patriotism of Volumnia has led to her self-conquest and the conquest of her son, and is acclaimed by all alike. Thus we have borne in upon us a feeling of the majesty and omnipotence of the Eternal City, and we understand how it not only inspires and informs the units that compose it, but stands out aloft and apart from its faulty representatives as a kind of mortal deity that overrules their doings to its own ends, and against which their cavilling and opposition are vain. What Menenius says to the rioters applies to all dissentients:

You may as well

Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them

Against the Roman state, whose course will on

The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs

Of more strong link asunder than can ever

Appear in your impediment.

(I. i. 69.)

This, then, is the background against which are grouped with more or less prominence, as their importance requires, Coriolanus’ family, his associates, his rival, round the central figure of the hero himself.

CHAPTER IV
THE KINSFOLK AND FRIENDS
OF CORIOLANUS

Of the subordinate persons, by far the most imposing and influential is Volumnia, the great-hearted mother, the patrician lady, the Roman matron. The passion of maternity, whether interpreted as maternal love or as maternal pride, penetrates her nature to the core, not, however, to melt but to harden it. In her son’s existence she at first seems literally wrapped up, and she implies that devotion to him rather than to her dead husband has kept her from forming new ties:

Thou hast never in thy life

Show’d thy dear mother any courtesy,

When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,

Has cluck’d thee to the wars and safely home,

Loaden with honour.

(V. iii. 160.)

Marcius is thus the only son of his mother and she a widow; but these reminiscences show how strictly the tenderness, and still more the indulgence, usual in such circumstances, have been banished from that home. In Plutarch the boy seeks a military career from his irresistible natural bent:

Martius being more inclined to the warres, then any young gentleman of his time: beganne from his Childehood to geve him self to handle weapons, and daylie dyd exercise him selfe therein.

In Shakespeare the direction and stimulus are much more directly attributed to his mother, and it is she who first despatches him to the field. This she herself expressly states in her admonition to Virgilia:

Volumnia. I pray you, daughter, sing; or express yourself in a more comfortable sort: if my son were my husband, I should freelier rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour, than in the embracements of his bed where he would show most love. When yet he was but tender-bodied and the only son of my womb, when youth with comeliness plucked all gaze his way, when for a day of kings’ entreaties a mother should not sell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering how honour would become such a person, that it was no better than picture-like to hang by the wall, if renown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek danger where he was like to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him; from whence he returned, his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than now in first seeing he had proved himself a man.

Virgilia. But had he died in the business, madam; how then?

Volumnia. Then his good report should have been my son; I therein would have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my good Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.

(I. iii. 1.)

He is the object of her love because he is to be the ideal which she adores. She trains him to all the excellence she understands, and would have him a captain of Rome’s armies and a force in the state. She has to the full the sentiment of noblesse oblige, and is inspired by the same feeling which in Plutarch moves Marcius to bid the patricians show that

they dyd not so muche passe the people in power and riches as they dyd exceede them in true nobilitie and valliantnes.

She is full of the virtues and prejudices of her class, and, with the self-consciousness of an aristocrat, looks from the plebs only for the obedience and approval due to their betters. They are quite unqualified for self-government or for the criticism of those above them. In comparison with the noble Coriolanus, the people, whom she calls the rabble, are “cats” (iv. ii. 34). Naturally she is tenacious of the supremacy of her order, and would fain see it make good its threatened privileges. She remonstrates with her son for his contumacy:

I am in this,

Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;

And you will rather show our general louts

How you can frown than spend a fawn upon ’em,

For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard

Of what that want might ruin.

(III. ii. 64.)

Her dream has been that Marcius shall be consul to establish once more the power of the patricians. When he enters in his great triumph from Corioli, she exclaims in expectation of that result:

I have lived

To see inherited my very wishes,

And the buildings of my fancy: only

There’s one thing wanting, which I doubt not but

Our Rome will cast upon thee.

(II. i. 214.)

Yet she has one feeling that outweighs both her maternal and her aristocratic instincts, and that is devotion to her country. This is the first and last and noblest thing in her. It is the basis and mainspring of the training of her son; she wishes him to serve the fatherland. It is the basis and mainspring of her patrician partisanship; she honestly believes that the nobles alone are fit to steer Rome to safety and honour. And to it she is willing to sacrifice the two other grand interests of her life. When the call comes she is ready for Rome, with its mechanics and tribunes as well as its senators and patricians, to persuade her son to the step that will certainly imperil and probably destroy him. It is public spirit of no ordinary kind that makes such a nature disregard the dearest ties of family and caste, and all personal motives of love and vengeance, to intercede for the city as a whole. But she puts her country first, and her words show that she never even questions the sacredness of its claim:

Thou know’st, great son,

The end of war’s uncertain, but this certain,

That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit

Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name,

Whose repetition will be dogg’d with curses;

Whose chronicle thus writ: “The man was noble,

But with his last attempt he wiped it out:

Destroy’d his country, and his name remains

To the ensuing age abhorr’d.”

(V. iii. 140.)

She feels, as well she may, that she is basing her plea on eternal right, and is willing to stake her success on the irresistible truth of her argument.

Say my request’s unjust,

And spurn me back: but if it be not so,

Thou art not honest.

(V. iii. 164.)

Such a woman is made to be the mother of heroes. It is no wonder that she has bred that colossal Übermensch, her son. But she has the defects of her qualities. Her devotion is narrow in its intensity, and in normal circumstances spares little recognition or tolerance for those beyond its pale. Her contempt for the plebeians is open and unrestrained. She was wont, says Coriolanus,

To call them woollen vassals, things created

To buy and sell with groats, to show bare heads

In congregations, to yawn, be still and wonder,

When one but of my ordinance stood up

To speak of peace or war.

(III. ii. 9.)

Even when trying to pacify her son, she cannot bridle her own resentment. When he recklessly cries of his opponents: “Let them hang!” she instinctively approves: “Ay, and burn too.”[262] The energy of her love of glory has nothing sentimental about it, but often becomes savage and sanguinary. She gloats over her robust imaginings of the fight:

Methinks I hear hither your husband’s drum,

See him pluck Aufidius down by the hair,

As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him:

Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:

“Come on, you cowards! you were got in fear,

Though you were born in Rome”: his bloody brow

With his mail’d hand then wiping, forth he goes,

Like to a harvest-man that’s tasked to mow

Or all or lose his hire.

Virgilia. His bloody brow! O Jupiter, no blood!

Volumnia. Away, you fool! it more becomes a man

Than gilt his trophy: the breasts of Hecuba,

When she did suckle Hector, look’d not lovelier

Than Hector’s forehead when it spit forth blood

At Grecian sword, contemning.

(I. iii. 32.)

And when she has heard the actual news, she triumphantly exclaims:

O, he is wounded; I thank the gods for’t.

(II. i. 133.)

As Kreyssig points out, even great-hearted mothers, proud of their warrior sons, do not often like to dwell so realistically on havoc and slaughter and blood. But tenderness and humanity are alien to her nature. When Valeria narrates how young Marcius tore in pieces the butterfly, she interrupts with obvious satisfaction: “One on’s father’s moods” (i. iii. 72). At her hearth Coriolanus would not be taught much kindliness for Volscians or plebeians or any other of the lower animals. Indeed, her own relations with her son depend on his reverence rather than on his fondness. In the two collisions of their wills he resists all her entreaties and endearments, but yields in a moment to her anger and indignation. She beseeches him to submit to the judgment of the people—all in vain till she loses patience:

At thy choice, then:

To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour

Than thou of them. Come all to ruin: let

Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear

Thy dangerous stoutness, for I mock at death

With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.

(III. ii. 123.)

At this his efforts to propitiate her are almost amusing:

Pray, be content:

Mother, I am going to the market-place:

Chide me no more. I’ll mountebank their loves,

Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved

Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.

(III. ii. 130.)

Similarly, at the end, all argument and complaint, all pressure on the affections of Coriolanus are without avail, till she turns upon him with a violence for which, as in the previous case, Shakespeare found no authority in Plutarch:

Come, let us go:

This fellow had a Volscian to his mother;

His wife is in Corioli, and his child

Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch:

I am hush’d until our city be afire,

And then I’ll speak a little.

(V. iii. 177.)

And the great warrior and rebel cannot bear her rebuke.

These are instances both of the degree and the manner in which Volumnia’s forceful character influences her son. Indeed it is easy to see that for good and evil he is what she has made him. She is entitled to say:

Thou art my warrior:

I holp to frame thee.

(V. iii. 62.)

And though elsewhere she puts it,

Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck’dst from me,

But owe thy pride thyself;

(III. ii. 129.)

the impartial onlooker cannot make the distinction. He is bone of her bone and blood of her blood; and all her master impulses reappear in him, though not so happily commingled or in such beneficent proportion. The joint operation is different and in some respects opposite, but there is hardly a feature in him that cannot be traced to its origin in Volumnia, whether by heredity or education. This is just what we might expect. Modern conjecture points to the mother rather than the father as the source of will-power and character in the offspring; and in the up-bringing of the boy Volumnia has had it all her own way. Plutarch, as we saw, in his simple fashion, notices this as a disadvantage: and though we may be sure that Plutarch’s insinuation of laxity could never be breathed against Shakespeare’s Volumnia, still she could not give her son more width and flexibility than her own narrow and rigid ideals enjoined. Moreover, her limitations when transferred to the larger sphere of his public efforts, would cramp and congest his powers, and displace his interests.

Nor was there any other agency to divide the young man’s allegiance to his mother or to counteract or temper her authority. Generally the most powerful rivals of home influence are the companionship of friends, and the love that founds a new home in marriage. But both of these are either wanting in Coriolanus’ life, or serve only to deepen the impressions made on him by Volumnia.

If, for example, we consider the relation of friendship, we cannot but notice that Shakespeare gives him no intimate of his own years. A French tragedian would infallibly have placed by his side the figure of a confidant. Shakespeare was dispensed from the necessity by the freer usage of the Elizabethan stage and was at liberty to follow out the hints which he found in Plutarch. Marcius was

churlishe, uncivill, and altogether unfit for any mans conversation.... They could not be acquainted with him, as one cittizen useth to be with another in the cittie. His behaviour was so unpleasaunt to them, by reason of a certaine insolent and sterne manner he had, which bicause it was to lordly, was disliked.

So in Shakespeare he has no personal relations with any of the younger generation, even their resort to him as their congenial leader surviving, as has already been pointed out, only in the desiccated phrase of a stage direction; and his only associates are old or elderly men like Titus Lartius, the Consul Cominius, and Menenius Agrippa. What sort of antidote could they supply against his mother’s intolerant virtue? As Shakespeare conceives them, they respectively follow in Marcius’ wake, or are powerless to change and check his course, or even urge him forward.

Take Lartius, whom Shakespeare has drawn in a few rapid and vigorous strokes. He is old and stiff, but ready if need be to lean on one crutch and fight with the other, prompt to take a sporting wager, and, when he wins, eager to remit the stake in his admiration for the noble youngster, to whom with all his years he grants priority, whom on his supposed death he laments as an irreplaceable jewel, whom he hails as the living force that dwells within the trappings of their armament. Clearly from this cheery old fighting man, with his reverential enthusiasm for Marcius’ fighting powers in voice, looks and blows, we need not expect much correction of Marcius’ restiveness at the civic curb.

Cominius would seem more likely to prove a fitting Mentor, for to his love and esteem he adds discretion. In Shakespeare, though he “has years upon him,” he is the avowed friend and comrade-in-arms of the younger man; the brave and prudent general, “neither foolish in his stands, nor cowardly in retire”; who, perhaps from seniority, holds the position to which the other might aspire, but who confidently appeals to his promise of service. For their mutual affection is untouched by jealousy, and Cominius not only extols his heroism in the camp, but is his warmest advocate in the Senate. He resents the citizens’ fickleness and the tribunes’ trickery at the election as unworthy of Rome as well as insulting to her hero, and is indignant at the attempt to arrest Coriolanus; but he abhors civil brawls, and, just as in the field so in the city, he bows to “odds beyond arithmetic,” and considers that

Manhood is call’d foolery, when it stands

Against a falling fabric.

(III. i. 246.)

So he counsels Marcius’ withdrawal from the hostile mob, and afterwards dispassionately states the three courses open to him, with some hesitation sanctioning the method of compromise if the hothead can bring himself to give it fair play. When his doubts prove true, he interposes first with a remonstrance to his friend, and then with a solemn appeal to the people; and though in neither case is he allowed to finish, his efforts do not flag. He wishes to accompany the exile for a month, and maintain a correspondence with him and have everything in readiness for his recall. And if, when the invasion takes place, he rails at those who have brought about the calamity, that does not hinder him from his vain but zealous attempt at intercession. Altogether a sagacious, loyal, generous, but somewhat ineffective character, who wins our respect rather for what he essays than for what he achieves; for he brings nothing to a successful issue. With the best will in the world, which he has, and with more freedom from class prejudice than can in point of fact be attributed to him, such an one could do little to tame or bridle his friend.

There remains Menenius, with his much more strongly marked character, and with the fuller opportunities that a close intimacy could procure. Were Marcius and he of the same flesh and blood, their affection could hardly be greater. When debating with himself whether to try his mediation, this thought encourages the old man: “He call’d me father” (v. i. 3). He tells the Volscian sentinel:

You shall perceive that a Jack guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus.

(V. ii. 67.)

And when they meet, he hails him:

The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father Menenius does!  O, my son, my son!

(V. ii. 72.)

Nor are these statements idle brags; they are borne out by Coriolanus’ own words when he dismisses him:

For I loved thee,

Take this along; I writ it for thy sake, [Gives a letter

And would have sent it.

(V. ii. 95.)

And again he tells Aufidius:

This last old man,

Whom with a crack’d heart I have sent to Rome,

Loved me above the measure of a father;

Nay, godded me, indeed.

(V. iii. 8.)

But the last expression may give an explanation both of the young man’s condescension to fondness and of the unprofitableness of Menenius’ influence. He is too much dazzled by the glories of his splendid adoptive son. His enthusiasm knows no bounds. No lover is more enraptured at receiving a billet doux from his mistress, than is the old man when the youth on whom he dotes, deigns to write to him.

A letter for me! it gives me an estate of seven years’ health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician; the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic, and, to this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench.

(II. i. 125.)

