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.”