A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen Part 6

[Sidenote: Female friendship: the description has Shakspere's characteristics.]

[34:1]The description of female friendship which follows is familiar to all lovers of poetry. It is disfigured by one or two strained conceits, and some obscurities arising partly from errors in the text: but the beauty of the sketch in many parts is extreme, and its character distinctly that of Shakspeare, vigorous and even quaint, thoughtful and sometimes almost metaphysical, instinct with animation, and pregnant with fancy; offering, in short, little resemblance to the manner of any poet but Shakspeare, and the most unequivocal opposition to Fletcher's.

_Emilia._ Doubtless There is a best, and reason has no man ners To say, it is not you. I was acquaint ed Once with a time when I enjoy'd a play fellow---- You were at wars when she the grave enrich'd, (Who made too proud the bed,) took leave o' the moon, Which then look'd pale at parting, when our count Was each eleven.

_Hippolita._ 'Twas Flavina.

[Sidenote: Shakspere fancy.]

_Emilia._ Yes.

You talk of Perithous' and Theseus' love: Theirs has more ground, is more maturely seas oned, More buckled with strong judgment; and their needs, The one of the other, may be said to wat er Their intertangled roots of love.--But I And she I sigh and spoke of, were things in nocent,-- Loved for we did, and,--like the elements, That know not what nor why, yet do effect Rare issues by their operance,--our souls Did so to one another. What she liked, Was then of me approved; what not, condemned.

No more arraign ment. The flower that I would pluck, And put between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, (then but begin ning To swell about the blossom,) she would long Till she had such another, and commit it To the like innocent cradle, where, phnix-like, They died in perfume; on my head, no toy But was her pattern; her affections, (pret ty, Though happily her careless wear,) I fol low'd For my most serious decking.--Had mine ear Stolen some new air, or at adventure humm'd From musical coinage,--why, it was a note Whereon her spirits would sojourn, rather dwell on, And sing it in her slumbers.--This rehears al [34:2](Which, every innocent wots well, comes in Like old importment's b.a.s.t.a.r.d) has this end, That the true love 'tween maid and maid may be More than in s.e.x dividual....

[Sidenote: Act I. scene iv. Shakspere's.]

The fourth scene is laid in a battle-field near Thebes, and Theseus enters victorious. The three queens fall down with thanks before him; and a herald announces the capture of the Two n.o.ble Kinsmen, wounded and senseless, and scarcely retaining the semblance of life. [Sidenote: Has Shakspere's words and quibbles.] The phraseology of this short scene is like Shakspeare's, being brief and energetic, and in one or two instances pa.s.sing into quibbles.

[Sidenote: Act I. scene v. is Shakspere's.]

The last scene of this act is of a lyrical cast, and comprised in a few lamentations spoken by the widowed queens over the corpses of their dead lords. It ends with this couplet:

The world's a city full of straying streets, And death's the market-place, where each one meets.

[Sidenote: Act II. not Shakspere's.]

In the Second Act no part seems to have been taken by Shakspeare.

[Sidenote: The prose of II. i. is not from Chaucer,] It commences with one of those scenes which are introduced into the play in departure from the narrative of Chaucer, forming an underplot which is clearly the work of a different artist from many of the leading parts of the drama. The n.o.ble Kinsmen, cured of their wounds, have been committed to strait and perpetual prison in Athens, and the first part of this scene is a prose dialogue between their jailor and a suitor of his daughter. The maiden's admiration of the prisoners is then exhibited. [Sidenote: and is very dull: it is not Shakspere's.] You will see afterwards, that there are several circ.u.mstances besides the essential dulness of this prose part, which fully absolve Shakspeare from the charge of having written it.

[Sidenote: The verse of Act II. scene i.]

