Shakespeare and the Modern Stage Part 11

Shakespeare was no cynic. He was not unduly distrustful of his fellow-men. He was not always suspecting them of something indistinguishable from fraud. When he wrote, "The world is still deceived with ornament" which "obscures the show of evil," he was expressing downright hatred--not suspicion--of sham, of quackery, of cant. His is the message of all commanding intellects which see through the hearts of men. Shakespeare's message is Carlyle's message or Ruskin's message antic.i.p.ated by nearly three centuries, and more potently and wisely phrased.

IV

At the same time as Shakespeare insists on the highest and truest standard of public duty, he, with characteristically practical insight, acknowledges no less emphatically the necessity or duty of obedience to duly regulated governments. There may appear inconsistency in first conveying the impression that governments, or their officers, are usually unworthy of trust, and then in bidding mankind obey them implicitly. But, although logical connection between the two propositions be wanting, they are each convincing in their place. Both are the outcome of a robust common-sense. Order is essential to a nation's well-being. There must be discipline in civilised communities. Officers in authority must be obeyed. These are the axiomatic bases of every social contract, and no question of the personal fitness of officers of state impugns their stability.

Twice does Shakespeare define in the same terms what he understands by the principle of all-compelling order, which is inherent in government. Twice does he elaborate the argument that precise orderly division of offices, each enjoying full and unquestioned authority, is essential to the maintenance of a state's equilibrium.

The topic was first treated in the speeches of Henry V.'s councillors:--

_Exeter._ For government, though high and low and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, Congreeing in a full and natural close, Like music.

_Cant._ Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or b.u.t.t, Obedience: for so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

(_Henry V._, I., ii., 180-9.)

There follows a very suggestive comparison between the commonwealth of bees and the economy of human society. The well-worn comparison has been fas.h.i.+oned anew by a writer of genius of our own day, M.

Maeterlinck.

In _Troilus and Cressida_ (I., iii., 85 _seq._) Shakespeare returns to the discussion, and defines with greater precision "the specialty of rule." There he approaches nearer than anywhere else in his writings the sphere of strict philosophic exposition. He argues that:--

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom in all line of order.

Human society is bound to follow this celestial example. At all hazards, one must protect "the unity and married calm of states."

Degree, order, discipline, are the only sure safeguards against brute force and chaos which civilised inst.i.tutions exist to hold in check:--

How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable sh.o.r.es, The primogeniture and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree stand in authentic place?

Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the sh.o.r.es, And make a sop of all this solid globe: Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong, Between whose endless jar justice resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice too.

Then every thing includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appet.i.te; And appet.i.te, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself.

Deprived of degree, rank, order, society dissolves itself in "chaos."

Near the end of his career, Shakespeare impressively re-stated his faith in the imperative need of the due recognition of social rank and grade in civilised communities. In _Cymbeline_ (IV., ii., 246-9) "a queen's son" meets his death in fight with an inferior, and the conqueror is inclined to spurn the lifeless corpse. But a wise veteran solemnly uplifts his voice to forbid the insult. Appeal is made to the sacred principle of social order, which must be respected even in death:--

Though mean and mighty, rotting Together, make one dust; yet reverence,-- That angel of the world,--doth make distinction Of place 'twixt high and low.

"Reverence, that angel of the world," is the ultimate bond of civil society, and can never be defied with impunity, it is the saving sanction of social order.

V

I have quoted some of Shakespeare's avowedly ethical utterances which bear on conditions of civil society--on morals in their social aspect.

There is no obscurity about their drift. Apart from direct ethical declaration, it may be that ethical lessons touching political virtue as well as other specific aspects of morality are deducible from a study of Shakespeare's plots and characters. Very generous food for reflection seems to be offered the political philosopher by the plots and characters of _Julius Caesar_ and _Coriola.n.u.s_. The personality of Hamlet is instinct with ethical suggestion. The story and personages of _Measure for Measure_ present the most persistent of moral problems. But discussion of the ethical import of Shakespeare's several dramatic portraits or stories is of doubtful utility. There is a genuine danger of reading into Shakespeare's plots and characters more direct ethical significance than is really there. Dramatic art never consciously nor systematically serves obvious purposes of morality, save to its own detriment.

