[3] Compare Hickson, Fleay, and Furnivall upon the subject of The Two Noble Kinsmen. New Shakspere Society's Transactions, 1874. R. Boyle maintains that he can trace Massinger's hand in the play.
[4] In his prefatory treatise to the Leopold Shakspere (136 quarto pages), F. J. Furnivall has dealt with this play as being in part Shakespeare's. Now he is of a different opinion, and in a copy of the book presented by him to me, he has written on the margin against Henry VIII. "Not Shakspere's." Arthur Symons, who edits and prefaces the play in the Irving edition, told me that he now inclines, on account of its metrical structure, to the belief that Shakespeare had no share in it. P. A. Daniels, the erudite editor of so many Shakespearian quartos, said that he had arrived at no decision respecting its authorship, and characteristically added that the identity was a matter of indifference to him so long as the play was good. This is not the psychological standpoint.
[XVIII]
CYMBELINE—THE THEME—THE POINT OF DEPARTURE—THE MORAL—THE IDYLL —IMOGEN—SHAKESPEARE AND GOETHE—SHAKESPEARE AND CALDERON
In Cymbeline Shakespeare is once more sole master of his material, and he works it up into such a many-coloured web as no loom but his can produce. Here, too, we find a certain off-hand carelessness of technique. The exposition is perfunctory; the preliminaries of the action are conveyed to us in a scene of pure narrative. The comic passages are, as a rule, weak, the mirth-moving device being for one of the other characters to ridicule or parody in asides the utterances of the coarse and vain Prince Cloten. In the middle of the play (iii. 3), a poorly-written monologue gives us a sort of supplementary exposition, necessary to the understanding of the plot. Finally, the dramatic knot is loosed by means of a deus ex machinâ, Jupiter, "upon his eagle back'd," appearing to the sleeping Posthumus, and leaving with him an oracular "label," in which, as though to bear witness to the poet's "small Latin" the deity childishly derives mulier from mollis aer, or "tender air." But, in spite of all this, Shakespeare is here once more at the height of his poetic greatness; the convalescent has recovered all his strength. He has thrown his whole soul into the creation of his heroine, and has so enchased this Imogen, this pearl among women, that all her excellences show to the best advantage, and the setting is not unworthy of the jewel.
As in Cleopatra and Cressida we had woman determined solely by her sex, so in Imogen we have an embodiment of the highest possible characteristics of womanhood—untainted health of soul, unshaken fortitude, constancy that withstands all trials, inexhaustible forbearance, unclouded intelligence, love that never wavers, and unquenchable radiance of spirit. She, like Marina, is cast into the snake-pit of the world. She is slandered, and not, like Desdemona, at second or third hand, but by the very man who boasts of her favours and supports his boast with seemingly incontrovertible proofs. Like Cordelia, she is misjudged; but whereas Cordelia is merely driven from her father's presence along with the man of her choice, Imogen is doomed to death by her cruelly-deceived husband, whom alone she adores; and through it all she preserves her love for him unweakened and unchanged.
Strange—very strange! In Imogen we find the fullest, deepest love that Shakespeare has ever placed in a woman's breast, and that although Cymbeline follows close upon plays which were filled to the brim with contempt for womankind. He believed, then, in such love, so impassioned, so immovable, so humble—believed in it now? He had, then, observed or encountered such a love—encountered it at this point of his life?
Even a poet has scant enough opportunities of observing love. Love is a rare thing, much rarer than the world pretends, and when it exists, it is apt to be sparing of words. Did he simply fall back on his own experiences, his own inward sensations, his knowledge of his own heart, and, transposing his feelings from the major to the minor key, place them on a woman's lips? Or did he love at this moment, and was he himself thus beloved at the end of the fifth decade of his life? The probability is, doubtless, that he wrote from some quite fresh experience, though it does not follow that the experience was actually his own. It is not often that women love men of his mental habit and stature with such intensity of passion. The rule will always be that a Molière shall find himself cast aside for some Comte de Guiche, a Shakespeare for some Earl of Pembroke. Thus we cannot with any certainty conclude that he himself was the object of the passion which had revived his faith in a woman's power of complete and unconditional absorption in love for one man, and for him alone. In the first place, had the experience been his own, he would scarcely have left London so soon. Yet the probability is that he must just about this time have gained some clear and personal insight into an ideal love. In the public sphere, too, it is not unlikely that Arabella Stuart's undaunted passion for Lord William Seymour, so cruelly punished by King James, may have afforded the model for Imogen's devotion to Leonatus Posthumus in defiance of the will of King Cymbeline.