The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story Part 13

"Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow Being so troublesome a bedfellow?

O polished perturbation! golden care!

That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night!--Sleep with it now, Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet As he whose brow with homely biggin bound Snores out the watch of night."

In the third act we have King Henry talking in precisely the same way:

"O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee?...

- - - - - - - - - - Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge."...

The truth is that in both these pa.s.sages, as in a hundred similar ones, we find Shakespeare himself praising sleep as only those tormented by insomnia can praise it.

When his father reproaches him with "hunger for his empty chair," this is how Prince Henry answers:

"O pardon me, my liege, but for my tears, The moist impediments unto my speech, I had forestalled this dear and deep rebuke.

Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard The course of it so far."...

It might be Alfred Austin writing to Lord Salisbury--"the moist impediments," forsooth--and the daredevil young soldier goes on like this for forty lines.

The only memorable thing in the fifth act is the new king's contemptuous dismissal of Falstaff: I think it appalling at least in matter:

"I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers; How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

I have long dreamed of such a kind of man, So surfeit-swelled, so old and so profane; But being awake I do despise my dream.

- - - - - - - - - - Reply not to me with a fool-born jest, Presume not that I am the thing I was; - - - - - - - - - - Till then, I banish thee on pain of death, As I have done the rest of my misleaders, Not to come near our person by ten mile."

In the old play, "The Famous Victories," the sentence of banishment is p.r.o.nounced; but this bitter contempt for the surfeit-swelled, profane old man is Shakespeare's. It is true that he mitigates the severity of the sentence in characteristic generous fashion: the King says:

"For competence of life I will allow you That lack of means enforce you not to evil: And as we hear you do reform yourselves, We will, according to your strength and qualities, Give you advancement."

There is no mention in the old play of this "competence of life." But in spite of this generous forethought the sentence is painfully severe, and Shakespeare meant every word of it, for immediately afterwards the Chief Justice orders Falstaff and his company to the Fleet prison; and in "King Henry V." we are told that the King's condemnation broke Falstaff's heart and made the old jester's banishment eternal. To find Shakespeare more severe in judgement than the majority of spectators and readers is so astonishing, so singular a fact, that it cries for explanation. I think there can be no doubt that the tradition which tells us that Shakespeare in his youth played pranks in low company finds further corroboration here. He seems to have resented his own ignominy and the contemptuous estimate put upon him by others somewhat extravagantly.

"Presume not that I am the thing I was;"

--is a sentiment put again and again in Prince Henry's mouth; he is perpetually a.s.suring us of the change in himself, and the great results which must ensue from it. It is this distaste for his own loose past and "his misleaders," which makes Shakespeare so singularly severe towards Falstaff. As we have seen, he was the reverse of severe with Angelo in "Measure for Measure," though in that case there was better ground for harshness. "Measure for Measure," it is true, was written six or seven years later than "Henry IV.," and the tragedy of Shakespeare's life separates the two plays. Shakespeare's ethical judgement was more inclined to severity in youth and early manhood than it was later when his own sufferings had deepened his sympathies, and he had been made "pregnant to good pity," to use his own words, "by the art of knowing and feeling sorrows." But he would never have treated old Jack Falstaff as harshly as he did had he not regretted the results, at least, of his own youthful errors. It looks as if Shakespeare, like other weak men, were filled with a desire to throw the blame on his "misleaders." He certainly exulted in their punishment.

It is difficult for me to write at length about the character of the King in "Henry V.," and fortunately it is not necessary. I have already pointed out the faults in the painting of Prince Henry with such fullness that I may be absolved from again dwelling on similar weakness where it is even more obvious than it was in the two parts of "Henry IV." But something I must say, for the critics in both Germany and England are agreed that "'Henry V.' must certainly be regarded as Shakespeare's ideal of manhood in the sphere of practical achievement."

