Shakspere and Montaigne Part 21

Hamlet's little monologue: [58] 'Tis now the very witching time of night,'

runs thus with Mendozo:--[59]

'Tis now about the immodest waste of night; The mother of moist dew with pallide light Spreads gloomie shades about the mummed earth.

Sleepe, sleepe, whilst we contrive our mischiefes birth.

Then, parodying Hamlet as he draws forth the dead Polonius from behind the arras, Mendozo says:--

This man Ile (I'll) get inhumde.

Thus, all kinds of Shaksperian incidents and locutions are brought forward, wherever they are apt to produce the most comic effect. Several times, from the beginning, the 'weasel' is mentioned with which Hamlet rallies Polonius. We also hear of the 'sponge which sucks'--a simile used by Hamlet (act iv. sc. 3) in regard to Rosencrantz. Nor is the 'true-penny' forgotten--a word used by Hamlet [60] to designate his father's ghost as a true and genuine one; nor the 'Hillo, ho, ho.'

In all these allusions, of which an attentive reader might easily find scores, there is no systematic order of thoughts. Only in the religious questions we meet with a clear system: they are all addressed to Malevole, who is represented as a kind of freethinker, similar to the one whom Marston, in his preface, wishes to be outlawed, and of whom he says that he fully merits the 'tartness' and freedom of his satire. In the very beginning of 'The Malcontent,' Pietro asks Malevole:

I wonder what religion thou art of?

_Malevole_. Of a souldiers religion. [61]

_Pietro_. And what doost thinke makes most infidells now?

_Malevole_. Sects. Sects! I have seene seeming Pietie change her roabe so oft, that sure none but some arch-divell can shape her pitticoate.

_Pietro_. O! a religious pllicie.

_Malevole_. But d.a.m.nation on a politique religion!

In act ii. sc. 5 we find the following:--

_Malevole_. I meane turne pure Rochelchurchman. [62]

I--

_Mendozo_. Thou Churchman! Why? Why?

_Malevole_. Because He live lazily, raile upon authoritie, deny Kings supremacy in things indifferent, and be a pope in mine owne parish.

_Mendozo_. Wherefore doost thou thinke churches were made?

_Malevole_. To scowre plow-shares. I have seene oxen plow uppe altares: _Et nunc seges ubi Sion fuit_.

Then there is again what appears to be an allusion to Hamlet, act i.

sc. 4, resembling that in 'Volpone':--

I have seen the stoned coffins of long-flead Christians burst up and made hogs troughs.

In act iv. sc. 4, Mendozo says to Malevole, whom he wishes to use for the murder of a hermit:--

Yea, provident. Beware an hypocrite!

A Church-man once corrupted, Oh avoide!

A fellow that makes religion his stawking horse.

He breeds a plague. Thou shalt poison him.

From the many hints in 'Volpone' and in 'The Malcontent,' it clearly follows that Shakspere was to be represented, in those dramas, before the public at large, as an Atheist. [63] According to Jonson, he counted 'ALL OLD DOCTRINE HERESIE.' According to Marston, he had an aversion for all sects, and 'CONTEMPT OF HOLY POLICIE, REVERENT COMELY SUPERIORITIE, AND ESTABLISHT UNITIE.' We hope we have convinced our readers that Shakspere spoke in matters of religion as clearly as his 'tongue-tied muse' [64] permitted him to do. Above all, we think of having successfully proved that the controversy of 'Hamlet' is directed against doctrines which a.s.sert that there is nothing but evil in human nature.

Shakspere's prophetic glance saw the pernicious character of Montaigne's inconsistent thoughts, which, unable to place us in sound relation to the Universe, only succeed in making men pa.s.s their lives in subtle reflection and unmanly, sentimental inaction. Shakspere, intending to avert the blighting influence of such a philosophy from the best and foremost of his country, wrote his 'Hamlet.' As a truly heaven-born poet he bound for ever, by Thought's enduring chain,

All that flows unfixed and undefined In glimmering phantasy before the mind.

In spite of the powerful impression his master-work, 'Hamlet,' has made upon all thinking minds, the deepest and most serious meaning of Shakspere's warning words could not have been fathomed by the many.

The parables through which a Prophet spoke were cast into the form of a theatrical play, not easy to understand for the ma.s.s of men; for 'tongue-tied' was his Muse by earthly powers. And Shakspere deeply felt the disgrace of being compelled to give forth his utterances in so dubious a manner.

His Sonnets [65] express the feeling that weighed upon him on this account.

