The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded Part 40

And when the great pageant has moved on 'in state, as before'--when the shouts of the people, and the triumphal swell and din, have died away, this is the manner in which our two tribunes look at each other.

They know their voices would not make so much as a ripple, at that moment, in the tide of that great sea of popular ignorance, which it is their business to sway,--the tide which is setting all one way then, in one of _its_ monstrous swells, and bearing every living thing with it,--the tide which is taking the military hero '_On to_ THE CAPITOL.' But though they cannot then oppose it, they can note it. And it is thus that they register that popular confirmation at home, of the soldier's vote on the field.

It is a picture of the hero's return, good for all ages in its living outline, composed in that 'charactery' which lays the past and future open. It is a picture good for the Roman hero's entry; 'and were now the general of our gracious empress, as in _good time he may_, from Ireland coming, bringing _rebellion_ broached _on his sword_'--would it, or would it not, suit him?

It is a picture of the hero's return, good for all ages in its main feature, for all the ages, at least of a brutish popular ignorance, of a merely instinctive human growth and formation; but it is a picture taken from the life,--caught,--detained with the secret of that palette, whose secret none has yet found, and the detail is all, not _Roman_, but, _Elizabethan_. Those '_variable complexions_,' that one sees, 'smothering the stalls, bulks, windows, filling the leads,' and roofs, even to the 'ridges,' all agreeing in one expression, are Elizabethan. It is an Elizabethan crowd that we have got into, in some way, and it is worth noting if it were only for that. There goes 'the seld shown flamen, _puffing_ his way to _win a vulgar station_,' here is a 'veiled dame' who lets us see that 'war of white and damask in her nicely gawded cheeks,' a moment;--look at that 'kitchen malkin,'

peering over the wall there with 'her richest lockram' 'pinned on her reechy neck,' eyeing the hero as he pa.s.ses; and look at this poor baby here, this Elizabethan baby, saved, conserved alive, crying himself 'into a _rapture_' while his 'prattling nurse' has ears and eyes for the hero only, as 'she chats him.' Look at them all, for every creature you see here, from 'the seld shown flamen' to the 'kitchen malkin,' belongs soul and body to 'our gracious Empress,' and Ess.e.x and Raleigh are still winning their garlands of the war,--that is when the scene is taken, but not when it was put in its place and framed in this composition; for their game was up ere then. England preferred old heroes and their claims to new ones. 'I fear there will a worse come in his place,' was the cautious instinct.

_Bru_. All tongues speak of him, and the _bleared sights Are spectacled to see him_: Your _prattling_ nurse _Into a rapture lets her baby cry_, While she chats him: the kitchin malkin pins Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck.

_Clambering the walls_ to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows, Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges horsed With _variable complexions; all agreeing In earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens Do press among the popular throng, and puff To win a vulgar station_: our veil'd dames Commit the war of white and damask, in Their nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil Of Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother, As if that whatsoever G.o.d, who leads him, Were slyly crept into his human powers, And gave him graceful posture.

_Sic_. On the sudden, I warrant him consul.

_Bru. Then our office may, During his power, go sleep._

_Sic. He cannot temperately transport his honours .... but will Lose that he hath won._

_Cru. In that there's comfort._

_Sic_. Doubt not, the _commoners, for whom we stand_,--

[While they resolve upon the measures to be taken, which we shall note elsewhere, a messenger enters.]

_Bru_. What's the matter?

_Mess_. You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought, That _Marcius_ shall be consul: I have seen The dumb men throng to see him, and the blind To hear him speak: The matrons flung their gloves, _Ladies_ and _maids_ the _scarfs_ and _handkerchiefs_, Upon him as he pa.s.sed: _the n.o.bles bended, As to Jove's statue; and the commons made A shower, and thunder_, with their _caps, and shouts_: I never saw the like.

_Bru. Lets to the Capitol; And carry_ with us _ears and eyes for_ THE TIME, _But hearts_ for the EVENT.

[And let us to the Capitol also, and hear the civic claim of the oaken garland, the military claim to dispose of the _common-weal_, as set forth by one who is himself a general 'commander-in-chief' of Rome's armies, and see whether or no the Poet's own doubtful cheer on the battle-field has any echo in this place.]

_Com. It is held, That valour is the chiefest virtue_, and _Most dignifies the haver_: IF IT BE, _The man I speak_ of cannot in the world Be _singly_ counterpois'd.

[If it be? And he goes on to tell a story which fits, in all its points, a great hero, a true chieftain, brave as heroes of old romance, who lived when this was written, concluding thus--]

_Com_. He _stopped the fliers_; And, by his rare example, made the coward Turn terror into sport: _as waves before A vessel under sail_, SO MEN OBEY'D, _And fell below his stem_: his sword, (death's stamp.) Where it did mark, it took; _from face to foot He was a thing of blood, whose every motion Was timed with dying cries_: alone he enter'd The mortal gate o'the city, which he painted With shunless destiny, aidless came off, And with a sudden re-enforcement struck Corioli, like a planet: now, ALL'S HIS: When by and by the din of war 'gan pierce His ready sense: then straight _his doubled spirit_ Re-quicken'd what in flesh was fatigate, And to the battle came he; where he did _Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if 'Twere a perpetual spoil_: and _till we call'd Both field and city ours, he never stood To ease his breast with panting_.

_Men_. WORTHY MAN!

_First Sen. He cannot but with measure fit the honours Which we devise him._

[One more quality, however, his pleader insists on, as additional proof of this '_fitness_' for though it is a negative one, its opposite had not been reckoned among the kingly virtues, and the poet takes some pains to bring that opposite quality into relief, throughout, by this negative.]