Nevertheless there is not likely to be much disagreement with the general a.s.sertion that Shakespeare's plots and characters involuntarily develop under his hand in conformity with the straightforward requirements of moral law. He upholds the broad canons of moral truth with consistency, even with severity. There is no mistaking in his works on which side lies the right. He never renders vice amiable. His want of delicacy, his challenges of modesty, need no palliation. It was characteristic of his age to speak more plainly of many topics about which polite lips are nowadays silent. But Shakespeare's coa.r.s.enesses do no injury to the healthy-minded. They do not encourage evil propensities. Wickedness is always wickedness in Shakespeare, and never deludes the spectator by masquerading as something else. His plays never present problems as to whether vice is not after all in certain conditions the sister of virtue. Shakespeare never shows vice in the twilight, nor leaves the spectator or reader in doubt as to what its features precisely are. Vice injures him who practises it in the Shakespearean world, and ultimately proves his ruin. One cannot play with vice with impunity.

The G.o.ds are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us.

It is not because Shakespeare is a conscious moralist, that the wheel comes full circle in his dramatic world. It is because his sense of art is involuntarily coloured by a profound conviction of the ultimate justice which governs the operations of human nature and society.

Shakespeare argues, in effect, that a man reaps as he sows. It may be contended that Nature does not always work in strict accord with this Shakespearean canon, and that Shakespeare thereby shows himself more of a deliberate moralist than Nature herself. But the dramatist idealises or generalises human experience; he does not reproduce it literally. There is nothing in the Shakespearean canon that runs directly counter to the idealised or generalised experience of the outer world. The wicked and the foolish, the intemperate and the over-pa.s.sionate, reach in Shakespeare's world that disastrous goal, which nature at large keeps in reserve for them and only by rare accident suffers them to evade. The father who brings up his children badly and yet expects every dutiful consideration from them is only in rare conditions spared the rude awakening which overwhelms King Lear.

The jealous husband who wrongly suspects his wife of infidelity commonly suffers the fate either of Oth.e.l.lo or of Leontes.

VI

Shakespeare regards it as the n.o.blest ambition in man to master his own destiny. There are numerous pa.s.sages in which the dramatist figures as an absolute and uncompromising champion of the freedom of the will. "'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus," says one of his characters, Iago; "Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners." Edmond says much the same in _King Lear_ when he condemns as "the excellent foppery of the world" the ascription to external influences of all our faults and misfortunes, whereas they proceed from our wilful, deliberate choice of the worser way.

Repeatedly does Shakespeare a.s.sert that we are useful or useless members of society according as we will it ourselves.

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie Which we ascribe to heaven; the fated sky Gives us free scope,

says Helena in _All's Well_ (I., i., 231-3).

Men at some time are masters of their fates,

says Ca.s.sius in _Julius Caesar_ (I., ii., 139-41);

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves that we are underlings.

Hereditary predispositions, the accidents of environment, are not insuperable; they can be neutralised by force of will, by character.

Character is omnipotent.

The self-sufficing, imperturbable will is the ideal possession, beside which all else in the world is valueless. But the quest of it is difficult, and success in the pursuit is rare. Mastery of the will is the result of a rare conjunction--a perfect commingling of blood and judgment. Without such harmonious union man is "a pipe"--a musical instrument--"for Fortune's finger to sound what stop she pleases." Man can only work out his own salvation when he can control his pa.s.sions and can take with equal thanks Fortune's buffets or rewards.

The best of men is--

Spare in diet Free from gross pa.s.sion or of mirth or anger, Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood.

(_Henry V._, II., ii., 131-3.)

His is

the nature Whom pa.s.sion could not shake--whose solid virtue The shot of accident nor dart of chance Could neither graze nor pierce.

(_Oth.e.l.lo_, IV., i., 176-9.)

Stability of temperament is the finest fruit of the free exercise of the will; it is the n.o.blest of masculine excellences.

Give me that man That is not pa.s.sion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core--ay, in my heart of hearts.

(_Hamlet_, III., ii., 76-8.)

In spite of his many beautiful portrayals of the charms and tenderness and innocence of womanhood, Shakespeare had less hope in the ultimate capacity of women to control their destiny than in the ultimate capacity of men. The greatest of his female creations, Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra, stand in a category of their own. They do not lack high power of will, even if they are unable so to commingle blood and judgment as to master fate.

Elsewhere, the dramatist seems to betray private suspicion of the normal woman's volitional capacity by applying to her heart and mind the specific epithet "waxen." The feminine temperament takes the impress of its environment as easily as wax takes the impress of a seal. In two pa.s.sages where this simile is employed,[31] the deduction from it is pressed to the furthest limit, and free-will is denied women altogether. Feminine susceptibility is p.r.o.nounced to be incurable; wavering, impressionable emotion is a main const.i.tuent of woman's being; women are not responsible for the sins they commit nor the wrongs they endure.

[Footnote 31:

For men have marble, _women waxen minds_, And therefore are they formed as marble will; The weak oppressed, the impression of strange kinds Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill.