A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen Part 9

[Sidenote: Act V. scene iv. (Weber; ii. Littledale) is stuff.]

The fourth scene, in which the characters are the jailor's daughter, her father and lover, and a physician, is disgusting and imbecile in the extreme. It may be dismissed with a single quotation:

_Doctor._ What stuff she utters!

[Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber; iii. Littledale). Its strangeness.]

The fifth scene is the Combat, the arrangement of which is unusual.

Perhaps there is nothing in every respect resembling it in the circle of the English drama. Theseus and his court cross the stage as proceeding to the lists; Emilia pauses and refuses to be present; the rest depart, and she is left. She then, the prize of the struggle, the presiding influence of the day, alone occupies the stage: within, the trumpets are heard sounding the charge, and the cries of the spectators and tumult of the encounter reach her ears; one or two messengers recount to her the various changes of the field, till Arcite's victory ends the fight. The manner is admirable in which the caution, which rendered it advisable to avoid introducing the combat on the stage, is reconciled with the pomp of scenic effect and bustle. [Sidenote: Shakspere's hand is in it.] The details of the scene, with which alone we have here to do, make it clear that Shakspeare's hand was in it. The greater part, it is true, is not of the highest excellence; but the vacillations of Emilia's feelings are well and delicately given, some individual thoughts and words mark Shakspeare, there is a little of his obscure brevity, much of his thoughtfulness legitimately applied, and an instance or two of its abuse. The strong likeness to him will justify some quotations.

In the following lines Theseus is pleading with Emilia for her presence in the lists:--

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_Theseus._ You must be there: This trial is as 'twere in the night, and you The only star to shine.

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

[50:1]_Emilia._ I am extinct.

There is but envy in that light, which shews The one the other. Darkness, which ever was The dam of Horror, who does stand accursed Of many mortal millions, may even now, By casting her black mantle over both That neither could find other, get herself Some part of a good name, and many a mur der Set off whereto she's guilty.[50:2]

One good description is put into the mouth of Emilia after she is left alone:--

[Sidenote: Act V. scene v. (Weber; or sc. iii. Littledale). Shakspere's hand in it.]

[Sidenote: Shakspere.]

_Emilia._ Arcite is gently visaged; yet his eye Is like an engine bent, or a sharp weap on In a soft sheath: Mercy and manly Cour age Are bedfellows in his visage. Palamon Has a most menacing aspect: his brow Is graved, and seems to bury what it frowns on; Yet sometimes 'tis not so, but alters to The quality of his thoughts: long time his eye Will dwell upon his object: melanchol y Becomes him n.o.bly; so does Arcite's mirth: But Palamon's sadness is a kind of mirth, So mingled, as if mirth did make him sad, And sadness mer ry: those darker humours that Stick unbecomingly on oth ers, on him Live in fair dwelling.

After several alternations of fortune in the fight, she again speaks thus of the two:

... [51:1]Were they metamor phosed Both into one--oh why? there were no wom an Worth so composed a man! their single share, Their n.o.bleness peculiar to them, gives The prejudice of dispar ity, value's shortness, To any lady breathing....

(_Cornets: a great shout, and cry_, Arcite, victory!)

[51:2]_Servant._ The cry is Arcite and victory! Hark, Arcite, vic tory!

The combat's consummation is proclaimed By the wind instruments.

[Sidenote: Shakspere touch.]

[Sidenote: Shakspere reflection.]

_Emilia._ Half-sights saw That Arcite was no babe: G.o.d's-lid! _his rich ness_ _And costliness of spirit looked through him_: it could No more be hid in him than fire in flax, Than humble banks can go to law with wa ters That drift winds force to raging. I did think Good Palamon would miscarry; yet I knew not Why I did think so. _Our Reasons are net proph ets When oft our Fancies are._ They're coming off: Alas, poor Palamon!

Theseus enters with his attendants, conducting Arcite, as conqueror, and presents him to Emilia as her husband. Arcite's situation is a painful one, and is well discriminated: he utters but a single grave sentence.

_Theseus._ (_To Arcite and Emilia._) Give me your hands: Receive you her, you him: be plighted with A love that grows as you decay!

_Arcite._ Emily!

To buy you I have lost what's dearest to me, Save what is bought; and yet I purchase cheap ly, As I do rate your value.

[Sidenote: Shakspere touch.]

_Theseus._ (_To Arcite._) Wear the gar land With joy that you have won. For the subdued,-- Give them our present justice, _since I know Their lives but pinch them_. Let it here be done.

The sight's not for our seeing: go we hence Right joyful, with some sorrow!--Arm your prize: I know you will not lose her. Hippolita, I see one eye of yours conceives a tear, The which it will deliv er.