He may occasionally interpose a mild hint of remonstrance against Marcius’ vehemence, but it is solely on the ground of expediency, not at all on the ground of principle; and on the whole he belongs to that not very edifying class of devotees who can say of a friend,

Whate’er he does seems well done to me.

Of which he himself is not altogether unaware. He tells the Volscian sentinel:

I tell thee, fellow,

Thy general is my lover: I have been

The book of his good acts, whence men have read

His fame unparallel’d, haply amplified:

For I have ever verified my friends,

Of whom he’s chief, with all the size that verity

Would without lapsing suffer: nay, sometimes,

Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,

I have tumbled past the throw; and in his praise

Have almost stamp’d the leasing.

(V. ii. 13.)

This attitude, then, accounts for Coriolanus’ predilection for the old senator, and also reduces the value of the relation as an educative agency. Youthful recklessness will meet with no inconvenient thwarting, i.e. with no salutary rebuke, from such an adorer. But of course in the blindest friendship there is always the unconscious influence and criticism of the admirer’s own walk and conversation. And at first sight it might seem that this influence and criticism Menenius was well fitted to supply. He, too, like Volumnia, puts Rome before all other considerations, as is shown not only by his undertaking the mission to the Volscian camp, but by his action all through the drama. He is ever willing to play the part of mediator. Now we find him soothing the people, now we find him soothing Coriolanus. When the banishment is an accomplished fact, he endeavours to mitigate the outbursts of Volumnia; and Sicinius bears witness:

O, he is grown most kind of late.

(IV. vi. 11.)

During all the tumult of the election and the émeute he keeps his head and his heart; for he is inspired by the right civic feeling that there must be no civil war.

Proceed by process;

Lest parties, as he is beloved, break out,

And sack great Rome with Romans.

(III. i. 314.)

And with this patriotism, partly as its result, he combines singular moderation, at least in principle and thought, if not in language. He is always ready to commend and accept compromises. He says to the tribune,

Be that you seem, truly your country’s friend,

And temperately proceed to what you would

Thus violently redress.

(III. i. 218.)

On the other hand, when Marcius draws he sees the mistake and interposes: “Down with that sword” (iii. i. 226); and only when the tribunes persist in their attack does he himself resort to force, which, however, he is glad to abandon at the first opportunity. And this moderation comes the more easily to him that he has a real kindliness even for the plebeians. It is assuredly no small compliment that at the very height of the popular violence this patrician and senator, the known and avowed friend of Coriolanus, should be chosen by the tribunes themselves as their own delegate:

Noble Menenius,

Be you then as the people’s officer.

(III. i. 329.)

This confirms the testimony given him by the First Citizen in the opening scene: “He’s one honest enough” (i. i. 54); and the Second Citizen describes him as

Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always loved the people.

(I. i. 52.)

He has indeed a sympathy with them, that shows itself in the russet and kersey of his speech. The haughty Coriolanus despises the household words of the common folk, and cites them only to ridicule them, but Menenius’ phrases of their own accord run to the homespun and proverbial. He addresses the obtrusive citizen: “You, the great toe of this assembly” (i. i. 159). The dissension at Rome is a rent that “must be patch’d with cloth of any colour” (iii. i. 252). Coriolanus’ rough words he excuses on the ground that he is

ill school’d

In bolted language: meal and bran together

He throws without distinction.

(III. i. 321.)

He figures the relentlessness of the returned exile as “yon coign o’ the Capitol, yon corner-stone” (v. iv. 1), and is at no loss for illustrations of the change that has come over the outcast:

There is a differency between a grub and a butterfly, yet your butterfly was a grub.

(V. iv. 11.)

And with similes for Coriolanus’ present temper he positively overflows:

He no more remembers his mother now than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.

(V. iv. 16.)

There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger.

(V. iv. 29.)

All his thoughts clothe themselves in the pat, familiar image, and this is no doubt a great help to him in persuading his auditors, for which he has an undeniable talent. His famous apologue, besides being a masterpiece in its kind, worthy of La Fontaine at his best, completely answers its immediate purpose; and in the later scene he is able to lull the storm that Coriolanus and the tribunes have raised, and obtain from the infuriated demagogues what are in some sort favourable terms. But he is assisted in this by his genuine joviality and bonhomie. He is one of those people who permit themselves a little indulgence that we hardly blame, for it is only one side of their pervasive good nature. Menenius is in truth something of a belly-god and wine-bibber. When he hears news of Marcius he promptly decides how to celebrate the occasion:

I will make my very house reel to-night;

(II. i. 121.)

and he has already confessed that he is known to be

one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in’t; ... one that converses more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning.

(II. i. 52 and 56.)

It is almost comic to hear him consoling Volumnia on her son’s banishment when she moves off to lament “in anger, Juno-like,” with an invitation: “You’ll sup with me?” (iv. ii. 49). And wholly comic is his explanation of Cominius’ rebuff by Coriolanus, an explanation suggested no doubt by subjective considerations:

He was not taken well; he had not dined:

The veins unfill’d, our blood is cold, and then

We pout upon the morning, are unapt

To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff’d

These pipes and these conveyances of the blood

With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls

Than in our priest-like fasts; therefore I’ll watch him

Till he be dieted to my request,

And then I’ll set upon him.

(V. i. 50.)

But the worthy bon-vivant is thoroughly in earnest, and in the crisis of his altercation with the sentinel harks back to this key of the position, as he supposes it to be:

Has he dined, canst thou tell? for I would not speak with him till after dinner.

(V. ii. 36.)

All these, however, are very human weaknesses, that sort well with the geniality of the man, and, just because they are very human weaknesses, might have a wholesome rather than a prejudicial effect on the overstrained tensity of Marcius. So far then, despite the excessive and uncritical in Menenius’ love, his patriotism, his moderation, his popular bent, commended by his persuasive tongue and companionable ways, might tend to supplement the defects and transcend the limitations of Volumnia’s training. But Menenius has other qualities akin to, or associated with, those that we have discussed, which would have a more questionable and not less decisive influence. He admits that he is

said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint.

(II. i. 53.)

That is, he neglects the wise counsel, “Hear the other side,” and jumps to his conclusion at once. This is quite in keeping with the partiality that makes him magnify the virtues of his friends, and with his assumption that, since his own intercession has failed, that of Volumnia can have no effect. He prejudges, in other words he is prejudiced. We do not have any instance of this in his acts, but we have many in his unconsidered sayings, that, as he imagines, are to have no consequence beyond the moment.

Then he goes on to confess that he has the reputation of being “hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion” (ii. i. 55), which means that he loses patience and fires up without adequate ground; and of this too we have ample evidence. He is wonderfully forbearing and longsuffering if matters of any moment are at stake, but if he has gained his point, or if there is nothing to gain and nothing to lose, he rails and mocks in Coriolanus’ own peculiar vein. Thus, when he has convinced the mob, he feels free to make the ringleader his butt. When the tribunes profess to “know him,” that is, to understand his character, he overwhelms them with peppery banter. When the news of Coriolanus’ invasion arrives, in unrestrained indignation he upbraids the people and their blind guides with their imbecility. But it will be observed that no harm ever comes by any of these ebullitions. They have no after-effects. If something has to be done, no one could be more sagacious and conciliatory than Menenius. Dr. Johnson said of him, perhaps more in exercise of his right as a sturdy old Tory to twit those in high places, than in deliberate appreciation of the facts: “Shakespeare wanted a buffoon and he went to the Senate House for that with which the Senate House would certainly have supplied him.” Similarly, in the play Brutus is rash enough to answer him back:

Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.

(II. i. 90.)

But Menenius deserves neither taunt. It was no parliamentary wag or social lampooner whom the Senate entrusted with the task of addressing the rioters, or who persuaded the triumphant tribunes to a compromise. The charges nevertheless have a foundation in so far that Menenius, partly in jest, partly in irritation, gives his tongue rein unless he sees reason to curb it, and allows his choleric impulses full expression. These random ejaculations are taken at their proper value by himself and others. As he says:

What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath.

(II. i. 58.)

He is obviously one of those estimable and deservedly popular people whose deliberate views are just and penetrating, and who are gifted with the power of commending them, but who are none the less liked because they do not always think it necessary to have themselves in hand, but let themselves go on the full career of their own half-jocular, half-serious likes and dislikes, when for the moment they are free from graver responsibilities.

Now this of itself was no very good example for Coriolanus. He adopts Menenius’ headlong frankness, but without Menenius’ tacit presupposition of good-humoured hyperbole. He utters what he thinks but he does not spend his malice in his breath. His friend would do nothing to teach him restraint and reserve, but would rather, if he influenced him at all, influence him to surcharge his invectives and double-barb his flouts.

But not only so. These instinctive likes and dislikes, which the old patrician could not but feel but which he never allowed to interfere with his practical policy, were the guiding principles of his less cautious friend. It must be admitted that there is no abuse of the citizens or their officers to which Coriolanus gives vent, but can be paralleled with something as strong from the mouth of Menenius. This worthy senior who hath always loved the people, turns from the tribunes with the insult:

God-den to your worships: more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians.

(II. i. 103.)

In this mood he asks them in regard to Coriolanus:

Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter—

That’s thousand to one good one?

(II. ii. 82.)

He has to the full the aristocratic loathing for the uncleanly populace:

You are they

That made the air unwholesome, when you cast

Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at

Coriolanus’ exile.

(IV. vi. 129.)

You are the musty chaff: and you are smelt

Above the moon.

(V. i. 31.)

These are his authentic innate prejudices that he controls and represses by the help of his reason and his patriotism, when the emergency requires: but they are there; and he would be no more careful to restrain them in his familiar circle than a squatter at his club feels called upon to restrain his opinions about the Labour Party, though he may be very proud of Australia, and a very kindly master, and though he would neither publish them in an election address nor perhaps justify them in his serious moments to himself. And this, we may suppose, was the sort of conversation Marcius would hear as a lad from his old friend. There would be little in it to modify the pride and prejudice he derived from his mother.

And lastly, coming to the other possible corrective, would his wife be likely to soften the asperities of temper and opinion that were his by nature and by second nature? At first we might say Yes. She takes comparatively little pleasure in the brilliance of his career and is more concerned for his life than for his glory. When Volumnia recalls how she sent him forth as a lad to win honour, Virgilia’s heart pictures his possible death, and how would that have been compensated? For she loves in the first place not the hero but the husband, and her love makes her timorous. She has none of her mother-in-law’s assurance that his prowess is without match and beyond comparison. When “wondrous things” are told of him how characteristic are their respective comments:

Virgilia. The gods grant them true!

Volumnia. True! pow, wow.

(II. i. 154.)

How differently they feel about his contest with his rival:

Virgilia. Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!

Volumnia. He’ll beat Aufidius’ head below his knee

And tread upon his neck.

(I. iii. 48.)

So she shrinks from the thoughts of blood and wounds over which Volumnia gloats, and trembles at the dangers of the campaign. Devoured by suspense, she is in no mood to meet the ordinary social claims on her rank and sex, but shuts herself up within her four walls, and wears out the time over household tasks. Her seclusion, and the attempts to withdraw her from it, must not be misunderstood. They have sometimes been taken as pictures of domestic narrow-mindedness on the one hand, and callous frivolity on the other. But frivolity is unthinkable in Volumnia; we may be sure she would never advise or do anything unbefitting the Roman matron. And it is quite opposed to the impression Valeria produces; we may be sure she would never suggest it. In Plutarch’s story it is she who proposes and urges the deputation of women to Coriolanus, and though Shakespeare, to suit his own purpose, transfers by implication the credit of this to Volumnia, Plutarch’s statement was enough to prevent him from transforming the true authoress of the idea into the fashionable gadabout that some critics have alleged her to be. On the contrary, with him she calls forth the most purely poetical passage in the whole play, and she does so by the vestal dignity and severity of her character. Coriolanus greets her in the camp:

The noble sister of Publicola,

The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle

That’s curdied by the frost of purest snow

And hangs on Dian’s temple: dear Valeria!

(V. iii. 65.)

The woman to whom this splendid compliment is paid by one who never speaks otherwise than he thinks, is assuredly no more obnoxious than Volumnia herself to the charge of levity. They are both great high-hearted Roman ladies who do not let their private or public solicitudes interfere with their customary social routine, and Valeria visits her friend to cheer her in her anxiety, as she would have her, in turn, visit and comfort their common acquaintance. But Virgilia is cast in a gentler mould; though neither is she lacking in character, spirit and magnanimity. Of course she is not an aggressive woman, and she feels that the home is the place for her. She speaks seldom, and when she does her words are few. It is typical that she greets her husband when he returns a victor with no articulate welcome, but with her more eloquent tears. He addresses her in half humorous, half tender reproach:

My gracious silence, hail!

Wouldst thou have laugh’d had I come coffin’d home,

That weep’st to see me triumph?

(II. i. 192.)

A wonderful touch that comes from a wonderful insight. It may well be asked, as it has been asked, how Shakespeare knew that Virgilia’s heart was too full for words.

But with all this, she shows abundant resolution, readiness and patriotism. She is adamant to the commands of her imperious mother-in-law and the entreaties of her insistent friend when they urge her to break her self-imposed retirement. She, too, has her rebuke for the insolent tribunes. Above all, she, too, plays her part in turning Coriolanus from his revenge. In that scene, after her wont, she does not say much, less than two lines in all, that serve to contain the simple greeting and the quick answer to her husband’s warning that he no longer sees things as he did:

The sorrow that delivers us thus changed

Makes you think so.

(V. iii. 39.)

But who shall say that

those dove’s eyes

Which can make gods forsworn,

(V. iii. 27.)

did not shed their influence on his mother’s demand, and help him to break his vindictive vow. Remember, too, that the sacrifice this implied would mean more to her than to Volumnia, for though she likewise can dedicate what she holds dearest on the altar of her country, her affections, her home, Marcius as an individual, bulk more largely in her life.

And if she loves him, we see how fondly he loves her. More than once or twice he alludes to his happiness as bridegroom, husband, and father. When she appears before him, his ejaculations and the tenderness of his appeal,

Best of my flesh,

Forgive my tyranny,

(V. iii. 42.)

speak volumes in a mouth like his for the keenness of his affection. To express the bliss that he feels in the salute of reunion, this hero-lover can find analogues only in his banishment and his vengeance:

O, a kiss

Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!

Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss

I carried from thee, dear: and my true lip

Hath virgin’d it e’er since.

(V. iii. 44.)

This woman, then, with her love and sweetness, that strike such responsive chords in the rude breast of her lord, is apparently well fitted to smooth the harshness of his dealings with his fellow-men: and this would seem all the more likely since her gentleness is not of that flabby kind that cannot hold or bind, but is strengthened by firmness of will and largeness of feeling.

All the same, she exerts no influence whatever before the very end on her husband’s public life or even on his general character, because she has no interest in or aptitude for concerns of his busy, practical career. She has chosen her own orbit in her home, and her love has no desire to step beyond. We have seen that, according to Plutarch, Volumnia was entrusted with the selection of her son’s wife. This Shakespeare omits, perhaps as incongruous with the spontaneousness of the relation between his wedded lovers, but it may have left a trace in the position he assigns to Virgilia. The mother-in-law has and claims the leading place; and, as Kreyssig remarks, with a woman of the daughter-in-law’s steady inflexibility, collisions more proper for comedy than for tragedy must inevitably ensue, unless there were a strict delimitation of spheres. Volumnia continues to be prompter and guide in all matters political. She has all the outward precedence. On his return from Corioli, her son gives her the prior reverence and salutation, and, only as it were by her permission, turns to his wife. When the deputation of ladies appears in his presence before Rome, he seems for a moment to be surprised out of his decorum, and his first words of passionate greeting are for Virgilia; but he presently recovers, and, with a certain accent of reproof, turns on himself:

You gods! I prate,

And the most noble mother of the world

Leave unsaluted: sink, my knee, i’ the earth:

Of thy deep duty more impression show

Than that of common sons.

(V. iii. 48.)

Evidently, his love for his wife, intense though it be, is a thing apart, a sanctuary of his most inmost feeling, and is quite out of relation with the affairs of the jostling world. In them his mother has supreme sway, and Virgilia’s unobtrusive graciousness does not exercise even an indirect influence on his ingrained principles and prejudices. She is no makeweight against the potent authority of Volumnia.

CHAPTER V
THE GREATNESS OF CORIOLANUS. AUFIDIUS

In the atmosphere then of Volumnia’s predominance we are to imagine young Marcius growing up from infancy to boyhood, from boyhood to youth, environed by all the most inspiring and most exclusive traditions of an old Roman family of the bluest blood. After the expulsion of the Tarquins, we must suppose that there was no more distinguished gens than his. The tribune Brutus gives the long bead-roll of his ancestry, the glories of which, as has already been shown, are even exaggerated in his statement through Shakespeare’s having made a little mistake in regard to Plutarch’s account, and having included representatives of later among those of former generations. But Volumnia is not the mother to let him rest on the achievements of his predecessors; he must make them his own by equalling or excelling them. He begins as a boy, and already in his maiden fight his exploits rouse admiration. Plutarch describes the circumstance:

The first time he went to the warres, being but a strippling, was when Tarquine surnamed the prowde ... dyd come to Rome with all the ayde of the Latines, and many other people of Italie.... In this battell, wherein were many hotte and sharpe encounters of either partie, Martius valliantly fought in the sight of the Dictator; and a Romaine souldier being throwen to the ground even hard by him, Martius straight bestrid him, and slue the enemie with his owne handes that had overthrowen the Romaine. Hereupon, after the battell was wonne, the Dictator dyd not forget so noble an acte, and therefore first of all he crowned Martius with a garland of oken boughs.

This furnishes Cominius with the prologue to his eulogy:

At sixteen years,

When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought

Beyond the mark of others: our then dictator,

Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight,

When with his Amazonian chin he drove

The bristled lips before him: he bestrid

An o’erpress’d Roman and i’ the consul’s view

Slew three opposers: Tarquin’s self he met

And struck him on his knee: in that day’s feats,

When he might act the woman in the scene,

He proved the best man i’ the field, and for his meed

Was brow-bound with the oak.

(II. ii. 91.)

But it will be noticed that in Shakespeare’s version Marcius’ prowess is enhanced: not one opponent but three fall before him; he confronts the arch-enemy himself, and has the best of it. Similarly his derring-do at Corioli is raised to the superhuman. Plutarch’s statement, as he feels, makes demands, but it is moderate compared with Shakespeare’s.

Martius being in the throng emong the enemies, thrust him selfe into the gates of the cittie, and entred the same emong them that fled, without that any one of them durst at the first turne their face upon him, or els offer to slaye him. But he looking about him and seeing he was entred the cittie with very fewe men to helpe him, and perceyving he was envirouned by his enemies that gathered round about to set apon him: dyd things then as it is written, wonderfull and incredible: ... By this meanes, Lartius that was gotten out, had some leysure to bring the Romaines with more safetie into the cittie.

Here he is accompanied at least by a few, among whom, it is implied, the valiant Lartius is one, and Lartius having extricated himself, comes back with reinforcements to help him. But in Shakespeare he is from beginning to end without assistance, and his boast, “Alone I did it,” is the literal truth. The first soldier says, discreetly passing over the disobedience of the men:

Following the fliers at the very heels,

With them he enters; who, upon the sudden,

Clapp’d to their gates: he is himself alone

To answer all the city.

(i. iv. 49.)

And Cominius reports:

Alone he enter’d

The mortal gate of the city, which he painted

With shunless destiny; aidless came off.

(iI. ii. 114.)

But he is not merely, though he is conspicuously, a soldier. He is also a general who once and again gives proof of his strategic skill. Nor do his qualifications stop here. He has the forethought and insight of a statesman, at any rate in matters of foreign and military policy. He has anticipated the attack of the Volsces with which the play begins, as we learn from the remark of the First Senator:

Marcius, ’tis true that you have lately told us;

The Volsces are in arms.

(i. i. 231.)

So after their disaster at Corioli, he estimates the situation aright, when even Cominius is mistaken, and conjectures that the enemy is only waiting an opportunity for renewing the war:

So then the Volsces stand but as at first,

Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road

Upon’s again.

(iII. i. 4.)

And this, as we presently learn, is quite correct.

Even in political statesmanship, the department in which he is supposed to be specially to seek, he has a sagacity and penetration that show him the centre of the problem. This does not necessarily mean that his solution is the true one; and still less does it mean that he is wise in proclaiming his views when and where he does so: but the views themselves are certainly deep-reaching and acute, and such as would win approval from some of the greatest builders of states, the Richelieus, the Fredericks, the Bismarcks. He is quite right in denying that his invectives against the policy of concession are due to “choler”:

Choler!

Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,

By Jove, ’twould be my mind!

(iII. i. 84.)

His objections are in truth no outbreaks of momentary exasperation, though that may have added pungency to their expression, but mature and sober convictions, that have a worth and weight of their own. As we might expect; for Shakespeare derives almost all of them from Plutarch; and Plutarch, who had thought about these things, puts several of his favourite ideas in Coriolanus’ mouth, even while condemning Coriolanus’ bigotry and harshness; and while, for dramatic fitness, suppressing the qualifications and provisos that he himself thought essential.

To Marcius the root of the matter is to be found in the fact that the Roman Republic is not a democracy but an aristocracy, and in this respect he contrasts it with some of the Greek communities.

Therefore sayed he, they that gave counsell, and persuaded that the corne should be geven out to the common people gratis, as they used to doe in citties of Graece, where the people had more absolute power; dyd but only nourishe their disobedience, which would breake out in the ende, to the utter ruine and overthrowe of the whole state.

Shakespeare’s transcription is, but for the interpolated interruption, fairly close:

Coriolanus. Whoever gave that counsel, to give forth

The corn o’ the storehouse gratis, as ’twas used

Sometime in Greece,—

Menenius. Well, well, no more of that.

Coriolanus. Though there the people had more absolute power,

I say, they nourished disobedience, fed

The ruin of the state.

(iII. i. 113.)

That being so, he regards it as a kind of treason to the constitution to pay court to the plebs, or let it have a share of the government.

He sayed they nourished against them selves, the naughty seede and cockle of insolencie and sedition, which had bene sowed and scattered abroade emongest the people, whom they should have cut of, if they had bene wise, and have prevented their greatnes.

This is only a little more explicit in Shakespeare:

I say again,

In soothing them, we nourish ’gainst our senate

The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,

Which we ourselves have plough’d for, sow’d, and scatter’d,

By mingling them with us, the honour’d number,

Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that

Which they have given to beggars.

(iII. i. 68.)

For, and this is one of Shakespeare’s additions, if they have any share at all, being the majority they will swamp the votes of the superior order.

You are plebeians,

If they be senators; and they are no less,

When, both your voices blended, the great’st taste

Most palates theirs.

(iII. i. 101.)

And their magistrate, strong in the support he receives, dictates his ignorant will to the experience and wisdom of the senate.

[They should] not to their owne destruction to have suffered the people, to stablishe a magistrate for them selves, of so great power and authoritie, as that man had, to whom they had graunted it. Who was also to be feared, bicause he obtained what he would, and dyd nothing but what he listed, neither passed for any obedience to the Consuls, but lived in all libertie acknowledging no superieur to commaund him, saving the only heades and authors of their faction, whom he called his magistrates: ... [The Tribuneshippe] most manifestly is the embasing of the Consulshippe.

This arraignment of the populace and its elect as mischief-makers whenever they try to rule and interfere with competent authority, goes to Shakespeare’s heart, and he makes the passage much more nervous and vivid; but the idea is the same.

O good but most unwise patricians! why,

You grave but reckless senators, have you thus

Given Hydra here to choose an officer,

That with his peremptory “shall,” being but

The horn and noise of the monster’s, wants not spirit

To say he’ll turn your current in a ditch,

And make your channel his.

(iII. i. 91.)

By Jove himself!

It makes the consuls base.

(iII. i. 107.)

The result must be division and altercation with all the resulting anarchy.

The state [of the cittie] as it standeth, is not now as it was wont to be, but becommeth dismembred in two factions, which mainteines allwayes civill dissention and discorde betwene us, and will never suffer us againe to be united into one bodie.

Here, too, with some variation in the wording Shakespeare keeps close to the sense.

My soul aches

To know, when two authorities are up,

Neither supreme, how soon confusion

May enter ’twixt the gap of both, and take

The one by the other.

(iII. i. 108.)

The grand mistake was the distribution of corn, for, as Plutarch puts it very clearly:

They will not thincke it is done in recompense of their service past, sithence they know well enough they have so ofte refused to goe to the warres, when they were commaunded: neither for their mutinies when they went with us, whereby they have rebelled and forsaken their countrie: neither for their accusations which their flatterers have preferred unto them, and they have receyved, and made good against the Senate: but they will rather judge we geve and graunt them this, as abasing our selves, and standing in feare of them, and glad to flatter them every waye.

These weighty arguments, which Coriolanus is quite entitled to call his “reasons,” for reasons they are, are substantially reproduced in Shakespeare:

They know the corn

Was not our recompense, resting well assured

They ne’er did service for’t: being press’d to the war,

Even when the navel of the state was touched,

They would not thread the gates. This kind of service

Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i’ the war,

Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show’d

Most valour, spoke not for them: the accusation

Which they have often made against the senate,

All cause unborn, could never be the motive

Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?

How shall this bisson multitude digest

The senate’s courtesy? Let deeds express

What’s like to be their words: “We did request it;

We are the greater poll, and in true fear

They gave us our demands.” Thus we debase

The nature of our seats and make the rabble

Call our cares fears: which will in time

Break ope the locks o’ the senate, and bring in

The crows to peck the eagles.

(iII. i. 120.)

That seems convincing enough. Their refusal of military service shows that the citizens merited no leniency from the state, the charge that the patricians were hoarding stores was universally known to be baseless, so the malcontents can only infer that the senate gave the largesse in fright, and find in this encouragement for their usurpations. And in the meantime, while doubt exists as to the real centre of authority, the effect must be vacillation in the policy of the republic and neglect of the most urgent measures. This was a consideration that came home to Shakespeare, who never forgot the weakness and misery of his own country when it was torn by civil strife, so he calls urgent attention to it at the close. This is the only portion of the speech that is quite original so far as the thought is concerned.

This double worship,

Where one part does disdain with cause, the other

Insult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom,

Cannot conclude but by the yea and no

Of general ignorance,—it must omit

Real necessities, and give way the while

To unstable slightness: purpose so barr’d, it follows,

Nothing is done to purpose.

(iII. i. 142.)

Your dishonour

Mangles true judgment and bereaves the state

Of that integrity which should become’t,

Not having the power to do the good it would,

For the ill which doth control’t.

(iII. i. 157.)

All this contains a measure of truth that is valid in all times; from the point of view of the aristocratic republican it is absolutely true. Coriolanus’ diagnosis of the case is minutely correct and every one of his prognostics is fulfilled. The plebs does proceed with its encroachments; the power of Rome is strangely weakened as the immediate result of the struggle; the foreign policy is short-sighted and unwise; the pressing need of defence is overlooked. Of course the answer is that his uncompromising suggestions might have led to a worse revolution, and that in the long run a great deal more was gained than lost: but the important point to note is that his views are certainly arguable, that much could be said for them, that at the very least they assert one aspect of the real facts, and are as far as possible from being the mere tirades of a brainless aristocratic swashbuckler. As already pointed out they give just the sort of estimate that some of the wisest statesmen who have ever lived would have formed of the situation. It is quite conceivable that his proposals if carried through with vigour and ruthlessness would have settled things satisfactorily at least for the moment. So besides his pre-eminence in war and generalship and his foresight in foreign affairs, we may claim for Coriolanus not indeed political tact but political grip.

And to these qualifications of physical prowess and intellectual force he adds others of a more distinctively moral description.

Among these the most obvious is his extreme truthfulness. He has no idea of equivocation or even of reticence. Menenius says of him:

His heart’s his mouth:

What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent.

(iII. i. 257.)

Nor is his veracity confined to words; he is honest and genuine to the core of his nature and will not stoop to a gesture that belies his feeling:

I will not do’

Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth

And by my body’s action teach my mind

A most inherent baseness.

(iII. ii. 120.)

And following on this is his innate loyalty. Nothing revolts him like a breach of that obligation, and in the crises of his career it is the accusation of treason that rouses him to a frenzy. Thus, after his imprudent speech, Sicinius cries:

Has spoken like a traitor, and shall answer

As traitors do.