Without an exception they have all b.u.t.tered this drama with extravagant praise as one of Shakespeare's masterpieces, though in reality it is one of the worst pieces of work he ever did, almost as bad as "t.i.tus Andronicus" or "Timon" or "The Taming of the Shrew." Unfortunately for the would-be judges, Coleridge did not guide their opinions of "Henry V."; he hardly mentioned the play, and so they all write the absurdest nonsense about it, praising because praise of Shakespeare has come to be the fashion, and also no doubt because his bad work is more on the level of their intelligence than his good work.

It can hardly be denied that Shakespeare identified himself as far as he could with Henry V. Before the King appears he is praised extravagantly, as Posthumus was praised, but the eulogy befits the poet better than the soldier. The Archbishop of Canterbury says:

... "When he speaks, The air, a charter'd libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences."

the Bishop of Ely goes even further in excuse:

..."The prince obscured his contemplation Under the veil of wildness."

And this is how the soldier-king himself talks:

"My learned lord, we pray you to proceed And justly and religiously unfold Why the law Salique that they have in France Or should, or should not bar us in our claim; And G.o.d forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading ..."

All this is plainly Shakespeare and Shakespeare at his very worst; and there are hundreds of lines like these, jewelled here and there by an unforgetable phrase, as when the Archbishop calls the bees: "The singing masons building roofs of gold." The reply made by the King when the Dauphin sends him the tennis b.a.l.l.s has been greatly praised for manliness and modesty; it begins:

"We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us; His present and your pains we thank you for: When we have match'd our rackets to these b.a.l.l.s, We will, in France, by G.o.d's grace, play a set Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard."

The first line is most excellent, but Shakespeare found it in the old play, and the bragging which follows is hardly bettered by the pious imprecation.

Nor does the scene with the conspirators seem to me any better. The soldier-king would not have preached at them for sixty lines before condemning them. Nor would he have sentenced them with this extraordinary mixture of priggishness and pious pity:

"_K. Hen_. G.o.d quit you in his mercy. Hear your sentence.

- - - - - - - - - - Touching our person seek we no revenge; But we our kingdom's safety must so tender, Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence, Poor miserable wretches, to your death, The task whereof, G.o.d of His mercy give You patience to endure, and true repentance Of all your dear offences!"

This "poor miserable wretches" would go better with a generous pardon, and such forgiving would be more in Shakespeare's nature. Throughout this play the necessity of speaking through the soldier-king embarra.s.ses the poet, and the infusion of the poet's sympathy and emotion makes the puppet ridiculous. Henry's speech before Harfleur has been praised on all hands; not by the professors and critics merely, but by those who deserve attention. Carlyle finds deathless valour in the saying: "Ye, good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England," and not deathless valour merely, but "n.o.ble patriotism" as well; "a true English heart breathes, calm and strong through the whole business ... this man (Shakespeare) too had a right stroke in him, had it come to that." I find no valour in it, deathless or otherwise; but the make-believe of valour, the completest proof that valour was absent. Here are the words:

"_K. Hen_. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; Then lend the eye a terrible aspect, Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the bra.s.s cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock O'erhang and jutty his confounded base...."

And so on for another twenty lines. Now consider this stuff: first comes the reflection, more suitable to the philosopher than the man of action, "in peace there's nothing so becomes a man..."; then the soldier-king wishes his men to "imitate" the tiger's looks, to "disguise fair nature," and "lend the eye a terrible aspect." But the man who feels the tiger's rage tries to control the aspect of it: he does not put on the frown--that's Pistol's way. The whole thing is mere poetic description of how an angry man looks and not of how a brave man feels, and that it should have deceived Carlyle, surprises me. The truth is that as soon as Shakespeare has to find, I will not say a magical expression for courage, but even an adequate and worthy expression, he fails absolutely. And is the patriotism in "Ye, good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England" a "n.o.ble patriotism"? or is it the simplest, the crudest, the least justifiable form of patriotism? There is a n.o.ble patriotism founded on the high and generous things done by men of one's own blood, just as there is the vain and empty self-glorification of "limbs made in England," as if English limbs were better than those made in Timbuctoo.