The versified portion of this scene, which follows the prose dialogue among the inferior characters, presents the incident on which the interest of the story hinges, the commencement of the fatal and chimerical pa.s.sion, which, inspiring both the knights towards the young Emilia, severs the bonds of friendship which had so long held them together. The n.o.ble prisoners are discovered in their turret-chamber, looking out on the palace-garden, which the lady afterwards enters. They speak [35:1]in a highly animated strain of that world from which they are secluded, and find themes of consolation for the hard lot which had overtaken them. The dialogue is in many respects admirable. [Sidenote: The verse of Act II. scene i. has the characteristics of Fletcher: double endings, end-stopt lines, vague images,] It possesses much eloquence of description, and the character of the language is smooth and flowing; the versification is good and accurate, frequent in double endings, and usually finishing the sense with the line; and one or two allusions occur, which, being favourites of Fletcher's, may be in themselves a strong presumption of his authorship; the images too have in some instances a want of distinctness in application or a vagueness of outline, which could be easily paralleled from Fletcher's acknowledged writings. [Sidenote: but romantic;] The style is fuller of allusions than his usually is, but the images are more correct and better kept from confusion than Shakspeare's; some of them indeed are exquisite, but rather in the romantic and exclusively poetical tone of Fletcher, than in the natural and universal mode of feeling which animates Shakspeare. [Sidenote: slack dialogue.] The dialogue too proceeds less energetically than Shakspeare's, falling occasionally into a style of long-drawn disquisition which Fletcher often subst.i.tutes for the quick and dramatic conversations of the great poet. [Sidenote: II.

i. one of the finest scenes that Fletcher ever wrote.] On the whole, however, this scene, if it be Fletcher's, (of which I have no doubt,) is among the very finest he ever wrote; and there are many pa.s.sages in which, while he preserves his own distinctive marks, he has gathered no small portion of the flame and inspiration of his immortal friend and a.s.sistant. In the following speeches there are images and phrases, which are either identically Fletcher's, or closely resemble his, and the whole cast both of versification and idiom is strictly his:--

[Sidenote: Act II. scene i. Fletcher's.]

_Palamon._ Oh, cousin Ar cite!

Where is Thebes now? where is our n.o.ble coun try?

Where are our friends and kindreds? Never more Must we behold those comforts; never see The hardy youths strive in the games of hon our, Hung with the painted favours of their la dies, Like tall ships under sail; then start among them, And as an east wind leave them all behind us Like lazy clouds, while Palamon and Ar cite, Even in the wagging of a wanton leg, Outstript the people's praises, won the gar lands, [37:1]Ere they have time to wish them ours. Oh, nev er Shall we two exercise, like twins of hon our, Our arms again, and feel our fiery hors es Like proud seas under us! our good swords now, (Better the red-eyed G.o.d of war ne'er wore,) Ravish'd our sides, like age must run to rust, And deck the temples of the G.o.ds that hate us: These hands shall never draw them out like light ning To blast whole armies more.

[Sidenote: Picture fully wrought out.]

[Sidenote: Romantic, pathetic sketch.]

_Arcite._ ...

The sweet embraces of a loving wife, Loaden with kisses, arm'd with thousand cu pids, Shall never clasp our necks: no issue know us; No figures of ourselves shall we e'er see, To glad our age, and like young eagles teach them Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say, "Remember what your fathers were, and con quer."

--The fair-eyed maids shall weep our banishments, And in their songs curse ever-blinded For tune, Till she for shame see what a wrong she has done To youth and Nature.--This is all our world: We shall know nothing here but one anoth er,-- Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes; The vine shall grow, but we shall never see it: Summer shall come, and with her all delights, But dead-cold winter must inhabit here still!

_Palamon._ 'Tis too true, Arcite! To our Theban hounds, That shook the aged forest with their ech oes, No more now must we halloo; no more shake Our pointed javelins, whilst the angry swine Flies like a Parthian[37:2] quiver from our rag es, Struck with our well-steel'd darts....

In this scene there is one train of metaphors which is perhaps as characteristic of Fletcher as any thing that could be produced.

[Sidenote: Lines from II. i. on page 38, of slow orderly development of ideas, markt by Fletcher's characteristics.] It is marked by a slowness of a.s.sociation which he often shews. Several allusions are successively introduced; but by each, as it appears, we are prepared for and can antic.i.p.ate the next; we see the connection of ideas in the poet's mind through which the one has sprung out of the other, and that all are but branches, of which one original thought is the root. [Sidenote: No leap to the end, and off with a fresh bound, like Shakspere.] All this is the work of [37:3]a less fertile fancy and a more tardy understanding than Shakspeare's: he would have leaped over many of the intervening steps, and, reaching at once the most remote particular of the series, would have immediately turned away to weave some new chain of thought:--

[Sidenote: All workt out thro' every step.]