(iII. i. 162.)

And Coriolanus bursts out:

Thou wretch, despite o’erwhelm thee.

It is the same word that scatters his prudent resolutions in the trial scene:

Sicinius.You are a traitor to the people.

Coriolanus. How! traitor!

Menenius.Nay, temperately; your promise.

Coriolanus. The fires i’ the lowest hell fold-in the people!

Call me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!

Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,

In thy hands clutch’d as many millions, in

Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say

“Thou liest” unto thee with a voice as free

As I do pray the gods.

(iII. iii. 66.)

And similarly when Aufidius calls him traitor, he repeats the word “Traitor! how now!” in a wrath that is for the moment almost speechless, till it overflows in a torrent of reckless abuse. It is part of the tragic irony of the play that with his ingrained horror of such an offence, he should yet in very truth let himself be hurried into treason against his country. For all his instincts are on the side of faith and troth and obligation. When he wishes to express his hostility to Aufidius he can think of no better comparison than this:

I’ll fight with none but thee; for I do hate thee

Worse than a promise-breaker.

(i. viii. 1.)

One result of this is that he has a simple reverence for all prescriptive ties, which suffuses his stern nature with a certain tinge of kindly humanity. His piety to his mother comes of course from Plutarch; but his tenderness for his wife and delight in his son, lightly but strongly marked, are Shakespearean traits. So is the intimacy with Menenius, which greatly removes the impression of “churlishness” and “solitariness” that Plutarch’s portrait conveys; and his self-effacement in obedience to the powers that be and to the word that he has pledged, appears in his willing acceptance of a subordinate rank. The tribunes wonder that

His insolence can brook to be commanded

Under Cominius;

(i. i. 266.)

and attribute it to base calculation in keeping with their own natures; but to this view Shakespeare’s story gives no support. The real explanation is simpler: it is his former promise and he is constant (i. i. 241).

Even more pleasant is the famous instance of his respect for the claims of hospitality. This episode is obtained from Plutarch, but in several respects it is completely altered. After describing how Coriolanus declined all special reward, the original narrative proceeds:

“Only this grace (sayed he) I crave, and beseeche you to graunt me. Among the Volsces there is an olde friende and hoste of mine, an honest wealthie man and now a prisoner, who living before in great wealthe in his owne countrie, liveth now a poore prisoner in the handes of his enemies: and yet notwithstanding all this his miserie and misfortune, it would do me great pleasure if I could save him from this one daunger: to keepe him from being solde as a slave.” The souldiers hearing Martius wordes, made a marvelous great showte among them.

Compare this with the scene in Shakespeare:

Coriolanus. The gods begin to mock me. I, that now

Refused most princely gifts, am bound to beg

Of my lord general.

Cominius. Take’t; ’tis yours. What is’t?

Coriolanus. I sometime lay here in Corioli

At a poor man’s house: he used me kindly:

He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;

But then Aufidius was within my view,

And wrath o’erwhelmed my pity: I request you

To give my poor host freedom.

Cominius. O well begg’d!

Were he the butcher of my son, he should

Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.

Lartius. Marcius, his name?

Coriolanus. By Jupiter! forgot.

I am weary; yea, my memory is tired.

Have we no wine here?

(i. ix. 79.)

The postponement of pity to wrath is a new characteristic detail which shows how these gentler impulses in Coriolanus must yield to his ruling passions. On the other hand his host is transformed from a rich to a poor man, and thus his humanity acquires a wider range, and we see how it can extend beyond his own class if only there is a personal claim on it. Above all there is the new illuminating touch of the lapse of memory. Sometimes this has been taken as betraying the indifference of the aristocrat for an inferior whose name he does not think it worth while to remember. Surely not. Coriolanus is experiencing the collapse that follows his superhuman exertions, the exhaustion of body and mind when one cannot think of the most familiar words: but he rallies his strength for a last effort, and is just able to intercede for his humble guest-friend ere he succumbs.

And this last passage brings before us another of his magnanimous qualities. He has refused most princely gifts. No one can accuse him of covetousness. His patrician bigotry aims at power and leadership, not at material perquisites. After the double battle, won almost entirely by his instrumentality, when Cominius offers him the tenth, he makes the generous answer:

I thank you, general;

But cannot make my heart consent to take

A bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it.

(i. ix. 36.)

He deserves the encomium of the consul:

Our spoils he kick’d at,

And look’d upon things precious as they were

The common muck of the world: he covets less

Than misery itself would give; rewards

His deeds with doing them, and is content

To spend the time to end it.

(iI. ii. 128.)

He “rewards his deeds with doing them,” without thought of ulterior profit or of anything beyond the worthy occupation of the moment. This leads to the next point, his cult of honour; and it must be confessed that he conceives it in a very lofty and noble way. His view of it reminds one of Arthur’s saying in Tennyson’s Idylls:

For the deed’s sake my knighthood do the deed,

Not to be noised of.

Honour, of course, is not the highest possible principle. It implies a certain quest for recognition, and in so far has a personal and even selfish aspect. But in the right kind of honour the recognition is sought, in the first place, for real excellences that, in the second place, are determined only by competent judges, in some cases only by the individual’s own conscience. In both respects Coriolanus bears examination.

Of course, when there is any pursuit of honour at all, it is almost impossible to exclude some admixture of rivalry and emulation: for the desire of recognition, if only by oneself, carries with it the desire of being recognised as having achieved the very best: and rivalry and emulation must to that extent have an egoistic direction. Coriolanus has these feelings to the full, and often gives them extreme expression in regard to his one possible competitor Aufidius. He calls him “the man of my soul’s hate” (i. v. 11); and tells him: “I have ever followed thee with hate” (iv. v. 104). Aufidius has equal animosity against Coriolanus. His correspondent, to give an idea of his rival’s unpopularity with his townsmen, writes of

Marcius your old enemy,

Who is of Rome worse hated than of you.

(i. ii. 12.)

Lartius reports how the Volscian has said,

That of all things upon the earth, he hated

Your person most.

(iII. i. 14.)

Marcius, hearing he is at Antium, sums up for both:

I wish I had a cause to seek him there,

To oppose his hatred fully.

(iII. i. 19.)

As Tullus sums up on his side:

We hate alike;

Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor

More than thy fame and envy.

(i. viii. 2.)

Still, it is precisely in his relations with Aufidius, and in comparison with Aufidius’ passions and purposes, that Coriolanus’ finer conception of honour becomes apparent. The true warrior values these encounters for themselves, and has a rapture in them second to none that he knows. He exclaims:

Were half to half the world by the ears, and he

Upon my party, I’ld revolt, to make

Only my wars with him: he is a lion

That I am proud to hunt.

(i. i. 237·)

This has sometimes been regarded as a hint in advance of Marcius’ readiness to desert the national cause. But that seems to be taking au pied de la lettre one of those conversational audacities that much discreeter men than he often permit themselves. It is rather an exaggerated expression of his delight in the contest, and an ironical comment on his later abandonment of it for the sake of revenge. At any rate even if the worst interpretation be put on it, it suggests a more respectable motive for desertion than the parallel outburst of Aufidius:

I would I were a Roman; for I cannot,

Being a Volsce, be that I am.

(i. x. 4.)

For Coriolanus would change sides in order to confront the severest test, Aufidius would do so in order not to be of the defeated party. There is a meanness and bitterness in Tullus from which his rival is wholly free. All through, Marcius shows the generosity of conscious heroism. He is very handsome in his acknowledgment of Aufidius’ merits:

They have a leader,

Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to’t.

I sin in envying his nobility,

And were I anything but what I am,

I would wish me only he.

(i. i. 232.)

In their trials of valour he takes no advantage, but rather makes a point, first of facing his foe though he himself is wearied and wounded, and, second, of rousing him to put forth all his strength.

The blood I drop is rather physical

Than dangerous to me: to Aufidius thus

I will appear, and fight.

(i. v. 19.)

Then, when they meet, he dissembles his hurts, and cries:

Within these three hours, Tullus,

Alone I fought in your Corioli walls,

And made what work I pleased: ’tis not my blood

Wherein thou seest me mask’d: for thy revenge

Wrench up thy power to the highest.

(i. viii. 7.)

They are pledged to slay each other or be slain. Tullus has told the senators:

If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet,

’Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike

Till one can do no more.

(i. ii. 34.)

And to this he adds boasts of his own, which Coriolanus omits. Nevertheless, though his professions are the loudest, Aufidius makes good neither pledge nor boasts, but lets himself be driven back despite the assistance of his friends. And then, just as he would rather be a successful Roman than a defeated Volsce, his thoughts turn to getting the better of his victor by whatever means; he cannot take his beating in a sportsmanlike way, and thus shows finally how hollow is the honour after which he strives. Whether intentionally or not, Lartius’ report gives a true description of his feeling:

He would pawn his fortunes

To hopeless restitution, so he might

Be call’d your vanquisher.

(iII. i. 15.)

“Be call’d”; as though the vain ascription of superiority were all that he desired. But in truth he has already made the same confession in so many words, with the more damaging admission that he now feels as though he no longer cared by what foul play such ascription is won.

By the elements,

If e’er again I meet him beard to beard,

He’s mine, or I am his: mine emulation

Hath not that honour in’t it had: for where

I thought to crush him in an equal force,

True sword to sword, I’ll potch at him some way

Or wrath or craft may get him.

(i. x. 10.)

My valour’s poison’d

With only suffering stain by him: for him

Shall fly out of itself: nor sleep, nor sanctuary,

Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,

The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice,

Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up

Their rotten privilege and custom ’gainst

My hate to Marcius: where I find him, were it

At home, upon my brother’s guard, even there,

Against the hospitable canon, would I

Wash my fierce hand in’s blood.

(i. x. 17.)

On this passage Coleridge comments:

I have such deep faith in Shakespeare’s heart-lore, that I take for granted that this is in nature, and not as a mere anomaly; although I cannot in myself discover any germ of possible feeling, which could wax and unfold itself into such a sentiment as this.

It seems strange that Coleridge should say this, for it is proved by not a few examples that baffled emulation may issue in an envy which knows few restraints. Perhaps it was the avowal rather than the temper which struck him as verging on the unnatural or abnormal. Those who deliberately adopt such an attitude do not usually admit it to themselves, still less to their victims, and least of all to a third party. Which may admonish us that Aufidius’ threats were not deliberate, but mere frantic outcries wrung from him in rage and mortification. Yet they spring from authentic impulses in his heart, and though they may for a time be hidden by his superficial chivalry, they will spread and thrive if the conditions favour their growth. When they have overrun his nature and choked the wholesome grain, he will not point to them so openly and will name them by other names. But they are the same and differ from what they were only as the thorny thicket differs from its parent seeds. They have always been there and it is well that we should be aware of their presence from the first. Coleridge concludes his criticism: “However I perceive that in this speech is meant to be contained a prevention of the shock at the after-change in Aufidius’ character.” In short, it is not to be taken as his definite programme from which he inconsistently deviates when the opportunity is offered at Antium for carrying it out, but as the involuntary presentiment, which the revealing power of anguish awakens in his soul, of the crimes he is capable of committing for his master passion, a presentiment that in the end is realised almost to the letter.

And in the fulfilment, as in the anticipation, he has an eye merely to the results, and seeks only to obtain the first place for himself whether he deserve it or no. When Coriolanus consents to the peace with Rome, Aufidius soliloquises:

I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy honour

At difference in thee: out of that I’ll work

Myself a former fortune.

(V. iii. 200.)

It is the adventitious superiority and the judgment by appearances that always appeal to him. Listen to the interchange of confidences between his accomplice and himself:

Third Conspirator. The people will remain uncertain whilst

’Twixt you there’s difference; but the fall of either

Makes the survivor heir of all.

Aufidius.I know it:

And my pretext to strike at him admits

A good construction.

(V. vi. 17.)

He will be heir of all, and his action will admit a good construction; that is enough for him. It only remains to keep another construction from being suggested; and he approves the conspirator’s advice:

When he lies along,

After your way his tale pronounced shall bury

His reasons with his body.

(V. vi. 57.)

It has sometimes been questioned whether such a man would give his fugitive rival a welcome which at the first and for some time seems so magnanimous, and if he did, whether the magnanimity was sincere. But Aufidius, though he is above all a lover of pre-eminence at whatever cost and therefore cannot for long stand the ordeal of being surpassed, is not without a soldier’s generosity; and moreover, the course which he was moved to adopt (and this is a more important consideration) would be one congenial to his meretricious love of ostentation and display. There is no rôle more soothing to worsted vanity and at the same time more likely to gain it the admiration it prizes, than that of patron to a formerly successful and now unfortunate rival. In the reflected glory, the benefactor seems to acquire the merits of the other in addition to a magnificence all his own. This, we may assume, was in part the motive of Aufidius; as appears from his own words, in which he shows himself well aware of his own generous behaviour:

He came unto my hearth;

Presented to my knife his throat: I took him;

Made him joint-servant with me; gave him way

In all his own desires; nay, let him choose

Out of my files, his projects to accomplish,

My best and freshest men; served his designments

In mine own person; holp to reap the fame

Which he did end all his; and took some pride

To do myself this wrong; till, at the last,

I seem’d his follower, not partner, and

He waged me with his countenance, as if

I had been mercenary.

(V. vi. 30.)

The hasty flash of generosity, the hope of winning new credit, would soon be extinguished or transmuted by such persistent success, superiority and pride. And Coriolanus’ popularity with the troops at the expense of his Volscian colleague, would be bitter to the most high-minded benefactor. It is brought out to us by his question to his lieutenant in the camp near Rome: “Do they still fly to the Roman?” (iv. vii. 1). Evidently the soldiers of Antium flock to the banners of this foreigner rather than to those of their own countrymen. The suggestion for this is furnished by Plutarch, but with Shakespeare a sting is added. In the Life Tullus stays behind as reserve with half the army to guard against any inroad, while Coriolanus acts on the offensive and captures a number of towns. Thereupon,

the other Volsces that were appointed to remaine in garrison for defence of theur countrie, hearing this good newes, would tary no lenger at home, but armed them selves, and ranne to Martius campe, saying they dyd acknowledge no other captaine but him.

