INDEX

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BY

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Formerly Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford

Shakespearean Tragedy

LECTURES ON HAMLET, OTHELLO,
KING LEAR, MACBETH

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A History of English Prosody

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Footnotes:

[1] Quotations taken, with a few obvious emendations, from Mr. Farmer’s reproduction in the Tudor Facsimile Texts.

[2] The hurt of impurity, not of death.

[3] Altered unnecessarily to out after by Mr. Carew Hazlitt in his edition of Dodsley’s Old English Plays. Appius’ words imply that the two principles pass from his life, and the spectators are asked to imagine that they actually see the process.

[4] Text, Mansipula.

[5] Altered by Hazlitt to “brave.” It probably means “embrace.”

[6] A horse that does not see where it is going.

[7] In original, he.

[8] Heed.

[9] Make me detestable.

[10] Professor Butler, to whom I am indebted for other emendations of the passage, which is very corrupt in the printed text, suggests Palladis, which gives a meaning, the Virgin goddess, and saves the metre. But I am not sure that R. B. had any bigoted objection to false quantities.

[11] I.e. “whoever.”

[12] Fall, causative; “the tears she copiously shed.”

[13] Charybdis.

[14] Original, was.

[15] So Hazlitt; in the original Adrice.

[16] In the original, Lacefaer.

[17] It is from this that I quote. I have not been able to see either the first edition or the reprint for the Spenser Society.

[18] Exchanged.

[19] Has small consideration.

[20] Mad.

[21] Statues.

[22]

Tu quoque terris altera Juno

Soror Augusti

coniunxque graves vince dolores. (Line 224, ed. Peiper & Richter).

This is now assigned to the chorus.

[23]

Perage imperata: mitte qui Plauti mihi

Sillaeque caesi referat abscissum caput. (Line 449.)

[24]

Quin destinamus proximum thalamis diem? (Line 604.)

[25] Guiding to ruin.

[26]

Tellure rupta Tartaro gressum extuli

stygiam cruenta praeferens dextra facem

thalamis scelestis. (Line 605.)

[27]

Licet extruat marmoribus atque auro tegat

superbus aulam, limen armatae ducis

servent cohortes, mittat immensas opes

exhaustus orbis, supplices dextram petant

Parthi cruentam, regna divitias ferant:

veniet dies tempusque quo reddat suis

animam nocentem sceleribus jugulum hostibus

desertus ac destructus et cunctis egens. (Line 636.)

[28] Destruction of fair buildings.

[29]

Mox tecta flammis concidant urbis meis,

ignes ruinae noxium populum premant

turpisque egestas saeva cum luctu fames. (Line 847.)

[30] At once.

[31]

Sed iam spes est nulla salutis:

fratris cerno miseranda ratem,

hac en cuius vecta carina

quondam genetrix

nunc et thalamis expulsa soror

miseranda vehar. (Line 926.)

[32] Altars.

[33] Than.

[34]

Lenes aurae zephyrique leves

tectam quondam nube aetheria

qui vixistis raptam saevae

virginis aris Iphigeniam,

hanc quoque tristi procul a poena

portate precor templa ad Triviae.

Urbe est nostra mitior Aulis

et Maurorum {note} barbara tellus;

hospitis illic caede litatur

numen superum,

civis gaudet Roma cruore. (Line 1002.)

{note} Better reading, Taurorum.

[35] The original author has a right to complain:

Intravit hostis hei mihi captam domum

dolisque novercae principis factus gener

idemque natus iuvenis infandi ingeni

scelerum capacis dira cui genetrix facem

accendit et te iunxit invitam metu. (Line 155.)

[36] “Jodelle’s und Garnier’s Dramen sind reicher an Sentenzen als die Seneca’s, Jodelle hat mehr als doppelt so viel.” Gedankenkreis ... in Jodelle’s und Garnier’s Tragödien, by Paul Kahnt, who gives the results of his calculations in an interesting table.

[37]

Numerent triumphos, cum volent, alii suos,

Seque {note} subactis nominent provinciis.

Plus est vocari Caesarem; quisquis novos

Aliunde titulos quaerit, is jam detrahit:

Numerare ductu vis meo victas plagas?

Percurrito omnes.

{note} Insert ex.

[38]

quemque noluerat parem,

Tulit priorem.

[39]

Coelum petendum est: terra jam vilet mihi....

Jam vel mihi, vel patriae vixi satis....

Hostes perempti, civibus leges datae,

Digestus annus, redditus sacris nitor,

Compostus orbis, cogitari nec queunt

Majora cuiquam, nec minora a me geri....

Cum vita partes muneris functa est sui,

Mors propera nunquam, sera nonnunquam venit.

[40]

Nihilne te virtus tuorum commovet,

Nomenque Bruti? nihil {note} gementis patriae,

Pressae a tyranno, opemque poscentis tuam

Conditio dura? nil libelli supplices,

Queis Brutum abesse civitatis vindicem

Cives queruntur? Haec parum si te movent,

Tua jam, vir ut sis, te satis conjux monet,

Fidem cruore quae tibi obstrinxit suam.

Testata sic se avunculi prolem tui.

{note} Certainly read nil.

[41]

At vero non rex iste, sed dictator est.

Dum res sit una, quid aliud nomen juvat?

At nomen illud refugit, et oblatas sibi

Rejicit coronas. Fingere hoc et ludere est.

Nam cur Tribunos igitur amovit loco?

At mihi et honores et semel vitam dedit.

Plus patria illis omnibus apud me potest.

Qui se tyranno in patriam gratum exhibet,

Dum vult inepte gratus esse, ingratus est.

[42]

Phoebus renascens subditos cives jugo,

Servosque vidit: liberos videat cadens.

[43]

Jam saepe dixi, id esse consilium mihi,

Salvis perimere civibus tyrannida.

Cass. Perimatur ergo ab infimis radicibus,

Ne quando posthac caesa rursum pullulet.

Bru. Latet sub uno tota radix corpore.

Cass. Itan’ videtur? amplius nil proloquar.

Tibi pareatur; te sequimur omnes ducem.

[44]

Quid? Somniis me credere tuis postulas?

Cal. Non: sed timori ut non nihil tribuas meo.

Caes. At iste solis nititur somniis timor.

Cal. Finge esse vanum: tribuito aliquid conjugi.

[45]

Magnanime Caesar, quod tibi verbum excidit?

[46]

O statum deterrimum,

Si Caesar orbem, Caesarem mulier regit!...

Quid, Caesar, animi patribus credis fore,

Si te jubente convocatos jusseris

Abire nunc, redire, cum Calpurniae

Meliora sese objecerint insomnia?

Vade potius constanter, et nomen cape

Parthis timendum; aut, hoc minus si te juvat,

Prodito saltem, atque ipse patres mittito:

Ne negligi se, aut ludibrio haberi putent.

[47]

Sed tamen quando semel

Vel cadere praestat, quam metu longo premi;

Non si tracentis vocibus vatum avocer,

Non si ipse voce propria praesens Deus

Moneat pericli, atque hic manendum suadeat,

Me continebo.

[48]

Brut. Spirate cives! Caesar interfectus est....

In curia, quam oppresserat, oppressus jacet.

Cass. En, Roma, gladium adhuc tepentem sanguine;

En dignitatis vindicem dextram tuae.

Impurus ille, qui furore nefario,

Rabieque caeca, te et tuos vexaverat,

Hac, hac manu, atque hoc, hocce gladio, quem vides,

Consauciatus, et omnibus membris lacer

Undam cruoris, et animum evomuit simul.

[49]

Desinite flere: lacrymae miseros decent.

Qui me furenti, (vera praemoneo Indiges)

Sunt animo adorti, non inultum illud ferent.

Heres meae virtutis, ut sceptri mei,

Nepos sororis, arbitratu pro suo

Poenos reposcet.

[50] I am quite unable to agree with Herr Collischonn’s view that Muret’s play is more republican in sentiment than that of Grévin. In both there is some discrepancy and contradiction, but with Muret, Caesar is a more prominent figure than Brutus, taking part in three scenes, if we include his intervention after death, while Brutus appears only in two, and to my mind Caesar makes fully as sympathetic an impression. On the other hand, the alleged monarchic bias of Grévin’s work cannot be considered very pronounced, when, as M. Faguet mentions in his Tragédie française au XVIͤ Siècle, “it was reprinted in the time of Ravaillac with a preface violently hostile to the principle of monarchy.” But see Herr Collischonn’s excellent introduction to his Grevin’s Tragödie “Caesar,” Ausgaben und Abhandlungen, etc., LII.

