The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Part 39

For, in truth, this philosopher, this civilian, is a little jealous of this simple virtue of valour, which he finds in his time, as in the barbaric ages, still in such esteem, as 'the chiefest virtue, and that which most dignifies the haver.' He is of opinion, that there may be some other profession, beside that of the sword, worth an honest man's attention; that, if the world were more enlightened, there would be another kind of glory, that would make 'the garland of war' shrivel.

He thinks that _Jupiter_, and _not Mars_, should reign supreme: that there is another kind of distinction and leadership, better worth the public esteem, better deserving the popular grat.i.tude and reverence.

And when he has once taken an a.n.a.lysis of this kind in hand, he is not going to permit any scruples of delicacy to impair the operation. He will invade that graceful modesty in the hero, who shrinks from hearing his exploits narrated. He will a.n.a.lyse that blush, and show us chemically what its hue is made of. He will bring out those retiring honours from the haze and mist which the vague, una.n.a.lytic, popular notions, have gathered about them. Tucked up in scarlet, braided with gold, under its forest of feathers, through all its pomp and blazonry, through all its drums; and trumpets, and clarions, undaunted by the popular cry, undaunted by that so potent word of 'patriotism' which guards it from invasion, he will search it out.

For this purpose he will go a little nearer to it than is the heroic poet's wont. When the city is wild with the news of this great victory, and the streets are swarming at the tidings of the hero's approach, he will take _his_ stand with _the family party_, and beckon us to a place where we can listen to what is going on _there_, though the heroics and the blank verse must halt for it.

The glee and fl.u.s.ter might appear to a cool spectator a little undignified; but then we are understood to be, like Menenius, old friends of the family, and too much carried away with the excitement of the moment to be very critical.

_Volumnia_. Honourable Menenius, _my boy, Marcius_, approaches. For the love of _Juno_, let's go.

_Men_. Ha! Marcius coming home!

_Vol_. Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous _approbation_.

_Men. Take my cap, Jupiter_, and I thank thee. _Hoo_! Marcius coming home?

_Two Ladies_. Nay, 't is true.

_Vol_. Look! Here's a letter from him; _the state_ hath another, _his wife_ another, and I think there's one at home for _you_.

_Men_. I will make my very house reel to night:--A letter for me?

_The Wife_. Yes, certainly, there a letter for you; I saw it.

_Men_. A letter for me! It gives me an estate of seven years'

health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician ... Is he not wounded? He was wont to come home wounded.

_The Wife_. Oh, no, no, no!

_The Mother_. Oh, he is wounded. I thank the G.o.ds for 't.

_Men_. So do I, too, if it be not too much:--_Brings a victory in his pocket_: The wounds become him.

_Vol. On's brow_, Menenius: he comes the third time home with _the oaken garland_.

_Men_.... Is the senate possessed of this?

_Vol_. Good ladies, let's go! Yes, yes, yes: the senate has letters from the general, wherein he gives _my son_ the whole name of the war.

_Valeria_. In truth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.

_Men_. Wondrous, ay, I warrant you...

_Vir_. The G.o.ds grant them true!

_Vol_. True? Pow wow!

_Men_. True? I'll be sworn they are true. Where's he wounded?

[To the Tribunes, who _come forward_.] Marcius is coming home: he has--_more cause to be_--PROUD.--Where is he wounded?

_Vol_. I' the shoulder, and i' the left arm: _There will be large cicatrices to shew the people_, when he shall stand FOR HIS PLACE.

He received in the repulse of _Tarquin_ seven hurts i' the body.

_Men. One_ in the neck, and _two_ in the thigh,--there's _nine_ that _I_ know.

_Vol_. He had, before this last expedition, _twenty-five_ wounds upon him.

_Men_. Now it's _twenty-seven_: every gash was an enemy's grave.

[Of course there is no satire intended here at all. This is a Poet who does not know what he is about.]

But now we come to the blank verse again; for at this moment the shout that announces the hero's entrance is heard; and, mingling with it, the martial tones of victory.

_shout and flourish._ Hark! the trumpets!

_Vol. These are the ushers of Marcius: before him_ He carries noise; _behind him he leaves tears_.

Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie; Which being advanced, declines, and _then men die_.

Then comes the imposing military pageant. A sennet. Trumpets sound, and enter the hero, '_crowned_' with his _oaken_ garland, sustained by the generals on either hand, with the victorious soldiers, and a herald proclaiming before him his victory.

_Herald_. Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight Within Corioli's gates: where he hath won With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these In honour follows Coriola.n.u.s: Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriola.n.u.s!