It is much less wounding to Aufidius that his men should wish to exchange inaction for the excitement of war, than that he should witness their resort to his rival who is, in name, only his equal in command. Indeed his lieutenant in the play regrets that he did not do precisely what he did do according to Plutarch.

I wish, sir,—

I mean for your particular,—you had not

Join’d in commission with him; but either

Had borne the action of yourself, or else

To him had left it solely.

(iV. vii. 12.)

Thus Shakespeare gives Tullus a stronger motive, and in so far a better policy for his treason. On the other hand he bases it more exclusively on personal envy. For in Plutarch the truce of thirty days which Coriolanus grants Rome is the original occasion of the movement against him, in which other Volscians besides Aufidius share; and this movement culminates only after he has conceded peace on conditions which even Plutarch considers unfair to his employers. But in the play, as we have seen, the truce is omitted, and Tullus has determined on the destruction of his supplanter even at a time when he confidently expects that Rome cannot save herself:

When, Caius, Rome is thine,

Thou art poor’st of all: then shortly art thou mine.

(iV. vii. 56.)

Thus the last shred of public spirit is torn away from his selfish ambition and spite.

In contrast with all this lust for precedence and vainglorious egotism, we cannot but feel that Marcius is striving for the reality of honour and is eager to fulfil the conditions on which honour is due.

And connected with this is another point which we might regard as the natural and inevitable consequence, but which Shakespeare only inferred and did not obtain from Plutarch, who gives no indication of it. This is Marcius’ indifference to or rather detestation of all professed praise. His distaste for eulogy does not of course lead him to reject a distinction and acknowledgment like the surname of Coriolanus that he is conscious of having deserved. On the contrary he prizes it and clings to it, and among the circumstances that overthrow his self-control in the final scene, the fact that Aufidius withholds from him this appellation has a chief place.

Aufidius.Marcius!

Coriolanus.Marcius!

Aufidius. Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius; dost thou think

I’ll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol’n name

Coriolanus in Corioli?

Just in the same way, his aversion from mercantile profit does not lead him to refuse a gift from a friend when he feels that he has earned that friend’s approval. So when Cominius bestows on him the charger, and bids the host hail him with his new title, he answers graciously enough if a little awkwardly:

I will go wash;

And when my face is fair, you shall perceive

Whether I blush or no: howbeit I thank you.

I mean to stride your steed, and at all times

To undercrest your good addition

To the fairness of my power.

(i. ix. 68.)

But except on such semi-official occasions, which he is obliged to recognise, any sort of commendation abashes him and puts him out. Even Lartius’ burst of admiration he immediately checks:

Pray now, no more: my mother,

Who has a charter to extol her blood,

When she does praise me, grieves me.

(i. ix. 13.)

When Cominius persists, he would fain cut him short:

I have some wounds upon me, and they smart

To hear themselves remember’d.

(i. ix. 28.)

When the host spontaneously breaks out in acclamation, he feels it is over much, and is more irritated than pleased:

May these same instruments, which you profane,

Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall

I’ the field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be

Made all of false-faced soothing!

When steel grows soft as the parasite’s silk,

Let him be made a coverture for the wars!

No more, I say! For that I have not wash’d

My nose that bled, or foil’d some debile wretch,—

Which, without note, here’s many else have done,—

You shout me forth

In acclamations hyperbolical;

As if I loved my little should be dieted

In praises sauced with lies.

(i. ix. 42.)

So, too, with the welcome of the crowd at his homecoming:

No more of this; it does offend my heart;

Pray now, no more.

(iI. i. 185.)

Where the formal, and therefore up to a certain point, conventional panegyrics have to be pronounced in the senate, he is honestly ill at ease and would rather go away. To the senator who seeks to stay him, he answers:

Your honour’s pardon:

I had rather have my wounds to heal again

Than hear say how I got them.

(iI. ii. 72.)

And he adds, as he actually leaves his seat:

I had rather have one scratch my head i’ the sun

When the alarum were struck, than idly sit

To hear my nothings monster’d.

(iI. ii. 79.)

He can dispense with the admiration of others, because he seeks “the perfect witness” of his own approval, and abhors any extravagant applause because he measures his actions by the standard of absolute desert. In other words, both his self-respect and his ideal of attainment are abnormally, one might say morbidly, developed. And this explains both his humility and his self-assertion. Volumnia tells him:

Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour,

To imitate the graces of the gods.

(V. iii. 149.)

If that is the goal, how far must even the mightiest fall short of it, and how much must he resent the adulation of his prowess as the highest to be attained. On the contrary he “waxes like the sea,” sets himself to advance

From well to better, daily self surpassed;

and every glory he achieves is, as Shakespeare read in Plutarch, less a wage that he has earned than a pledge that he must redeem.

It is daylie seene, that honour and reputation lighting on young men before their time, and before they have no great corage by nature, the desire to winne more, dieth straight in them, which easely happeneth, the same having no deepe roote in them before. Where contrariwise, the first honour that valliant mindes doe come unto, doth quicken up their appetite, hasting them forward as with force of winde, to enterprise things of highe deserving praise. For they esteeme, not to receave reward for service done, but rather take it for a remembraunce and encoragement, to make them doe better in time to come: and be ashamed also to cast their honour at their heeles, not seeking to increase it still by like deserte of worthie valliant dedes. This desire being bred in Martius, he strained still to passe him selfe in manlines: and being desirous to shewe a daylie increase of his valliantnes, his noble service dyd still advaunce his fame.

But, on the other hand, though he, as not having attained, presses forward to the mark of his high calling, he has but to spend a glance on his fellows, and being an honest man he must perceive that his performance quite eclipses theirs. When the citizen asks him what has brought him to stand for the consulship, his reply is from the heart: “Mine own desert” (ii. iii. 71). He feels poignantly the indignity of having to ask for what seems to him his due, and this partly explains the reluctance, which Shakespeare invents for him, to face a popular election.

Better it is to die, better to starve,

Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.

(iI. iii. 120.)

In bitter self-irony he belies the disinterestedness of his exploits, and libels them as mere contrivances to win favour:

Your voices: for your voices I have fought;

Watch’d for your voices; for your voices bear

Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six

I have seen and heard of; for your voices have

Done many things, some less, some more.

(iI. iii. 133.)

His fault lies in an opposite direction. His sense of dignity and self-esteem makes him inflexible to any concession that would seem to disparage himself and the truth.

His nature is too noble for the world:

He would not flatter Neptune for his trident.

Or Jove for’s power to thunder.

(iII. i. 255.)

And he is entitled to this consciousness of his worth, for it is not merely individual. It collects in a focus the most valued traits of various social fellowships that are greater and wider than himself. He is—he has been taught to consider himself and to become—the peculiar representative of the great family of the great aristocracy of the great city of Rome. If he transcends the dimensions of ordinary human power and human error, this consideration enables us to see how he has come to do so, and brings him back to our ordinary human sympathies. These are the three concentric orbits in which his universe revolves, the three well-heads that feed the current of his life. They give impetus to his love of honour and volume to his pride.

His civic patriotism he lives to abjure, but at first it is eager and intense. It is this feeling that is affronted by the retreat of his townsmen before Corioli and that boils over in curses and abuse: he is wroth with them because they are “shames of Rome.” The climax to his appeal for volunteers is to ask if any thinks “that his country’s dearer than himself” (i. vi. 72): and in the moment of triumph he classes himself unreservedly among all his comrades who have been actuated by his own and the only right motive, love for the patria.

I have done

What you have done; that’s what I can: induced

As you have been; that’s for my country:

He that hath but effected his good will

Hath overta’en my act.

(i. ix. 15.)

He cherishes a transcendent idea of the state, and is wounded to the heart that its members fall short of it.

I would they were barbarians—as they are,

Though in Rome litter’d—not Romans—as they are not,

Though calved i’ the porch o’ the Capitol.

(iII. i. 238.)

And he is similarly, but more closely bound up in his own order. The nobles, the patricians, the senate, are to him the core of the commonwealth, the very Rome of Rome. They are, as he says, “the fundamental part of state” (iii. i. 151). His first thought on his return from the campaign is to pay his due respects to their dignity:

Ere in my own house I do shade my head,

The good patricians must be visited.

(iI. i. 211.)

He is scandalised by the insolence of the plebs in revolting against such authority:

What’s the matter,

That in these several places of the city

You cry against the noble senate, who,

Under the gods, keep you in awe?

(i. i. 188.)

His gorge rises at the thought of a representative of the people imposing his mandate on so august a body.

They choose their magistrate,

And such a one as he, who puts his “shall,”

His popular “shall” against a graver bench

Than ever frown’d in Greece.

(iII. i. 104.)

He hates any innovation that is likely

To break the heart of generosity

And make bold power look pale.

(i. i. 215.)

For to him the power that is vested in the generous, that is, the high-born classes, is a sacred thing.

But the domestic tie is the closest of all. The whole story brings out its compulsive pressure and no particular passages are needed to illustrate it. Yet in some passages we are made to realise with special vividness how it binds and entwines him, as in that exclamation when he sees the deputation of women approaching:

My wife comes foremost; then the honour’d mould

Wherein this trunk was framed, and in her hand

The grandchild to her blood.

(V. iii. 22.)

It is as son, husband and father that the depths of Coriolanus’ nature can be reached. In his greetings to his wife, in his prayers for his boy, we have glimpses of his inward heart; but of course this family feeling is concentrated on his mother who, as it were, sums up his ancestry to him, and who, by her personal qualities and her parental authority, fills his soul with a kind of religious reverence. We have seen how she has fashioned him, how she commands and awes him. When she inclines her head as she appears before him, he already feels that it is incongruous and absurd:

My mother bows:

As if Olympus to a molehill should

In supplication nod.

(V. iii. 29.)

When she kneels, it is prodigious, incredible; he cannot believe his eyes:

What is this?

Your knees to me? to your corrected son?

Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach

Fillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds

Strike the proud cedars ’gainst the fiery sun:

Murdering impossibility, to make

What cannot be, slight work.

(V. iii. 56.)

Not only then is Coriolanus in other respects a singularly noble personality, but even his pride is certainly not devoid of ethical content when it embodies the consciousness of the city republic, the governing estate, the organised family, with all their claims and obligations. These are the constituent elements that have supplied matter for his self-esteem, and all of them are formative, and capable, as we saw, of producing such a lofty, though limited moral character as that of Volumnia. Yet it is precisely to them, or at least to the way in which they are mingled in his pride, that Coriolanus’ faults and misfortunes may be traced.

CHAPTER VI
THE DISASTERS OF CORIOLANUS
AND THEIR CAUSES

Feeling for his country, feeling for his caste, feeling for his family thus form the triple groundwork of Coriolanus’ nobleness, but they fail to uphold it in the storm of temptation. As furnishing the foundations of conduct they have dangers and defects, inherent in themselves, or incident to their combination, and these it is to which the guilt and ruin of Coriolanus are due.

These drawbacks may be illustrated under three heads. They are unfit completely to transfigure egoism, for they have all an egoistic aspect, and are indeed merely extended forms of selfishness. They are primarily the products of nature, instinct, passion; and may exist without being raised to the rank of rational principles and without having their just scope delimited and defined. And, lastly, for that reason their relative importance may be mistaken, and one that is the stronger natural impulse may usurp the place of one that is of more binding moral authority.

It has often been pointed out, and sometimes as a matter of complaint, that family affection is very restricted in its range and may conflict with the larger interests of mankind. It produces an intense unity within the one household, but it is apt to be jealous, repellent, aggressive as regards other households and their members. Further, in so far as it is my parents, my brothers, my children, whose welfare I promote, the ground of preference has nothing to do with impartial equity: it is determined by the nearness of the persons to me, by my fondness for them, by my looking on them as appurtenances of mine; in short it is selfish. And those who maintain the sacredness of the family give this no absolute denial, but reply, first, that in the long run the true interests of one family, rightly understood, do not conflict with the true interests of other families, of the state, or the rest of mankind; and, second, that even before the true interests are rightly grasped, the family relation forms at least a stage in the process by which the individual learns to enlarge his self-interest, a preliminary stage but an inevitable stage, and still for the vast majority of men the stage of most practical importance. Many a one is ready to give up his personal pleasure or advantage for those of his own house, who would be deaf to all more general appeals. Thus the family so widens self-love as to include in it some other people, but in one of its aspects it nevertheless depends on self-love.

And the same thing holds good of the enlarged kindred that we call an aristocracy. The nobility of blood forms a sort of family on a large scale, a family of caste, an amplified household united by common pursuits, privileges, education and ideals, and often further blended by frequent intermarriage. The aristocrat finds himself born into this artificial, which is in some respects almost like a natural fraternity; and his ethos to his order, ethos though it be, is largely the ethos of the individual who recognises his own reflection in his fellow nobles.

Nor is it otherwise with the state, especially, we may say, the antique city state, where often the aristocracy really was the native nucleus, and which in the greatest expansion of which it was capable, did not exceed the dimensions of a modern municipality. The patriotism of the citizens had the fervour of domestic piety, their disputes had the bitterness of family quarrels. In the community its sons exulted and lived and moved and had their being: it was theirs and they were its, in opposition to the alien states, the states of other people, to which they were apt to be indifferent or hostile.

Now it is evident that all these principles in the case of a man with a strong consciousness of his own worth and superlative self-respect, might give substance and validity to his egoism, but would rather encourage than counteract it. And so with Coriolanus. His independent, individual, isolated sufficiency passes all bounds. He derives sustenance for it from the three layers of atmosphere that envelope him, but he thinks he can if necessary dispense with these external aids. In so far as he can separate the people in his mind from the whole body politic of Rome, he excludes them from his sympathy, or even his tolerance, and glories in his ostentation of antagonism. Take his speech about the popular demonstration:

They said they were an-hungry, sigh’d forth proverbs,

That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,

That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not

Corn for the rich men only: with these shreds

They vented their complainings.

(I. i. 209.)

In reference to this Archbishop Trench has a very true remark. He points out that where there is a marked and conscious division of ranks,

[proverbs] may go nearly or quite out of use among the so-called upper classes. No gentleman, says Lord Chesterfield, “ever uses a proverb.” And with how true a touch of nature, Shakespeare makes Coriolanus, the man who with all his greatness, is entirely devoid of all sympathy with the people, to utter his scorn of them in scorn of their proverbs and of their frequent employment of them.