[51] See Ruhnken’s edition of Muretus. For the text I have generally but not always used Collischonn’s reprint.

[52] Ancien Théatre François, Tome iv. ed Viollet Le Duc.

[53] As he puts it, rather comically to modern ears:

‘Avant que ce soleil qui vient ores de naistre,

Ayant tracé son jour, chez sa tante se plonge.’

[54] Enumerated by Collischonn in his excellent edition, see above. He has, however, overlooked the one I give.

[55] Tragédie Française au XVIͤ Siècle.

[56] Garnier’s Tragédies, ed. Foerster.

[57] Works of Sir William Alexander, Glasgow, 1872. Julius Caesar, II. i.

[58] Apologie for Poetrie, Arber’s reprint.

[59] There is an edition of this by Miss Alice Luce, Literarhistorische Forschungen, 1897, but I am told it is out of print, and at any rate I have been unable to procure it. The extracts I give are transcripts from the British Museum copy, which is indexed thus: Discourse of Life and Death written in French by P. Mornay. Antonius a tragedie, written also in French by R. Garnier. Both done in English by the Countesse of Pembroke, 1592. This edition has generally been overlooked by historians of the drama, from Professor Ward to Professor Schelling (probably because it is associated with Mornay’s tract), and, as a rule, the translation of Garnier is said to have been first published in 1595. That and the subsequent editions bear a different title from the neglected first; the Tragedie of Antonie, instead of Antonius.

[60] That is, in the original version. Subsequently Daniel threw a later narrative passage describing Cleopatra’s parting from Caesarion and Rodon into scenic form, introduced it here, and followed it up with a discussion between Caesar and his advisers. This seems to be one of his attempts to impart more dramatic animation to his play, and it does so. But as dramatic animation is not what we are looking for, the improvement is doubtful.

[61] Dr. Grosart’s Edition.

[62] Kyd, ed. Boas. The Cornelia has also been edited by H. Gassner; but this edition, despite some considerable effort, I have been unable to procure.

[63] The last point is mentioned by Mr. Furness (Variorum Edition), who cites others, of which one occurs in Plutarch and the rest seem to me untenable or unimportant.

[64] [See Appendix A].

[65] Étude sur Garnier, 1880.

[66] I quote from Dodsley’s Old English Plays, ed. Hazlitt.

[67] Professor Ward calls attention to the stage direction(Act iii.): “Enter Sylla in triumph in his chair triumphant of gold, drawn by four Moors; before the chariot, his colours, his crest, his captains, his prisoners; ... bearing crowns of gold and manacled.” This, he points out, seems a reminiscence of the similar situation in Tamburlaine II., Act iv. sc. 3.: “Enter Tamberlaine drawn in his chariot by the Kings of Trebizon and Soria, with bits in their mouths, reins in his left hand, and in his right hand a whip with which he scourgeth them.” From this Professor Ward infers that Lodge’s play belongs approximately to the same date as Marlowe’s, possibly to 1587. It may be so, but there are some reasons for placing it later. The mixture of rhyme and prose instead of the exclusive use of blank verse would suggest that the influence of Tamburlaine was not very immediate. It has some points of contact with the Looking Glass which Lodge wrote along with Greene. It has the same didactic bent, though the purpose is political rather than moral, for the Wounds of Civill War enforces on its very title page the lesson that Elizabethans had so much at heart, the need of harmony in the State. Like the Looking Glass it deals rather with an historic transaction than with individual adventures, for it summarises the whole disastrous period of the conflict between Marius and Sulla. And like the Looking Glass it visualises this by scenes taken alike from dignified and low life, the latter even more out of place than the episodes of the Nineveh citizens and peasants in the joint work. In so far one is tempted to put the two together about 1591. And there is one detail that perhaps favours this view—the introduction of the Gaul with his bad English and worse French. In Greene’s James IV. (c. 1590) the assassin hired to murder Queen Dorothea is also a Frenchman who speaks broken English, and in that play such a personage is quite in keeping, violating the probabilities neither of time nor of place. It is, therefore, much more probable that, if he proved popular, Lodge would reproduce the same character inappropriately to catch the applause of the groundlings, than that Lodge should light on the first invention when that invention was quite unsuitable, and that Greene should afterwards borrow it and give it a fit setting. In the latter case we can only account for the absurdity by supposing that Lodge carried much further the anachronism in Cornelia of “the fierce and fiery-humour’d French.”

[68] Floor.

[69] Probably: “Qui est lá?” the misprint of i for l is common.

[70] Pink eyes.

[71] It is in the Dyce Collection in South Kensington and is inaccessible to me. It is described as claiming sympathy for Antony’s neglected wife.

[72] I.e. more tragic in the technical sense. Of course Mr. Bradley is quite aware that as it stands Coriolanus is “a much nobler play.” It is right to add that he expresses no opinion whether the actual close of Shakespeare’s play “was due simply to his unwillingness to contradict his historical authority on a point of such magnitude.” At any rate, I am convinced that in his eyes that was a sufficient ground.

[73] Of course Shakespeare could not be expected to anticipate the later theories and researches that go to prove that the political power of plebs and tribunate has been considerably antedated.

[74] Even the intervention of the Bastard in King John was guaranteed by the old play and was doubtless considered authentic by Shakespeare.

[75] See Plutarch’s works passim, especially North’s version of the Lives reprinted in the Tudor Translations, and the Morals translated by Philemon Holland (1603). See also Archbishop Trench’s Lectures on Plutarch.

[76] Instructions for them, etc.

[77] Life of Demosthenes.

[78] Love.

[79] Love.

[80] = Coax.

[81] Dolls.

[82] Epistle to Wife.

[83] Noctes Atticae, i. xxvi.

[84] Cato Major.

[85] Polypes.

[86] That a man cannot live pleasantly, etc.

[87] Instructions for them, etc.

[88] Even in the narrative passages one is conscious that the descriptions have been worked up. Take, e.g. the following passage from the Life of Marius:—

Ἐπεὶ δὲ πολλοὺς τῶν Ἀμβρώνων οἰ Ῥωμαῖοι διαφθείραντες ἀνεχώρησαν ὀπίσω καὶ σκότος ἐπέσχεν, οὐχ ὥσπερ εὐτυχήματι τοσούτῳ τὸν στρατὸν ἐδέξαντο παιᾶνες ἐπινίκιοι καὶ πότοι κατὰ σκηνὰς καὶ φιλοφροσύναι περὶ δεῖπνα, καὶ, τὸ πάντων ἥδιστον ἀνδράσιν εὐτυχῶς μεμαχημένοις, ὕπνος ἤπιος, ἀλλ’ ἐκείνην μάλιστα τὴν νύκτα φοβερὰν καὶ ταραχώδη διήγαγον. Ἦν μὲν γὰρ αὐτοῖς ἀχαράκωτον τὸ στρατόπεδον καὶ ἀτείχιστον, ἀπελείποντο δὲ τῶν βαρβάρων ἔτι πολλαὶ μυριάδες ἀήττητοι καὶ σνμμεμιγμένων τούτοις, ὅσοι διαπεφεύγεσαν, τῶν Ἀμβρώνων ὀδυρμὸς ἦν διὰ νυκτὸς, οὐ κλαυθμοῖς ούδὲ στεναγμοῖς ἀνθρώπων ἐοικῶς, ἀλλὰ θηρομιγής τις ὠρυγὴ καὶ βρύχημα μεμιγμένον ἀπειλαῖς καὶ θρήνοις ἀναπεμπόμενον ἐκ πλήθους τοσούτου τά τε πέριξ ὄρη καὶ τὰ κοῖλα τοῦ ποταμοῦ περιεφώνει. Καὶ κατεῖχε φρικώδης ἦχος τὸ πεδίον.

(XX. Döhner’s Edition.)

Or take this from the Life of Sulla:—

Τὴν δὲ κραυγὴν καὶ ἀλαλαγμὸν οὐκ ἔστεγεν ὁ ἀὴρ ἐθνῶν τοσούτων ἅμα καθισταμένων εἰς τάξιν. Ἤν δὲ ἅμα καὶ τὸ κομπῶδες καὶ σοβαρὸν αὐτῶν τῆς πολυτελείας οὐκ ἀργὸν οὐδὲ ἄχρηστον εἰς ἔκπληξιν, ἀλλ’ αἵ τε μαρμαρυγαὶ τῶν ὅπλων ἠσκημένων χρνσῷ τε καὶ ἀργύρῳ διαπρεπῶς αἵ τε βαφαὶ τῶν Μηδικῶν καὶ Σκυθικῶν χιτώνων ἀναμεμιγμέναι χαλκῷ καὶ σιδήρῳ λάμποντι πυροειδῆ καὶ φοβερὰν ἐν τῷ σαλεύεσθαι καὶ διαφέρεσθαι προσέβαλλον ὄψιν, ὤστε τοὺς Ῥωμαίους ὑπὸ τὸν χάρακα συστέλλειν ἑαυτοὺς καὶ τὸν Σύλλαν μηδενὶ λόγῳ τὸ θάμβος αὐτῶν ἀφελεῖν δυνάμενον βιάζεσθαί τε ἀποδιδράσκοντας οὐ βονλόμενον ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν καὶ φέρειν βαρέως ἐφυβρίζοντας ὁρῶντα κομπασμῷ καὶ γέλωτι τοὺς βαρβάρους.