_Arcite._ ... What worthy bless ing Can be, but our imaginations May make it ours? and here, being thus togeth er, We are an endless mine to one anoth er: We are one another's wife, ever beget ting New births of love; we are fathers, friends, acquaint ance; We are, in one another, families; I am your heir and you are mine; this place Is our inheritance; no hard oppress or Dare take this from us....

But the contentment of the prison is to be interrupted. The fair Emilia appears beneath, walking in the garden "full of branches green,"

skirting the wall of the tower in which the princes are confined. She converses with her attendant, and Palamon from the dungeon-grating beholds her as she gathers the flowers of spring. He ceases to reply to Arcite, and stands absorbed in silent ecstasy.

_Arcite._ Cousin! How do you, sir? Why, Palamon!

_Palamon._ Never till now I was in prison, Ar cite.

_Arcite._ Why, what's the matter, man?

_Palamon._ Behold and won der: By heaven, she is a G.o.ddess;

_Arcite._ Ha!

_Palamon._ Do rev erence; She is a G.o.ddess, Arcite!

The beauty of the maiden impresses Arcite no less violently than it previously had his kinsman; and he challenges with great heat a right to love her. [Sidenote: The sharp and spirited quarrel between the Kinsmen, not Shakspere's.] An animated and acrimonious dialogue ensues, in which Palamon reproachfully pleads his prior admiration of the lady, and insists on his cousin's obligation to become his abettor instead of his rival. It is spirited even to excess; and probably Shakspeare would have tempered, or abstained from treating so sudden and perhaps unnatural an access of anger and jealousy, and so utter an abandonment to [38:1]its vehemence, as that under which the fiery Palamon is here represented as labouring.

[Sidenote: Act II. scene i. Fletcher's.]

_Palamon._ If thou lovest her, Or entertain'st a hope to blast my wish es, Thou art a traitor, Arcite, and a fel low False as thy t.i.tle to her. Friendship, blood, And all the ties between us, I disclaim, If thou once think upon her!

_Arcite._ Yes, I love her!

And, if the lives of all my name lay on it, I must do so. I love her with my soul; If that will lose thee, Palamon, farewell!

I say again I love, and, loving her I am as worthy and as free a lov er, And have as just a t.i.tle to her beau ty, As any Palamon, or any liv ing That is a man's son!

_Palamon._ Have I call'd thee friend!

_Palamon._ Put but thy head out of this window more, And, as I have a soul, I'll nail thy life to't!

_Arcite._ Thou dar'st not, fool: thou canst not: thou art fee ble: Put my head out? I'll throw my body out, And leap the garden, when I see her next, And pitch between her arms to anger thee.

[Sidenote: Fletcher has left out Chaucer's making the Knights 'sworn brethren.']

In transferring his story from Chaucer, the poet has here been guilty of an oversight. The old poet fixes a character of positive guilt on Arcite's prosecution of his pa.s.sion, by relating a previous agreement between the two cousins, by which either, engaging in any adventure whether of love or war, had an express right to the co-operation of the other. Hence Arcite's interference with his cousin's claim becomes, with Chaucer, a direct infringement of a knightly compact; while in the drama, no deeper blame attaches to it, than as a violation of the more fragile rules imposed by the generous spirit of friendship.

In the midst of the angry conference, Arcite is called to the Duke to receive his freedom; and Palamon is placed in stricter confinement, and removed from the quarter of the tower overlooking the garden.

[Sidenote: Act II. scene ii. (Weber, sc. iii. Littledale) is Fletcher's.]

In the second scene of this act, Arcite, wandering in the [39:1]neighbourhood of Athens, soliloquizes on the decree which had banished him from the Athenian territory; and, falling in with a band of country people on their way to games in the city, conceives the notion of joining in the celebration under some poor disguise, in the hope of finding means to remain within sight of his fancifully beloved mistress.