The whole of the First Act may be safely pronounced to be Shakspeare's. The play opens with the bridal procession of Theseus and the fair Amazon Hippolita, whose young sister Emilia is the lady of the tale. While the marriage-song is singing, the train are met by three queens in mourning attire, who fall down at the feet of Theseus, Hippolita, and Emilia. They are the widows of three of the princes slain in battle before Thebes, and the conqueror Creon has refused the remains of the dead soldiers the last honour of a grave. The prayer of the unfortunate ladies to Theseus is, that he would raise his powerful arm to force from the tyrant the unburied corpses, that the ghosts of the dead may be appeased by the performance of fitting rites of sepulture. The duty which knighthood imposed on the Prince of Athens, is combated by his unwillingness to quit his bridal happiness; but generosity and self-denial at length obtain the victory, and he marches, with banners displayed, to attack the Thebans.
This scene bears decided marks of Shakspeare.—The lyrical pieces scattered through his plays are, whether successful or not, endowed with a stateliness of rhythm, an originality and clearness of imagery, and a nervous quaintness and pomp of language, which can scarcely be mistaken. The Bridal Song can't be Fletcher's. The Bridal Song which ushers in this play, has several of the marks of distinction, and is very unlike the more formal and polished rhymes of Fletcher.
Act I. sc. i.
The Bridal Song is Shakspere's.
* * * * *
Primrose, first-born child of Ver,
Merry springtime's harbinger,
With her bells dim:
Oxlips in their cradles growing,
Marigolds on death-beds blowing,
Lark-heels trim:
All, dear Nature's children sweet,
Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,
[28:1]Blessing their sense:
Not an angel of the air,
Bird melodious or bird fair,
Be absent hence!
* * * * *
Dialogue in I. i. has the characteristics of Shakspere's style: is crowded,
obscure,
alliterative,
clear and yet confus'd,
has fulness and variety,
originality and true poetry.
But the dialogue which follows is strikingly characteristic. It has sometimes Shakspeare's identical images and words: it has his quaint force and sententious brevity, crowding thoughts and fancies into the narrowest space, and submitting to obscurity in preference to feeble dilation: it has sentiments enunciated with reference to subordinate relations, which other writers would have expressed with less grasp of thought: it has even Shakspeare's alliteration, and one or two of his singularities in conceit: it has clearness in the images taken separately, and confusion from the prodigality with which one is poured out after another, in the heat and hurry of imagination: it has both fulness of illustration, and a variety which is drawn from the most distant sources; and it has, thrown over all, that air of originality and that character of poetry, the principle of which is often hid when their presence and effect are most quickly and instinctively perceptible.
1 Queen. (To Theseus.) For pity's sake, and true gentility's,
Hear and respect me!
2 Queen. (To Hippolita.) For your mother's sake,
And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair | ones,
Hear and respect me!