(XVI. Döhner’s Edition.)

This is very different from the unstudied charm of Herodotus. Even in North’s translation, though something of the cunning has been lost in the selection and manipulation of the words, it is easy to see that the pictures are elaborate both in their general effect and their details.

Now the Romaines, after they had overcome the most parte of the Ambrons, retyring backe by reason the night had overtaken them, did not (as they were wont after they had geven such an overthrow) sing songes of victory and triumphe, nor make good chere in their tentes one with an other, and least of all sleepe: (which is the best and sweetest refreshing for men that have fought happely), but contrarily they watched all that night with great feare and trouble, bicause their campe was not trenched and fortified, and bicause they knewe also that there remained almost innumerable thowsandes of barbarous people, that had not yet fought: besides also that the Ambrons that had fled and scaped from the overthrow, did howle out all night with lowd cries, which were nothing like men’s lamentacions and sighes, but rather like wild beastes bellowing and roaringe. So that the bellowinge of such a great multitude of beastly people, mingled together with threates and waylinges, made the mountains thereabouts and the running river to rebounde againe of the sounde and ecco of their cries marvellously: by reason whereof, all the valley that lay between both, thundered to heare the horrible and fearfull trembling.

The ayer was even cut a sunder as it were with the violence of the noyse and cries of so many sundry nations, which altogether did put them selves in battell ray. The sumptuousness of their furniture moreover, was not altogether superfluous and unprofitable, but served greatly to feare the beholders. For the glistering of their harnesse, so richly trimmed and set forth with gold and silver, the cullers of their arming coates upon their curaces, after the facion of the Medes and Scythians, mingled with the bright glistering steele and shining copper, gave such a showe as they went and removed to and fro, that made a light as clere as if all had bene on a very fire, a fearfull thing to looke upon. In so much as the Romaines durst not so much as once goe out of the trenches of their campe, nor Sylla with all his perswasion coulde take away this great conceived feare from them: wherefore, (and bicause also he would not compell them to goe forth in this feare) he was driven not to stirre, but close to abide, (though it grieved him greatly) to see the barbarous people so proudly and villanously laugh him and his men to scorne.

[89] There are so many good things, despite all the inevitable mistakes, in Dryden’s Life of Plutarch, that one half regrets that Professor Ker’s plan did not allow him to include at least part of it in his admirable selection. Thus, in excuse for omitting the catalogue of Plutarch’s lost works, which had been given in full in the Paris edition: “But it is a small comfort to the merchant to pursue his bill of freight when he is certain his ship is cast away; moved by the like reason, I have omitted that ungrateful task.”

[90] De Quincey says: “Nor do I believe Wordsworth would much have lamented on his own account if all books had perished, except the entire body of English poetry and Plutarch’s Lives.... I do not mean to insinuate that Wordsworth was at all in the dark about the inaccuracy or want of authentic weight attaching to Plutarch as historian, but his business with Plutarch was not for purposes of research; he was satisfied with his fine moral effects.” So too one of Plutarch’s latest editors, Mr. Holden, says in a similar sense: “Plutarch has no idea of historic criticism.... He thought far less of finding out and relating what actually occurred than of edifying his readers and promoting virtue.”

[91] Johnson’s Life, ed. B. Hill, i. 31.

[92] Life of Alexander.

[93] See De Blignières’ Essai sur Amyot, and Amyot’s translations passim, with the prefatory epistles.

[94] ii. viii., De l’affection des pères aux enfants.

[95] Froude, Council of Trent, chap. xii.

[96] See M. de Job’s remarks in Petit de Julleville’s Littérature Française.

[97] Twelve volumes!

[98] Vive Dieu! vous ne m’auriés sceu rien mander qui me fust plus agréable que la nouvelle du plaisir de lecture qui vous a prins. Plutarque me soubrit toujours d’une fresche nouveauté; l’aymer c’est m’aymer, car il a esté longtemps l’instituteur de mon bas age: ma bonne mère à laquelle je doibs tout, et qui avoit une affection si grande de veiller à mes bons deportmens, et ne vouloit pas (ce disoit-elle) voir en son filz un illustre ignorant, me mist ce livre entre les mains, encores que je ne feusse à peine plus un enfant de mamelle. Il m’a esté comme ma conscience et il m’a dicté à l’oreille beaucoup de bonnes honestetés et maximes excellentes pour ma conduite, et pour le gouvernment de mes affaires.

[99] As he himself states in the Proesme of Théagène et Chariclée. He has occupied himself with this only, “aux heures extraordinaires, pour adoucir le travail d’autres meilleures et plus fructueuses traductions,” so as to be made “plus vif à la consideration des choses d’importance.”

[100] Je me puis plus malaysement desfaire de Plutarque; il est si universel et si plein, qu’à toutes occasions, et quelque subject extravagant que vous ayez prins, il s’ingère à vostre besongne, et vous tend une main liberale et inespuisable de richesses et d’embellissements. Il m’en faict despit, d’estre si fort exposé au pillage de ceulx qui le hantent: je ne le puis si peu raccointer, que je n’en tire cuisse ou aile (iii. 5).

[101] Mais, surtout, je lui sçais bon gré d’avoir sceu trier et choisir un livre si digne et si à propos, pour en faire présent à son pais. Nous aultres ignorants estions perdus, si ce livre ne nous eust relevé du bourbier: sa mercy nous osons à cette heure et parler et escrire; les dames en regentent les maistres d’eschole; c’est notre bresviaire (ii. 4).

[102] Je n’ay dressé commerce avecques aulcun livre solide sinon Plutarque et Senecque, où je puyse comme les Danaïdes remplissant et versant sans cesse (i. 25).

[103] Les livres qui m’y servent, c’est Plutarque depuis qu’il est françois, et Seneque (ii. iv.). Of course Montaigne knew some Greek and read it more or less. He has even his own opinion about Plutarch’s style ([see page 104]), and M. Faguet conjectures: “It is quite conceivable that Montaigne compared the translation with the text, and that it is a piece of mere affectation when he says he knows nothing of the Greek.” But doubtless he read the French much more habitually and easily.

[104] Seneque est plein de poinctes et saillies, Plutarque de choses; celuy là vous eschauffe plus et vous esmeut, cettuy ci vous contente davantage et vous paye mieulx; il nous guide, l’aultre nous poulse (ii. 10).

[105] Il y a dans Plutarque beaucoup de discours estendus très dignes d’estre sceus, car, à mon gré, c’est le maistre ouvrier de telle besongne; mais il y en a mille qu’il n’a que touchez simplement; et guigne seulement du doigt par où nous irons, s’il nous plaist; et se contente quelquefois de ne donner qu’une attaincte dans le plus vif d’un propos. Il les fault arracher de la, et mettre en place marchande.... Cela mesme de luy voir trier une legere action en la vie d’un homme, ou un mot qui semble ne porter cela, c’est un discours (i. 25).

[106] There were also translations in Italian, Spanish, and German; but none of them had anything like the literary importance of Amyot’s, and they were made from the Latin, not from the Greek. Of Hieronymus Boner, for instance, who published his Plutarch, Von dem Leben der allerdurchlauchtigsten Griechen und Romern (1st edition, Augsburg, 1534), it is misleading to say that he “anticipated” Amyot. Merzdorf writes of Boner’s versions of Greek authors generally (Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie) that he “turned them into German not from the original Greek but from Latin translations. Moreover, one must not expect from him any exact rendering, but rather a kind of paraphrase which he accommodates to the circumstances of the time.”

[107] See his preface, towards the close.

[108] In later days, too, Mr. Holden, who has busied himself with Plutarch, says “Amyot’s version is more scholarlike and correct than those of Langhorne or Dryden and others.”

[109] Cum jam majorem operis partem absolvissem, prodierunt Vitae Plutarchi gallicâ linguâ ab Amyoto conscriptae. Quem cum praeclaram ei libro operam impendisse ex iis qui linguae ejus sunt periti (quod mihi non datum est) et usum multis ac bonis codicibus audirem; amicorum adjutus ... officio, nonnullos, de quibus dubitabam, locos correxi; in haud paucis mea conjectura est illius interpretis suffragio comprobata (Ed. 1560). Xylander’s friends must have given him yeoman’s help, for he frequently discusses Amyot’s readings, generally adopting them; and for the whole life of Cato, he even goes so far as to avow: “Amyoti versionem secutus sum, Graecis non satis integris.”

[110] Ego quidem si dicere hîc non valeam, vitas me Plutarchi, quas plurimi sumpserunt antehac Itali Latine reddendas parum feliciter, me explicavisse unum et verius et mundius; hoc certe dicere queo liquide et recte, esse arbitratum me hoc effecisse (Epistola ad Lectorem, 1561, edition 1599).

[111] Interea cum jam polivissem atque emendassem vitas meas Plutarchi, ostendit mihi Bruxellae, ubi agebam illustrissimi principis mei legatus, secretarius regius editas elegantissime ab Amioto linguâ gallicâ vitas Plutarchi, quae exierant tamen in publicum sex menses antequam eas viderem. Hujus viri mihi eruditio et diligentia aliquid lucis nonnullis in locis attulit. Cui ego hoc testimonium dabo: non posse fieri, ut quisquam hoc tempore Plutarchum tam vertat ornate linguâ Latina quam vertit ille suâ (Ib.).

[112] Amyot’s own attitude is very similar. He cites the Latin versions in proof of the hardness of the original, and challenges a comparison of them with his own.

[113] Interea cum jam polivissem atque emendassem vitas meas Plutarchi, ostendit mihi Bruxellae, ubi agebam illustrissimi principis mei legatus, secretarius regius editas elegantissime ab Amioto linguâ gallicâ vitas Plutarchi, quae exierant tamen in publicum sex menses antequam eas viderem. Hujus viri mihi eruditio et diligentia aliquid lucis nonnullis in locis attulit. Cui ego hoc testimonium dabo: non posse fieri, ut quisquam hoc tempore Plutarchum tam vertat ornate linguâ Latina quam vertit ille suâ (Ib.).

[114] ii. 4.

[115] Mr. Holden.

[116] Espineux et ferré (ii. iv.). Perhaps ferré should be rendered difficult rather than crabbed. But even thorny and difficult are hardly words that one would apply to Plutarch. Montaigne’s meaning may perhaps be illustrated by the criticism of Paley: “Plutarch’s Greek is not like Lucian’s, fluent and easy, nor even clear.” He uses many words not in the ordinary Greek vocabulary; and he too often constructs long sentences, the thread of which separately as well as the connection cannot be traced without close attention. Hence he is unattractive as a writer.

[117] I do not know what authority Mr. Wyndham has for his statement that Amyot’s version of the Morals “fell comparatively dead.” It is, of course, much less read nowadays, but at the time it ran through three editions in less than four years (1572, 1574, 1575), and for the next half century there are frequent reprints.

[118] These, translated from the Latin collection of 1470, to which they had been contributed by Acciaiuoli, were included in Amyot’s third edition.

[119] That is, if we multiply them by eight.

[120] Most of the facts of the foregoing sketch are taken from the articles on the Norths in the Dictionary of National Biography, which, however, must not be considered responsible for the inferences.

[121] A charming reprint was edited by Mr. Joseph Jacobs in 1888.

[122] The whole question about the editions which Shakespeare read is a complicated one. Two things are pretty certain: (1) He must have used the first edition for Midsummer-Night’s Dream, which was in all likelihood composed before 1595, when the second appeared. (2) He must have used the first or second for Julius Caesar, which was composed before 1603, when the third appeared. It is more difficult to speak positively in regard to Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus. It has been argued that the former cannot have been derived from the first two editions, because in them Menas’ remark to Sextus Pompeius runs:

“Shall I cut the gables of the ankers, and make thee Lord not only of Sicile and Sardinia, but of the whole Empire of Rome besides?”

In the third edition this is altered to cables, and this is the form that occurs in Shakespeare:

“Let me cut the cable;

And, when we are put off, fall to their throats:

All there is thine.”

(A. and C. II. vii. 77.)

But this change is a very slight one that Shakespeare might easily make for himself on the same motives that induced the editor of the Lives to make it. And though attempts have been made to prove that the fourth edition was used for Coriolanus, there are great difficulties in accepting so late a date for that play, and one phrase rather points to one of the first two editions (see Introduction to Coriolanus). If this is really so, it affects the case of Antony and Cleopatra too, for it would be odd to find Shakespeare using the first or second edition for the latter play, and the third for the earlier one. Still, such things do occur, and I think there is a tendency in those who discuss this point to confine Shakespeare over rigidly to one edition. In the twentieth century it is possible to find men reading or re-reading a book in the first copy that comes to hand without first looking up the date on the title page. Was this practice unknown in Shakespeare’s day?

[123] Themistocles.

[124] Greek Βασιλεῦσιν. Does the habitans come from the 1470 Latin version? A later emendation is ἁλιεῦσιν.

[125] Yet in these three cases, where North is certainly behind Amyot as a narrator, he is more faithful to the Greek. This is the sort of thing that makes one ask whether he was not really in closer contact with the original than he professes to have been. One remembers his similar modesty in regard to the Diall, which, nominally from the French, really made use of the Spanish as well.

[126] Yet in these three cases, where North is certainly behind Amyot as a narrator, he is more faithful to the Greek. This is the sort of thing that makes one ask whether he was not really in closer contact with the original than he professes to have been. One remembers his similar modesty in regard to the Diall, which, nominally from the French, really made use of the Spanish as well.

[127] Yet in these three cases, where North is certainly behind Amyot as a narrator, he is more faithful to the Greek. This is the sort of thing that makes one ask whether he was not really in closer contact with the original than he professes to have been. One remembers his similar modesty in regard to the Diall, which, nominally from the French, really made use of the Spanish as well.

[128] Amyot probably and North certainly has mistaken the sense. After washing and shrouding the body “ἄλλο δε oὐδὲν ἔχων ἀλλὰ περισκοπῶν”; but having nothing else to carry out the funeral rites with, such as pine wood, spices, etc., but looking about on the beach, he found, etc.

[129] A misunderstanding on North’s part where Amyot translates the Greek quite adequately. The rendering should be “a poor naked body and moreover an incomplete one,” i.e. with the head wanting.

[130] Pompeius.

[131] Themistocles.

[132] Represents πράως. Amyot leaves out ἤψατο τοῦ γενελου, caught the chin: si grand, and estant irrité, are added.

[133] Furius Camillus.

[134] Numa Pompilius.

[135] Quarterly Review, 1861.

[136] The relations of the various versions—Greek, Latin, French, and English—are illustrated by means of this speech in Appendix B.

[137] Childish simplicity does not strike one as a correct description of Plutarch’s method.

[138] Pointed out by Mr. Stokes, Chronological Order, etc. Might not some of the expressions come, however, from Virgil’s list of the portents that accompanied Caesar’s death? Compare especially “nec diri toties arsere cometae” (G. i. 488).

[139] Collier’s Shakespeare.

[140] Mr. Halliwell-Phillips’ discovery.

[141] “Brutus and his confederates came into the market place to speake unto the people, who gave them such audience, that it seemed they neither greatly reproved, nor allowed the fact: for by their great silence they showed that they were sorry for Caesar’s death and also that they did reverence Brutus.” Julius Caesar.

“When the people saw him in the pulpit, although they were a multitude of rakehells of alle sortes, and had a good will to make some sturre, yet being ashamed to doe it for the reverence they bare unto Brutus, they kept silence to heare what he would say. When Brutus began to speak they gave him quiet audience; howbeit immediately after, they shewed that they were not all contented with the murther. For when another called Cinna would have spoken and began to accuse Caesar; they fell into a great uprore among them, and marvelously reviled him.” M. Brutus.

[142] By S. Nicholson.

[143] By Mr. Wright, Clarendon Press Edition.

[144] Henry V. v. prologue 30.

[145] Calpùrnia speaks of the appearance of comets at the death of princes, but merely in a general way, not as a presage then to be observed: and there is no mention in the play of disasters in the sun or eclipses of the moon. Near the end of the Life of Caesar, Plutarch records the first two portents, and his language suggests the idea of a solar, which, for variety’s sake, might easily be changed to a lunar eclipse. “The great comet which seven nightes together was seene very bright after Caesar’s death, the eight night after was never seene more. Also the brightnes of the sunne was darkened, the which all that yeare through was very pale, and shined not out, whereby it gave but small heate.”