Had he not 'gor'd his own thoughts,' revealed his innermost soul? Yet, now, his narrow-minded fellow-dramatists--but no! not fellow-dramatists: mere contemporary playwrights, immeasurably far behind him in rank--eaten up, as they were, with envy and jealous malice, meanly derided everything sacred to him; holding up his ideals to ridicule before a jeering crowd. It has long ago been surmised that Sonnet lxvi. belongs to the 'Hamlet' period. But now it will be better understood why that sonnet speaks of 'a maiden virtue rudely strumpeted; [66] of 'right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, and strength by limping sway disabled;' of 'simple truth miscall'd simplicity.'

These are the full words of this mighty sigh of despair:--

Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry-- As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplac'd, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgrac'd, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-ty'd by authority, And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive Good attending captain ill: Tir'd with all these, from these would I be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

'Purest faith unhappily forsworn' was Shakspere's faith in G.o.d--without any 'holy policie' and without 'old doctrines'--trusting above all in the majesty of enn.o.bled human nature. He was a veritable Humanist, the truest and greatest, who ever strove to raise the most essential part of human nature, man's soul and mind, yet by no mean supernatural, but by 'mean that Nature makes.'

Shakspere's 'Hamlet' appears to us like a solemn admonition to his distinguished friends. He showed them, under the guise of that Prince, a n.o.bleman without fixed ideal--'virtues which do not go forth' to a.s.sert themselves, and to do good for the sake of others--n.o.ble life wasted, letting the world remain 'out of joint' without determined will to set it right: this was the poet's prophetic warning.

One aspiration of Shakspere clearly shines through his career, in whatever darkness it may otherwise be enveloped--namely, his longing to acquire land near the town he was born in. When he had realised this ambition, he cheerfully seems to have left the splendour of town life, and to have readily renounced all literary fame; for he did not even care to collect his own works.

He was contented to cultivate his native soil: a giant Antaeus who, as the myth tells us, ever had to touch Mother Earth to regain his strength.

1: _Volpone_ is stated to have been first acted in the Globe Theatre in 1605. It is simply impossible that this drama, in its present shape, should have been given in that theatre as long as Shakspere was actively connected with it. We therefore must a.s.sume that Shakspere--as Delius holds it to be probable--had at that time already withdrawn to Stratford, or that the biting allusions which are contained in _Volpone_ against the great Master, had been added between 1605 (the year of its first performance) and 1607 (the year of its appearance in print). We consider the latter opinion the likelier one, as we suspect, from allusions in _Epicoene_, that Shakspere, when this play was published, still resided in London. However, it is also probable that in 1605 he may for a while have withdrawn from the stage.

2: In this enumeration, Jonson seems to have the various Qualities of the Essays in view which Florio calls 'Morall, Politike, and Millitarie.'

3: Against Montaigne, '_the teacher of things divine no less than human_,' Shakspere's whole argumentation in 'Hamlet' is directed.

4: Here we have the n.o.ble Knight of the Order of St. Michael, as well as the courtier and Mayor of Bordeaux.

5: Montaigne was Knight of the Order of St. Michael, and Chamberlain of Henry III. He was on terms of friendship with Henry IV. Both Kings he had as guests in his own house. In his _Essai de Vanitie_, Montaigne also relates with great pride and satisfaction, that during his sojourn at Rome he was made a burgess of that city, 'the most n.o.ble that ever was, or ever shall be.'

6: In spite of Gifford's protest we do not hesitate to maintain that Jonson's Epigram LVI. (_On Poet-Ape_) is directed against Shakspere, and that the poet whom Jonson--in the Epistle XII.

(_Forest_) to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland--abuses, is also none else than Shakspere.

7: Montaigne died in 1592.

8: We can only quote the most striking points, and must leave it to the reader who takes a deeper interest in the subject, to give his own closer attention to the dramas concerning the controversy.

9: _Gentlemen of Verona_; _Comedy of Errors_; _Love's Labour Lost_; _Love's Labour Won_ (probably _All's Well that Ends Well_); _Midsummer Night's Dream_; _Merchant of Venice_. Of Tragedies: _Richard the Second_; _Richard the Third_; _Henry the Fourth_; _King John_; _t.i.tus Andronicus_; _Romeo and Juliet_.

10: As the words that follow seem to contain an allusion to Shakspere's _Hamlet_, it is to be supposed that by the 'melting heir' Jonson points to some protector of the great poet.

Whether this be William Herbert, or the Earl of Southampton, we must leave undecided.

11: Act i. sc. 4.