_Emilia._ Is this, winning?

Oh, all you heavenly powers! where is your mer cy?

But that your wills have said it must be so, And charge me live to comfort this unfriend ed, This miserable prince, that cuts away A life more worthy from him than all wom en, I should and would die too.

[52:1]_Hippolita._ Infinite pity, That four such eyes should be so fixed on one, That two must needs be blind for't. (_Exeunt._)

[Sidenote: Act V. scene vi. (Weber; sc. iv. Littledale) is clearly Shakspere's.]

The authorship of the last scene admits of no doubt. The manner is Shakspeare's, and some parts are little inferior to his very finest pa.s.sages. Palamon has been vanquished, and he and his friends are to undergo execution of the sentence to which the laws of the combat subjected them. The depth of the interest is now fixed on these unfortunate knights, and a fine spirit of resigned melancholy inspires the scene in which they pa.s.s to their deaths.[52:2]

(_Enter Palamon and his knights, pinioned; jailor, executioner, and guard._)

_Palamon._ There's many a man alive that hath outlived The love of the people; yea, in the self-same state [53:1]Stands many a father with his child; some com fort We have by so considering. We expire,-- And not without men's pity;--to live still, Have their good wishes. We prevent [53:2]The loathsome misery of age, beguile The gout and rheum, that in lag hours attend For grey approachers. We come towards the G.o.ds Young and unwarped, not halting under crimes Many and stale; that sure shall please the G.o.ds [53:3]Sooner than such, to give us nectar with them,-- For we are more clear spir its! ...

_2 Knight._ Let us bid farewell; And with our patience anger tottering for tune, Who at her certain'st reels.

_3 Knight._ Come, who begins?

_Palamon._ Even he that led you to this banquet shall Taste to you all....

Adieu, and let my life be now as short As my leave-taking. (_Lies on the block._)

If we were in a situation to give due effect to the supernatural part of the story, the miserable end of Palamon would affect us with a mingled sense of pity and indignation. He has been promised success by the divinity whom he adored, and yet he lies vanquished with the uplifted axe glittering above his head. Both the drama and Chaucer's poem a.s.sume the existence of such feelings on our part, and hasten to remove the cause of them. [Sidenote: Chaucer's celestial agency to work out the plot.] A way is devised for reconciling the contending oracles; and the catastrophe which effects that end, is, in the old poet, anxiously prepared by celestial agency.[53:4] Arcite has got the victory in the field, as his warlike divinity had promised him; and an evil spirit is raised for the purpose of bringing about his death, that the votary of the Queen of Love may be allowed to enjoy the gentler meed which his protectress had pledged herself to bestow. These supernal intrigues are, in the play, no more than hinted at in the way of metaphor.

A cry is heard for delay of the execution; Perithous rushes in, ascends the scaffold, and, raising Palamon from the block, announces the approaching death of Arcite, with nearly the same circ.u.mstances as in the poem. While he rode townwards from the lists, on a black steed which had been the gift of Emily, he had been thrown with violence, and now lies on the brink of dissolution. [Sidenote: Description of Arcite's mishap is bad, but Shakspere's.] The speech which describes Arcite's misadven[54:1]ture has been much noticed by the critics, and by some lavishly praised. With deference, I think it decidedly bad, but undeniably the work of Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Over-labourd, involvd, hard, yet Shakspere's, with his words and thoughts.] The whole manner of it is that of some of his long and over-laboured descriptions. It is full of ill.u.s.tration, infelicitous but not weak; in involvement of sentence and hardness of phrase no pa.s.sage in the play comes so close to him; and there are traceable in one or two instances, not only his words, but the trains of thought in which he indulges elsewhere, especially the description of the horse, which closely resembles some spirited pa.s.sages in the Venus and Adonis. It is needless to quote any part of this speech.

[Sidenote: End of the _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.]

The after-part of this scene, which ends the play, contains some forcible and lofty reflection, and the language is exceedingly vigorous and weighty. In Chaucer, the feelings of the dying Arcite are expressed at much length, and very touchingly; in the play, they are dispatched shortly, and the attention continued on Palamon, who had been its previous object:--

(_Enter Theseus, Hippolita, Emilia, Arcite in a chair._)

_Palamon._ Oh, miserable end of our alli ance!

The G.o.ds are mighty!--Arcite, if thy heart, Thy worthy, manly heart, be yet unbro ken, Give me thy last words. I am Palamon, One that yet loves thee dying.

_Arcite._ Take Emil ia, And with her all the world's joy. Reach thy hand: Farewell! I've told my last hour. I was false, But never treacherous: Forgive me, cous in!