He has indeed no sense of their homely wisdom or their homely virtues. He has no common charity for them, and his attitude to them if they venture to assert themselves, is that of a less human slaveholder to refractory slaves.

Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,

And let me use my sword, I’ld make a quarry

With thousands of these quarter’d slaves, as high

As I could pick my lance.

(i. i. 201.)

After such counsel, we feel that the exclamation of Sicinius is not without its warrant:

Where is this viper

That would depopulate the city, and

Be every man himself?

(iII. i. 263.)

His self-centred confidence and egotism culminates in his retort to his sentence:

You common cry of curs? whose breath I hate

As reek o’ the rotten fens, whose loves I prize

As the dead carcasses of unburied men

That do corrupt my air, I banish you.

(iII. iii. 120.)

But it is characteristic of this spirit which really makes a man a law to himself and the measure of things, that though by all his training and prejudices inclined to the traditional and conservative in politics, yet, if use-and-wont presses hard against his own pride, he shows himself an innovator of the most uncompromising kind. He objects once and again to the prescriptive forms of election, and at last breaks out:

Custom calls me to ’t!

What custom wills, in all things should we do ’t,

The dust on antique time would lie unswept

And mountainous error be too highly heapt

For truth to o’er-peer.

(iI. iii. 124.)

Here he blossoms out as the reddest of radicals, though a radical of the Napoleonic type.

But, further, his feeling for family, class and country is pre-eminently feeling. It belongs to those natural tendencies that almost seem to come to us by heredity and environment, and have analogies with the instincts of animals. It is, at least in the form it assumes with him, not to be ranked among the moral convictions which can stand the examination of conscience and reason, and in the production of which conscience and reason have co-operated. It is rather an innate impulse, a headlong passion, and resembles a blind physical force of which he can give no account. His understanding is without right of entry into this part of his life. We have seen, no doubt, that his presuppositions once granted he can form a very acute estimate of the situation. But he never uses his judgment either in examining his presuppositions or in discovering the treatment that the situation requires. He has not the width of outlook or the self-criticism that enable Menenius and Cominius, and even the ordinary senators, to see the relative importance of the principles for which they contend, and prefer any compromise to laying the city flat and sacking great Rome with Romans. He has not the astuteness of Volumnia, who perceives that strategy is to be used in government as in war and bids him stoop to conquer:

I have a heart as little apt as yours,

But yet a brain that leads my use of anger

To better vantage.

(iII. ii. 29.)

If it be honour in your wars to seem

The same you are not, which, for your best ends,

You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse,

That it shall hold companionship in peace

With honour, as in war, since that to both

It stands in like request?

(iII. ii. 46.)

Both in regard to end and means, he listens to the counsels not of his reason but of his passion and hot blood. As how could he do otherwise? It is passion not reason that oversways his nature, determining everything in him from these first fundamental principles to the most transitory mood. More particularly, that tyrannous self-respect of his, the personal flame in which all his interests, domestic, aristocratic, national, are fused, is his central passion, and one that gives more heat than light. Sometimes, indeed, it kindles him to great things. When the Volscian army abandons the shelter of Corioli he feels it an insult to his country, therefore to himself; and the outrage to his amour propre incites him to do wonders.

They fear us not, but issue forth their city.

Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight

With hearts more proof than shields. Advance, brave Titus:

They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,

Which makes me sweat with wrath.

(i. iv. 23.)

But again, it may make it impossible for him to take the right path. When asked to show some outward submission to the people, he answers:

To the market place!

You have put me now to such a part which never

I shall discharge to the life.

(iII. ii. 104.)

He was justified in objecting to methods of dissimulation and flattery, but, if only he had been reasonable, a middle course would not have been hard to find, which should safeguard his self-respect while pacifying the populace. It is because his self-respect is of passion not of reason, that he is so unconciliatory, and therefore almost as culpable as if he were guilty of the opposite fault. Plutarch, indeed, thinks he is more so. In his comparison between him and Alcibiades, he is in this matter more lenient to the latter:

He is lesse to be blamed, that seeketh to please and gratifie his common people; then he that despiseth and disdaineth them, and therefore offereth them wrong and injurie, bicause he would not seeme to flatter them, to winne the more authoritie. For as it is an evill thing to flatter the common people to winne credit; even so it is besides dishonesty, and injustice also, to atteine to credit and authoritie, for one to make him selfe terrible to the people, by offering them wrong and violence.

This passage has inspired the criticism of the officer of the Capitol; who, however, impartially holds the scales.

If he did not care whether he had their love or no, he waved indifferently ’twixt doing them neither good nor harm: but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can render it him; and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him their opposite. Now, to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes, to flatter them for their love.

(iI. ii. 18.)

With this temper it is natural that the arrogance of success, lack of nous, and want of adaptability—which is often merely another form of self-will—should bring about his ruin; and it is these three characteristics, or a modicum of them, to which Aufidius in point of fact attributes his banishment.

First he was

A noble servant to them; but he could not

Carry his honours even: whether ’twas pride,

Which out of daily fortune ever taints

The happy man; whether defect of judgement,

To fail in the disposing of those chances

Which he was lord of; or whether nature,

Not to be other than one thing, not moving

From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace

Even with the same austerity and garb

As he controll’d the war; but one of these—

As he hath spices of them all, not all,

For I dare so far free him—made him fear’d,

So hated, and so banish’d.

(iV. vii. 35.)

But, lastly, not only are the three objective ethical principles that give Coriolanus his moral equipment, inadequate in so far as their range is largely selfish and their origin largely natural; he misplaces the order in which they should come. In the case of Volumnia, despite all her maternal preference and patrician prejudice, Rome is the grand consideration, as her deeds unequivocally prove. Nor is she singular; she is only the most conspicuous example among others of her caste. Cominius, too, postpones the family to the state:

I do love

My country’s good with a respect more tender,

More holy and profound, than mine own life,

My dear wife’s estimate, her womb’s increase,

And treasure of my loins.

(iII. iii. 111.)

And this is more or less the attitude of the rest. But Coriolanus reverses the sequence, and gives his chief homage precisely to the most restricted and elementary, the most primitive and instinctive principle of the three. He loves Rome indeed, fights for her, grieves for her shames, and glories in her triumphs; but he loves the nobility more, and would by wholesale massacre secure their supremacy. He loves the nobility indeed, but when they, no doubt for the common good, suffer him to be expelled from Rome, they become to him the “dastard nobles”; and he makes hardly any account of his old henchman and intimate Menenius, and none at all of his old comrade and general Cominius. But he loves his family as himself, and though he strives to root out its claims from his heart, the attempt is vain. He may exclaim:

Out, affection!

All bond and privilege of nature, break!

(V. iii. 24.)

I’ll never

Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand,

As if a man were author of himself

And knew no other kin.

(V. iii. 34.)

But it is mere histrionic make-believe and pretence: at the first words of Virgilia he cries:

Like a dull actor now,

I have forgot my part, and I am out,

Even to a full disgrace.

(V. iii. 40.)

How could this man, whose personal pride and family pride are so interwoven, whose self-love and whose virtues are so much an inheritance of his line, ever hope to sever himself from what makes up his very being? The home instincts must triumph.

It is well that they should, and this is the redeeming touch that cancels much of the guilt of apostasy which brands the close of his career. But all the same we feel that his self-surrender to the obligations of the family is a less noble thing than his mother’s self-surrender to the obligations of the state. Of course, in a way, family and class must with all come before the whole community. Men, that is, are bound to be more interested in those of their own circle and their own set than in their fellow-citizens with whom they have less relation. That gives a very good ground for a man’s constant unremitting occupation with his nearest and dearest. But, nevertheless, when the call comes, it is the wider community that has the more imperative claim.

And it is easy to see that Volumnia, though at the supreme moment she shows that she herself has the right feeling for the relation, is responsible for the inverted order in the conception of her son. Her contempt for the masses, her exaltation of the patricians, her high-handed insistence on the family authority were almost bound to be exaggerated in a child growing up under her influence and subjected to no corrective views. And she must have added to the dangers of her tuition by dangling before his eyes the ideal personal honour as the grand prize of life. He wins it and lets it slip again and again, and when he grasps it at last, it is rent and mangled in his hands. There is something typical in the episode of his son and the butterfly, as Valeria narrates it:

I saw him run after a gilded butterfly; and when he caught it, he let it go again; and after it again; and over and over he comes, and up again; catched it again; or whether his fall enraged him, or how ’twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it: Ο, I warrant, how he mammocked it!

(i. iii. 65.)

Young Marcius is described as the facsimile and “epitome” of his father, and Volumnia is well pleased with this example of the family bent. She must not disclaim her share in the preparation, when the father enacts the apologue in the larger theatre of life.

And she is even responsible for some of the mistaken courses that directly lead to the disaster.

For Coriolanus, with all his blind sides and rough corners, might still be the faithful and honoured champion of Rome if he were left to follow his own predestined and congenial path as military leader. In the field he can rouse the courage of the citizens and fire their enthusiasm, while on his part, when he wins their recognition and devotion, he lays aside some of his asperity to them, and is even gracious in his awkward, convincing way. They forget their hatred, he forgets his scorn. And to him as warrior the whole population, not only the portion of it that has the franchise, is ready to do honour. The description which the chagrined tribune gives of his triumphal progress through the streets shows with what cordial pride all ranks were eager to pay him homage. There is no reason why he should not continue to discharge in this his proper sphere the functions that none could discharge so well. His political weight is from the first small. Despite his urgent dissuasion he has been powerless to prevent the distribution of corn or the concession of the tribunate. And when he does not intrude into this outlying domain, where he effects nothing, he seems to go his own way peaceably enough, occupied mainly in watching for the common good the movements of Aufidius and the Volscians; so that, so far as his antipathy to the people is concerned, his bark is worse than his bite. That is the point of the similes that Brutus and Menenius exchange about him when Menenius has compared the plebs to a wolf and Coriolanus to a lamb. Says the tribune:

He’s a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.

And the senator answers:

He’s a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb.

(iI. i. 12.)

But thrust him into a position that involves political authority, and all will be changed. It will be impossible for him to confine himself to harmless growls; the bear will have the people in his hug, and they are not to blame if they take to their weapons. In short the antagonism, which before was, so to speak, academic and led to nothing, must become a matter of life and death. Now it must not be overlooked that it is in obedience to his mother’s ambitions and in opposition to his own better judgment that Coriolanus stands for the consulship. Of course, in a way, it is the natural goal of his career. Even Menenius is so blinded by the glamour of the situation that he interposes no prudent warning. Nevertheless, if he had only exercised his accustomed shrewdness he would have seen the mischievousness of such a course; for in a remark to the tribune he sums up admirably the perils it involves:

He loves your people;

But tie him not to be their bedfellow;

(iI. ii. 68.)

yet for all that, Menenius is the candidate’s most active electioneering agent. When his sagacity so neglects its own suggestions, it is perhaps not wonderful that Volumnia’s narrower intellect should ignore everything but her visions of glory for herself and her son. And yet she might have laid to heart his sincere remonstrance:

Know, good mother,

I had rather been their servant in my way,

Than sway with them in theirs.

(iI. i. 218.)

She cannot be acquitted of driving him into the false position.

And she is equally responsible for the fiasco and disaster in which his attempted submission ends. Observe that this is not the only course he might have adopted. Cominius, entering in the middle of the discussion, suggests two others:

I have been i’ the market-place; and, sir, ’tis fit

You make strong party, or defend yourself

By calmness or by absence.

(iII. ii. 93.)

The first expedient of making strong party and resorting to force is out of the question, both because, as Cominius has already pointed out, it is practically hopeless in face of the odds, and because, as he and others have also pointed out, even if successful it would ruin the state. The second expedient of calmness and conciliation is the one that Volumnia and Menenius in their pertinacious craving to see Coriolanus consul, strongly advocate; and in the abstract it is the right one. But it suffers from a drawback which makes it worse than hopeless, and which Cominius has the foresight to recognise. “Only fair speech,” says Menenius, and Cominius rejoins very doubtfully:

I think ’t will serve, if he

Can thereto frame his spirit.

(iII. ii. 95.)

That is just the point; and one wonders how anyone who knew Coriolanus could expect of him so impossible a feat. There remains the expedient of absence, which Cominius, from the third place he assigns to it, himself seems to prefer. And in the circumstances it is obviously the best. If only the accused had withdrawn for a time, he would soon have been recalled. It is inconceivable that when the new expedition of the Volscians, which he alone foresaw, broke into Roman territory, the state would not at once have had recourse to the great commander. Nor would there have been much difficulty in doing so, since he would merely have betaken himself to voluntary retirement; and even had he been exiled in default, the mutual exasperation on both sides, which the last collision was to produce, would have been avoided. But again it is Volumnia’s overbearing self-will that imposes on him the pernicious choice. And though, as I have said, this proposal is ideally the best, for in such cases management and compromise are legitimate enough and may be laudable, it is not only the worst in the present instance, but she gives it a turn that must have made it peculiarly revolting to her son. In her covetousness for the consular dignity she recommends such hypocrisy, trickery and base cringing as the self-respect of no honest man, much less of a Coriolanus, could tolerate:

I prithee now, my son,

Go to them, with this bonnet in thy hand;

And thus far having stretch’d it—here be with them—

Thy knee bussing the stones—for in such business

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant

More learned than the ears—waving thy head,

Which often, thus, correcting thy stout heart,

Now humble as the ripest mulberry

that will not hold the handling: or say to them,

Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils

Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,

Were fit for thee to use as they to claim,

In asking their good loves, but thou wilt frame

Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far

As thou hast power and person.

(iII. ii. 72.)

The amicable policy need not have been painted in such colours as these. It is inevitable that Coriolanus, already inclined to regard it as a degradation, should after these words construe it in the most humiliating-sense:

Well, I must do’t:

Away, my disposition, and possess me

Some harlot’s spirit! My throat of war be turn’d,

Which quired with my drum, into a pipe

Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice

That babies lulls asleep! The smile of knaves

Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up

The glasses of my sight! a beggar’s tongue

Make motion through my lips, and my arm’d knees,

Who bow’d but in the stirrup, bend like his

That hath received an alms.

(iII. ii. 110.)