[146] By Mr. Verity, Julius Caesar, 198.

[147] The late Mr. H. Sidgwick, “Julius Caesar and Coriolanus,” in Esays and Addresses.

[148] Mr. Churton Collins, Studies in Shakespeare. See also Mr. Boswell Stone, Shakespere’s Holinshed.

[149] [See Appendix C].

[150] See Introduction, [pages 60-61], and [Appendix A].

[151] [See page 98].

[152] Possibly he may have found a suggestion for this in Plutarch’s expression that at the Lupercalia, Caesar was “apparelled in a triumphant manner” (Julius Caesar); or, more definitely “apparelled in his triumphing robe” (Marcus Antonius).

[153] In the Julius Caesar it is at an interview with the Senate in the market place that Caesar, in his vexation, bares his neck to the blow, and afterwards pleads his infirmity in excuse; and nothing of the kind is recorded in connection with the offer of the crown at the Lupercalia. In the Marcus Antonius the undignified exhibition, as Plutarch regards it, is referred to the Lupercalia, and the previous incident is not mentioned.

[154] Julius Caesar.

[155] Marcus Antonius.

[156] In the Lives Faonius or Phaonius, properly Favonius, a follower of Cato. (Marcus Brutus.)

[157] Cassius says at the end of the long opening scene of the series: “It is after midnight” (Act i. iii. 163). In the last scene of the group, Cinna, on his way to Caesar’s funeral, is murdered by the rioters apparently just after they have left Antony.

[158] Julius Caesar.

[159] Genée, Shakespeare’s Leben und Werke.

[160] On this passage Coleridge has the note: “This seemingly strange assertion of Brutus is unhappily verified in the present day. What is an immense army, in which the lust of plunder has quenched all the duties of the citizen, other than a horde of robbers, or differenced only as fiends from ordinarily reprobate men? Caesar supported, and was supported by, such as these;—and even so Buonaparte in our days.” On this interpretation Brutus’ charge would come to nothing more than this, that Caesar had employed large armies. I believe there is a more definite reference to one passage or possibly two in the Marcus Antonius.

“(a) Caesar’s friends that governed under him, were cause why they hated Caesar’s government ... by reason of the great insolencies and outragious parts that were committed: amongst whom Antonius, that was of greatest power, and that also committed greatest faultes, deserved most blame. But Caesar, notwithstanding, when he returned from the warres of Spayne, made no reckoning of the complaints that were put up against him: but contrarily, bicause he found him a hardy man, and a valliant Captaine, he employed him in his chiefest affayres.

“(b) Now it greved men much, to see that Caesar should be out of Italy following of his enemies, to end this great warre, with such great perill and daunger: and that others in the meane time abusing his name and authoritie, should commit such insolent and outragious parts unto their citizens. This me thinkes was the cause that made the conspiracie against Caesar increase more and more, and layed the reynes of the brydle uppon the souldiers neckes, whereby they durst boldlier commit many extorsions, cruelties, and robberies.”

Plutarch is speaking of Antony in particular, but surely this is the sort of thing that was in Shakespeare’s mind.

[161] Coleridge’s exact words, in continuation of the passage already discussed may be quoted. “How too could Brutus say that he found no personal cause, none in Caesar’s past conduct as a man? Had he not passed the Rubicon? Had he not entered Rome as a conqueror? Had he not placed his Gauls in the Senate?—Shakespeare, it may be said, has not brought these things forward.—True;—and this is just the cause of my perplexity. What character did Shakespeare mean his Brutus to be?”

The verbal answer to this is of course that personal cause refers not to Caesar but to Brutus, and means that Brutus has no private grievance; but the substance of Coleridge’s objection remains unaffected, for Brutus proceeds to take Caesar’s character up to the present time under his protection.

It may be noted, however, that Plutarch says nothing about the Gauls. If Shakespeare had known of it, it would probably have seemed to him no worse than the presence of the Bretons, “those overweening rags of France,” as Richard III. calls them, in the army of the patriotic and virtuous Richmond.

[162] See Professor Dowden, Shakespeare’s Mind and Art.

[163] Julius Caesar.

[164] Marcus Brutus.

[165] Reputation.

[166] The comparison of Dion with Brutus.

[167] All this is so obvious that it can hardly be overlooked, yet overlooked it has been, though it has frequently been pointed out. In his not very sympathetic discussion of this play, Dr. Brandes makes the truly astounding statement: “As Shakespeare conceives the situation, the Republic which Caesar overthrew, might have continued to exist but for him, and it was a criminal act on his part to destroy it.... ‘If we try to conceive to ourselves’ wrote Mommsen in 1857, ’a London with the slave population of New Orleans, with the police of Constantinople, with the non-industrial character of modern Rome, and agitated by politics after the fashion of the Paris of 1848, we shall acquire an approximate idea of the republican glory, the departure of which Cicero and his associates in their sulky letters deplore.’ Compare with this picture Shakespeare’s conception of an ambitious Caesar striving to introduce monarchy into a well-ordered republican state” (Brandes, William Shakespeare). Of course Shakespeare had not read Mommsen or any of Mommsen’s documents, save Plutarch; and if he had, neither he nor any one else of his age, was capable of Mommsen’s critical and constructive research. But considering the data that Plutarch delivered him he shows marvellous power in getting to the gist of the matter. I think we rise with a clearer idea, after reading him than after reading Plutarch, of the hopelessness and vanity of opposing the changes that Caesar represented, of the effeteness of the republican system (“Let him be Caesar!” cries the citizen in his strange recognition of Brutus’ achievement), of the chaos that imperialism alone could reduce to rule. If Shakespeare’s picture of Rome is that of “a well-ordered republican state,” one wonders what the picture of a republic in decay would be. And where does Dr. Brandes find that Shakespeare viewed Caesar’s enterprise as a criminal act?

[168] Julius Caesar.

[169] Ibid.

[170] Shakespeare, His Life, Art and Characters.

[171] Shakespeare Commentaries.

[172] Julius Caesar.

[173] Marcus Brutus.

[174] Of course the substitution of the third for the second or first person is very noticeable all through this play, and may have been due to an idea on Shakespeare’s part that such a mode of utterance suited the classical and Roman majesty of the theme. But this rather confirms than refutes the argument of the text, for the usage is exceptionally conspicuous in regard to Caesar, in whom the majesty of Rome is summed up.

[175] Compare the argument in the Phaedo, with its conclusion: “Then there may be reason in saying that a man should wait and not take his own life till God summons him.” Jowett’s Plato, Vol. I.

[176] Voltaire decorously invents a secret marriage!

[177] The comparison of Dion with Brutus.

[178] i.e. in reference to.

[179] It will be noticed that in this episode Shakespeare has altered Plutarch’s narrative in two respects. In the first place Cassius did give money to the amount of “the thirde part of his totall summe.” This is not very important, as in the play he disclaims having ever refused it. But in the second place Brutus was neither so scrupulous nor so unsuccessful in raising supplies, but had used them in a quite practical way, that Captain Mahan would thoroughly approve, in developing his sea power: “all that he could rappe and rend ... 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.”

[180] Two objections have been made to this scene, or, rather to the whole act. The first, in Mr. Bradley’s words that it has a “tendency to drag” (Shakespearian Tragedy), is put more uncompromisingly by Mr. Baker (Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist); “[Shakespeare] produced in Julius Caesar a fourth act probably not entirely successful even in his own day”; and afterwards he refers to it as “ineffective to-day.” In view of Digges’ testimony, it is difficult to see how Mr. Baker can say that it was not entirely successful in Shakespeare’s day. As to the impression it makes now, one must largely depend on one’s own feeling and experience. Certainly I myself have never been conscious that it dragged or was ineffective, nor have I noted that it failed to stir the audience. I have never been present at a first-rate performance, but I have seen it creditably presented in Germany, England and Australia; and on every occasion it seemed to me that the quarrel scene was the most popularly successful in the play. This statement is, I believe, strictly accurate, for having Digges’ lines in my mind I was on the watch to see whether the taste of the Elizabethan coincided with the taste of a later generation.

The second criticism is that in the economy of the piece it leads to nothing, “unless,” as Mr. Bradley says, “we may hold that but for the quarrel and reconciliation, Cassius would not have allowed Brutus to overcome his objection to the fatal policy of offering battle at Philippi.” This is quite true, though the proviso is a most important one. But it does very manifestly connect with what has gone before, and gives the essence and net result of the story. We could sooner dispense with the Fifth Act than the Fourth, for the Fifth may with less injustice be described as an appendix than the Fourth as an episode. Not only is it less unique in kind, but for the most part it works out issues that can easily be foreseen and that to some extent are clearly indicated here. Of course this is not to say that it could be rejected without mutilating the play, for it works them out far more impressively than we could do in our own imaginations, even with Plutarch to help us.

