That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
These are not the thoughts of the gentle, happy-hearted Shakspeare. These are the blasphemous outbreakings of a blood-drenched, disbelieving soul, vainly striving to make head against God’s vengeance by denying his existence. No. Life’s not a walking shadow. It is more than a poor player—than a tale signifying nothing. It signifies much not to be known by the “ignorant present,” as they find, unhappy lost ones, who mistake such wicked blasphemies for truth.
The pertinacity with which his selfish soul is wedded to the world is again betrayed in one of his last soliloquies, where, in running a kind of balance in his accounts between the gains and losses of his murderous ambition, he complains:
“And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honor, breath,