A Letter on Shakspere's Authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen Part 4

_Arc._ I am in la bour To push your name, your ancient love, our kin dred, Out of my memory, and i' the self-same place To seat something I would confound.--Act V. scene i.

And afterwards their lady-love, listening to the noise of the fight, speaks thus:--

[Sidenote: Shakspere metaphor.]

Each stroke laments The place whereon it falls, and sounds more like A bell than blade.--Act V. scene v.

Shakspeare's fondness for thought, the tendency of that train of thought to run into the abstract, and his burning imagination, have united in producing another quality which strongly marks his style, and is more pleasing than those last noticed. [Sidenote: Shakspere's personification of mental powers, pa.s.sions.] He abounds in Personification, and delights particularly in personifications of mental powers, pa.s.sions, and relations. [Sidenote: In _Venus and Adonis_.] This metaphysico-poetical mood of musing tinges his miscellaneous poems deeply, especially the Venus and Adonis, which is almost lyrical throughout; and even in his dramas the style is often like one of Collins's exquisite odes. [Sidenote: Fletcher uses it but little.] This quality is common to him with the narrative poets of his age, from whom [25:1]he received it; but it is adopted to no material extent by any of his dramatic contemporaries, and by Fletcher less than any. [Sidenote: Shakspere's distinctive use of Personification.] The other dramatists, indeed, are full of metaphysical expressions, of the names of affections and faculties of the soul; but they do not go on as Shakspeare's kindling fancy impelled him to do, to look on them as independent and energetic existences. This figure is one of the most common means by which he elevates himself into the tragic and poetic sphere, the compromise between his reason and his imagination, the felicitous mode by which he reconciles his fondness for abstract thought, with his allegiance to the genius of poetry. [Sidenote: The _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_ is rich in personifications which must be Shakspere's.] 'The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen' is rich in personifications both of mental qualities and others, which have all Shakspeare's tokens about them, and vary infinitely, from the uncompleted hint to the perfected portrait.

[Sidenote: Instances of these.]

Oh Grief and Time, Fearful consumers, you will all devour!--Act I. scene i.

Peace might purge For her repletion, and retain anew Her charitable heart, now hard, and harsh er Than Strife or War could be.--Act I. scene ii.

A most unbounded tyrant, whose success Makes heaven unfeared, and villainy a.s.sured Beyond its power there's nothing,--almost puts Faith in a fev er, and deifies alone Voluble Chance.--Act I. scene ii.

This funeral path brings to your household graves; Joy seize on you again--Peace sleep with him!

Act I. scene v.

Content and Ang er In me have but one face.--Act III. scene i.

Force and great Feat Must put my garland on, where she will stick The queen of flowers.--Act V. scene i.

[Sidenote: Instances of Shakspere's Personification in _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.]

Thou (_Love_) mayst force the king To be his subject's va.s.sal, and _induce Stale Gravity to dance_;--the polled bachelor, _Whose youth_, (like wanton boys through bon fires,) [26:1]_Has skipt thy flame_, at seventy thou canst catch, And make him, to the scorn of his hoa.r.s.e throat, Abuse young lays of love.--Act V. scene ii.

Mercy and manly Cour age Are bed fellows in his visage.--Act V. scene v.

_Our Reasons are not proph ets, When oft our Fancies are._--Act V. scene v.

The hints which you have now perused, are not, I repeat, offered to you as by any means exhausting the elements of Shakspeare's manner of writing. They are meant only to bring to your memory such of his qualities of style as chiefly distinguish him from Fletcher, and are most prominently present in the play we are examining. [Sidenote: In bits of the _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_ several of Shakspere's distinctive qualities are often combin'd.] When we shall see those qualities instanced singly, they will afford a proof of Shakspeare's authors.h.i.+p: but that proof will receive an incalculable accession of strength when, as will more frequently happen, we shall have several of them displayed at once in the same pa.s.sages. Your recollection of them will serve us as the lines of a map would in a journey on foot through a wild forest country: the beauty of the landscape will tempt us not seldom to diverge and lose sight of our path, and we shall need their guidance for enabling us to regain it.

[Sidenote: The story of _Palamon and Arcite_.]

The story of PALAMON AND ARCITE is a celebrated one, and, besides its appearance here, has been taken up by other two of our greatest English poets. Chaucer borrowed the tale from the _Teseide_ of Boccaccio: it then received a dramatic form in this play; and from Chaucer's antique sketch it was afterwards decorated with the trappings of heroic rhyme, by one who fell on evil days, the lofty and unfortunate Dryden.

[Sidenote: Character of the story of Palamon and Arcite.] It treats of a period of ancient and almost fabulous history, which originally belonged to the cla.s.sical writers, but had become familiar in the chivalrous poetry of the middle ages; and retaining the old historical characters, it intersperses with them new ones wholly imaginary, and, both in the Knightes Tale and in the play, preserves the rich and anomalous magnificence of the Gothic cos[27:1]tume. [Sidenote: Theseus the centre of _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_.] The character round which the others are grouped, one which Shakspeare has introduced in another of his works, is the heroic Theseus, whom the romances and chronicles dignify with the modern t.i.tle of Duke of Athens; and in this story he is connected with the tragical war of the Seven against Thebes, one of the grandest subjects of the ancient Grecian poetry.

[Sidenote: First Act of _Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_ Shakspere's.]

The whole of the First Act may be safely p.r.o.nounced to be Shakspeare's.

The play opens with the bridal procession of Theseus and the fair Amazon Hippolita, whose young sister EMILIA is the lady of the tale. While the marriage-song is singing, the train are met by three queens in mourning attire, who fall down at the feet of Theseus, Hippolita, and Emilia.