[181] This explanation is offered with great diffidence, but it is the only one I can suggest for what is perhaps the most perplexing passage in the play, not even excepting the soliloquy of Brutus.

[182] What a strange effect these words are apt to produce on auditor and reader! “How true!” we say, “The prophecy is fulfilled. This is happening now.” And then the reflection comes that just because that is the case there is no prophecy and no truth in the scene; the whole is being enacted, in sport. We experience a kind of vertigo, in which we cannot distinguish the real and the illusory and yet are conscious of both in their highest potence. And this is a characteristic of all poetry, though it is not always brought so clearly before the mind. In Shakespeare something of the kind is frequent: compare the reference to the “squeaking Cleopatra” in Antony and Cleopatra, which is almost exactly parallel; compare too his favourite device of the play within the play, when we see the actors of a few minutes ago, sitting like ourselves as auditors; and thus, on the one hand their own performance seems comparatively real, but on the other there is the constant reminder that we are in their position, and the whole is merely spectacular. Dr. Brandes has some excellent remarks in this connection on Tieck’s Dramas in his Romantic School in Germany.

[183] The trait is taken from Plutarch who, after enumerating the sinister omens before Philippi, adds: “the which beganne somewhat to alter Cassius minde from Epicurus opinions.”

[184] Trivial to him, to us full of tragic meaning.

[185] Plutarch’s account of Caesar’s personal prowess in the battle with the Nervii, and of the honours decreed him by the Senate, shows why Shakespeare chose this exploit for special mention: “Had not Caesar selfe taken his shield on his arme, and flying in amongest the barbarous people, made a lane through them that fought before him; and the tenth legion also seeing him in daunger, ronne unto him from the toppe of the hill, where they stoode in battell,{note} and broken the ranckes of their enemies; there had not a Romane escaped a live that day. But taking example of Caesar’s valliantnes, they fought desperatly beyond their power, and yet could not make the Nervians flie, but they fought it out to the death, till they were all in manner slaine in the field.... The Senate understanding it at Rome, ordained that they shoulde doe sacrifice unto the goddes, and keepe feasts and solemne processions fifteene dayes together without intermission, having never made the like ordinaunce at Rome, for any victorie that ever was obteined. Bicause they saw the daunger had bene marvelous great, so many nations rising as they did in armes together against him: and further the love of the people unto him made his victorie much more famous.”

{note} battle order

[186] In Plutarch Antony treats Lepidus with studied deference.

[187] See Bradley, Shakespearian Tragedy.

[188] I have said nothing of other possible references and loans because they seem to me irrelevant or doubtful. Thus Malone drew attention to the words of Morose in Ben Jonson’s Epicoene: “Nay, I would sit out a play that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet and target.” He thought that this remark might contain ironical allusion to the battle scenes in Antony and Cleopatra, for instance the stage direction at the head of Act iii., Scene 10: “Canidius marcheth with his land army one way over the stage: and Taurus, the lieutenant of Caesar the other way. After their going in is heard the noise of a sea-fight.” But even were this more certain than it is, it would only prove that Antony and Cleopatra had made so much impression as to give points to the satirist some time after its performance: it would not help us to the date. For Epicoene belongs to 1610, and no one would place Antony and Cleopatra so late.

[189] i.e. Sin’s.

[190] Bradley, Shakespearian Tragedy.

[191] ii. iv. 44.

[192] iii. ii. 154.

[193] Besides the plays discussed in the Introduction as having a possible place in the lineage of Shakespeare’s, others were produced on the Continent, which in that respect are quite negligible but which serve to prove the widespread interest in the subject. Thus in 1560 Hans Sachs in Germany composed, in seven acts, one of his homespun, well-meant dramas that were intended to edify spectator or reader. Thus in 1583 Cinthio in Italy treated the same theme, and it has been conjectured, by Klein, that his Cleopatra was known to Shakespeare. Certainly Shakespeare makes use of Cinthio’s novels, but the particulars signalised by Klein, that are common to the English and to the Italian tragedy, which latter I have not been able to procure, are, to use Klein’s own term, merely “external,” and are to be explained, in so far as they are valid at all, which Moeller (Kleopatra in der Tragödien-Literatur) disputes, by reference to Plutarch. An additional one which Moeller suggests without attaching much weight to it, is even less plausible than he supposes. He points out that Octavius’ emissary, who in Plutarch is called Thyrsus, in Cinthio becomes Tireo, as in Shakespeare he similarly becomes Thyreus; but he notes that this is also the name that Shakespeare would get from North. As a matter of fact, however, in the 1623 folio of Antony and Cleopatra and in subsequent editions till the time of Theobald, this personage, for some reason or other as yet undiscovered, is styled Thidias; so the alleged coincidence is not so much unimportant as fallacious. A third tragedy, Montreuil’s Cléopatre, which like Cinthio’s is inaccessible to me, was published in France in 1595; but to judge from Moeller’s analysis and the list of dramatis personae, it has no contact with Shakespeare’s.

[194] obstructed.

[195] Antony had already been worshipped as that deity.

[196] It is rather strange that Shakespeare, whose “accessories” are usually relevant, should choose such a subject for the decoration of Imogen’s room. Mr. Bradley, in a note to his essay on Antony and Cleopatra says: “Of the ‘good’ heroines, Imogen is the one who has most of [Cleopatra’s] spirit of fire and air.” This is one of the things one sees to be true as soon as one reads it: can it be that their creator has brought them into association through some feeling, conscious or unconscious, of their kinship in this important respect?

I regret that Mr. Bradley’s admirable study, which appeared when I was travelling in the Far East, escaped my notice till a few days ago, when it was too late to use it for my discussion.

[197] Of course the division into scenes is not indicated in the Folio, but a new “place” is obviously required for this conversation. Of course, too, change of scene did not mean so much on the Elizabethan as on the modern stage, but it must always have counted for something. Every allowance made, the above criticism seems to me valid.

[198] The irony of the proposal, which Plutarch indicates but does not stress, is entirely lost in Shakespeare. We have already been told that Hipparchus “was the first of all his (i.e. Antony’s) infranchised bondmen that revolted from him and yelded unto Caesar”; so Caesar is invited to retaliate on one of his own adherents.

[199] It is interesting to note that it had already caught the fancy of Jodelle, though being more faithful to the text in enumerating only the kings who were actually present and taking no liberties with the names and titles, he failed to get all the possible points out of it. Agrippa says to Octavian:

Le Roy Bocchus, le Roy Cilicien

Archelaus, Roy Capadocien,

Et Philadelphe, et Adalle de Thrace,

Et Mithridate, usoyent-ils de menace

Moindre sus nous que de porter en joye

Nostre despouille et leur guerriere proye,

Pour a leurs Dieux joyeusement les pendre

Et maint et maint sacrifice leur rendre?

Acte II.

[200] [See Appendix D].

[201] This may be said even if we accept Professor Ferrero’s arguments that Antony’s infatuation for Cleopatra was invented or exaggerated by opponents, and that their relation was to a great extent invented or prescribed by their ambitions. Antony would still be the profligate man of genius, captivated by Asiatic ideals and careless of the interests of Rome. His policy at the close would still, by Professor Ferrero’s own admission, be traceable to the ascendancy which Cleopatra had established over him. And the picture of contemporary conditions would still retain a large measure of truth.

[202] Even in Othello the conspicuous place is reserved for the Moor, and in him it is jealousy as much as love that is depicted.