_Com_. Our _spoils_ he kicked at; And look'd upon things precious, as they were The common muck o' the world.

_Men_. HE'S RIGHT n.o.bLE; _Let him be call'd for._

_First Sen. Call for Coriola.n.u.s._

_Off. He doth appear._

At the opening of this scene, two officers appeared on the stage, '_laying cushions_,' for this is one of those specimens of the new method of investigation applied to the n.o.blest subjects, 'which represents, as it were, _to the eye_, the whole order of the invention,' and into the Capitol stalks now the casque, for this is that 'step from the casque to the cushion' which the Poet is considering in the abstract; but it does not suit his purpose to treat of it in these abstract terms merely, because 'reason cannot be so sensible.' This, too, is one of those grand historic moments which this new, select, prepared history must represent to the eye in all its momentous historic splendour, for this is the kind of popular instruction which reproduces the past, which represents the historic event, not in perspective, but as present. And this is the 'business,'

and this is the play in which we are told 'action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant more learned than the ears.'

The seats of state are prepared for him. 'Call _Coriola.n.u.s_,' is the senate's word. The conqueror's step is heard. 'He does appear.'

_Men_. The senate, Coriola.n.u.s, are well pleased To make thee consul.

_Cor_. I do owe them still My life, and services.

_Men_. IT THEN REMAINS, THAT YOU DO SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE.

_Cor_. I do beseech you, _Let me overleap that custom_.

_Sic. Sir, the people Must have their voices; neither will they bate One jot of their ceremony._

_Men. Put them not to't_:--[his friendly adviser says.]

Pray you, go fit you _to the custom_; and Take to you, _as your predecessors have_, Your honour, with _your form_.

_Cor_. It is a part That I shall blush in acting, _and might well Be taken from the people_.

_Bru. Mark you that!_

_Cor_. To brag unto them,--_Thus I did, and thus_;-- Show them the unaching scars which I should hide, As if I had received _them for the hire_ Of _their breath only_.

CHAPTER V.

THE POPULAR ELECTION.

'The greater part carries it.

If he would but incline to the people, There never was a worthier man.'

And yet, after all, that is what he wants for them, and must have or he is nothing; for as the Poet tells us elsewhere, 'our monarchs and our outstretched heroes are but the beggar's shadows.' The difficulty is, that he wishes to take his 'hire' in some more quiet way, without being rudely reminded of the nature of the transaction.

But the Poet's toils are about him. The man of science has caught the hero, the king in germ; the dragon wings are not yet spread. He wishes to exhibit the embryo monarch in this particular stage of his development, and the scientific process proceeds with as little regard to the victim's wishes, as if he were indeed that humble product of nature to which the Poet likens him. 'There's a differency between a grub and a b.u.t.terfly; yet your b.u.t.terfly was a grub.' Just on that step between 'the casque and the cushion,' the philosopher arrests him.

For this history denotes, as we have seen, a foregone conclusion. The scholar has privately anatomized in his study the dragon's wings, and this theatrical synthesis is designed to be an instructive one. He wishes to show, in a palpable form, what _is_ and what is _not_, essential to the mechanism of that greatness which, though it presents itself to the eye in the contemptible physique, and moral infirmity and pettiness of the human individual, is yet clothed with powers so monstrous, so real, so terrific, that all men are afflicted with them;--this thing in which 'the conditions of a man are so altered,'

this thing which 'has grown from man to dragon, which is more than a creeping thing.' He will show that after all it is nothing in the world but the _popular power_ itself, the power of the people instinctively, unscientifically and unartistically exercised.

The Poet has a.n.a.lysed that so potent name by which men call it, and he will show upon his stage, by that same method which his followers have made familiar to us, in other departments of investigation, the elements of its power. He will let us see how it was those despised 'mechanics,' those 'poor citizens,' with their strong arms and voices, who were throwing themselves,--in their enthusiasm,--en-ma.s.se into that engine, and only asking to be welded in it; that would have made of this citizen a thing so terrific. He will show how, after all, it was the despised _commons_ who were making of that citizen a king, of that soldier a monarch,--who were changing with the alchemy of the 'shower and thunder they made with their caps and voices,' his oak leaves and acorns, into gold and jewels.

He will show it on the platform of a state, where that vote is formally and const.i.tutionally given, and not in a state where it is only a virtual and tacit one. He will show it in detail. He will cause the mult.i.tude to be _represented_, and pa.s.s by _twos_ and _threes_ across his stage, and compel the haughty chief, the would be ruler, to beg of them, individually, their suffrages, and show them his claim,--such as it is, the '_unaching scars that he should hide_.'

It is to this Poet's purpose to exhibit that despised element in the state, which the popular submission creates, that unnoticed element of the common suffrage which looks so smooth on its surface, which seems to the haughty chief so little worth his notice, when it goes his way and bears him on its crest. But the experimenter will undertake to show what it is by ruffling it, by instigating this chief to put himself in the madness of his private affections, in the frenzy of his pride, into open opposition with it. He will show us what it is by playing with it. He will wake it from its unvisited depths, and bid his hero strive with it.

He will show what that popular consent, or the consent of 'the commons' amounts to, in the king-making process, by _omitting it_ or by _withdrawing it_, before it is too late to withdraw it;--according to the now well-known rules of that new art of scientific investigation, which was then getting worked out and cleared, from this author's own methods of investigation. For it was because this faculty was in him, so unlike what it was in others, that he was able to write that science of it, by which other men, stepping into his armour, have been able to achieve so much.