What wonder that his conclusion is to reject such tactics lest they should dishonour his integrity and degrade his soul? His mother’s anger indeed makes him abandon this decision, but his instincts are right. It is a part that of course he could not play under any circumstances, but she has done nothing to show it in its more honourable aspect, and everything to confirm and increase his feeling of its vileness. His sourness and recalcitrance at being false to himself makes him boil over the more fiercely at the first provocation, and all is lost.

It is sometimes said that defeat and the desire for vengeance teach him the lessons which his mother had inculcated in vain, and that henceforth he shows himself a master of dissimulation, flattery, and deception. In proof of this it is usual to cite, in the first place, the farewell scene, when he breathes no word to Cominius, Menenius, Virgilia, or Volumnia of his intention to join the Volscians and return to overthrow Rome. But was any such intention as yet in his mind? In Plutarch he has adopted no definite plan before he sets out. After telling how he comforts his family, the biography proceeds:

He went immediatly to the gate of the cittie, accompanied with a great number of Patricians that brought him thither, from whence he went on his waye with three or foure of his friendes only, taking nothing with him, nor requesting any thing of any man. So he remained a fewe dayes in the countrie at his houses, turmoyled with sundry sortes and kynde of thoughtes, suche as the fyer of his choller dyd sturre up. In the ende, seeing he could resolve no waye, to take a profitable or honorable course, but only was pricked forward still to be revenged of the Romaines, he thought to raise up some great warres against them, by their neerest neighbours.

Of course it is quite true, and it has been one purpose of this essay to show, that Shakespeare often completely recasts Plutarch. But it is also true that, when he does not expressly do so, he often keeps Plutarch’s statements in his mind, even when, as in the case of the voting by tribes, he does not cite them. It counts for something then, that in the Life, Coriolanus on leaving Rome has no fixed purpose of seeking foreign help. And if we turn to the parting scene in the tragedy, and let it make its own impression, without reading into it suggestions from subsequent occurrences, I think we feel not so much that he is still undecided as that the idea has not yet entered into his head. We seem to hear the very accent of sincerity in his repetition of the maxims that erewhile he learned from his mother’s own lips, and that he clinches with the reminder:

You were used to load me

With precepts that would make invincible

The heart that conn’d them.

(iV. i. 9.)

Surely it is a real attempt at consolation, when he interrupts her maledictions on the plebeians who have banished him:

What, what, what!

I shall be loved, when I am lack’d.

(iV. i. 14.)

He seems to hint at seeking out new adventures and a new career in new regions beyond the reach of Rome, when he says:

My mother, you wot well

My hazards still have been your solace: and

Believe’t not lightly—though I go alone,

Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen

Makes fear’d and talk’d of more than seen—your son

Will or exceed the common or be caught

With cautelous baits and practice.

(iV. i. 27.)

It was not cautelous baits and practice that he would have to fear, but the open violence of Aufidius if he already thought of going to Antium, and the simile of the lonely dragon more talked of than seen would be abundantly inappropriate if it referred to his reappearance at the head of the Volscian forces: but the expressions would be quite apt if he meant to make his name redoubtable by his single prowess in strange places amidst the risks of an errant life. It is in professed anticipation of this that he rejects the companionship which Cominius offers:

Thou hast years upon thee; and thou art too full

Of the wars’ surfeits, to go rove with one

That’s yet unbruised.

(iV. i. 45.)

Are these utterances mere pretence? And have not his last farewells the genuine note of cordiality and good will? If we could imagine that he would bring himself to address those whom he afterwards called the “dastard nobles” as “my friends of noble touch,” it would still be impossible to believe him guilty of cold-hearted deceit to Virgilia and Volumnia.

Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and

My friends of noble touch, when I am forth

Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come.

While I remain above the ground, you shall

Hear from me still, and never of me aught

But what is like me formerly.

(iV. i. 48.)

It would not be like the former champion of Rome to return as its assailant; but we may take it that at this moment he is expecting to carve his way to glory in a different world and perhaps eventually be recalled to his country, but in any case to proceed merely on the old lines in so far as that is possible, and meanwhile to be reported of, as Menenius continues, “worthily as any ear can hear.”

If, then, he is speaking honestly in this scene, how are we to account for his change of purpose when we next meet him a renegade in Antium? No explanation was needed in Plutarch, for the circumstances were not quite the same. There he had only not resolved to join the enemy; here he apparently has resolved to do something else. In the Life after leaving the city he merely comes to a decision, in the play he reverses the decision he has formed. So some statement is needed of the cause for the alteration of his plans, and at first sight there seems to be none. Yet there is a hint and a fairly emphatic one, though it has not been worked out; a hint, moreover, which is the more significant that it is one of Shakespeare’s interpolations.

When the sentence of banishment is pronounced and Coriolanus has retired to his house, there follows a passage which has no parallel or foundation in Plutarch. It is the one already referred to in another connection in which Sicinius gives his mean and malicious order to the people:

Go, see him out at gates, and follow him,

As he hath follow’d you, with all despite:

Give him deserved vexation.

(iII. iii. 138.)

And the citizens promptly agree:

Come, come; let’s see him out at gates; come.

(iII. iii. 141.)

This is at the very close of the Third Act, and the Fourth Act begins in “Rome, before a gate of the city” with the scene of leave-taking discussed above. We naturally expect that it will be interrupted by the popular demonstrations which the tribunes have contrived, especially as these exist only in Shakespeare’s imagination; but it passes off without any hint of them. Only patrician persons appear by whom Coriolanus is beloved and who are beloved by him: and no hostile murmur jars on the solemnity of their grief. But that does not mean that it may not do so even now. He is not yet beyond the walls, and towards the close bids his friends: “Bring me out at gate”; which, we assume, they do forthwith. There is still time for the plebeians to execute their masters’ orders, and though we witness nothing of the kind, there is no reason to believe that they failed to do so. It is easy to conjecture why Shakespeare thought it unnecessary to present this incident to eye and ear. It would have disturbed the quiet dignity of the parting interview; it would have repeated at a lower pitch, without the accompaniment of suspense, and therefore with the risk of monotony and flatness, the tumultuary motif of preceding scenes. But Shakespeare’s variations from his authority are not idle, and we cannot suppose that the tribune’s direction, though we do not actually see it carried out, was a meaningless tag. There is room enough in the economy of the play for its fulfilment beyond the stage. We may imagine that just as Coriolanus’ friends proceed to “bring him out at gate” the insulting irruption takes place; and in the next scene, “a street near the gate,” we find the tribunes, the work done, dismissing their agents:

Bid them all home; he’s gone, and we’ll no further.

(iV. ii. i.)

It seems probable that this last indignity, a hurt to his pride more galling than any refusal of office or sentence of banishment, drives Coriolanus to his fury of vindictiveness; and that the failure of the nobles to protect him from the outrage has in his eyes confounded them with his more ignoble enemies. Indeed, he almost says as much in his speech to Aufidius. In that speech, as we have seen, Shakespeare adheres more closely to North than in any other continuous passage in the play, and the greatest variation occurs in a line that would apply with peculiar aptness to the purely Shakespearian episode of the last affront, and that sets forth the main cause of the exile’s resentment. In Plutarch, after saying that only the surname of Coriolanus remains to him, he continues:

The rest the envie and crueltie of the people of Rome have taken from me, by the sufferance of the dastardly nobilitie and magistrates, who have forsaken me, and let me be banished by the people.

This becomes:

The cruelty and envy of the people,

Permitted by our dastard nobles, who

Have all forsook me, hath devour’d the rest:

And suffer’d me by the voice of slaves to be

Whoop’d out of Rome.

(iV. v. 80.)

Considering all these things there seems to be no evidence in Marcius’ parting professions of acquired duplicity.

But, again, it is said that for his revenge he condescends to fawn upon Aufidius and the Volscians. This is not very plausible. His speech of greeting certainly shows no servile propitiation, and according to Tullus it is conspicuously absent in his subsequent behaviour:

He bears himself more proudlier,

Even to my person, than I thought he would

When first I did embrace him: yet his nature

In that’s no changeling; and I must excuse

What cannot be amended.

(iV. vii. 8.)

And elsewhere Tullus complains that his guest has “waged him with his countenance.” The only ground for saying that he paid court to the Volsces is alleged in Tullus’ speech that just precedes this accusation of haughtiness to himself:

He water’d his new plants with dews of flattery,

Seducing so my friends; and, to this end,

He bow’d his nature, never known before

But to be rough, unswayable and free.

(V. vi. 23.)

But the speaker is an enemy, and an enemy who has to account for the disagreeable circumstance that his own adherents have gone over to his rival, and who, moreover, at the time is looking for a plea that “admits of good construction.” There is nothing that we see or hear of Coriolanus elsewhere that supports the charge. We are told, indeed, that the Volscians throng to him and do him homage. The very magnates of Antium, Aufidius included, treat him like a demi-god:

Why, he is so made on here within, as if he were son and heir to Mars; set at upper end o’ the table: no question asked by any of the senators, but they stand bald before him: our general himself makes a mistress of him; sanctifies himself with ’s hand and turns up the white o’ the eye to his discourse.

(iV. v. 203.)

Recruits throng to his standard and the army worships him. The Lieutenant tells Aufidius:

I do not know what witchcraft’s in him, but

Your soldiers use him as the grace ’fore meat,

Their talk at table, and their thanks at end.

(iV. vii. 2.)

Doubtless this enthusiasm would have its effect on Marcius. Eagerness of service, coupled with confidence in himself, has before now warmed him to graciousness, and in his own despite wrung from him inspiring compliments. When at Cominius’ camp before Corioli the volunteers crowded round him, waved their swords, and took him up in their arms, he was almost hyperbolical in his praises:

O, me alone! make you a sword of me?

If these shows be not outward, which of you

But is four Volsces? none of you but is

Able to bear against the great Aufidius

A shield as hard as his.

(i. vi. 76.)

So we may well believe that his soldierly spirit would respond promptly and lavishly when the Volscians rallied round him. But such appreciation, however his outstripped competitor might interpret it, would have nothing in common with the arts of the sycophant and the time-server; nor is there anything else in Coriolanus’ conduct that explains or confirms ever so slightly the charge of the interested and envious Aufidius.

On the contrary he remains true, and even too true, to his original nature. It is the outrage on his self-respect that drives him to the Volscians, and his self-respect still gives the law to his life, and would forbid all petty vices, though it enjoins heroic crime. A man like this could not be expected to palliate or overlook the profanation of his cherished dignity. The passion of pride at his ear, he sets himself to rupture all weaker ties of passion or instinct. And yet he himself is half aware of his mistake, and he has to fortify himself in his obstinate perversity. This is shown in two ways: first, he has a smothered sense of the inadequacy of his justification; and, second, he cannot with all his efforts be quite consistent in his revenge.

Of his repressed feeling that the offence does not excuse the retaliation, we have repeated confessions on his part, all the more striking that they are involuntary and perhaps unconscious. Thus, just after he has sought out the enemy of his country, he soliloquises:

O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,

Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,

Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise,

Are still together, who twin, as ’twere, in love

Unseparable, shall within this hour,

On a dissension of a doit, break out

To bitterest enmity: so, fellest foes,

Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep

To take the one the other, by some chance,

Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends

And interjoin their issues. So with me:

My birth-place hate I, and my love’s upon

This enemy town.

(iV. iv. 12.)

Here he acknowledges that his change of sides has the most trivial occasion. Friends fall out on a dissension of a doit while foes are reconciled for some trick not worth an egg; and he applies this principle to his own case: “So with me.” After all he has infinitely more in common with the Romans than he can ever have in common with the Volscians, infinitely more reason for hating this enemy town than he can ever have for hating his own birth-place.

Or again, when on the point of dismissing Menenius, he says:

That we have been familiar

Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather

Than pity note how much.

(V. ii. 91.)

He admits, then, that his wilful oblivion is “ingrate,” and realises that pity would consider the old relations.

Or, once more, almost at the close, when he feels himself in danger of yielding to the voice of nature, he utters the truculent prayer:

Let it be virtuous to be obstinate;

(V. iii. 26.)

which implies that he knew it was not.

On the other hand, with all his doggedness, he cannot be quite consequent in his rancour. He may lead her foes against his “thankless country” as he calls it, but he has a lurking kindliness even for the Rome he thinks he detests. As we learn from Aufidius’ speech:

Although it seems,

And so he thinks, and is no less apparent

To the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly,

And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,

Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon

As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone

That which shall break his neck or hazard mine,

Whene’er we come to our account.

(iV. vii. 19.)

This is no doubt suggested by the incident of the thirty days’ truce, of which Plutarch makes so much and which Shakespeare totally suppresses. But the vague reference becomes all the more pregnant, when we are to understand that Coriolanus has at unawares and against his purpose granted some little concessions to the victims of his wrath. That Aufidius’ statement has some foundation, is made probable by the words of the First Antium Lord, who is no enemy to Marcius, but reproaches Tullus with his murder and reverently bewails his death:

What faults he made before the last, I think,

Might have found easy fines.

(V. vi. 64.)

Faults, then, from the Volscian point of view he has committed in the opinion of a sympathetic and impartial onlooker: which means that as a Roman he has shown forbearance.

So much for the toll that he pays to his patriotism; but neither can he quite uproot the old associations with his class. He may denounce the “dastard nobles,” but he does concede something to Menenius, the patrician whose aristocratic prejudices are most akin to his own:

Their latest refuge

Was to send him; for whose old love I have,

Though I show’d sourly to him, once more offer’d

The first conditions, which they did refuse

And cannot now accept: to grace him only

That thought he could do more, a very little

I have yielded to.

(V. iii. 11.)

And, coming to the chief in his trinity of interests, he may seek to break all bond and privilege of nature and refuse to be such a gosling to obey instinct, but the natural instinct of the family is too strong for him; before it his resolution crumbles to pieces, though he foresees the result.

O mother, mother!

What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,

The gods look down, and this unnatural scene

They laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!

You have won a happy victory to Rome;

But for your son,—believe it, O, believe it,

Most dangerously you have with him prevail’d,

If not most mortal to him.

(V. iii. 182.)

