The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Ii Part 13

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

Shakspeare can be complimented only by comparison with himself: all other eulogies are either heterogeneous, as when they are in reference to Spenser or Milton; or they are flat truisms, as when he is gravely preferred to Corneille, Racine, or even his own immediate successors, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ma.s.singer and the rest. The highest praise, or rather form of praise, of this play, which I can offer in my own mind, is the doubt which the perusal always occasions in me, whether the Antony and Cleopatra is not, in all exhibitions of a giant power in its strength and vigour of maturity, a formidable rival of Macbeth, Lear, Hamlet, and Oth.e.l.lo. 'Feliciter audax' is the motto for its style comparatively with that of Shakspeare's other works, even as it is the general motto of all his works compared with those of other poets. Be it remembered, too, that this happy valiancy of style is but the representative and result of all the material excellencies so expressed.

This play should be perused in mental contrast with Romeo and Juliet;--as the love of pa.s.sion and appet.i.te opposed to the love of affection and instinct. But the art displayed in the character of Cleopatra is profound; in this, especially, that the sense of criminality in her pa.s.sion is lessened by our insight into its depth and energy, at the very moment that we cannot but perceive that the pa.s.sion itself springs out of the habitual craving of a licentious nature, and that it is supported and reinforced by voluntary stimulus and sought-for a.s.sociations, instead of blossoming out of spontaneous emotion.

Of all Shakspeare's historical plays, Antony and Cleopatra is by far the most wonderful. There is not one in which he has followed history so minutely, and yet there are few in which he impresses the notion of angelic strength so much;--perhaps none in which he impresses it more strongly. This is greatly owing to the manner in which the fiery force is sustained throughout, and to the numerous momentary flashes of nature counteracting the historic abstraction. As a wonderful specimen of the way in which Shakspeare lives up to the very end of this play, read the last part of the concluding scene. And if you would feel the judgment as well as the genius of Shakspeare in your heart's core, compare this astonishing drama with Dryden's All For Love.

Act i. sc. 1. Philo's speech:--

His captain's heart, Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst The buckles on his breast, _reneges_ all temper--

It should be 'reneagues,' or 'reniegues,' as 'fatigues,' &c.

'Ib.'

Take but good note, and you shall see in him The triple pillar of the world transform'd Into a strumpet's _fool_.

Warburton's conjecture of 'stool' is ingenious, and would be a probable reading, if the scene opening had discovered Antony with Cleopatra on his lap. But, represented as he is walking and jesting with her, 'fool'

must be the word. Warburton's objection is shallow, and implies that he confounded the dramatic with the epic style. The 'pillar' of a state is so common a metaphor as to have lost the image in the thing meant to be imaged.

Ib. sc. 2.

Much is breeding; Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life, And not a serpent's poison.

This is so far true to appearance, that a horse-hair, 'laid,' as Hollinshed says, 'in a pail of water' will become the supporter of seemingly one worm, though probably of an immense number of small slimy water-lice. The hair will twirl round a finger, and sensibly compress it. It is a common experiment with school boys in c.u.mberland and Westmorland.

Act ii. sc. 2. Speech of En.o.barbus:--

Her gentlewomen, like the Nereids, So many _mermaids_, tended her i' th' eyes, And made their bends adornings. At the helm A seeming mermaid steers.

I have the greatest difficulty in believing that Shakspeare wrote the first 'mermaids.' He never, I think, would have so weakened by useless antic.i.p.ation the fine image immediately following. The epithet 'seeming'

becomes so extremely improper after the whole number had been positively called 'so many mermaids.'

TIMON OF ATHENS,

Act I. sc. 1.

'Tim'. _The man is honest.

'Old Ath.' Therefore he will be_, Timon. His honesty rewards him in itself.--

Warburton's comment--'If the man be honest, for that reason he will be so in this, and not endeavour at the injustice of gaining my daughter without my consent'--is, like almost all his comments, ingenious in blunder: he can never see any other writer's thoughts for the mist-working swarm of his own. The meaning of the first line the poet himself explains, or rather unfolds, in the second. 'The man is honest!'--'True;--and for that very cause, and with no additional or extrinsic motive, he will be so. No man can be justly called honest, who is not so for honesty's sake, itself including its own reward.' Note, that 'honesty' in Shakspeare's age retained much of its old dignity, and that contradistinction of the 'honestum' from the 'utile', in which its very essence and definition consist. If it be 'honestum', it cannot depend on the 'utile'.

'Ib.' Speech of Apemantus, printed as prose in Theobald's edition:--

So, so! aches contract, and starve your supple joints!

I may remark here the fineness of Shakspeare's sense of musical period, which would almost by itself have suggested (if the hundred positive proofs had not been extant,) that the word 'aches' was then 'ad libitum', a dissyllable--'aitches'. For read it, 'aches,' in this sentence, and I would challenge you to find any period in Shakspeare's writings with the same musical or, rather dissonant, notation. Try the one, and then the other, by your ear, reading the sentence aloud, first with the word as a dissyllable and then as a monosyllable, and you will feel what I mean. [1]

Ib. sc. 2. Cupid's speech: Warburton's correction of-

There taste, touch, all pleas'd from thy table rise--

into

Th' ear, taste, touch, smell, etc.

This is indeed an excellent emendation.

Act ii. sc. 1. Senator's speech:--

--nor then silenc'd with 'Commend me to your master'--and the cap Plays in the right hand, thus:--

Either, methinks, 'plays' should be 'play'd,' or 'and' should be changed to 'while.' I can certainly understand it as a parenthesis, an interadditive of scorn; but it does not sound to my ear as in Shakspeare's manner.

Ib. sc. 2. Timon's speech: (Theobald.)

And that unaptness made _you_ minister, Thus to excuse yourself.

Read 'your';--at least I cannot otherwise understand the line. You made my chance indisposition and occasional unaptness your minister--that is, the ground on which you now excuse yourself. Or, perhaps, no correction is necessary, if we construe 'made you' as 'did you make;' 'and that unaptness did you make help you thus to excuse yourself.' But the former seems more in Shakspeare's manner, and is less liable to be misunderstood. [2]

Act iii. sc. 3. Servant's speech:--

How fairly this lord strives to appear foul!--takes virtuous copies to be wicked; _like those that under hot, ardent, zeal would set whole realms on fire. Of such a nature is his politic love._

This latter clause I grievously suspect to have been an addition of the players, which had hit, and, being constantly applauded, procured a settled occupancy in the prompter's copy. Not that Shakspeare does not elsewhere sneer at the Puritans; but here it is introduced so _nolenter volenter_ (excuse the phrase) by the head and shoulders!--and is besides so much more likely to have been conceived in the age of Charles I.

Act iv. sc. 2. Timon's speech:--