[203] If the ideas were in Shakespeare’s mind that Professor Zielinski of St. Petersburg attributes to him (Marginalien Philologus, 1905), the gracelessness of Charmian passes all bounds. “(Die) muntre Zofe wünscht sich vom Wahrsager allerhand schöne Sachen: ’lass mich an einem Nachmittag drei Könige heiraten, und sie alle als Wittwe überleben; lass mich mit fünfzig Jahren ein Kind haben, dem Herodes von Judaea huldigen soll: lass mich Octavius Caesar heiraten, etc.’ Das ‘Püppchen’ dachte sich Shakespeare jünger als ihre Herrin: fünfzig würde sie also—um Christi Geburt. Ist es nun klar, was das für ein Kind ist, dem Herodes von Judaea huldigen soll.’ Ἐπὰν εὕρητε, ἀπαγγείλατέ μοι, ὅπως κᾀγὼ ἐλθῶν προσκυνήσω αὐτῷ, sagt er selber, Matth. ii. 18. Und wem sagt er es? Den Heiligen drei Königen. Sollten es nicht dieselben sein, die auch in Charmian’s Wunschzettel stehen? Der Einfall ist einer Mysterie würdig: Gattin der heiligen drei Könige, Mutter Gottes, und römische Kaiserin dazu.” Worthy of a mystery, perhaps! but more worthy of a scurrilous lampoon. It might perhaps be pointed out, that, if fifty years old at the beginning of the Christian era, Charmian could only be ten at the opening of the play: but this is a small point, and I think it very likely that Shakespeare intended to rouse some such associations in the mind of the reader as Professor Zielinski suggests. Mr. Furness is rather scandalised at the “frivolous irreverence,” but it fits the part, and where is the harm? One remembers Byron’s defence of the audacities in Cain and objection to making “Lucifer talk like the Bishop of London, which would not be in the character of the former.”

[204] Observe or await.

[205] I take this much discussed passage to refer to the friction that inevitably arises in such a gathering. The guests are of such different disposition or temperament, that especially after their late misunderstandings they are bound to chafe each other. We have an example of it. Pompey plays the cordial and tactful host to perfection, but even he involuntarily harks back to his grievance:

O, Antony,

You have my father’s house,—But, what? we are friends.

I think the meaning of the second servant’s remark is that when such little contretemps occur, as they could not but do in so ill-assorted a company, Lepidus in his role of peace-maker interferes to check them, and drowns the difference in a carouse. But the result is that he befuddles himself.

[206] [See Appendix D].

[207] Scoured.

[208] The Adventures of Harry Richmond.

[209] He learns the truth however before he sends Euphronius as delegate.

[210] Which latter for the rest may be found in North but not in Plutarch. “To salve that he had spoken he added this more unto it, that he would not leade them to battell, where he thought not rather safely to returne with victorie, then valliantly to dye with honor.” Cf. μὴ προάξειν ἐπὶ τὴν μάχην, ἐξ ἧς αὑτῷ θάνατον εὐκλεᾶ μᾶλλον ἢ σωτηρίαν ζητεῖν καὶ νίκην.

[211] A familiar thought with Shakespeare. Compare Anne’s reference to Katherine in Henry VIII.:

O, God’s will! much better

She ne’er had known pomp: though’t be temporal,

Yet, if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce

It from the bearer, ’tis a sufferance panging

As soul and body’s severing.

(iI. iii. 12.)

This scene is almost certainly Shakespeare’s.

[212]

Dido and her Æneas shall want troops,

And all the haunt be ours.

(iV. xiv. 52.)

We have not got much further in explaining Shakespeare’s allusion than when Warburton made the Warburtonian emendation of Sichaeus for Æneas. Shakespeare had probably quite forgotten Virgil’s

Illa solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat:

... atque inimica refugit

In nemus umbriferum.

(Æ. vi. 469.)

Perhaps he remembered only that Æneas, ancestor and representative of the Romans, between his two authorised marriages with ladies of the “superior” races, intercalated the love-adventure, which alone seized the popular imagination and which of all the deities Venus alone approved, with ran African queen.

[213] No word of this in Plutarch.

[214] Wrong; even if on numismatic evidence her features be considered to fall short of and deviate from the Greek ideal. Professor Ferrero describes her face as “bouffie.”

[215] The sense is: “Her beauty was not so surpassing as to be beyond comparison with other women’s,” etc. Compare the Greek: “καὶ γὰρ ἦν, ὡς λέγουσιν, αὐτὸ μὲν καθ’ αὑτὸ, τὸ κάλλος αὐτῆς οὐ πάνυ δυσπαράβλητον, οὐδ’ οἶον ἐκπλῆξαι τοῦς ἰδόντας.”

[216] Plutarch in the corresponding passage merely says that she was “apparelled and attired like the goddesse Venus commonly drawen in picture.”

[217] [See Appendix E].

[218] The love she inspires and feels is of the kind described by La Rochefoucauld: “L’amour, aussi bien que le feu, ne peut subsister, sans un mouvement continuel; et il cesse de vivre dès qu’il cesse d’espérer ou de craindre.” He has another passage that suggests an explanation of the secret of Cleopatra’s permanent attraction for the volatile Antony: “La constance en amour est une inconstance perpétuelle, qui fait que notre coeur s’attache successivement à toutes les qualités de la personne que nous aimons, donnant tantôt la préférence à l’une, tantôt à l’autre; de sorte que cette constance n’est qu’une inconstance arrêtée et renfermée dans un même sujet.” It is curious how often an English reader of La Rochefoucauld feels impelled to illustrate the Reflections on Love and Women by reference to Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, but it is very natural. His friend the Duchess of Longueville and the other great ladies of the Fronde resembled her in their charm, their wit, their impulsiveness; and when they engaged in the game of politics, subordinated it like her to their passions and caprices. So his own experience would familiarise La Rochefoucauld with the type, which he has merely generalised, and labelled as the only authentic one.

[219] “L’on fait plus souvent des trahisons par foiblesse que par un dessein formé de trahir.”—La Rochefoucauld.

[220] Boas, Shakespeare and his Predecessors.

[221] This was first suggested in A. Stahr’s Cleopatra. I prefer to give the arguments in my own way.

[222] So in folio: some modern editions alter unnecessarily to“dug.”

[223] i.e. confuted.

[224] It is a rather striking coincidence that Jodelle, too, heightens Plutarch’s account of the treasures she has retained, and includes among them the crown jewels and royal robes. Seleucus finishes a panegyric on her wealth:

Croy, Cesar, croy qu’elle a de tout son or

Et autres biens tout le meilleur caché.

And she says in her defence:

Hé! si j’avois retenu les joyaux

Et quelque part de mes habits royaux,

L’aurois-je fait pour moy, las! malheureuse!

[225] I take it as certain that with Thyreus she is for the moment at least “a boggler,” and then she has already sent her private message to Caesar.

[226] To me the sense seems to be: Supposing the Antony I have depicted never existed, still the conception is too great to be merely my own. It must be an imagination of Nature herself, which she may be unable to embody, but which shames our puny ideals. In other words, Antony is the “form” or “type” which Nature aims at even if she does not attain. I see no reason for changing the “nor” of the first line as it is in the folio to “or.”

[227] Jowett’s Plato, Vol. ii., pages 42-43.

[228] Ibid, pages 56-57.

[229] Le plus grand miracle de l’amour, c’est de guérir de la coquetterie.—La Rochefoucauld.

[230] Cleopatra was actually married to Antony, as has been proved by Professor Ferrero. But Plutarch nowhere else mentions the circumstance, and it contradicts the whole tenor of his narrative.

[231] E.g., by Delius. Shakespeare’s Coriolanus in seinem Verhältness zum Coriolanus des Plutarch (Jahrbuch der D.-Sh. Gesellschaft, xi. 1876).

[232] In some respects Shakespeare’s details remind me more of Livy than either of Plutarch or Camden; e.g., “Inde apparuisse ventris quoque haud segne ministerium esse, nec magis ali quam alere eum, reddentem in omnis corporis partes hunc, quo vivimus vigemusque, divisum pariter in venas maturum confecto cibo sanguinem.”

(II. 32.) Cf.

I receive the general food at first,

Which you do live upon; ...

... but, if you do remember,

I send it through the rivers of your blood, ...

And through the cranks and offices of man,

The strongest nerves and small inferior veins

From me receive that natural competency

Whereby they live.

(I. i. 135 seq.)

This certainly is liker Livy than Plutarch; and besides the chances of Shakespeare having read Livy in the original, we have to bear in mind that in 1600 Philemon Holland published the Romane Historie written by Titus Livius of Padua. His version, as it is difficult to procure, may be quoted in full:

Whilome (quoth he) when as in mans bodie, all the parts thereof agreed not, as now they do in one, but each member had a several interest and meaning, yea, and a speech by it selfe; so it befel, that all other parts besides the belly, thought much and repined that by their carefulness, labor, and ministerie, all was gotten, and yet all little enough to serve it: and the bellie it selfe lying still in the mids of them, did nothing else but enjoy the delightsome pleasures brought unto her. Wherupon they mutinied and conspired altogether in this wise, That neither the hands should reach and convey food to the mouth, nor the mouth receive it as it came, ne yet the teeth grind and chew the same. In this mood and fit, whiles they were minded to famish the poore bellie, behold the other lims, yea and the whole bodie besides, pined, wasted, and fel into an extreme consumption. Then was it wel seen, that even the very belly also did no smal service, but fed the other parts, as it received food it selfe: seeing that by working and concocting the meat throughlie, it digesteth and distributeth by the veines into all parts, that fresh and perfect blood whereby we live, we like, and have our full strength. Comparing herewith, and making his application, to wit, how like this intestine, and inward sedition of the bodie, was to the full stomacke of the Commons, which they had taken and borne against the Senatours, he turned quite the peoples hearts.