Still this collapse of Coriolanus’ purpose means nothing more than the victory of his strongest impulse. There is no acknowledgment of offence, there is no renovation of character, there is not even submission to the highest force within his experience. Our admiration of his surrender is not unmixed. It is a moving spectacle to see a man, despite all the solicitations of wrath and revenge, of interest and fear, obedient to what is on the whole so salutary an influence as domestic affection. But loyalty to this will not of itself avail to safeguard anyone from criminal entanglements, or to equip him for beneficent public action, or to change the current of his life. It may mean the triumph of a natural tendency that happens to be good over other natural tendencies that happen to be bad, but it does not mean acceptance of duty as duty, or anxiety to satisfy the claims that different duties impose. Hence Coriolanus, to the very end, leaves unredeemed his inherited obligations to Rome, while he leaves unfulfilled his voluntary pledges to his allies. Even in Plutarch’s narrative Shakespeare’s insight is not required to detect this underlying thought, but in the Comparison, which there is proof that Shakespeare had studied, it is set forth so clearly that he who runs may read.

He made the Volsces (of whome he was generall) to lose the oportunity of noble victory. Where in deede he should (if he had done as he ought) have withdrawen his armie with their counsaill and consent, that had reposed so great affiance in him, in making him their generall: if he had made that accompt of them, as their good will towards him did in duety binde him. Or else, if he did not care for the Volsces in the enterprise of this warre, but had only procured it of intent to be revenged, and afterwards to leave it of, when his anger was blowen over; yet he had no reason for the love of his mother to pardone his contrie; but rather he should in pardoning his contrie have spared his mother, bicause his mother and wife were members of the bodie of his contrie and cittie, which he did besiege. For in that he uncurteously rejected all publike petitions ... to gratifie only the request of his mother in his departure; that was no acte so much to honour his mother with, as to dishonour his contrie by, the which was preserved for the pitie and intercession of a woman, and not for the love of it selfe, as if it had not bene worthie of it. And so was this departure a grace, to say truly, very odious and cruell, and deserved no thanks of either partie, to him that did it. For he withdrew his army, not at the request of the Romaines, against whom he made warre: nor with their consent, at whose charge the warre was made.

That Shakespeare, with his patriotism and equity, perceived the double flaw in Coriolanus’ act of grace can hardly be doubted. He was the last man to put the household above the national gods, or to glorify breach of contract if only it were sanctioned by domestic tenderness. In point of fact, he does not acquit his hero on either count.

On the one hand, if Coriolanus remits the extreme penalty, he neither forgets nor forgives, and has no thought of return to the offending city or resumption of the old ties. Scarcely has he granted the ladies their boon, when he addresses Aufidius:

For my part

I’ll not to Rome, I’ll back with you.

(V. iii. 197.)

And his speech to the senators of Antium shows no revival of former loyalties:

Hail, lords! I am return’d your soldier,

No more infected with my country’s love

Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting

Under your great command. You are to know

That prosperously I have attempted and

With bloody passage led your wars even to

The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home

Do more than counterpoise a full third part

The charges of the action. We have made peace

With no less honour to the Antiates

Than shame to the Romans.

(V. vi. 71.)

The insolent announcement of the invasion carried to the gates of the capital, of the plunder that substantially exceeds the cost, of the humiliating terms imposed on his countrymen, is ample proof that in Coriolanus there is no recrudescence of patriotism.

Yet, despite his words, he has been false to the Volscians. However base were his motives, Aufidius speaks the truth when he says:

Perfidiously

He has betray’d your business, and given up,

For certain drops of salt, your city Rome,

I say “your city,” to his wife and mother;

Breaking his oath and resolution like

A twist of rotten silk, never admitting

Counsel o’ the war.

(V. vi. 91.)

It is the opinion of the First Lord, despite his impartiality and his sympathy with Marcius:

There to end

Where he was to begin, and give away

The benefit of our levies, answering us

With our own charge; making a treaty where

There was a yielding,—this admits no excuse,

(V. vi. 65.)

Thus both his native and his adopted country have reason to complain. He remains a traitor to the one, while yet he breaks faith with the other.

Of course, in theory there was a middle course possible, which would have served the best interests of the two states equally. He might have used his influence to establish a lasting and intimate alliance; and this was the policy that Volumnia outlined in her plea:

If it were so that our request did tend

To save the Romans, thereby to destroy

The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us

As poisonous to your honour: no; our suit

Is, that you reconcile them: while the Volsces

May say, “This mercy we have show’d”; the Romans,

“This we received”; and each in either side

Give the all-hail to thee, and cry “Be blest

For making up this peace!”

(V. iii. 132.)

But such an all-hail was not for Coriolanus to win. It is one of the charges which Plutarch brings against him in the Comparison, that he neglected the opportunity.

By this dede of his he tooke not away the enmity that was betwene both people.

But how could he, when he had no special desire for the well-being of either, and when his heart was unchanged? His family affection has got the better of his narrower egoism, but even after sacrificing a portion of his revenge, he remains essentially the man he was, and is no more capable of pursuing a judicious and conciliatory policy now for the good of the whole and his own good, than of old in the market-place of Rome.

For to the end he is imprudent, headstrong, and violent as ever. He sees quite clearly that his compliance with his mother’s prayer must be dangerous, if not mortal, to him. Dangerous it is, mortal it need not be. With a little more self-restraint and circumspection, a little less aggressiveness and truculence, he might still preserve both his life and his authority. It is his unchastened spirit, not the questionable treaty, that is the direct cause of his death. Indeed, in a sense, the treaty had nothing to do with it. In Shakespeare, though not in Plutarch, Tullus, as we have seen, when he still anticipated the capture of Rome, determined to make away with his rival so soon as that should take place; and from what we know of Coriolanus’ character, and Tullus’ comprehension of it[263] and general astuteness in management, we feel sure that the scheme was bound to succeed, if Coriolanus persisted in his old ways. Even as things have turned out, Marcius has all the odds in his favour. His triumphal entry into Antium is a repetition of his triumphal entry into Rome. When, according to the stage direction, “Drums and trumpets sound, with great shouts of the People,” the malcontents turn to Aufidius:

First Conspirator. Your native town you enter’d like a post,

And had no welcomes home; but he returns,

Splitting the air with noise.

Second Conspirator.And patient fools,

Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear

With giving him the glory.

(V. vi. 50.)

That is, the admiration of the populace, constrained by his prowess, is the same sort of obstacle to these factionaries as it formerly was to the tribunes; and with that, and his great services as well, he commands the situation. He needs only a minimum of skill and moderation to carry all before him. So the problem of his antagonists is the same in both cases: namely, to neutralise these advantages by rousing his passion, and provoking him to show his pride, his recklessness, his uncompromising rigour. In both cases he falls into the trap, and converts the popular goodwill to hatred by defiantly harping on the injuries he has inflicted on his admirers. He is the unregenerate “superman” to the last. The suppression of his victorious surname, the taunts of “traitor” and “boy,” drive him mad. He lets himself be transported to a bravado that must shake from sleep all the latent hostility of the Volscians.

Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart

Too great for what contains it. Boy! O slave!

Pardon me, lords, ’tis the first time that ever

I was forc’d to scold. Your judgements, my grave lords,

Must give this cur the lie: and his own notion—

Who wears my stripes impress’d upon him; that

Must bear my beating to his grave—shall join

To thrust the lie unto him.

First Lord. Peace, both, and hear me speak.

Coriolanus. Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,

Stain all your edges on me. Boy! false hound!

If you have writ your annals true, ’tis there,

That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I

Flutter’d your Volscians in Corioli;

Alone I did it. Boy!

The patient fools, whose children he had slain, are not patient now, and no longer tear their throats in acclaiming his glory. Their cries, “Tear him to pieces,” “He killed my son,” and the like, give the conspirators the cue, and Aufidius is presently standing on his body.

It is not, then, as a martyr to retrieved patriotism that Coriolanus perishes, but as the victim of his own passion. In truth, the victory he won over himself under the influence of his mother, though real, is very incomplete. His piety to the hearth saves him from the superlative infamy of destroying his country, which is something, and even a good deal; but it is not everything; and beyond that it has no result, public or personal. On the contrary, Coriolanus’ isolated and but partly justified act of clemency receives its comment from the motives that induced it, the troth-breach that accompanied it, and the rage in which he passed away. If, like his son with the butterfly, he did grasp honour at the close, it was disfigured by his rude handling. But at least he never belies his own great though mixed nature, and it is fitting that his death, needless but heroic, should have its cause in his nature and be such as his nature would select. Indeed, it is both his nemesis and his guerdon. For he would not be a Roman, he could not be a Volsce; what part could he have played in the years to come? Perhaps Shakespeare read in Philemon Holland’s rendering the alternative account that Livy gives of the final scene.

I find in Fabius, a most ancient writer, that he lived untill he was an old man: who repeateth this of him: that oftentimes in his latter daies he used to utter this speech: A heavie case and most wretched, for an aged man to live banisht.

At all events some such feeling as his regrets in this variant tradition suggest, makes us prefer the version that Plutarch followed and that Shakespeare adapted. Coriolanus deserves to be spared the woes that the future has in store. As it is, he falls in the fulness of his power, inspired by great memories to greater audacity, and, no doubt, elated at the thought of challenging and outbraving death, when death is sure to win.

APPENDIX A
NEAREST PARALLELS BETWEEN GARNIER’S CORNELIE,
IN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH VERSIONS,
AND JULIUS CAESAR

It should be remembered that it is not on these particular equivalents, mostly very loose, that those who uphold the theory of connection between the two plays rely, but on the general drift of the corresponding scenes which in this respect strikingly resemble each other and in no way produce the same impression as the narrative of Plutarch.

French.	English.
Cassie. Miserable Cité, tu armes contre toy	Cassius. Accursed Rome, that arm’st against thy selfe
La fureur d’un Tyran pour le faire ton Roy:	A Tyrants rage, and mak’st a wretch thy King:
Tu armes tes enfans, injurieuse Romme,	For one mans pleasure (O injurious Rome!)
Encontre tes enfans, pour le plaisir d’un homme:	Thy chyldren gainst thy chyldren arm’d:
Et ne te souvient plus d’avoir faict autrefois	And thinkst not of the riuers of theyr bloode,
Tant ruisseler de sang four n’avoir point de Rois,	That earst were shed to saue thy libertie,
Pour n’estre point esclave, et ne porter flechie	Because thou euer hatedst Monarchie.[264]...
Au sendee d’un seul, le joug de Monarchie.[265] (line 1065.)
... Quoy Brute? et nous faut-il trop craignant le danger,	But, Brutus, shall wee dissolutelie sitte
Laisser si laschement sous un Prince ranger?	And see the tyrant line to tyranize?
Faut-il que tant de gens morts pour nostre franchise	Or shall theyr ghosts, that dide to doe us good,
Se plaignent aux tombeaux de nostre couardise?	Plaine in their Tombes of our base cowardise....
Et que les peres vieux voisent disant de nous,
“Ceux-là ont mieux aimé, tant ils ont le coeur mous,	“See where they goe that haue theyr race forgot!
Honteusement servir en dementant leur race,	And rather chuse, (unarm’d) to serue with shame,
Qu’armez pour le païs mourir dessus la place.”[266] (line 1101.)	Then, (arm’d), to saue their freedom and their fame!”[267]
Brute. Je jure par le Ciel, thrône des Immortels,	Brutus. I swear by heauen, th’ Immortals highest throne.
Par leurs images saincts, leurs temples, leurs autels,	Their temples, Altars, and theyr Images,
De ne souffrir, vray Brute, aucun maistre entreprendre	To see (for one) that Brutus suffer not
Sur nostre liberte, si je la puis defendre.	His ancient liberty to be represt.
J’ai Cesar en la guerre ardentement suyvi,	I freely marcht with Caesar in hys warrs,
Pour maintenir son droit, non pour vivre asservi ...	Not to be subject, but to ayde his right, ...
... Il verra que Decime a jusques aujourdhuy	But he shall see, that Brutus thys day beares
Porté pour luy l’estoc qu’il trouvera sur luy.	The self-same Armes to be aueng’d on hym....
... Je l’aime cherement, je l’aime, mais le droit	I loue, I loue him deerely. But the loue
Qu’on doit à son païs, qu’à sa naissance on doit,	That men theyr Country and theyr birth-right beare,
Tout autre amour surmonte.[268]... (line 1109.)	Exceeds all loues.[269]...
Cassie. Tandisque Cassie aura goutte de sang	Cassius.... Know, while Cassius hath one drop of blood
En son corps animeux, il voudra vivre franc,	To feede this worthles body that you see,
Il fuira le servage ostant la tyrannie,	What reck I death, to doe so many good?
Ou l’ame de son corps il chassera bannie.[270]	In spite of Caesar, Cassius will be free.[271]
Brute. Toute ame genereuse indocile a servir	Brutus. A generous or true enobled spirit
Deteste les Tyrans.	Detests to learne what tasts of seruitude.
Cassie. Je ne puis m’asservir,	Cassius. Brutus, I cannot serue nor see Rome yok’d:
Ny voir que Rome serve, et plustost la mort dure	No, let me rather die a thousand deaths....
M’enferre mille fois, que vivant je l’endure....
O chose trop indigne! Un homme effeminé ...	O base indignitie! A beardles youth[272] ...
Commande a l’Univers, la terre tient en bride,[273]	Commaunds the world, and brideleth all the earth,[274]
Et maistre donne loy au peuple Romulide,	And like a prince controls the Romulists;
Aux enfants du dieu Mars....	Braue Roman Souldiers, sterne-borne sons of Mars....
O Brute, O Servilie, Qu’ores vous nous laissez une race avilie!	O Brutus, speake! O say, Servilius! Why cry you aime,[275] and see us used thus?
Brute est vivant, il sçait, il voit, il est present,	But Brutus liues, and sees, and knowes, and feeles,
Que sa chere patrie on va tyrannisant:	That there is one that curbs their Countries weale.
Et comme s’il n’estoit qu’une vaine semblance De Brut son ayeul, non sa vraye semence,	Yet (as he were the semblance, not the sonne, Of noble Brutus, his great Grandfather);
S’il n’avoit bras ny mains, sens ny coeur, pour oser,	As if he wanted hands, sence, sight or hart,
Simulacre inutile, aux Tyrans s’opposer:	He doth, deuiseth, sees, nor dareth ought,
Il ne fait rien de Brute, et et d’heure en heure augmente	That may extirpe or raze these tyrannies:
Par trop de laschetéla force violente. (line 1201.)	Nor ought doth Brutus that to Brute belongs, But still increaseth by his negligence His owne disgrace and Caesars violence.