Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher Part 26

The argument in Theobald's note, where "and bonneted" is suggested, goes on the a.s.sumption that Shakespeare could not use the same word differently in different places; whereas I should conclude, that as in the pa.s.sage in _Lear_ the word is employed in its direct meaning, so here it is used metaphorically; and this is confirmed by what has escaped the editors, that it is not "I," but "my demerits" that may speak unbonneted,-without the symbol of a pet.i.tioning inferior.

_Ib._ sc. 3. Oth.e.l.lo's speech:-

"So please your grace, my ancient; A man he is of honesty and trust: To his conveyance I a.s.sign my wife."

Compare this with the behaviour of Leontes to his true friend Camillo.

_Ib._-

"_Bra._ Look to her, Moor; if thou hast eyes to see; She has deceived her father, and may thee.

_Oth._ My life upon her faith."

In real life, how do we look back to little speeches as presentimental of, or contrasted with, an affecting event! Even so, Shakespeare, as secure of being read over and over, of becoming a family friend, provides this pa.s.sage for his readers, and leaves it to them.

_Ib._ Iago's speech:-

"Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves, that we are thus, or thus," &c.

This speech comprises the pa.s.sionless character of Iago. It is all will in intellect; and therefore he is here a bold partizan of a truth, but yet of a truth converted into a falsehood by the absence of all the necessary modifications caused by the frail nature of man. And then comes the last sentiment:-

"Our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted l.u.s.ts, whereof I take this, that you call-love, to be a sect or scion!"

Here is the true Iagoism of, alas! how many! Note Iago's pride of mastery in the repet.i.tion of "Go, make money!" to his antic.i.p.ated dupe, even stronger than his love of lucre: and when Roderigo is completely won,-

"I am chang'd. I'll go sell all my land,"-

when the effect has been fully produced, the repet.i.tion of triumph:-

"Go to; farewell; put money enough in your purse!"

The remainder-Iago's soliloquy-the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity-how awful it is! Yea, whilst he is still allowed to bear the divine image, it is too fiendish for his own steady view,-for the lonely gaze of a being next to devil, and only not quite devil,-and yet a character which Shakespeare has attempted and executed, without disgust and without scandal!

Dr. Johnson has remarked that little or nothing is wanting to render the _Oth.e.l.lo_ a regular tragedy, but to have opened the play with the arrival of Oth.e.l.lo in Cyprus, and to have thrown the preceding act into the form of narration. Here then is the place to determine whether such a change would or would not be an improvement;-nay (to throw down the glove with a full challenge), whether the tragedy would or not by such an arrangement become more regular,-that is, more consonant with the rules dictated by universal reason, on the true common-sense of mankind, in its application to the particular case. For in all acts of judgment, it can never be too often recollected, and scarcely too often repeated, that rules are means to ends, and, consequently, that the end must be determined and understood before it can be known what the rules are or ought to be. Now, from a certain species of drama, proposing to itself the accomplishment of certain ends,-these partly arising from the idea of the species itself, but in part, likewise, forced upon the dramatist by accidental circ.u.mstances beyond his power to remove or control,-three rules have been abstracted;-in other words, the means most conducive to the attainment of the proposed ends have been generalised, and prescribed under the names of the three unities,-the unity of time, the unity of place, and the unity of action-which last would, perhaps, have been as appropriately, as well as more intelligibly, ent.i.tled the unity of interest. With this last the present question has no immediate concern: in fact, its conjunction with the former two is a mere delusion of words. It is not properly a rule, but in itself the great end not only of the drama, but of the epic poem, the lyric ode, of all poetry, down to the candle-flame cone of an epigram,-nay, of poesy in general, as the proper generic term inclusive of all the fine arts as its species. But of the unities of time and place, which alone are ent.i.tled to the name of rules, the history of their origin will be their best criterion. You might take the Greek chorus to a place, but you could not bring a place to them without as palpable an equivoque as bringing Birnam wood to Macbeth at Dunsinane. It was the same, though in a less degree, with regard to the unity of time:-the positive fact, not for a moment removed from the senses, the presence, I mean, of the same identical chorus, was a continued measure of time;-and although the imagination may supersede perception, yet it must be granted to be an imperfection-however easily tolerated-to place the two in broad contradiction to each other. In truth, it is a mere accident of terms; for the Trilogy of the Greek theatre was a drama in three acts, and notwithstanding this, what strange contrivances as to place there are in the Aristophanic Frogs. Besides, if the law of mere actual perception is once violated-as it repeatedly is, even in the Greek tragedies-why is it more difficult to imagine three hours to be three years than to be a whole day and night?

Act ii. sc. 1.-

Observe in how many ways Oth.e.l.lo is made, first, our acquaintance, then our friend, then the object of our anxiety, before the deeper interest is to be approached!

_Ib._-

"_Mont._ But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?

_Cas._ Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid That paragons description, and wild fame; One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens, And, in the essential vesture of creation, Does tire the ingener."

Here is Ca.s.sio's warm-hearted, yet perfectly disengaged, praise of Desdemona, and sympathy with the "most fortunately" wived Oth.e.l.lo;-and yet Ca.s.sio is an enthusiastic admirer, almost a worshipper, of Desdemona. Oh, that detestable code that excellence cannot be loved in any form that is female, but it must needs be selfish! Observe Oth.e.l.lo's "honest" and Ca.s.sio's "bold" Iago, and Ca.s.sio's full guileless-hearted wishes for the safety and love-raptures of Oth.e.l.lo and "the divine Desdemona." And also note the exquisite circ.u.mstance of Ca.s.sio's kissing Iago's wife, as if it ought to be impossible that the dullest auditor should not feel Ca.s.sio's religious love of Desdemona's purity. Iago's answers are the sneers which a proud bad intellect feels towards women, and expresses to a wife. Surely it ought to be considered a very exalted compliment to women, that all the sarcasms on them in Shakespeare are put in the mouths of villains.

_Ib._-

"_Des._ I am not merry; but I do beguile," &c.

The struggle of courtesy in Desdemona to abstract her attention.

_Ib._-

"(_Iago aside_). He takes her by the palm: Ay, well said, whisper; with as little a web as this, will I ensnare as great a fly as Ca.s.sio. Ay, smile upon her, do," &c.

The importance given to trifles, and made fertile by the villany of the observer.

_Ib._ Iago's dialogue with Roderigo.

This is the rehearsal on the dupe of the traitor's intentions on Oth.e.l.lo.

_Ib._ Iago's soliloquy:-

"But partly led to diet my revenge, For that I do suspect the l.u.s.ty Moor Hath leap'd into my seat."

This thought, originally by Iago's own confession a mere suspicion, is now ripening, and gnaws his base nature as his own "poisonous mineral" is about to gnaw the n.o.ble heart of his general.

_Ib._ sc. 3. Oth.e.l.lo's speech:-

"I know, Iago, Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter, Making it light to Ca.s.sio."

Honesty and love! Ay, and who but the reader of the play could think otherwise?

_Ib._ Iago's soliloquy:-

"And what's he then that says-I play the villain?

When this advice is free I give, and honest, Provable to thinking, and, indeed, the course To win the Moor again."

He is not, you see, an absolute fiend; or, at least, he wishes to think himself not so.

Act iii. sc. 3.-

"_Des._ Before aemilia here, I give thee warrant of thy place."

The over-zeal of innocence in Desdemona.

_Ib._-

"_Enter Desdemona and aemilia._

_Oth._ If she be false, O, then, heaven mocks itself!

I'll not believe't."