[233] Introduction to the Clarendon Press Edition.

[234] Strictly speaking, from the Tower to Winchester for trial.

[235] Shakespeare, in the Führende Geister Series.

[236] Rather more than the most. It is special pleading to interpret Raleigh’s arguments against the Act for sewing Hemp and the Statute of Tillage in 1601, as directed against cheap corn. His point was rather that coercive legislation in regard to agriculture hindered production and was oppressive to poor men. Nor am I aware that his speeches on these occasions increased his unpopularity,—which, no doubt, was already great.

[237] William Shakespeare, a critical study.

[238] In point of fact “gloom and bitterness” can be less justly attributed to Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus than to any of the later tragedies, and less justly to Coriolanus than to Antony and Cleopatra; but Dr. Brandes treats Troilus and Cressida as coming between them, and if that position could be vindicated for it, the phrase would be defensible.

[239] Coriolanus. Rugby Edition.

[240] In the conclusion of his essay on the Date and Occasion of the Tempest. Universal Review, 1889.

[241] Notes on Plays of Shakespere, 1818.

[242] By Ettore Pais. Storia di Roma. Vol. I.

[243] See Théâtre d’Alexandre Hardy, ed. Stengel.

[244] See M. Rigal’s admirable treatise on Hardy.

[245] Of course these scenes are not marked in the folio, but on the whole there are good grounds for the division that has been adopted by modern editors.

[246] See footnote 2 on previous page.
{TN: this reference is to Footnote 244.}

[247] S’entre-défier.

[248] E.g. by Viehoff, in his interesting essay, Shakespeare’s Coriolan (Jahrbuch der D.-Sh. Gesellschaft, Bd. iv. 1869), which has been used in the following paragraphs.

[249] A good many of the parallels and contrasts noted in this chapter are to be found in the excellent paper by Delius already cited.

[250] [See Appendix B].

[251] wreaked, avenged.

[252] This seems preferable to the reading of the Cambridge Editors

And [Censorinus,] nobly named so,

Twice being [by the people chosen] censor.

In the first place it is closer to North, and agrees with Shakespeare’s usual practice of keeping to North’s words so far as possible. In the second place, it is closer to the Folio text, involving only the displacement of a comma. In the third place, it is simpler to suppose that a whole single line has been missed out than that parts of two have been amputated, and the remainders run together.

[253] Here again Plutarch has furnished an emendation: Folio, Calues.

[254] By Büttner, Zu Coriolan und seiner Quelle (Jhrbch. der D.-Sh. Gesellschaft, Bd. xli. 1905).

[255] πολλῶν χρημάτων καὶ ἵππων γεγονότων αἰχμαλώτων καὶ ἀνθρώπων, ἐκέλευσεν αὐτὸν ἐξελέσθαι δέκα πάντα πρὸ τοῦ νέμειν τοῖς πολλοῖς. Ἄνευ δὲ ἐκείνων ἀριστεῖον αὐτῷ κεκοσμημένον ἵππον ἐδωρήσατο.

[256] Shakespeare, following North (“Martius accepted the gift of his horse”) makes it, instead of a horse, Cominius’ own horse, which would be a violation of antique usage. See Büttner as above.

[257] Unworked, untilled, from manoeuvrer.

[258] Coriolanus. (The Students’ Shakespeare, Cambridge University Press.) Volumnia indeed refers to “children” in her petition (v. iii. 118), but this seems merely a reminiscence of Plutarch’s language, for everywhere else young Marcius is treated as an only child.

[259] Placuit igitur oratorem ad plebem mitti Menenium Agrippam, facundum virum et, quod inde oriundus erat, plebi carum. (ii. 32 Weissenborn & Müller’s edition.)

[260] See especially the passage that describes his behaviour after he has been rejected for the consulship: “Coriolanus went home to his house, full fraighted with spite and malice against the people, being accompanied with all the lustiest young gentlemen, whose mindes were nobly bent, as those that came of noble race, and commonly used for to followe and honour him. But then specially they floct about him, and kept him companie, to his muche harme; for they dyd but kyndle and inflame his choller more and more, being sorie with him for the injurie the people offred him.”

[261] Reisebilder, 2ter Theil; “Italien, Reise nach Genua,” Cap. xxiv.

[262] There is no authority for taking this most characteristic utterance from Volumnia and assigning it to “a patrician” as some editions do.

[263] [See Appendix F].

[264]

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

My ancestors did from the streets of Rome

The Tarquin drive when he was call’d a King.

(iI. i. 51.)

[265]

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

My ancestors did from the streets of Rome

The Tarquin drive when he was call’d a King.

(iI. i. 51.)

[266]

Age, thou art shamed!

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!

(i. ii. 150.)

Our fathers’ minds are dead

And we are govern’d by our mothers’ spirits,

Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

(i. iii. 82.)

[267]

Age, thou art shamed!

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!

(i. ii. 150.)

Our fathers’ minds are dead

And we are govern’d by our mothers’ spirits,

Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

(i. iii. 82.)

[268] If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer:—Not that I loved Caesar less but that I loved Rome more.

(iii. ii. 19.)

[269] ] If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer:—Not that I loved Caesar less but that I loved Rome more.

(iii. ii. 19.)

[270]

Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius ...

Life being weary of these worldly bars

Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

(i. iii. 90.)

[271]

Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius ...

Life being weary of these worldly bars

Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

(i. iii. 90.)

[272] Notice the inept rendering.

[273]

It doth amaze me,

A man of such a feeble temper should

So get the start of the majestic world,

And bear the palm alone.

(i. ii. 128.)

[274]

It doth amaze me,

A man of such a feeble temper should

So get the start of the majestic world,

And bear the palm alone.

(i. ii. 128.)

[275] Approve or agree.

[276] I have modernised the punctuation, and extended the contractions throughout, but wherever there is any possibility of misinterpretation I have noted it.

[277] aīo.

[278] adiret.

[279] cernēs.

[280] Insinit.

[281] uterque.

[282] aūt.

[283] together with.

[284] A mistranslation of the Greek phrase, μετὰ τῶν ἡγεμονικῶν, from which it must come. The Latin is correct and unmistakable.

[285] But.

[286] Greek αἰτίαν, Latin noxam crimenque.

[287] Latin: cumque incertus belli sit eventus.

[288] Yet.

[289] Yet.

[290] An unusual word in French. Compare the impetrare of the Latin.

[291] ἄπειμι, revais = retourne.

[292] No chauldes.

[293] Adverb for adjective, omission of one duplicate.

[294] of, appositional.

[295] Not so clear as the French.

[296] gaol.

[297] picqué not translated.

[298] One of Amyot’s duplicates wanting.

[299] Important connective particle omitted.

[300] Quite wrong. The French means: “Since you so bitterly pursue ingratitude.”

[301] In this sentence North again misses the point of the argument. The meaning is “And there is this further point as well, that you have already in a measure requited your wrongs, but never yet shown your gratitude.”

[302] One of Amyot’s duplicate expressions omitted.

[303] A pardonable mistranslation of the French; which, however, proves that in this passage at least North consulted neither the Greek nor the Latin.

[304] Under the title: “An auncient Historie and exquisite Chronicle of the Romanes warres, both Ciuile and Foren. Written in Greeke by the noble Orator and Historiographer Appian of Alexandria.”

[305] In Schweighäuser’s Edition II. cxliii. to cxlvi.

[306] I quote from Shakespeare’s Plutarch (Prof. Skeat), the 1603 edition of North being at present inaccessible to me.

[307] i.e. put off. Greek, βραδύνειν.

[308] The Heroycall Epistles of the learned poet Publius Ouidius Naso in English verse: set out and translated by George Turberville, gent, etc. Transcribed from a copy in the Bodleian, which Malone, who owned it, conjecturally dated 1569.

[309] Of these the most perplexing to me is the distinction Shakespeare makes between “the nobility” on the one hand, and “the senators and patricians” on the other. What was in his mind? I fail to find an explanation even on trying to render his thought in terms of contemporary arrangements in England. “Peers,” “parliament men,” and “gentry” would not do.

Transcriber’s Notes:

The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is in the public domain.

Uncertain or antiquated spellings or ancient words were not corrected.

Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.