They are the widows of three of the princes slain in battle before Thebes, and the conqueror Creon has refused the remains of the dead soldiers the last honour of a grave. The prayer of the unfortunate ladies to Theseus is, that he would raise his powerful arm to force from the tyrant the unburied corpses, that the ghosts of the dead may be appeased by the performance of fitting rites of sepulture. The duty which knighthood imposed on the Prince of Athens, is combated by his unwillingness to quit his bridal happiness; but generosity and self-denial at length obtain the victory, and he marches, with banners displayed, to attack the Thebans.

This scene bears decided marks of Shakspeare.--The lyrical pieces scattered through his plays are, whether successful or not, endowed with a stateliness of rhythm, an originality and clearness of imagery, and a nervous quaintness and pomp of language, which can scarcely be mistaken.

[Sidenote: The Bridal Song can't be Fletcher's.] The Bridal Song which ushers in this play, has several of the marks of distinction, and is very unlike the more formal and polished rhymes of Fletcher.

[Sidenote: Act I. sc. i.

The Bridal Song is Shakspere's.]

Primrose, first-born child of Ver, Merry springtime's harbinger, _With her bells dim_: Oxlips in their cradles growing, _Marigolds on death-beds blowing_, Lark-heels trim: All, dear Nature's children sweet, Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet, [28:1]_Blessing their sense_: Not an _angel of the air_, Bird melodious or bird fair, Be absent hence!

[Sidenote: Dialogue in I. i. has the characteristics of Shakspere's style: is crowded, obscure, alliterative, clear and yet confus'd, has fulness and variety, originality and true poetry.]

But the dialogue which follows is strikingly characteristic. It has sometimes Shakspeare's identical images and words: it has his quaint force and sententious brevity, crowding thoughts and fancies into the narrowest s.p.a.ce, and submitting to obscurity in preference to feeble dilation: it has sentiments enunciated with reference to subordinate relations, which other writers would have expressed with less grasp of thought: it has even Shakspeare's alliteration, and one or two of his singularities in conceit: it has clearness in the images taken separately, and confusion from the prodigality with which one is poured out after another, in the heat and hurry of imagination: it has both fulness of ill.u.s.tration, and a variety which is drawn from the most distant sources; and it has, thrown over all, that air of originality and that character of poetry, the principle of which is often hid when their presence and effect are most quickly and instinctively perceptible.

_1 Queen._ (_To Theseus._) For pity's sake, and true gentility's, Hear and respect me!

_2 Queen._ (_To Hippolita._) For your mother's sake, And as you wish your womb may thrive with fair ones, Hear and respect me!

_3 Queen._ (_To Emilia._) Now for the love of him whom Jove hath marked The honour of your bed, and for the sake Of clear virginity, be advocate For us and our distresses! This good deed Shall rase you, out of the Book of Trespa.s.ses, All you are set down there.

These latter lines are of a character which is perfectly and singularly Shakspeare's. [Sidenote: Shakspere's gravity and seriousness.] The shade of gravity which so usually darkens his poetry, is often heightened to the most solemn seriousness. The religious thought presented here is most alien from Fletcher's turn of thought.--The ensuing speech offers much of Shakspeare. [Sidenote: Shakspere sometimes harsh and coa.r.s.e.]

His energy, sometimes confined within [29:1]due limits, often betrays him into harshness; and his liking for familiarity of imagery and expression sometimes makes him careless though both should be coa.r.s.e, a fault which we find here, and of which Fletcher is not guilty.

[Sidenote: His bold coinages of words:] Here also are more than one of those bold coinages of words, forced on a mind for whose force of conception common terms were too weak.

[Sidenote: to _urn_ ashes;]

[Sidenote: to _chapel_ bones.]

_1 Queen._ We are three queens, whose sovrans fell before The wrath of cruel Creon; who endured The beaks of ravens, talons of the kites, And pecks of crows, in the foul fields of Thebes.

He will not suffer us to burn their bones, To _urn_ their ashes, nor to take the offence Of mortal loathesomeness from the blest eye Of holy Phbus, but infects the air With stench of our slain lords. Oh, pity, Duke!

Thou purger[29:2] of the earth! draw thy fear'd sword, That does good turns i' the world: give us the bones Of our dead kings, that we may _chapel_ them!

And, of thy boundless goodness, take some note, That for our crowned heads we have no roof Save this, which is the lion's and the bear's, And vault to every thing.

[Sidenote: Shakspere reflective.]

We now begin to trace more and more that reflecting tendency which is so deeply imprinted on Shakspeare's writings:--

_Theseus._ . . . . .

King Capaneus[29:3] was your lord: the day That he should marry you, at such a seas on As it is now with me, I met your groom By Mars's altar. You were that time fair; Not Juno's mantle fairer than your tress es, Nor in more bounty spread: your wheaten wreath Was then nor threshed nor blast ed : Fortune, at you, Dimpled her cheek with smiles: Hercules our kins man (Then weaker than your eyes) laid by his club,-- He tumbled down upon his Nemean hide, [30:1]And swore his sinews thawed. O, Grief and Time, Fearful consumers, you will all devour!

_1 Queen._ Oh, I hope some G.o.d, Some G.o.d hath put his mercy in your man hood, Whereto he'll infuse power, and press you forth, Our undertaker!

_Theseus._ Oh, no knees; none, wid ow!

Unto the helmeted Bellona use them, And pray for me, your sol dier. --Troubled I am.

(_Turns away._)

[Sidenote: A Shakspere fancy.]