In the third scene of the fourth act, just before the battle, Henry talks at his best, or rather Shakespeare's best: and we catch the true accent of courage. Westmoreland wishes

..."That we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work to-day!"

but Henry lives on a higher plane:

"No, my fair cousin: If we are marked to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men the greater share of honour."

But this high-couraged sentiment is taken almost word for word from Holinshed. The rest of the speech shows us Shakespeare, as a splendid rhetorician, glorifying glory; now and then the rhetoric is sublimated into poetry:

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition."

Shakespeare's chief ambition about this time was to get a coat of arms for his father, and so gentle his condition. In all the play not one word of praise for the common archers, who won the battle; no mention save of the gentle.

Again and again in Henry V. the dissonance of character between the poet and his soldier-puppet jars upon the ears, and this dissonance is generally characteristic. For example, in the third act Shakespeare, through King Henry, expressly charges his soldiers that "there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner." Wise words, not yet learned even by statesmen; drops of wisdom's life-blood from the heart of gentle Shakespeare. But an act later, when the battle is over, on the mere news that the French have reinforced their scattered men, Henry V., with tears in his eyes for the Duke of York's death, gives orders to kill the prisoners:

"Then every soldier kill his prisoners; Give the word through."

The puppet is not even human: mere wood!

In the fifth act King Henry takes on the voice and nature of buried Hotspur. He woos Katherine exactly as Hotspur talked to his wife: he cannot "mince" it in love, he tells her, in Hotspur's very words; but is forthright plain; like Hotspur he despises verses and dancing; like Hotspur he can brag, too; finds it as "easy" to conquer kingdoms as to speak French; can "vault into his saddle with his armour on his back"; he is no carpet-soldier; he never "looks in his gla.s.s for love of anything he sees there," and to make the likeness complete he disdains those "fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours ... a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad."

But if Shakespeare had had any vital sympathy for soldiers and men of action he would not have degraded Henry V. in this fashion, into a feeble replica of the traditional Hotspur. In those narrow London streets by the river he must have rubbed shoulders with great adventurers; he knew Ess.e.x; had bowed to Raleigh at the Court; must have heard of Drake: inclination was lacking, not models. He might even have differentiated between Prince Henry and Hotspur without going outside his history-books; but a most curious point is that he preferred to smooth away their differences and accentuate the likeness. As a mere matter of fact Hotspur was very much older than Prince Henry, for he fought at Otterbourne in 1388, the year of the prince's birth; but Shakespeare purposely and explicitly makes them both youths. The King, speaking of Percy to Prince Henry, says:

"And being no more in debt to years than thou."...

It would have been wiser, I cannot but think, and more dramatic for Shakespeare to have left the hot-headed Percy as the older man who, in spite of years, is too impatient-quick to look before he leaps, while giving the youthful Prince the calm reflection and impersonal outlook which necessarily belong to a great winner of kingdoms. The dramatist could have further differentiated the rivals by making Percy greedy; he should not only have quarrelled with his a.s.sociates over the division of the land, but insisted on obtaining the larger share, and even then have grumbled as if aggrieved; the soldier aristocrat has always regarded broad acres as his especial reward. On the other hand, Prince Henry should have been open-handed and carelessly-generous, as the patron of Falstaff was likely to be. Further, Hotspur might have been depicted as inordinately proud of his name and birth; the provincial aristocrat usually is, whereas Henry, the Prince, would surely have been too certain of his own qualities to need advent.i.tious aids to pride. Percy might have been shown to us raging over imaginary slights; Worcester says he was "governed by a spleen"; while the Prince should have been given that high sense of honour and insatiate love of fame which were the poles of chivalry. Finally, the dramatist might have painted Hotspur, the soldier, as disdainful of women and the arts of music and poetry, while gracing Prince Henry with a wider culture and sympathy.

If I draw attention to such obvious points it is only to show how incredibly careless Shakespeare was in making the conqueror a poor copy of the conquered. He was drawn to Hotspur a little by his quickness and impatience; but he was utterly out of sympathy with the fighter, and never took the trouble even to think of the qualities which a leader of men must possess.