But while Rome is listening to this great story, and the people are shouting his name, the demi-G.o.d catches sight of his mother and of his wife; and full of private duty and affection, he forgets his state, his garland stoops, the conqueror is on his knee, in filial submission. The woman had said truly, '_my boy_ Marcius is coming home.' And when he greets the weeping Virgilia, who cannot speak but with her tears, these are the words with which he measures that _private joy_--

Would'st thou have laughed, had I come coffin'd home, That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear, _Such eyes_ the _widows_ in Corioli wear, And _mothers_ that lack _sons_.

No; these are the Poet's words, rather--'such eyes.'

_Such_ eyes. It was the Poet who could look through the barriers--those hitherto impervious barriers of an _enemy's town_, and see in it, at that moment, eyes as beautiful--eyes that had been 'dove's eyes,' too, to those who had loved them, wet with other tears,--mothers that loved _their_ sons, and 'lacked them'; it was the Poet to whose _human_ sense those hard hostile walls dissolved and cleared away, till he could see the Volscian wives clasping _their_ loves, as they 'came coffined home'; it was the Poet who dared to stain the joy and triumph of that fond meeting, the glory and pride of that triumphal entry, with those _human_ thoughts; it was he who heard above the roll of the drum, and the swell of the clarions and trumpets, and the shout of the rejoicing mult.i.tude above the herald's voice--the groans of mortal anguish in the field, the cries of human sorrow in the city, the shrieks of mothers that lacked sons, the greetings of wives whose loves '_came coffined home_.' And he does not mind aggravating the intense selfishness, and narrowness, and stolidity of these private pa.s.sions and affections of the individual to a truly unnatural and diabolical intensity, by charging on poor Volumnia and Marcius his own reminiscences; as if they could have dared to heighten their joy at that moment by counting its cost--as if they could have looked in the face--as if they could have comprehended, in its actual dimensions, the theme of their vulgar, _narrow_, unlearned exultation. But this is a trick this author is much given to, we shall find, when we come to study him carefully. He is not scrupulous on such points. He has a tolerable sense of the fitness of things, too. His dramatic conscience is as nice as another man's; but he is always ready to sin against it, when he sees reason.

He is much like his own Mr. Slender in one respect, 'he will do anything in reason'; and his theory of the Chief End of Man appears to differ essentially from the one which our modern Doctors of '_Art_'

propound incidentally in their criticisms. It is the mother who cries, when she catches the swell of the trumpets that announce her son's approach--'_These_ are the ushers of Marcius. Before him he carries noise.' It is the Poet who adds, _sotto voce, 'behind him he leaves TEARS_.'

'You are three,' says Menenius, after some further prolongation of these private demonstrations, addressing himself to the three victorious generals--

You are three, That Rome _should_ dote on: yet, _by the faith_ of _men_, We _have_ some old crab-trees here at home, that will _not_ Be grafted to your relish. Yet WELCOME, WARRIORS: We call a _nettle_ but a _nettle_; and The _faults_ of fools, but _folly_.

But the herald is driving on the crowd; and considering how very public the occasion is, and how very, very private and personal all this chat is, it does appear to have stopped the way long enough. Thus hurried, the hero gives hastily a hand 'to HIS WIFE and MOTHER' [stage direction], but stops to say a word or two more, which has the merit of being at least to the POET'S purpose, though the common-weal may appear to be lost sight of in the HERO'S a little; and that delicacy and reserve of manner, that modesty of nature, which is the characteristic of this Poet's art, serves here, as elsewhere, to disguise the internal continuities of the poetic design. The careless eye will not track it in these finer touches. 'Where some stretched-mouth rascal' would have roared you out his prescribed moral, 'outscolding Termagant' with it, the Poet, who is the poet of truth, and who would have such fellows 'whipped' out of the sacred places of Art, with a large or small cord, as the case may be, is content to bring in his '_delicate burdens_,' or to keep sight of them, at least, with some such reference to them as this--

'Ere in _our own house_ I do shade my head, The good patricians must be visited; From whom I have received not only greetings But with them change of honours'--[_change_.]

That is his visit to the state-house which he is speaking of. It is the Capitol which is put down in _his_ plan of the city on his way to his own house. 'The state has a letter from him, and his wife another; and I think there is one for you, too.'

Volumnia understands that delicate intimation as to _the change_ of honours, and in return, takes occasion to express to him, on the spot, her views about the consulship, and the use to which the new cicatrices are to be converted.

Coriola.n.u.s replies to this in words that admit, as this Poet's words often do, of a double construction; for the Poet is, indeed, lurking under all this. He is always present, and he often slips in a word for himself, when his characters are busy, and thinking of their own parts only. He is very apt to make use of occasions for emphasis, to put in _one word_ for his speakers, and _two_ for himself. It is irregular, but he does not stand much upon precedents; it was the only way he had of writing his life then--

'Know, good mother, I had rather be _their servant in my way_, Than _sway with them in theirs_.

_Cominius. On, to_ THE CAPITOL.'

[_Flourish Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before. The Tribunes remain._]